Text Mesh

The Text Mesh generates 3D geometry that displays text strings.

The Text Mesh Inspector

You can create a new Text Mesh from GameObject->Create Other->3D Text.

Properties


Text	The text that will be rendered
Offset Z	How far should the text be offset from the transform.position.z when drawing
Character Size	The size of each character (This scales the whole text)
Line Spacing	How much space will be in-between lines of text.
Anchor	Which point of the text shares the position of the Transform.
Alignment	How lines of text are aligned (Left, Right, Center).
Tab Size	How much space will be inserted for a tab '\t' character. This is a multiplum of the 'spacebar' character offset.
Font	The TrueType Font to use when rendering the text.

Details

Text Meshes can be used for rendering road signs, graffiti etc. The Text Mesh places text in the 3D scene. To make generic 2D text for GUIs, use a GUI Text component instead.

Follow these steps to create a Text Mesh with a custom Font:

Import a font by dragging a TrueType Font - a .ttf file - from the Explorer (Windows) or Finder (OS X) into the Project View.
Select the imported font in the Project View.
Choose GameObject->Create Other->3D Text.

You have now created a text mesh with your custom TrueType Font. You can scale the text and move it around using the Scene View's Transform controls.

Note: If you want to change the font for a Text Mesh, need to set the component's font property and also set the texture of the font material to the correct font texture. This texture can be located using the font asset's foldout. If you forget to set the texture then the text in the mesh will appear blocky and misaligned.

Hints

When entering text into the Text property, you can create a line break by holding Alt and pressing Return.
You can download free TrueType Fonts from 1001freefonts.com (download the Windows fonts since they contain TrueType Fonts).
If you are scripting the Text property, you can add line breaks by inserting the escape character "\n" in your strings.
Text meshes can be styled using simple mark-up. See the Styled Text page for more details.

Page last updated: 2013-02-08