The tiles you could use a tool like Tiled to work with and read their metadata format. I'm just thinking there should be one common format to work with regardless of the type of sheet.
@ElizaWy, Unity has some pretty good built in tools for dealing with sprite sheets so maybe less of an issue there. That isn't to say the workflow couldn't be improved if there is a unity plugin that can read a common metadata format and automatically bring in the individual sprites for an animation for example.
Part of the problem I'm looking to address is having creators have to make or ask for files that work with different game engines to include with the sheets. Even if the community wants to contribute them, that would be alot of files and still wouldn't cover some of the less popular engines.
If there is one common format then the various game engines can have tools or scripts that read the common format instead. Then one sheet and one file is all that is needed. At least, that's the idea so far.
@chasersgaming, yes, that's exactly the type of information I'm thinking as you mentioned to 'index' the sprite sheet.
Some sprite sheets are exact tiles, say 32x32 and it's easy to get each sprite but others are packed and not in rows/columns as well as some sprites different sizes, not arranged in order, etc.
If we have a standard text file format attached with each sprite sheet then game engines or other tools can read this format and be able to use the various sprites, slice them and save them out as individual images if needed, etc.
The thing is we don't have a 'standard' format for what this text file would look like. My idea is to propose an open standard format.
@MedicineStorm, yes, but not just not just OGA as there are other sites as well but focusing on here for now:
Something like this:
https://opengameart.org/content/xeon-ultimate-smash-friends
https://opengameart.org/content/generic-platformer-tiles
The tiles you could use a tool like Tiled to work with and read their metadata format. I'm just thinking there should be one common format to work with regardless of the type of sheet.
@ElizaWy, Unity has some pretty good built in tools for dealing with sprite sheets so maybe less of an issue there. That isn't to say the workflow couldn't be improved if there is a unity plugin that can read a common metadata format and automatically bring in the individual sprites for an animation for example.
Part of the problem I'm looking to address is having creators have to make or ask for files that work with different game engines to include with the sheets. Even if the community wants to contribute them, that would be alot of files and still wouldn't cover some of the less popular engines.
If there is one common format then the various game engines can have tools or scripts that read the common format instead. Then one sheet and one file is all that is needed. At least, that's the idea so far.
@chasersgaming, yes, that's exactly the type of information I'm thinking as you mentioned to 'index' the sprite sheet.
Some sprite sheets are exact tiles, say 32x32 and it's easy to get each sprite but others are packed and not in rows/columns as well as some sprites different sizes, not arranged in order, etc.
If we have a standard text file format attached with each sprite sheet then game engines or other tools can read this format and be able to use the various sprites, slice them and save them out as individual images if needed, etc.
The thing is we don't have a 'standard' format for what this text file would look like. My idea is to propose an open standard format.