Totem 2D Avatar for Unity

Procedural avatar for Unity leveraging the Totem platform.

Initial design & development by NotSlot.

Installation

Add the following packages into a Unity 2021.2+ project:

In the Package Manager window select + button at the top lect corner, select Add package from git URL..., and copy the package’s link.

1. https://github.com/Totem-gdn/TotemGeneratorUnity.git#1.0.1
2. https://github.com/Totem-gdn/Totem-2D-Avatar.git?path=/Packages/com.totem.avatar2d

Usage

The package provides the Totem Avatar prefab, all it takes is to drag-and-drop it to the scene.

Avatar

To change the character’s displayed permutation, set the Avatar property of its Totem2DAvatar component:

public Totem2DAvatar character;

public void SetAvatar(TotemAvatar avatar)
{
  character.Avatar = avatar;
}

Animation

To simplify the animation control, add the Totem > 2D Avatar Animation component to the prefab instance in the scene:

controller.Direction = DirState.Right; // Left, Right
controller.Motion = MotionState.Walk; // Idle, Walk, Right
controller.Jump();

Alternatively, the Animator component can be manipulated directly using the following paramters:

• Jump trigger
• Motion int
  • 0 Idle
  • 1 Walk
  • 2 Run

Samples

The following samples are provided through the Package Manager:

1. Random – A simple demo featuring a random procedural avatar.
2. Authentication – A demo using the MockDB, allows previewing all the avatars that belong to a user.

Production Pipeline

The following is a the production pipeline steps.

It’s only relevent for those intedning to alter or augment the character. All you need to know to use the character is above.

PSB Rig

The base PSB is __Base Female Thin Wimp, other PSBs reference its skeleton. Change the skeleton is only possible through this PSB.

While adding or manipulatin the art, the following constraints should be taken into account:

1. It’s recommanded to maintina the original element’s dimensions, otherwise the mesh and weights must be udapted accorsingly.
2. When adding a new variant, a new PSB must be created (PNG is not supported) referencing the base skeleton and manually create mesh and weights.
3. To add a new element (and new bone), the base PSB need to be updated with a new bone in the skeleton (also mesh and weights).

There is a single Sprite Library asset named Charactar Sprite Lib. It composes the sprites from multiple PSB rigs into a unified libraray, spaning the whole range of permutations.

The skeleton has a bone named weapon for future updates.

Prefab

The prefab Totem Avatar combines the multiple PSBs into a single procedural charactar. Its composed manually from the multiple resulting rigs and controlled by the Sprite Library from the previous step.

All sprites use the Totem 2D Avatar material that supports masked coloring.

Each swapable Sprite Renderer also has a Sprite Resolver component assigned with the appropriate category and an initial label.

Masks

The characters’ cloth will retain the color of the original texture, other parts will be colored according the the Totem filter.

We use a secondary mask texture to define the purpose of each area in the texture.

For reference, you can download the original masks PSDs. They are pre configured with channeling as described below.

Base atlas

The PSB will generate an atlas texture of all its sprites – it can be used to assist in the process of creating the masks texture.

The main Unity project of this asset (not the package itslef but the whole project) provides a script for saving the generated atlas as a standalone PNG:

1. For the PSB importer, enable Read/Write Enabled and disable compression.
2. Right click the generated atlas and select 2D Avatar Pipeline > Save as PNG.
3. Deselect the read/write option and restore the compression.

Channels

We use the texture’s color channels to diffrentiate between the character’s components.

• r Eyes
• g Hair
• b Skin
• a Shadow

The mask texture must be saved as a format that supports 4 channels, it recommanded to use Targa 32bit.

Unity Setup

When importing the texture into Unity, make sure to set it as a default (non sprite) texture. Deselect the Alpha is transparency option.

After importing and configuring the mask texture, we need to attach it to the rig’s texture. Open the Sprite Editor of the original PSB, under the Secondary Textures screen add a new texture named _MaskTex and assign the mask texture to it.

Material

The Totem 2D Avatar material is used by all the character’s sprites and operates the maseked coloring. It uses the shader Totem/2D Avatar (Unlit Sprite).

The shadow can be modified using the following parameters:

• Shadow Saturation 0..1
• Shadow Brightness 0..1

Animation

Animating the character follows the familiar Unity workflow.