This package allows you to create and upload custom themes for the Aryzon.World application.
The quickest way to get started is to work using this video tutorial.
To be able to use this toolkit there are a few requirements you must adhere to.
To make themes you need to have an account at Aryzon.World. That account must either be a member of an organisation or have a special developer role.
Themes are created and uploaded via a Unity Editor tool, so at least working knowledge of Unity is highly recommended.
The theme must be built in Unity, your objects and base map must be prefabs built in Unity.
IMPORTANT: Assets bundled with Unity 2022.3 or later seem to not load with Aryzon.World 2023.0.3 or earlier.
Due to limitations with the standard Unity JSON package you need to add the Newtonsoft.JSON library.
You need to add it in the package manager by name: com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json
There are two ways to install the Themes SDK.
The easiest way to install the Themes SDK is to simply download the .unitypackage file from the releases page here on github.
Then in Unity simply navigate to Assets > Import Package > Custom Package and select the package you just downloaded.
An alternative way of adding the Themes SDK is adding the package via a git URL.
To do this go to Window > Package Manager.
Then add a link to this repository as a package from git here:
The link you should use is:
https://github.com/OpenUp-Technologies/Themes-SDK.git?path=/Assets/Themes%20SDK
This makes sure you get the SDK part of the project
The main advantage to this method is that it is easy to remain up-to-date with changes by simply telling Unity to update the package.
There are a few steps needed before you can create a custom theme.
To create a new theme you will first need to create a developer profile to log in to Aryzon.World.
To do this navigate to the Custom Themes project settings and press the Create new profile button.
Give the profile a nice name and fill in your username and password.
Then click Create and choose where to store the profile.
You are now logged in.
You can create multiple profiles for projects where multiple people are working together.
Note: The password is only used to do the initial login, it won't be stored on your device.
Once you are logged in you can press the Create new Theme to create a new theme.
This will bring up a new window where you can configure this theme.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
Theme Name |
required: A human readable name for the theme. |
Root Prefab |
required: The main map that will be loaded in when a player enters the environment. |
Skybox |
A skybox to replace the skybox from the starting environment. |
Set an organisation |
You can choose to upload your theme as belonging to any organisation you are a member of. This option must be used if you are not a developer. |
Build Targets |
When creating a theme, you can immeditately build it for any targets, choose those targets here. |
Once you have created your theme you can update existing versions or add new versions. Worlds are stored using a specific version of a theme. If you update a version of a theme then the next time you load any world created with it you will get the newly uploaded theme.
This behaviour can be desired, for example if you fixed some lighting that didn't look right. It can also be undesired, for example if you move some of the scenery around then worlds might suddenly have objects intersecting with the scenery.
If the behaviour is undesired then you should upload a new version of the theme.
Themes use so-called semantic versioning, where the version number is divided in to a major and minor version. If you make smaller changes you can increment the minor version number. If make a bigger change, increment the major version number and reset the minor version to 0.
A new theme always starts of with a single 0.1 version, the major version 0 to indicate it's a prototype, not ready for release.
When creating a world with Aryzon.World, the first step a player makes is choosing a base theme and map. This theme affects which predefined objects players can add and the starting map.
A theme's starting map consists of an immutable base environment and a collection of starting objects.
The starting map is a prefab that you assign to the Root Object field of your theme.
You can then mark objects in the starting map with a special PlayableObject component that makes them playable objects once the map has been loaded.
It does this by referencing a specific prefab that should be loaded in as the playable object.
See the full article for details.
You can also define themed objects that are available under the Theme tab in add objects. This is simply a list of prefabs in the theme asset.
Your theme should have a Floor and optionally some Walls.
These objects affect how players can navigate the world.
Players can stand on floors and walls, and walls stop players from moving through them including blocking teleporting.
As a fall-back, if you don't add a Floor the world will just interpret all colliders as floor.
Spawn Points can be added to your theme to control where the player spawns in. If the world contains multiple spawn points then one of the points is chosen at random.
To help make sure your theme performs well on all platforms, a set of tools have been added to allow you to find high impact parts of your theme.
These tools include:
- A stats window added to the theme asset inspector.
- Special warnings when uploading themes that exceed recommended performance indicators.
- Annotation to the hierarchy window to highlight problem areas.
By default, Unity does not support baked lighting on prefabs, only on the scene. To allow custom maps to support baked lighting, we have a BakePrefabLighting utility.
To use this utility add the script Bake Prefab Lighting to the root object of your map.
Then add this root prefab to a new scene and set up the lighting so that it looks good.
Once you've done that select Assets > Bake Prefab Lightmaps.
The Unity Editor will run its lightmap baking routine, then store the baked lightmaps using the BakePrefabLighting script.
Upload can throw a TaskCancelledException when targeting something other than your current build target.
Solution: Make sure the build target of the Unity editor is also what you are bundling for.
When building your theme for something other than your current target Unity switches to that build target to make the bundle. After it is finished it switches back to your current target. If bundling ends on something other than you current target then the upload of your theme will be interrupted by this switch back.
Solution: Navigate away form that menu and force Unity to reload its script, for instance by making a new script or editing an existing one.