Sin or Win has now been out for a few weeks, and wow, what weeks they’ve been! I’ve been amazed and thrilled by all the wonderful response and feedback I’ve had.

Prior to starting Toxic Blob and embarking on making Sin or Win I had no prior experience with game design or game programming. So when I saw Sin or Win hanging out with Angry Birds on iTunes I was absolutely thrilled. I had actually made a game! I’d finished it. It was out in the world with other games for all to enjoy. It’s a dream come true.

The reception I’ve had from players and the media has also been thrilling. Sin or Win is currently averaging a 5 star rating on the App Store and I’ve had a wonderful reception from the gaming press as well! Below is a sampling of the media reviews I’ve received.

Games Day Podcast


148Apps


TouchArcade


AppSafari


Hobby iPad

I’m not resting here. I have a lot of really exciting ideas for future updates. Below is an image of one of the little things I’ve been working on.

Also, for those that attended my Unite11 talk, Artists as Programmers, I haven’t forgotten you - I’ve just been a little busy. I am hoping to set aside some time over the coming weeks to put the extended talk online. Watch this space.

Tagged: Sin or Win, iPad, Awesome, Unite 11

I’m back from sunny San Francisco after my first Unite conference. It was a wonderful trip. I visited old friends and met new ones. At the conference I gave the talk, “Artists as Programmers”, then helped out with the “Artist Discussion”. Lots of fun. I’m already looking forward to next years Unite.

During the talks I mentioned a tool I had written that speeds publishing assets to the Unity assets folder. It’s a python script I’ve written and embedded in an Automator task.

Here’s how I use it:

All my work-in-progress images, animations and meshes I keep organised in my Development folder (marked in grey below). As an example the background daytime & nighttime image is located at Sin or Win/Development/Environment/Artwork/Environment Art v019.psd. I tend to work at least double the desired size, and enjoy layers so this Photoshop image is 500+ megabytes. To export to Unity I save the image using Photoshop’s Save for Web interface, dumping the png to Sin or Win/Development/Environment/Publish/Environment Art v019.png.

I’ll work away in Photoshop updating several different images at a time. When it’s time to copy them all into Unity I’ll use my Publish Automator script. I select the updated images in the Publish folders and drag them all onto my publish tool in the Finder toolbar. My script then copies the files into the appropriate location in the Unity/Assets folder while also stripping their version number. This last bit is important. If the image retained it’s “v019” Unity would see it as a new image and I’d get a messy Unity/Assets folder as well as have to manually assign the image to existing materials. Working with the publish tool enables me to work outside the Unity/Assets folder with version history, and easily publish to the Unity/Assets folder with Unity updating automatically. The script also automatically creates any folders in the Unite/Assets folder that are needed.

It’s saved me a tonne of time by simplifying my workflow. Hopefully it’ll help your development pipeline.

Instructions for Installation

1. Download, unzip and store where convenient
2. Drag the icon to your Finder toolbar
3. To change the Python script within the Automator action, right click on the Toxic Blob Publish Automator application and select “Show Package Contents”. Open the Contents folder. Then open document.wflow in your favourite text editor
4. On line 74 is the variable “devPath” which is my “/Development” folder, and on line 75 is the variable “publishPath” which is my “/Unity/Assets” folder. Change both to suit your paths & save the file
5. Drag any file(s) onto the tool and relax as it copies them into your Unity project. Note, I haven’t tested dragging folders onto the tool, and that may not work as you would expect, so stick to files
6. If you find this tool useful, drop me an email or a tweet and let me know where you’re using it. Thanks!

Toxic Blob Publish Automator.zip (220 KB)

Tagged: Tools, Technical, Unity, Unite 11