4.8p2
4.8 Preview 2 is out now, please check it out if you are interested in trying some of new features out. will be one of last chances for feedback before 4.8 ships. Here is a non-exhaustive list of new Paper2D features in 4.8:
Tile Maps:
- Programmatically working with Tile Map Components from Blueprints (both querying and building from scratch)*
- Tile map color can now be controlled both per-layer and across entire tile map
- Improved projection mode support: Staggered Isometric and Staggered Hexagonal are now supported
- Support for rotated/flipped tiles
- Various workflow/editing improvements (key binds for layer operations, drag-drop works as expected, existing painted tiles can be selected using Shift+LMB+Drag, etc…)
- Improved support for importing from Tiled, more data is retained during import/conversion process
- Collision geometry and custom metadata can now be specified on a per-tile basis in tile set editor ( metadata is limited to a single FName, but can be used as a key into a UDataTable asset with arbitrary additional data).
- Note: There were a few BP exposure changes which just missed 4.8p2 cutoff but will still be in 4.8. In p2 you may need to use ResizeMap and AddLayer to programmatically create tile maps instead of being able to directly create one size you want.
Importing and sprite processing:
- Configurable texture settings for both importing from a sprite sheet and ‘prepare for Paper2D usage’ context menu option (still called Configure for Retro sprites in 4.8p2 but renamed shortly afterwards)
- Sprites can define additional textures, and materials can sample from those additional textures (and give slots descriptive names like NormalMap or Mask). improves workflow for sprites that have associated textures, removing need for a material instance per sprite.
- Importing paired normal maps / Creating sprites from textures with paired normal maps (looks for an adjacent texture/atlas named _N or _Normal, configurable in settings)
- When a normal map is detected, it automatically uses one of default lit materials instead of default unlit materials. Both are defined in ‘Paper2D - Import’ settings page.
- Sprite extraction dialog - Lets you configure how sprites will be extracted from a texture. In addition to ‘automatic’ mode from 4.7, it also has a grid-based mode where you can pick width/height/grid size. You can also provide a custom naming scheme to use.
- Sprite ‘shrinkwrap’ texture analysis mode is now conservative, so it will never cut into edge of a sprite
Sprites work in more places:
- You can now use Paint editor mode (set to Textures, not Vertices) to paint onto a sprite in level editor.
- You can use sprites as preview mesh in Material Editor
Misc. 2D editor workflow:
- Toggle-able ‘snap to layer’ when dragging into level editor viewport; layer names, axis, and depth can be defined in project settings*
- 2D combined gizmo, allows both rotation and translation in a single gizmo
- To enable these options, go to 2D section of Project Settings…Editor and enable them.
- Paper2D filter group in Content Browser
- Note: There were several improvements to layer snapping which just missed 4.8p2 cutoff but will still be in 4.8, including a configurable key binding for ‘snap selection to layer’ and addition of some default layers.
Geometry/collision editing:
- Various workflow/UX improvements to geometry editing in Sprite and Tile Set editors
- Support for rotating geometry
- Support for circles/spheres as collision geometry
Flipbooks / flipbook editor:
- Added SetPlaybackPositionInFrames and GetPlaybackPositionInFrames to UPaperFlipbookComponent
- Added display of sprite name in keyframe strips and when drag-dropping key frames
- Added Ctrl+MouseWheel when over timeline to change time scale
- Beefed up context menu options for key frames to make working with flipbooks easier
- Sockets from key frames can now be viewed (but not edited) in Flipbook Editor
Bug fixes aren’t included in list, but there have been a number of those as well.
Cheers,