Dynamicly resizeable custom Buttons - how to make? - unity3d

please I have bought GUI pack for 2D mobile games. I have vectors for buttons but I don't know how to make it "smaller" - dynamically resizable for Unity.
This is my bought button:
And I need to make from it this (with all corners, etc.)
In Unity, I will resize it according to my needs and add text. But I don't know how to make it in Photoshop or Illustrator, how to smaller it with keep corners and make "middle" of button to be dynamic.

I think that you can use the "Image Type" property on your Sprite component.
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/script-Image.html
That option gives you the possibility of scaling the center of the image, keeping the size of the borders.
In this video they explain the property (from 1:16 aprox)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFQcc1GUe7U
Cheers !

Related

2D sprite problem when setting up an instant messaging UI

I'm new to Unity and to game development in general.
I would like to make a text-based game.
I'm looking to reproduce the behavior of an instant messenger like messenger or whatapp.
I made the choice to use the Unity UI system for the pre-made components like the rect scroll.
But this choice led me to the following problem:
I have "bubbles" of dialogs, which must be able to grow in width as well as in height with the size of the text. Fig.1
I immediately tried to use VectorGraphics to import .svg with the idea to move runtime the points of my curves of Beziers.
But I did not find how to access these points and edit them runtime.
I then found the "Sprite shapes" but they are not part of the "UI",
so if I went with such a solution, I would have to reimplement
scroll, buttons etc...
I thought of cutting my speech bubble in 7 parts Fig.2 and scaling it according to the text size. But I have the feeling that this is very heavy for not much.
Finally I wonder if a hybrid solution would not be the best, use the
UI for scrolling, get transforms and inject them into Shape sprites
(outside the Canvas).
If it is possible to do 1. and then I would be very grateful for an example.
If not 2. 3. 4. seem feasible, I would like to have your opinion on the most relevant of the 3.
Thanks in advance.
There is a simpler and quite elegant solution to your problem that uses nothing but the sprite itself (or rather the design of the sprite).
Take a look at 9-slicing Sprites from the official unity documentation.
With the Sprite Editor you can create borders around the "core" of your speech bubble. Since these speech bubbles are usually colored in a single color and contain nothing else, the ImageType: Sliced would be the perfect solution for what you have in mind. I've created a small Example Sprite to explain in more detail how to approach this:
The sprite itself is 512 pixels wide and 512 pixels high. Each of the cubes missing from the edges is 8x8 pixels, so the top, bottom, and left borders are 3x8=24 pixels deep. The right side has an extra 16 pixels of space to represent a small "tail" on the bubble (bottom right corner). So, we have 4 borders: top=24, bottom=24, left=24 and right=40 pixels. After importing such a sprite, we just have to set its MeshType to FullRect, click Apply and set the 4 borders using the Sprite Editor (don't forget to Apply them too). The last thing to do is to use the sprite in an Image Component on the Canvas and set the ImageType of this Component to Sliced. Now you can scale/warp the Image as much as you like - the border will always keep its original size without deforming. And since your bubble has a solid "core", the Sliced option will stretch this core unnoticed.
Edit: When scaling the Image you must use its Width and Height instead of the (1,1,1)-based Scale, because the Scale might still distort your Image. Also, here is another screenshot showing the results in different sizes.

Custom Shaped Buttons Unity UI

Hi I am trying to create custom buttons on unity (trapeziums). I successfully created the visible area on Photoshop and imported it as Sprite 2D UI as per the following image:
The issue arises, when I'm trying to select one of the buttons in game, their border overlap each other, since the transparent area is still being considered as part of the clickable button area. How can I remove this?
EDIT:
Practically when I import I want the squared boxes to not be counted with the image. I need the edges of the orange area to be cut flush with that and not the entire area(i.e. including the transparent boxes).
You may achieve this by using Alpha Hit Test Minimum Threshold. Take a look at this nice video tutorial.
There is one extra step that is not shown in the video but mentioned in the comments: you have to change "Mesh Type" to "Full Rect" and not "Tight" as it is.
Hope that helps.
The clickable area is based on the Rect Transform component of the GameObject. Adjust the width and height to the clickable area you want. You may have to crop your image in photoshop accordingly. If you select 'Gizmos' in the editor you can toggle viewing the click region.

UI Button with Image Smaller than Touchable Area

I've not much response so am adding some more info.
My buttons are not rectangular, nor organised in a grid so I need a way of creating what looks like a button (and shows that it has been pressed visually, as per a standard UIButton) but where the touchable area is different to the image area.
I am using a transparent PNG and that element works fine. I've added the buttons in Interface Builder and am wondering if that is the problem.
However, if I change imageEdgeInsets, it distorts the image display, which is obviously not what I want.
Bizarrely, if I increase the dimemsions of the button, it doesn't change the image, but if I decrease them it does.
I have tried different combinations of mode (scale to fill etc), but to no avail.
I am aware that there is an image and background image property, but in IB there is only one.
Essentially, I don't understand how the geometry works and the Apple documentation doesn't seem to help.
Surely, I can't be the only person to try to do this. Any help would be warmly welcomed.
Many thanks,
Chris.
Try setting the buttons setting to Aspect Fit. This will fill the button with your image so a smaller image than the button size would leave the space around the image.
Also set the button type to custom.
In the end, I stumbled across Ole Begemann's Non-rectangular buttons class. It just does what I need - to be able to create buttons where the touchable area follows the visible element of a non rectangular image.
#Helium3 - thanks - that allowed me to use a larger touch area, bit not a smaller one.

Multi changeable areas of a image on a iPhone

I have an image with picture of a person and I want to let the user to pick some area of the person and change the color. But how can I best create a multi-mask image?
E.g. should the user be able the change the color for a leg or a hand.
I am using Titanium Appcelerator, and right now I had a solution with buttons placed over the image, which is not a pretty and accepted solution.
The Kitchensink example, has only one area which can be changed.
The only solution I found for working with sections of an image is to divide the image into different views then use a vertical or horizontal view to glue them together. Sounds like you took a similar approach using buttons.
Another option might be to use one of the jQuery image libraries within the webview. This most likely will have a performance penalty though.

Free bitmaps for iOS custom buttons and sliders?

First, I'm not talking about icon libraries or mockup tools/libraries.
I'm familiar with various icon libraries that people have created, but other than the stuff from the example code like UICatalog, I'm wondering if anyone knows of anyone who has created free libraries of custom button bitmaps (stretchable button images), slider handle/track bitmaps, etc Basically bitmaps to customize the look of standard controls for those controls (like buttons and sliders) that allow you to specify such bitmaps.
I'm also interested in any photoshop tutorials/templates on/for creating stretchable custom button images, bitmaps for slider parts, etc. (Afraid I'm not a huge PS god or anything.)
Anyone know of any resources like this for fancying up the standard controls?
I've been able to find several stretchable buttons by searching through my collections of sample code for: "stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth"
From the Apple sample code, the UICatalog, BubbleLevel, iPhoneMultichannelMixerTest, avTouch, AQOffilineRenderTest, and TouchCells sample code all contain buttons with stretchable images.
Hope this helps!
Stretchable buttons is no problem - there's nothing special you need to do in Photoshop. Just make the image of the button stretchable and set the radius to that of any rounded corners you have on the button graphic.
Slider parts - I'm pretty sure you'd have to make your own UIControl from scratch.
To make a button in Photoshop, create a new file with transparent background, select the Shape tool, rectangle near the bottom of the tools, drag out a rectangle. Size doesn't matterâ„¢. For a rounded rectangle, click and hold the same tool, choose the rounded rect shape and set a corner radies (same radius as in stretchableImage later).
Double-click the layer right of the layer name to get the layer style popup. Check Color Overlay and set the color you want. Check Inner Bevel and make its size somewhere below half the height of the rectangle - I think 90 degrees for the Global Angle works well. A lower opacity and larger size makes the bevel look less chunky.
Ctrl-click (option-click) the graphics rectangle in your layer to select the button's outline. Deselect the bottom half of it by using the marquee tool (M) at the top of the tools. Select a light gray foreground color, nearly white. Create a new layer with the square icon under the layer list (Windows->Layers if not visible). Fill the selection of the new layer with the paint bucket, and drag down opacity for the layer until the 'matte laquer' effect of it looks right.
A simple button, but that's the gist of it.