Can I create a Sprite Asset using a downloaded Texture at runtime?

Question

I know that Asset Bundles exist, and I'm already taking a look at them. But I'm still interested in this particular approach:

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I am interested in downloading a .png image from the Web, and then "consolidate" it as a Sprite asset. After doing so, I can display this sprite in my game in the future without ever downloading that image again.

I was able to download the image and use its texture to create a Sprite object and use it for my SpriteRenderer:

        WWW request = new WWW("www.example.com/image.png");
        yield return request;
        if (request.isDone) {
            ((SpriteRenderer)renderer).sprite = Sprite.Create(request.texture, new Rect(0,0,request.texture.width,request.texture.height), new Vector2(0.5f,0.5f));
        }

Is it possible to grab this texture and generate a Sprite asset? With all the properties like pivot, pixels per unit, packing tag, etc?

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UPDATE

Alright, so turns out that Sprite.Create let's me set the pivot and pixels to units properties. No packing tag, though, but I guess that makes sense since packing should be done during development and not during runtime.

Given this, I suppose one could serialize the generated Sprite class.

Answer 1

I wrote some code to handling this in my current project

public IEnumerator getImageFromWS(string fileName, Action<Texture2D> result = null){
    var path = Application.persistentDataPath+"/"+PathToFile+"filename"+".png";

    var f = new FileInfo(path);
    if(f.Exists)
    {
        var retVal = new Texture2D(0,0, TextureFormat.RGBA32, false);
        retVal.LoadImage(File.ReadAllBytes(path));
        if(result != null)
            result(retVal);
    }else{
        var WWW = new WWW("www.example.com/image.png");
        if (!www.isDone || !string.IsNullOrEmpty (www.error)) {
            Debug.LogError ("Load fail : " + url);
            if (result != null)
                result (null);
            yield break;
        }

        Save (www.texture.EncodeToPNG (), path);

        if (result != null)
            result (www.texture);
    }
}

The Save method refer to this :

public static void Save (byte[] data, string path)
{
    var file = new FileInfo (path);
    file.Directory.Create ();

    File.WriteAllBytes (path, data);

    data = null;
}

With an extending method that take a Texture2D and return a Sprite

public static Sprite ToSprite (this Texture2D t, Vector2? v = null)
{
    var vector = v ?? new Vector2(.5f, .5f);
    return Sprite.Create(t, new Rect(0, 0, t.width, t.height), vector);
}

And you can call this like :

StartCoroutine (getImageFromWS ("image",
        texture => SpriteToLoad.GetComponent<Image> ().sprite = texture.ToSprite ()));

Hoping that this will be useful

Answer 2

You could do something like this:

public GameObject Gameobj;

Gameobj.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().sprite = 
  Sprite.Create(
    www.texture, 
    new Rect( 0, 0, www.texture.width, www.texture.height ), 
    new Vector2( 0.5f, 0.5f ) );

Answer 3

The way you are doing it is more or less the only way you can do it without sticking it into your build or into an asset bundle. There is a call for WWW that will auto-cache it for you, WWW.LoadFromCacheOrDownload, but it only works with asset bundles, so you could make a single texture asset bundle and cache it that way. If that's not an option, you'll have to create your own caching mechanism