The Android environment setup topic of the Unity Manual contains a basic outline of the tasks that you must complete before you are able to run code on your Android device, or in the Android emulator. For more in-depth information on setting your Android development environment, see the step-by-step instructions on the Android developer portal.
If you miss installing some necessary item during set-up, Unity verifies your development environment when building for Android and prompts you to upgrade or download missing components.
Unity provides scripting APIs that allow you to access various input data and settings from Android devices.
Refer to the Android scripting page of the Manual for more information.
Use plug-insA set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info
See in Glossary to call Android functions written in C/C++ directly from C# scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info
See in Glossary (Java functions can be called indirectly).
To find out how to make these functions accessible from within Unity, visit the Android plug-ins page.
Unity includes support for occlusion culling, which is a valuable optimization method for mobile platforms.
Refer to the Occlusion CullingA Unity feature that disables rendering of objects when they are not currently seen by the camera because they are obscured (occluded) by other objects. More info
See in Glossary Manual page for more information.
You can customize the splash screen that displays while the game launches on Android.
Refer to the Customizing an Android Splash Screen Manual page for more information.
The Android troubleshooting guide helps you discover the cause of bugs as quickly as possible. If, after consulting the guide, you suspect the problem is being caused by Unity, file a bug report following the Unity bug reporting guidelines.
See the Android bug reporting page for details about filing bug reports.
Ericsson Texture CompressionA method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression.
See in Glossary (ETC) is the standard texture compression3D Graphics hardware requires Textures to be compressed in specialised formats which are optimized for fast Texture sampling. More info
See in Glossary format on Android.
ETC1 is supported on all current Android devices, but it does not support textures that have an alpha channel. ETC2 is supported on all Android devices that support OpenGL ES 3.0. It provides improved quality for RGB textures, and also supports textures with an alpha channel.
By default, Unity uses ETC1 for compressed RGB textures and ETC2 for compressed RGBA textures. If ETC2 is not supported by an Android device, the texture is decompressed at run time. This has an impact on memory usage, and also affects renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary speed.
DXT, PVRTCPowerVR Texture Compression (PVRTC) is a fixed-rate texture format that compresses textures to significantly reduce file sizes without causing a noticable reduction in image quality. More info
See in Glossary, ATCAMD’s texture compression format for handheld devices to save on power, memory and bandwidth
See in Glossary, and ASTCAdaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) A block-based texture format that compresses textures to significantly reduce file sizes without cau sing a noticable reduction in image quality. More info
See in Glossary are all support textures with an alpha channel. These formats also support higher compression rates and/or better image quality, but they are only supported on a subset of Android devices.
It is possible to create separate Android distribution archives (.apk) for each of these formats and let the Android Market’s filtering system select the correct archives for different devices.
We recommend you use the Video Player to play video files. This supersedes the earlier Movie Texture feature.