More generally speaking, when it comes to handling Sprites and Textures, Unity has various tools that deal with them in different ways and are used for different purposes. Their purpose is to maximize the space by combining multiple images into one Texture, whether for characters (and their animations) or environmental Textures. While they are pretty much the same thing, the subtle difference between the two is that a Sprite Sheet generally has Sprite (frame-by-frame) animations, whereas an Atlas will contain images such as tileable Textures for the walls and other environmental components (for example, objects). Throughout we will use the terms Sprite Sheets and Atlases. What this means is that each frame of an animation is placed on a Sprite Sheet, which is a Texture, that will eventually be cut up so that each frame of the animation is played sequentially. Saying that, you can create images with Textures that animate, with Sprite Sheets/Atlases. This means that you cannot get them to move during gameplay. These are also images, but they are used to change the appearance of an object in both 2D (for example, Sprites and background) and 3D (for example, an object or character’s appearance).īut Textures are not objects. Besides Sprites, there are other graphical components called Textures. They work with the Sprite Renderer, unlike a 3D object, which works with the Mesh Renderer. Sprites, by default, are rendered directly against the camera however, you can easily change this if you are using the Sprite Renderer in a 3D scene. You can move, destroy, or create it during the game. Sprites can be repositioned, scaled, and rotated like any other game object in Unity.

Therefore, all the graphical components of 2D game development are called Sprites. It has only two coordinates: x-axis and y-axis. To begin, a Sprite is an image that can be used as a 2D object. Textures and Spritesīefore you start anything within Unity, it is useful to know that Textures and Sprites within Unity are two separate things, although they are used in similar contexts. This book helps you to create exciting 2D games from scratch easily.

This article is a part of the book titled “ Unity 2017 2D Game Development Projects” written by Lauren S.

2d unity assets