Introducing the Unity sprite system

Armed with the data we need for our player character in our game world, let us now turn to the visual side of things and get our first 2D visual elements into our game, starting with our hero.

Before the new 2D system was implemented in Unity 4.3, setting up a 2D-rendering system was a tortuous affair that required importing texture assets, creating a 2D-fixed camera system, implementing 2D lighting and a rendering pipeline, and either constraining a physics system to just two dimensions or building your own. It didn't stop there as there was a lot more to contend with, including an endless Z-order fighting to draw the textures correctly (which the new 2D-sorting layers resolve quite nicely). Most developers just ended up using one of the many 2D asset packages from the store to solve a lot of these issues, but it was still a huge challenge to get them right.

Now, with Unity's 2D pipeline, things are a lot simpler. I almost envy new developers who come to...