2D Toolkit 2.0 Backwards Compatibilty

[unikronsoftware]

The current plan is to introduce 1.9, fully backwards compatible, with a new animation editor.

The next major update will hopefully be 2.0, and there are more than a few backwards incompatible changes planned or at least thought off.
So far 2D Toolkit has largely been fully backwards compatible for over a year, but I'm thinking of breaking compatibility for 2.0 (Don't worry it'll still be a free upgrade).
This will allow me to strip out the parts in the front end that I'm not happy with (and there's quite a bit of that, eg. collider handling, etc.) and making things a whole lot leaner and vastly more efficient in the process, and also speed up development a whole load, as keeping backwards compatibility so far has been taking up more time than developing a new feature.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Ian]

So far your work has been amazing. You have designed and developed great and nicely-implemented features I would never even dare to expect before knowing abour 2D Toolkit. It did, does, and will save me countless hours of tedious work.

So IMHO if one needs to reset some things in her project(s) because of 2.0 uncompatibility with previous versions, I am confident it would be for a much greater good. I don't mind spending a dozen of minutes or a couple of hours into redoing some stuff in my project of hundreds of sprites, if the process is exhaustively documented and if I know I will benefit from even better features, comfort, and performances.
I just hope you will keep focusing on performance.

[Tiago2R]

What are the new features planned for 2DToolkit 2.0?

[unikronsoftware]

So far I've been changing the tools significantly, while the game side code has remained fully backwards compatible. 2.0 = brand new game side code (and brand new collider system while I'm at it), with same tools. All compatibility stuff ripped out means a smaller codebase, making it much much quicker to iterate.

[FootprintGames]

We won't be able to update from 1.9 to 2.0?
No problem at all.

[regnared]

I guess I would chose, "Yes, if possible." 

But for the sake of you being more efficient and speed up your awesome work, I would say go for it. In anything there must be small sacrifices sometimes to create something really awesome. It will only be beneficiary in the long run for everyone.

[Charles256]

If you could give a few months heads up I think it'd be fine for what it's worth. Sometimes dead weigh has to be excised in the name of progress.

[sabba2u]

Can I suggest a feature that will add multiple box colliders around an object? So if we have a weirdly shaped pentagon instead of generating a mesh collider, it would let us place 5 box colliders.  You know Unity still has problems with mesh vs mesh interaction using mesh colliders.  Box colliders along all the edges would be a great feature.

[unikronsoftware]

That is definitely in the pipeline, but likely only in tk2d 2.0. There are some fundementally backwards incompatible things which might need to be done before transitioning to the new system.

[Amon]

Greetings all!

Personally I wouldn't mind either way regarding Backwards Compatibility. If I was asked to pick yes or no to determine the future of tk2d then I'd pick no backward compatibility. Maybe it would be best to  fix/update/change what is needed in the 1.x version, finalize it as feature complete and working and leave it at that.

Now I will probably get moaned at for this but in leaving the 1.x version like I mentioned above, that's after you completely updated/fixed/changed etc! whats needed to make it completely solid, you would be free to fully concentrate on the new 2.0 version and you would be well within your right to charge for an upgrade.

Personally, in order to ensure the future of tk2d, I would gladly pay an upgrade fee of between 70 - 100 Euro. But that's me though. You have done so much hard work and ended up with something that is so capable and easy to use you need not convince me to upgrade simply because of your track record and absolute dedication to your Customers and customer service.

That's my 2 pennies worth! Onwards and Upwards as they say....Just keep going.

[Supagoat]

I think it'd be fine to break backwards compatibility as long as you let us know what we need to do when we upgrade. :-)

As far as collision goes, I'm curious as to what you've done about it.  I've just written my own collision detection engine since as you've pointed out, the Unity3D engine isn't so good for 2d collisions.  I'm just about to see how my engine deals with sprite animations, but it's working great for static sprites.

Basically what it does is examine the mesh colliders created by 2DTK and eliminates the redundant triangles (since you had to make 2 sets along the z-axis to get Unity to detect collision) and creates a Vector2 array for the points and an int[] for the triangles.  Then it uses some linear algebra to determine if any edge of one sprite intersects an edge of another sprite.  There are some optimizations I need to put in, but it's working great for detection so far.  I also have an alternate version that creates edges from the last frame position/current frame position so small fast moving objects like bullets can be detected without going through a sprite in 1 frame.

So... Since I've put in all that work I'm very interested in either having it continue to work or replacing it with your new detection system.  Heck, I'd be happy to share it with you if it'll help at all. 

And that leads me to a question I'll ask in another thread.

[Mezcaholic]

I vote to untie your hands. Fly unikron....be free!!!!

[Copywright]

Well, I think that not being backwards compatible isn't a very big deal, if conversion is still possible. As long as there's a way to convert all things 1.9 to 2.0, I'd be fine with it, especially with some of the planned features you have in mind for 2.0.

[unikronsoftware]

An update.

2D Toolkit 2.0 will be fully backwards compatible.
I will be transitioning to the new backwards incompatible system over the course of the 2.x versions.

I'm going to unsticky this now. Thanks for responding to the poll.

[TinSleeves]

Any idea when your planning on releasing 2.0? Can't wait to give it a go