Dynamic Color Palette - Unity

Color palette that automatically updates dependencies

Motivation

While working in Unity, you often have to define colors on Meshes, UI, etc. But when someone ask you to change one color in your design, you have to run through all the occurrences to update. You easily forgot some and then get weird results in your game.

This asset is there to fix that by creating links between a Color Palette and your dependencies.

I wanted to implement that in order to use on a game I work on with a team.

Installation

To install this package you can do one of this:

Using Package Manager Window
- Opening the Package Manager Window: Window > Package Manager
- Wait for it to load
- Click on the top left button + > Add package from git URL
- Copy paste the repository link
- Press enter
Modifying manifest.json file Add the following to your manifest.json file (which is under your project location in Packages folder)

{
  "dependancies": {
    ...
    "com.rikoo.dynamic-color-palette": "https://github.com/ErikRikoo/Unity-Dynamic-Color-Palette.git",
    ...
  }
}

You can now use it and don't want to kill your designer/artist anymore.

Updating

Sometimes Unity has some hard time updating git dependencies so when you want to update the package, follow this steps:

Go into package-lock.json file (same place that manifest.json one)
It should look like this:

{
  "dependencies": {
    ...
    "com.rikoo.dynamic-color-palette": {
      "version": "https://github.com/ErikRikoo/Unity-Dynamic-Color-Palette.git",
      "depth": 0,
      "source": "git",
      "dependencies": {},
      "hash": "hash-number-there"
    },
    ...
}

Remove the "com.rikoo.dynamic-color-palette" and save the file
Get back to Unity
Let him refresh
Package should be updated

How does it work

Creating and using the Color Palette

Creating the color Palette

It is a Scriptable Object so you can create as much as you want by Right Clicking in the Project Hierarchy view, and then choose ColorPalette.

Using the Color Palette
- You can change the default value that will be added when using the + button.
- Adding and Removing colors can be done by pressing + and - button on top right.
- A color has a color and a name that can be used to distinguish between colors and have a clear label
- You can remove the color you want by pressing the x button on the right of the color.

Create links between the palette and an object

Currently, you have in the package some MonoBehaviour to create the link, they are all named like this [Target]ColorLink

Renderer
Image
Generic

After adding the MonoBehaviour to an object:

One of the top attribute should ask for a ColorPalette, just pick one
Then it will show all the color available in the Palette, pick some and you will get a nice cyan border
Everytime you update it in the the palette, you can see the change

The special case of GenericColorLinker

You have the color linker like others
You have a method storage attribute:
- It allows you to pick a component on your object and then a valid method to bind to

Creating new links

Current linker are using an abstract class to simplify the process and you can easily use it!

Create a MonoBehaviour
Extends AColorLinker
Override the GetAction method which returns the right function
Override the Initialize method if you need to do stuff before creating the link like caching components

Exemple:

public class MyAmazingColorLinker : AColorLinker
{
    // Caching the renderer to use it when the color is updated 
    private Renderer m_Renderer;

    // Called in OnValidate this method allows you to do any prelude work before the linking
    protected override void Initialization()
    {
        if (m_Renderer == null)
        {
            m_Renderer = GetComponent<Renderer>();
        }
    }

    // We return a UnityAction to create link
    protected override UnityAction<Color> GetAction()
    {
        // You can directly return your function like this
        return OnColorUpdated;
    }


    // The function will be called everytime the color is changed in the palette
    public void OnColorUpdated(Color _newColor)
    {
        Debug.Log($"The color has changed: {_newColor}");
        // Doing great stuff with the renderer and the changed color
    }
}

TODO

Add information on the listeners in the Color Palette
Allows to specify a default value for new colors
Image Color Linker

Suggestions

Feel free to suggest features by creating an issue, any idea is welcome !

ErikRikoo / Unity-Dynamic-Color-Palette