ARCHIMATIX PRO Node-based Parametric Modeling for Unity [Unity Awards Finalist]

Work proceeds on the Roman Theater library item. In making this parametric seating module, I fixed a bunch of bugs and polished some features. Due in the next free update!



This parametric object is made of only 7 nodes!



The final theater will have 2 or 3 of these stacked.

 

What amazed me is the second pic. I assumed you made some kind of custom theater mesh, then i saw its just seven regular nodes. I think as parametric/procedural asset gen takes over it should be a best practice to work with as atomic elements as possible, because you can combine them in so many ways. I'm glad things like this and the built in cylinder can actually be broken down into smaller components, and experimented with on every level. Great work

 

Thanks, @protopop - the 7 nodes are everything you need for a single tier. Its just the StairShape from the library fed into a PlanSweep, where the plan is the HalfCircle Shape from the library. The same is done for the seating, but with a CircularArc Shape from the library. When they are put into a Grouper, that Grouper can become a library Item. Someone else may find the ArenaTier in the library and use it without ever opening it up, but if they did open it, the could see how it was done or perhaps modify to behave differently. As you observed, everything in AX is made of more AX!

 

Hi roryo,

there are some issues with the node editor when double clicking on a node or expression. Some issues are based on my learned behaviour, like double clicking on an expression to select the text. This zooms out the current node. It is a minor thing, but as I am always doing it I thought it would be nice to prevent zooming when working on an expression.

Btw. is there a way to get a bigger display for an expression?

Then there is sometimes a display bug when double clicking on a grouper. I was not able to find out the exact sequence of events yet, but it happened to me a few times. When double clicking on a grouper it opens and closes as expected. But sometimes the child nodes are not displayed anymore.

I could get them back by clicking on a triangle, but in one instance (a repeater) I only saw the repeater tool again but could not see the LinearRepeater anymore. There was no indicator how to get it back.

Sometimes, when closing and opening a grouper the nodes are placed way outside the display area of the node editor. I saw a connector but could not scroll to the node. All nodes were suddenly placed in different places then when I closed the Grouper.

Sorry that I cannot provide any screenshots, but I try to replicate the issue und will let you know when I can reproduce it exactly.

 

And now it happened again.

I added a control Variable to the grouper


. When pressing enter (no double clicking) all child nodes where suddenly collapsed. I cannot open the anymore. When double clicking on the grouper I get a huge empty frame.

 

Hi @habsi70 - I am not sure if this is the problem, but the expression under a parameter tells AX what to do when that parameter is changed. You would have some parameter name on the left side, then an equals side followed by an expression that has that parameter in it. For example, if you want the planksOffset to be equal to SizeZ, then you would add an expression to SizeZ:

planksOffset=SizeZ

In other words, when SizeZ is modified, it then goes down through the list of expressions and modifies the parameters cited based on its new value. So the expressions of SizeZ are what should happen to other parameters when SizeZ is changed.

If you was the reciprocal, then to the planksOffset you would add the expression:

SizeZ=planksOffset

Bot sure if this has anything to do with the mission children. For that I would like to take a look at your scene, if you don't mind. You can upload it on the slack site. To join the slack, please PM me in a Conversation your invoice number and email for the slack invite.

I'd also like to see if I can reproduce the double-click behavior you are seeing (which I can't at the moment).

 

Hi roryo,

I see, I made a mistake with the expression, thanks for clarifiing. I do not know if this has to do with the missing child nodes. I will PM you, thanks for the quick reply

 

Thanks for joining the slack and for helping track down that bug, @habsi70! The fix will be in the next update (due early next week).

 

What is the Slack? Can anyone join?

 

Anyone who sends me an invoice id and email (in a Conversation here) will get an invite to the slack.

Would be really great to have you join, @protopop!

 

Woking on a new Archimatix node called Lander, which will stamp out a level place in a Unity terrain for your AX model. The Lander takes the same Shapes that generate the building, so as you slide your Plan shapes around, the landscape adapts.









This will be great to helming set the Roman Theater from above into a hillside.

Of course, the next set is to try this with a Gaia Terrain!

Ok - now back to some bug fixing - there's an update to get out the door!

 

Just added a new precision level setting to the AX models:



This allows you to build very tiny models where the parameter values are in the millimeter range.

Another benefit is that by reducing the precision where not needed and while dragging parameters in realtime, the system gets as much as a 10X speed boost! This should help for runtime AX in VR applications.

 

So there is a potential new workflow design, along with the necessary nodes to accomplish that workflow. I've sorted out the design for @roryo , but just in case anyone wants to comment on it or simply share their thoughts about it, I'm sharing it here.

My mind works like what you see in that image. As with all those nodes splashed across that page, not much by itself makes sense, but like the noodles between them tend to suggest, everything always relates logically at some point, and eventually, it all comes together into that nice 'aha!' moment.


@RuinsOfFeyrin has helped me sum up what you'll find there, so look that over first if you'd like.


Here is what you'll find:

1) A Parameter Node (...with customizable naming for matching the ACTUAL parameters with the feeder's)
2) 2D (you didnt include 2D but it seems logical), and 3D logic Nodes that allow you to use an expression to determine which input is passed through it
3) Custom Handle node which allows you to link paramters from nodes to custom "scene view" handles.
4) Then an icon to allow you to toggle the scene view display on handles on and off​

 

Hello.
Tell me please, how can I change UV to remove the seam / seams?

 

Hi @Elfinnik159 - there are a couple of things you can do here.

First of all, the default UV logic you are seeing is the most architectural in the sense that typically floor materials like tiles or wood planks don't really get narrower as the go toward the center of a circle. Instead, wooden planks would mitered like you are seeing there. Such joints or architectural seams are often articulated with structural pieces like wooden framing pieces:



The same would go for terra-cotta tiles on roofs and the joint is manages by corner tiles that run along the seam.

Here is an example of a texture where you may not need decoration at the seam:



With these tiles, we also would not want the texture converging.

Although this makes sense architecturally, many modeling apps don't handle this sort of UV logic well, meaning that you have to sort of hand unwrap to get this effect.

Now, if you do indeed want the lines to converge as they go toward the center, then you can adjust the breakAngle of the plan Shape.



Now the seams are aligned, but since the trapezoid of each section of the form is triangulated, the trapezoids appear to have a sort of diagonal bend along the triangle edge. To alleviate this, we can add more segments to the circle.



As you add more segments the bend becomes less noticeable. The bend is not an AX issue but a matter of UVs on triangles. With a grid like this, the issue is at its most noticeable, but with most other textures, one is not usually aware of this:

 

Thank you. There is only one seam left, which is almost invisible to the texture of the stone.

 

Fantastic! Now for the last seam, as the PlanSweep comes round to close on itself, you can scale the texture so that it modulates with the curve length of the PlanSweep.

For the greatest control of the texture scaling (UV scaling) its best to make a local MaterialTool for the PlanSweep node. You can do this by clicking on the icon on the right of the Material input for the PlanSweep (red arrow). When you create the MaterialTool, it will have no Material listed in the object field, but that's ok, it just means it is inheriting the model's material. Feel free to add a different Material here if you like. Otherwise, the tool is just rescaling the inherited material.



Now uncheck the Unified_Scaling checkbox in the MaterialTool (green arrow).


At this point, you can modify the uScale of the material's texture independently of the vScale until the u-cycle seems to be repeating nicely at the end. This can be just visually acceptable (not necessarily to a complete cycle) or to the match the 1.0 of the U with the end of the PlanSweep. You can slide the uScale by clicking on the uScale label and dragging until it looks about right, or type in numerically to get more precise scaling.



Once you have set this up, you can rotate the Rectangle shape, and the texture will still behave itself:




Thanks for this great set of questions, @Elfinnik159 - now to make a manual page out of this!

 

Just finished implementing discoverability of custom nodes you write in C#, if you dare!

A great way to extend Archimatix is to create your own node to work with other nodes in the graph. While you can create your own node by saving a graph to the Library or by creating a custom parametric Shape with AX Turtle scripting, you have the most power and flexibility to change the course of AX history by coding a node in c#.

Fortunately, its not that hard to create a node. All you have to do is derive a class from one of AX's Generator classes. Most commonly, you will subclass Generator2D or Generator3D. You only need to override a couple of functions and, voila, you have created a custom node. For the your new node creation to be discovered by AX, in addition to subclassing a Generator, you need to implement the interface ICustomNode.

If your script file is anywhere in the project's Asset folder, your new node will be discoverable by AX. Additionally, if you make an icon image that is named according to the convention zz_AXNode-MyNodeName.jpg and place it anywhere in the Asset folder, your node will appear in the right sidebar menu of the node graph window, toward the bottom of the menu.

Creating the manual page now...

 

You're on fire Looks amazing!

 

That is wonderful news. Will this be included in the next update? Also where is the truss node in your current roadmap?

 

Despair not, @longroadhwy - the Trusser node is not too far off, though there is some basic knitting to do before then. Since it will be a fun node to do (like the new Lander node), it will be a indulgent enterprise, recklessly undertaken one morning, while other things go on hold for a few hours. Then again, when the documentation on custom node creation is in the wild, perhaps some other big-hearted C# wrangler will blow into town and create the Trusser before I get a chance to.

 

Even before the Trusser node is available, you can make bridge trusses with standard AX ShapeMerging.





Once we have the Trusser node, the diagonal bracing will be there automatically.

 

It will work. Gaia terrain is just Unity terrain. Love this!

 

Wishing (praying) for a Vertex Color Map Node for Archimatix(AX)!

Having this feature would vastly decrease development time and greatly improve applying color on vertices to achieve accurate Vertex Colored Meshes in AX.

AX currently can do a lot with its Material Nodes for PBR etc, however there's currently no way to import a texture and clone or apply all its pixel colors to the mesh vertices (the denser the mesh object the higher the color transfer accuracy). This could also simplify our workflows a great deal & eliminate switching to other apps like Mesh Materializer for Unity.

With this feature AX could help users achieve extremely high quality & various stylistic results in a very short amount of time making it an absolute must have for Real-Time-Graphics in Unity & put overly complex competitors to shame. This could be a real worth while game changer for developing on integrated graphics GPUs & mobile platforms that don't have the added power nor memory bandwidth of discrete GPUs, and best of all vertex shaders are resolution independent so they'll automatically scale up or down on 4K displays.

Baking textures into AX's Mesh Vertex Colors could be a complete game changer!
I've attached a visual representation of what a Vertex Color Tool node could be in AX (if only I could code this).

 

sory if i`m questioning again causes i didn`t read all of the discussion form..
but is it possible to Export the mesch+texture made with archimax ??
possible obj or fbx?

 

Have you tried any of the vertex painters out there on the asset store already? I imagine one of them might work and they are not expensive.

 

It is possible but not built-in. A few free OBJ exporters mentioned in this thread.

 

Hi @C_p_H - thanks for this post - it is so great to see a visualization of a new node idea, especially since the custom node API is almost ready! I agree that vertex color setting is a game-changer and AX should be able to set colors according to its constructional logic. Providing a texture to set the the vertex colors is a great idea. As I mentioned in our email exchange, I have not done much with vertex colors, so I am relying on you vertex color fans out there to let me know what you need!

I can't remember if I posted this image on this thread already, but here is an experiment did in the earlier days of AX with a shader that @mangax provided. In this case, the vertices at the top of the extrude were one color, while those at the bottom were another. The vertex colors in between were Lerped.


Lot's of possibilities here!

 

In preparing a custom node C# template, I decided to make the example for the generate() function a Deformer that randomizes vertex positions. Will add this also a an official Deformer node in the next update

 

hey!

very good asset generator.

i just bought it, but i got a little issue, i can't add points on curves by clicking the blue squares, when i click on them, it just deselect the curve, do you have an idea about how i can fix it?

also,

is there a feature to randomize textures? and remove seams? that could be great.
and to rotate uvs?

 

Hi @Aksotroth - welcome aboard!

Sorry you hit that bug. I just noticed it earlier today for the first time. It must have snuck in recently, but will be easy to fix. I'll make sure it is in the next update. For texture seams, check out the posts above on this page: #1566 and #1567.

 

I know, I own Vertex Tools Pro inside of Unity & 3DCoat/Cheetah3D outside of Unity (and a laundry list of others over the past decades, Houdini is nice but such a chore to use) so not interested in using vertex paint brushes directly in AX.
Vertex Color Map (a.k.a. Vector Texture Map) capabilities on the other hand have a wider range of attributes that can quickly be applied or baked directly to the 3d mesh vertices and layered procedurally.
Its like mapping or wrapping vector graphics (like .SVG of Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer, etc) onto your AXobj with the ability to sample a bitmap image & automatically transfer the pixel color data to the vertices on the 3d mesh, saving you hours of precision paint strokes without the aliasing or fixed resolution of texture maps.

 

This is painfully close to what I've been looking for. I'd very much like to buy this, but I need to be sure it'll have a few things:
Grid snapping with node transforms and handles (such as extrude), or at least ways to set increments for snapping.
3d paths/splines that can be used as plans or at least for deformation of resulting meshes (I did read you almost implemented this in the release version, so I hope you have it planned soon).
obj export with materials (people keep saying there are existing obj exporters, but the ones I keep finding on the asset store look horribly outdated and don't seem to be functional, reviews say the same). An internally supported exporter would be especially useful since it could work with the data generated by Archimatix such as an option for splitting nodes into submeshes.

The designs I'm trying to create have lots of curves in all axes. The problem I'm seeing with Archimatix is how strictly limited it is to two axes, and you have to dedicate your design based on a plane chosen. In some cases there's important options missing.
For example, extrudes have a "top" so if you want say, two shapes to have the same top effect but are aligned to different axes, doesn't seem possible.

If I start with these shapes for example, that I want to put together with the same effect on their tops.


Once extruded, these would be their tops (colored blue).


And when modified and put together, I'd get this.


There's no way to make another side of the quarter circle the "top", at least not that I'm aware of, same applies to other shapes.

 

@GreatLange
In the nodes of Extrude, Lathe etc. you have a under Transform a button mostly saying Y. If you click on it, you can cycle through the options: Y, Z, NX, NY, NZ, NONE, X...

CheersMichael

 

Firstly thank you far a truly amazing asset!.... I've been using it for a few weeks now and I am simply blown away by it's ease of use and range of possibilities....

I realise some of the following ideas are already in the pipeline but I came across these thoughts while using your asset that I think would take this from from being amazing to truly unbelievable:

• 3D booleans... there are still a few constructs that are hard/impossible to achieve without this (or without external tools, which make the workflow awkward) - this would be truly amazing... even cutting a 2D shape out of a fully 3D shape would be good (like a door arch in the side of a plan sweep) - I enjoy constructing with the SabreCSG asset as it is totally based on booleans (although not nearly as powerful as Archimatix)
• Surforge integration and some more UV functionality (unwrap or face paint would be awesome)
• Auto generating LODs from the detail slider... would be so good to add a few "key" detail levels and auto stamp different LOD models models from there into a LOD group. You can of course do this manually but would make the workflow so much faster
• To be able to feed the "Enabled" checkbox from another boolean parameter - I saw we can define our own parameters on a group level and feed these into input parameters of the various nodes in the group (which is awesome)... however you cannot do this for the little "Enabled" checkbox at the top.... I would love to be able to switch certain parts of the construction on or off completely... e.g. the option to generate doors for a barn or not
• More support for instantiating existing prefabs and also automatically attaching scripted components to a generated piece (e.g. attach an open door rotate script component to an extruded square)
• a random node selector tool - so we could for instance have it randomly choose from an array of nodes which to use as an input shape or mesh... would be great for the 3D plan repeater etc. - this could be extended to an sequential array selector so you can do patterned fences etc... like Octave3D or Pro fence builder
• as mentioned by a few... an exporter to do touch ups in other packages would be super

Once again... an awesome asset!!... none of the above is criticism.. simply ideas. As an indie/hobbyist game developer but full-time pro C# developer, I am super excited about being ably to write my own tools and modules.... can't wait!

Oh and thanks for the latest update, will be playing with it later!

Chris Mulder
London

 

Hi @GreatLange - thanks for your questions!

1. Grid shaping is controlled by the gui at the bottom of the scene view. If you have snapping turned on, then pressing the control key temporarily deactivates it. If snapping is off, then control temporarily activates it.



2. 3D splines are in the roadmap for both extrusions and for deformations.

3. .obj and .fbx will be integrated soon as well.

4. As @mensch-mueller noted, each shape and/or object can be oriented on any axis (as well as freely rotated).


When you first connect a shape to an Extrude node, it takes its axis orientation from the source shape.



I hope this answers some of your questions! Sorry I can't be more precise about the timing of the exporters and the 3D splines, but they are both heavily requested features, so they are priorities.

 

I've found another asset Teila uses! Take my money Roryo! I am tired of sucking at Blender! This looks much more my style. =D

 

Thanks, @malkere - happy to!

 

@CplMulder - thank you for this awesome and concise list of feature requests! While all of these are in the roadmap, it is really helpful to see them laid out like this! Also, the more I hear from people, the better I am able to gauge my priorities. Speaking of priorities, I am working on the Channeler node today, which implements your penultimate item. Repeaters will be able to use a Channeler as input in order to have a list of objects to choose from . A simple rule set can be defined to determine the the order of the items in the channel.

 

Thanks for the PDF, @C_p_H - will take a close look!

 

Just noticed Surforge has added (early) integration with Archimatix in the latest submitted version

 

Yes - the developer of Surforge has been hard at work on integration with Archimatix. There's still more to be done there, but a great start!

 

I have no doubt you will love it!

 

Yes, I know that's how it works. I was pointing this out as a problem.
The example I made is not showing something I want. It's to show an undesirable outcome.

Here's what I'm looking for. I would need this part, the curve, to be treated as the "top".


So that the outcome would ultimately be something like this.


I don't see any way to do this in Archimatix as it currently is.

 

Sorry, I misunderstood. If the bottom and far edges of this form are not beveled, then you are correct - AX cannot currently do this. Will keep it in mind for future features!

 

Thank you for your responses. Glad to hear these things are in consideration and some are priority. Keep in mind that I only used a simple bevel for my example. This would also include anything possible with the "top" of a shape, such as expansions, shells, etc such that any design is possible from it.

Archimatix can do something like this with ease:


But even something as simple as this is impossible, as far as I can tell:


And this is what I'm in need of. Flat areas will not suffice for what I'm making. The structures in what I'm making need verticality and slants and curves in all axes.

 

It is possible to do this in Archimatix:



Here the model is set up so that you can continue to vary it based on play testing or design ideas.

However, if you really only want one configuration, you could model it with Archimatix (AX) as in your first image and then bring it into ProBuilder (PB) to lift the end up with polygonal editing. In the AX-to-PB workflow, you would model in AX where it is difficult to do in PB, and then when you want something idiosyncratic, the bring the AX model into PB and continue.

 

Oh wow, can I ask how that was achieved?

I'm not fond of modeling tools in Unity, ProBuilder included. I find doing traditional modeling in Unity (among other things) is incredibly awkward and cumbersome. Blender is my software of choice. Archimatix however is much more specialized and looks like I could easily get comfortable working with it, especially if I could export the results for further work in Blender (hence my request for obj export).

 

Just picked up AX during the sale. Definitely a different way to look at spaces and how objects are composed vs just pulling edges around to make your form. Some compound forms like those two platforms and ramp make more sense when you think of it as three pieces, not an extruded outline (makes sense when you think about it but that's not how I looked at models with polygon modeling *shrugs*). And from what I remember, the connections in AX are bi-directional so if you lower the circle the ramp will lower too.

I wasn't sure how this would fit in my game pipeline but I keep seeing the "play" people are having and got jealous. My poor wallet....

 

The real goal is to make sure your feature request queue is never empty. Just trying to do my part.

Looking forward to the custom nodes.