TextMesh Pro Thicker Wider Outlines

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Is there any way, using TextMesh Pro, to create thicker outlines?

Right now the thickest outline I can make is only about ~20% the width of the letter - so if the letter is 20px wide, the outline is max around 4 or 5px. I achieve this by setting the text's Face Dilate setting to 1, and then Outline Thickness to 1.

What I want is a THICK outline that the letter sits inside, so if the letter were 20px the outline would be around 100px. In the picture, the "story" text up top is created with TextMesh Pro. The huge "sa" below is a premade sprite showing how big I want the outline to be, relative to the letter.

alt text

Is there a way to achieve this? I know TextMesh Pro's outlines are created using the font asset creator atlas, hence why the letters have blurry edges in the atlas. Is there a way to make those blurry edges way bigger, so I can extend the outline much further? I wouldn't mind having a huge sized atlas if it meant I could get the effect I want.

Thanks!

Answer 1

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Answer by Stephan_B · May 30, 2017 at 06:18 AM

The effective range of Material Properties is controlled by the ratio of Sampling Point Size to Padding which is explained in the Font Asset Creation video as well as FAQ Question 11 on the TextMesh Pro user forum.

Therefore by regenerating the font asset to increase the padding value relative to the sampling point size, you will increase the effective range. For instance if the original sampling point size was 50 point size with a padding value 5, you range would be about 10%. By increasing the padding to 10, you would effectively double this range.

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nyonge · May 30, 2017 at 08:20 AM 2

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Yup, that got it! I increased the padding, and also had to increase the atlas resolution, but the effect is exactly as I wanted. The thick border overlapped each adjacent character though, so I just created a second Text object to sit on top of the completely-white border.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 2

Answer by feds · Nov 01, 2021 at 04:06 PM

I created a shader for that so we don't need to create a second Text Object as commented above, btw my solution was based on this post so thanks for both of you @Stephan_B and @nyonge

https://forum.unity.com/threads/tmpro-draw-external-outline-before-faces.503999/#post-7619947

alt text

tmp-outline.jpg (293.2 kB)

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TextMesh Pro Thicker Wider Outlines

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