What is your toolchain for atlas materials? I haven't found much in the documentation about this apart from IwUIAtlas.
I am looking for a good approach to deal with atlases. I imagine an approach like this:
- defining all images in a group file (best a single file per atlas)
- the resource compilation process assembles the atlas and generates the map
- the atlas can be loaded as a resource, and textures can be created from the atlas for each image
- the alas creation would so be integral part of the dev process using Marmalade (no additional pre/post-processing needed)
I have seen a couple of tools that create atlases and maps. But building them into the process seems a bit fiddely to me - except if you spend resources on automation of the toolchain.
What approach are you using? What works for you in practice? Is there any feature in Marmalade I have overseen?
Kind regards,
CodePlay
We use an editor (.Net) that opens asset files (XML or Lua) which contain Atlas coords and paths to PNGs. The user can just right click > "Replace Image" and re-save it. This lets the art/design guys not have to run scripts just to change one image. They can then run the Windows binaries they have to see changes or re-run the deploy scripts to make packages for devices with changes.
The other reason for using the editor is we can do other things such as setting up and previewing animations (using the atlases).
TexturePacker is a great tool for creating an atlas - http://www.codeandweb.com/. They also have a physics editor
Interestingly it works very much like that (but including physics shapes, component based entities and game-specific data).
Thanks the feedback! TexturePacker appeals to me especially because it is multi-platform, and is also available as commandline utility. I will certainly give it a try.
CodePlay