RetroKit Assets
This section describes RetroKit's asset types.
Retro Sprite
A Retro Sprite contains all the data needed to generate and edit Sprite and Texture assets that can be used in your game.
You can create and edit a new Retro Sprites in the Sprite Editor window.
See also: Create a sprite
See also: Sprite Editor
Sprite Animation
A Sprite Animation contains all the information required to generate an Animation Clip asset, such as the Retro Sprites that are used as frames for the animation.
You can create and modify a Sprite Animation in the "Sprite Animations" window.
See also: Create an animation
Sprite Animation Set
A Sprite Animation Set consists of a collection of related Sprite Animations. For example, all the Sprite Animations for the player character would make a good Sprite Animation Set.
The Sprite Animation Set generates an Animator Controller that contains its Sprite Animations' Animation Clips as states and the transitions needed to switch between them. The Sprite Animation set also generates enum and extension method for Animator, which can be used together to easily switch animations from a script.
You can create and modify a Sprite Animation Set in the "Sprite Animation Sets" window.
See also: Create an animation set
Sound Effect
A Sound Effect consists of a serie of tones, which in turn consists of a pitch, volume and duration. The Sound Effect generates a Sample Set.
You can create and modify a Sound Effect in the "Sound Effect Editor" window.
See also: Create a sound effect
Song
A Song consists of one or more tracks, which can contain one or more patterns. The pattern is composed using the Pattern Composer.
You can create and modify a Song in the "Song Composer" window.
See also: Compose a song
Retro System
A Retro System contains the description of a virtual game system, it's capabilities and limitations.
In order for RetroKit to function, you need to pick a Retro System for your project. You can either use one of the included Retro Systems and modify it to suit your needs or define one from scratch.
You can switch to a different Retro System at any point, but keep in mind that it'll likely change any existing assets you've created with RetroKit. For example, if you switch to a Retro System with a different color palette, sprites will be regenerated so that they use the colors of the new palette. If the new palette has less colors, you might lose pixels.
Modify an existing Retro System
You can modify an exiting Retro System by simply selecting the asset in the Project Window. By default, you can find them in "Assets/RetroKit/Editor/Retro Systems". Select the one you want and you'll be able to modify it in the Inspector Window.
Create a new Retro System
If you want to create a new Retro System from scratch you can right-click anywhere in the Project Window and select "Create > RetroKit > Retro System". The default location to place Retro Systems is "Assets/RetroKit/Editor/Retro Systems", but you can place them anywhere you want.
Sample Provider
Sample Providers are used to create samples for Songs and Sound Effects (and the resulting Sample Sets) and determine what these Songs and Sound Effects sound like or what "instrument" is used.
RetroKit comes with a couple of different Sample Provider. One for creating a noisy sound and several Curve Sample Providers.
Curve Sample Provider
The Curve Sample Provider uses a curve represented by a Unity AnimationCurve, to determine what a single waveform should look like for the sound.
RetroKit includes the following Curve Sample Providers:
- Pulse
- Saw
- Sine
- Square
- Triangle
The difference in sound is hard to describe. The best way to hear the differences is to try them out!
Early Development
An interface for defining your own Curve Sample Providers is planned to be added to RetroKit in a future release.
Sample Set
Sample Set is a game asset that contains the samples needed to generate an Audio Clip.
At this time, Sample Set is the only game asset generated by RetroKit, that isn't native to Unity, and therefore might not be compatible with all components and plugins out of the box.
A sample set generates an Audio Clip at runtime. This Audio Clip is not available as an asset, as would normally be the case when you import an audio file. The reason for this is that the Sample Set is not recognised by Unity as an audio file.
However, it's possible to export a sound effect as a .wav file, in which case it can be used as normal. Though you'll have to export the sound effect manually again each time you make a change to the sound effect.
Sample Set is compatible with Audio Source however, thanks to the Sample Set Audio Source component that RetroKit provides. You can find more information about this in the sections "Create a sound effect" and "Compose a song".
Using Sample Set in a scene
You can check out how to use a Sample Set for Sound Effects and Songs in the sections "Create a sound effect" and "Compose a song".
See also: Use sound effects in a scene
See also: Use songs in a scene