Unity asset store

I am writing a 2D top down RPG as a learning exercise in gamedev.

For now I am using free art assets found around the web but I am graphics whore and I don't really like them!

I see that Unity asset store has some nice environment tiles as well as animated character tile sheets etc. They are pretty expensive and mention that they need certain version of unity. I am not using Unity and I know nothing about how it work. I am writing my own "engine" which loads images in BMP or PNG. So the question is do these assets from Unity comes also as BMP or PNG files? Or are they some how tied to Unity?

Also what is the licences like? If I buy from there, can I use them on my own game or does it have to be Unity game etc? Also can I give those assets away with my game?

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/

lostforever said:

I am writing a 2D top down RPG as a learning exercise in gamedev.

For now I am using free art assets found around the web but I am graphics whore and I don't really like them!

I see that Unity asset store has some nice environment tiles as well as animated character tile sheets etc. They are pretty expensive and mention that they need certain version of unity. I am not using Unity, I am writing my own "engine" which loads images in BMP or PNG. So the question is do these assets from Unity comes also as BMP or PNG files? Or are they some how tied to Unity?

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/

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I've only used free assets from Unity - but I assume it's the same thing in technical terms.

When you download an asset, you get everything associated with it - usually as a ready-to-use gameobject, complete with scripts, images, audio and so forth.

I don't see why you couldn't manually extract whatever you need - as most developers tend to organize the assets in a standard folder structure. Meaning stuff like textures and normal images will reside in a folder (where your project is located) as soon as you download the asset.

That said, I don't think I've ever done it myself - so I don't actually know if some of it is encrypted or whatever. I wouldn't think so, but I think you're better off asking on a Unity-specific forum.

An easy way to get an answer would be to just download a free asset and see how the files are organised

Doh!, I didn't see the free ones! I thought they were all paids stuff!

I haven't used the Unity store, but if you're looking for options these sites have simple licence deals (including for commercial sale) and the quality is often very good. And they're quite cheap, mostly:
gamedevmarket.net
graphicriver.net

Also, there's good free stuff at:
opengameart.org
Although I've never used stuff from there.

Pongo said:

I haven't used the Unity store, but if you're looking for options these sites have simple licence deals (including for commercial sale) and the quality is often very good. And they're quite cheap, mostly:
gamedevmarket.net
graphicriver.net

Also, there's good free stuff at:
opengameart.org
Although I've never used stuff from there.

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AH thanks for the links. Reasonable prices and mostly give me different options to choose from.

One of the thing I am quickly finding about gamedev is getting hold of art asset and assembling them to look good is way harder than the actual programming! My artist skills are pretty shite!

Good luck! I'd be interested to hear how you get on with development.

Unless specifically tagged as 'Restricted Asset', most assets you get in the Unity store are free to use commercially, but not redistributable (guess that's not a real word). Basically that means that you can sell a game using those assets, but you can't sell, say, a Unity tutorial package with those assets included. Also you can use them in other engines, as long as they follow the first rule (i.e. they're part of a game).

lostforever said:

do these assets from Unity comes also as BMP or PNG files? Or are they some how tied to Unity?

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Any textures (i.e., 2D art assets) that you buy will most likely come as PNG or TGA files. In the Asset Store, there's a section where you can browse exactly which files come with the asset, so you can see what you're getting.

lostforever said:

Also what is the licences like? If I buy from there, can I use them on my own game or does it have to be Unity game etc? Also can I give those assets away with my game?

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They have a very detailed license that you can read through, but the short version is, as far as I understand it, that you can use the assets however you want in any game engine you want. You just are not allowed to redistribute the assets separately from the game you create.

Thanks all for your help. However for the first cut, I have deiced against buying anything but found a tileset I liked which is free to use. So low and behold here is the world exclusive reveal of my game!




http://imgur.com/a/9kHGv

yes its shite but I am no artist! It too me more time to design the game world than code it but there we are. Right now the little fellow can walk around the world with only map boundary collision detection. Next is collision detection with objects etc.

Looks good, its definitely a nice tileset and will be great for an rpg. One comment - I think the bottom of the two trees on the left is missing its top section?
Looking forward to hearing more as development progresses!

Pongo said:

Looks good, its definitely a nice tileset and will be great for an rpg. One comment - I think the bottom of the two trees on the left is missing its top section?
Looking forward to hearing more as development progresses!

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Ah yes good spot! I think I have bug in my tile layer code.

It took me long time to find tile set since most of the free ones are sort of cartoon looking or jrpg style and I am not big fan of those. The one I am using above is from Lost Garden and I really like it as it sort of have "western rpg" feel to it.

I still need to find a animated tile sheet for character who isn't jrpg looking but one step at a time!

Also if anyone interested in the technical details, here are the stuff I am using,

SDL (https://www.libsdl.org) - To draw the graphics.
Lazy Foo SDL tutorial (http://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/) - How to use SDL.
Tiled Map Editor (http://www.mapeditor.org/) - To design the map.

Also I am not sure if I should be posting this under "Indie RPG" since this section is mostly used by professional developer wherever my stuff is learning stuff!

Yeah there are definitely loads of cartoony and "big head" sprites and tilesets out there. It's hard to find the more realistic pixel art stuff. I can recommend the Oryx tilesets - I'm using this one in a project at the minute:
http://oryxdesignlab.com/ultimatefantasy/
The creature and character sprites are awesome. Not sure it's what you want though - they are animated for "idle", but not for movement or attacking sadly.

It would be good if we had a seperate "workshop" section where folk could post about this kind of thing, and iceblink, rpgmaker, nwn, grimrock level editor etc. I guess it depends on whether there would be enough interest though.