Some of you like to get into game development and build a game with the final assets. Yes, it makes the game look so much better, but what about gameplay and functionality. A pretty game without gameplay will not be successful. My experience has proven that it is easier to create a great game if you focus on the gameplay over the final result. Making it look pretty can come later.
At Mooski Games, we start all game development in a prototype stage using primitives. Unity is a great platform to work this way as it gives you access to primitives likes cubes, spheres, capsules and more. We use these objects in our prototypes before investing time in developing fine art assets.
Converting your primitives
Unity makes it easy to convert your prototype from 3D objects to fine art graphics in 2d, 2.5D or 3D. Depending on the final game type, you may need to convert or recreate some of your GameObjects. This article will briefly cover how to convert a prototype with 3D primitives into a beautiful 2D game.
Prototype to 2D Game
Let’s start by making sure you have your Scene in 2D mode.
Now that your Scene is in 2D, we need to convert all of our Prefabs into 2D. Our preferred method is to create a new GameObject using the 2D sprite to replace the 3D primitive. Although other methods can be used, we find this method to be the most effective.
Once you have the new GameObject in your Hierarchy, we now add the 2D equivalents of the components used by the primitive you are replacing (e.g. RigidBody with RigidBody 2D and Box Collider with Box Collider 2D). Copy the same settings for the Component.
Ensure the associated script is attached and its associated Prefabs are connected.
Now that you have created the new GameObjects with the new 2D equivalent components, you must modify any scripts using the Colliders and update them to 2D.
Don’t forget to delete the original 3D primitives once you have completed creating the 2D replacements and recreate the Prefabs.
I hope this article has helped you understand why prototyping is an essential step in game development and how to convert a prototype into a 2D game.
