Text Mesh Title Creator

The text mesh title creator tool is designed to use input text in the properties panel in Horizon to generate game titles. An easier to use and more customizable font option. Includes 4 fun fonts.

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Text Mesh Title Creator Story

Inspiration

I gained inspiration for this project submission from the team that built Text Mesh Pro, which is a beloved customizable text mesh font generator ideal for creating game titles.

Purpose

To offer an easier-to-use and more customizable alternative to the text gizmo in Horizon.

Audience

This tool is targeted at the Horizon beginner who wants their game titles to stand out in their worlds.

What it does

The Text Mesh Title Creator is a tool that spawns a text mesh font based on the user’s text input in the properties panel.

The user just needs to:

  • Pull in the public asset into their world.
  • Type a title in the input text.
  • Enter a number for the letter spacing.
  • Set the letter scale to the desirable size.
  • Choose to have text left-justified or centered.
  • Decide to use curve option.

A despawn timeout option is available, which waits until the title is generated and then despawns (deletes asset) after the time entered (in seconds).

Once the user has selected a text mesh font and entered input, they can turn on simulation to see results and adjust as needed.
Important: Turn on simulation to see results, and turn it off before making changes.

How we built it

The Text Mesh Creation Tool was built using TypeScript in Visual Studio Code for the Horizon platform.

  • The 3 customized fonts were generated with a ChatGPT Pro license.
  • Unity was used to configure the textures and materials.
  • The text mesh was exported as an FBX from Unity for import into Horizon as a 3D model.

Challenges we ran into

  • Spawning and despawning presented a challenge where the text input would despawn before the text mesh had spawned a title.
  • Deciding what to make customizable in the properties panel versus what to hide in the code.
  • Figuring out the initial transform position attributes for the text.

Accomplishments we’re proud of

  • Developing a solution that ensures all text meshes spawn before despawning.
  • Providing customization options within the tool.
  • Delivering 5 custom text mesh fonts for use.

What we learned

The Text Mesh Creator Tool can take several seconds before the text input generates the title. Inputting the code in preStart does not improve load-time and results in the text not fully generating.

What’s next for Text Mesh Title Creator

Since this will be a public asset, I would like to see it evolve organically through the community and become a giant library of custom text mesh fonts that Horizon users can adopt and use in their games.

I would love to see this grow from the 5 custom fonts I’ve provided to thousands of custom fonts over the next year.

In future versions of this tool, I plan to:

  • Improve performance.
  • Offer more customization options.
  • Make it even easier to use.

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