Breaking the rendering task out of the grid into its own dedicated class is a good first step, but if all we have gained from this is several smaller classes we haven't really gained much. In this entry I will discuss how version 2.0 gives you more control over the rendering process.
There are basically two types of grid in Grid Framework: 3D grids and layered grids. 3D grids use all three dimensions, these are rectangular and spherical grids, while layered grids are 2D grids stacked on top of each other for a third dimension. In this post I will explain how the coordinate systems of layered girds will change in version 2.0.
If you have been following my updates in regards to version 2.0 you will have
noticed that one of the themes has been slimming down the API. Some things,
such as the renderGrid flag are easy to replace with something more general
or trivial to replicate with one or two lines of code. Other methods however
are non-trivial to implement, useful to have and general enough to included in
the framework.
Rendering a grid is a three-step process: first we count how many lines we need to render and allocate the space needed, then we compute their end points and finally we send them to Unity to do its thing. In the earliest versions of Grid Framework these three steps had been done every frame. Since arrays in C# are heap objects this would send the garbage collector in overdrive for very large grids.
Releasing a new major version is a good opportunity to say goodbye to older versions of your environment. Version 2.0 will require at least Unity version 5.0, which will free me from the restrictions of previous versions.
I have now finished the first major task towards version 2.0: extracting the renderers into their own class. Until now the task of rendering the grid was part of the grid class, this made the classes much larger and it was impossible to add one's own rendering shapes without modifying the grids themselves.
It's the start of a new year, time to look back and look ahead. 2015 has seen the release of the new website, which was later that same year scrapped completely for a yet another website. I was also able to finally integrate the last of the originally planned grids into Grid Framework.
Version 1.9.0 of Grid Framework has been approved by the Asset Store team. This release marks the addition of the fourth kind of grid to the framework: spherical grids.
Progress has been better than expected and spheric grids are practically done. This is a good opportunity to take a look at the coordinate systems in spheric grids.
I have been working on the next type of grid: spheric grids. Think latitude and longitude like on Earth. Here is a GIF of a rendered grid rotating around its axis. Don't worry about the framerate, that's how the image was recorded to save space, the actual rotation is smooth as silk.