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

Archimatix has been selected as a Finalist in the Tools category for the Unity Awards!


You can help push AX over the finish line: cast your votes here!

 

Great idea - and I can use some of the recent posts on the topic. Nice to make a manual page when you already have some text and images!

 

Thank you!!!!

 

Yes - all should be in the video above, but if you want to see an animated gif ....

 

Looks great! I wish GIFs had audio! Maybe link to a youTube video? Thanks for posting this, @puzzlekings!

 

Oh, very nice! Aaand I just purchased it : )
I'm going to try extending AX with own custom nodes as well at some point in time.. so nice that it is possible.
One question - is it safe to rename the 630Studios folder? I have my folders prefixed with "_" to have them at the top, but it doesn't work with numbers.
By the way you seem to get that weird purplish reflection bug if I see it correctly? If that's the case and you haven't tried it yet, you can go to Lighting > Environment > Environment Reflections and change the compression setting from Auto to Uncompressed, then rebake the reflection probes/lighting. At least that helps on one of my computers that displays those weird colorations.

+1 for more documentation. You explain the stuff really well @roryo, some things are just maybe a bit hard to find. Since you asked - I think I'd like to know a bit more about the PlanRepeater and Bay Width, Maximum segment length etc.

 

Just cut a new 30 second reel for AX

 

Currently no you cant rename or move the 630Studios folder. There are some things that load stuff from a pre-defined path. I will work on switching things over so the folder can be moved in a future release.

 

Also wanted to say thanks for purchasing the node package. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
The Shape Splitter has an update coming (eventually) that will let you configure a couple options for break angles so that things like circles and half circles dont get split in to a million segments if you dont want them to.

When you decide to jump in to making nodes let me know and I can point you in the right direction on some things and save you some of the troubles I had in the beginning. The amount of code in AX is staggering.

 

Looks great Rory - love the camera fly-bys

 

Someone said I should show off my crappy art, so here it is. I made some mushrooms for a game I've been working on, it took me some thinking on how to approach it but its actually straight forward now that I have it implemented.

 

Worked a bit on a new manual page for Relations (in progress). I am finally getting that having less detail in the scene reduces the GIF size - so no more grids on the ground plane! Better to spend the detail on relaying concepts.



This illustrates an inter-nodal parameter relation that connects the Trans_Y parameter of the beam to with the Height parameter of the column Extrude, as show in the figure below.

 

This article is very relevant to how I constructed my mushrooms. The CapBase, CapCut and Stem are each build using a relation to the Radius input. It could include some additional parameters to change the cap shape to some degree, but that's a project for another day.

 

Glad it is already useful, @PassivePicasso! As you know, documentation is not a developer's most absolute favorite pastime, so it is nice to have this feedback.

And the page has grown a bit already in the last hour, with sections sprouting up like mushrooms!

 

Has anyone been using AX for serious modeling and level design across a large expanse of pretty terrain and gotten around to placing gameobjects only to find moving around in Unity, not to mention your complex model and huge environments, tedious at best?

If this is you, you might be exactly who I'm looking for.

I want to feature your work alongside the use of my new Asset, Snapcam, in a video on the Asset Store:


https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/99523


Send me some relevant screens of your game and preferably a video of it in action in order to be selected. -- You must be capable of demonstrating moving around a large complex AX structure with many corridors using Snapcam, also moving across a vast environment, meaningful placement of cameras using the scene view to camera functionality, and demonstrating a small amount of gameplay that illustrates how easy using Snapcam makes it to place meaningful gameplay objects/elements in your game that affect the flow of the gameplay along a player's path through your world. Also, cool 2d projects are welcome to apply too!

In return for your help, you'll get a free plug for your game/art/etc, as well as a free copy of Snapcam so that it may save you even more time and effort in the future on your project!

If anyone's interested, hit me up via PM!

--

Also, @roryo, I'll be sure to give AX a major shout too! If you've created anything of impressive complexity and want to donate, feel free to share it and I'll include that in the video too!

--

Thanks for the support to everyone who has already purchased Snapcam, and please look forward to more cool stuff coming with it in the future!

Later!

 

This tool looks amazing, but I'm wondering if I'd ever be able to really do anything useful with it. The Node system looks extremely complicated and I feel I'd probably end up abandoning this as soon as I tried to use it. But perhaps there are some users who can attest to its ease of use? Note that I am not a 3D modeler so what might seem trivial to a 3D modeler might be ridiculously hard for me.

 

I just bought it about 15 minutes ago. I'm in basically the same boat as you. I've been learning blender but have been keeping a eye on this also for a few months. I figure this could help my workflow.

It's my first go at this type of modelling I'd keep you and everyone updated on my progress in learning this tool.

 

Hey @magique

Honestly, It sounds like for the most part you have your mind already made up on the way you feel about AX. While people could try to convince you otherwise, I feel in the end you will have the same impression you went in to it with.

If you already think its not something you have a use for, looks overly complicated, and something you wont use more then a few times that is most likely what you will take away from it after you purchase it.

There are lots of posts on here of people talking about how cool ax is, and how much they love it, and even a video posted recently of A game made by @puzzlekings that makes use of AX. If those things were not enough to sway you to purchase AX, I'm not sure there is anything else anyone could say that would actually change your mind.

With that said.

Yes you can make useful things with AX.

The node system at its face is fairly straight forward, however you can get more complicated the deeper you go (with TurtleScript, Expressions, etc etc etc). Learning to use the program itself is not terribly difficult. The real challenge is the shift in thinking that is required to model in this way. Since you dont come from a modeling background it may be easier for you to pick this up then others since most people who do modeling have been trained to think one way forever.

If you like to tinker and experiment with random architecture, modeling, and Mashups between Asset Store apps, AX will never be something you abandon, it has to many possibilities.

Now i dont say all this to tell you AX is not the tool for you, but since you already seemed to have a strong opinion on AX I dont want to sugar coat anything and have you go purchase it and come back disappointed.

 

Not at all. Quite the opposite.

I sure hope not. I was hoping it could really help me and be as amazing as it looks.

 

I apologize then for misinterpreting. In that case if you are going in to AX with an open mind, I think you will be delighted at the possibilities it opens up. As i said it does require a shift in thinking from normal modeling, but you may be at an advantage there.

If you had more specific questions about AX I could perhaps be of more use, but without some direction as to what you think you want to use AX for, or questions you have about how something may work or be done in AX there isnt much more i can say besides AX is pretty darn sweet.

 

I never had any experience with this type of modelling and I found it easy to get into. I actually find it fun to play around with. That said, I use it mostly for somewhat abstract creations. What are you looking to design?

 

I'm thinking it could be useful for an RPG game for the various landscape features such as ruins, buildings, etc.

 

If I ever get round to doing the sci-fi game that's in my head then this could be the tool for me to create various futuristic looking buildings and other structures - and feed in to surforge to texture

 

It definitely could be useful for those things. I plan to use it for something similar once @roryo implements the city layout functionality. Been waiting since before AX was even released for this feature.

That said, for simple cities, @RuinsOfFeyrin has already made some preliminary functionality for exactly the kind thing you're wanting to do with his logic nodes pack's grid functionality as well as his other nodes. As you've probably already seen, @roryo has put together expandable roof systems, and i doubt he'd mind putting together an in-depth example of modeling a few different styles in AX if you ask him nicely, just so you can get a feel for the workflow and tools.

Floorplans, on the other hand, can be modeled separately, and are a total breeze, with not much more than two extrudes and an inset -- and I hear whispers of a dungeon layout generator for AX might be in the cards from someone..

Ruins can be made by modeling in AX and taking the untarnished model (stamped and exported as .obj) out to any external modeling software and chip away at it with your tools. UVs would already be there, so it'd just be a matter of preserving them while chipping away. You'd lose parametric control this way, but that doesn't stop you from using parametrics to actually place the ruins, so just remember don't overdo it and you'll be doing great! Blender has sculpting tools that can chip your model up pretty well and even tools that make it explode. With proper usage together, AX and Blender can do nearly anything you want with very little effort learning either.

The trick is just try to do something and push yourself as far as you can go. You will rarely hit a wall with blender that a quick Google search won't give you insight enough to fix, and roryo is great about helping you 'get' how to use AX. Just pm him and he usually will get back to you before too long with an answer. It's rarely "click this and it will work" but it's more "try it this way and see how it works for you." -- the latter is much more rewarding imho.

 

Robot Kyle isn't exactly sure of just what this thing is, but he knows he can make with just a few Archimatix nodes!




A few FreeCurves are thickened and then fed into a ShapeMerger. The result is fed into an Extrude with negative rounding set in the Plan input. The Extrude is then fed into a Domical deformer.

 

Hi. I've finally gotten some time to play with AX, and it's pretty sweet.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is how you got different materials onto the BevelBox.
I created an extrude of a shape and when I add one material, it cover the entire thing, even though I've added a material to both the Material and Top Cap slots. Did I miss something?

 

I think there's a node you put in between that decides what material goes where

 

Could you include more details on the nodes here? Trying to recreate it but having trouble with the negative rounding doing anything useful.

Also, any pointers on how to perhaps fill in the holes with something as well? Trying to wrap my head around the ins and outs.

 

Thanks, @Dreamcube017!

Looks like you did everything right. Perhaps you have unearthed a bug. Could you email just the scene file to me. Or if you like, you can join the slack.com site for AX, where it is easy to swap files. For that you can start a private conversation with me here and post an email to send the invite to and your asset store invoice id.

 

One thing that is important is to make sure you have the rounding top set to round. A negative rounding will then give a fillet at sharp interior corners.



I added roundness on both the ShapeMerger output and Extrude input of the shape. I also noodled with offset.

Hope this helps.

 

I sent you a PM Rory, thanks.

 

Just added an option for physics fans: concave rigidbodies are a problem, so you can opt to have a Shape automatically split into convex pieces.

 

excellent

 

Robot Kyle contemplates his love for October from his odd, icky, fleshy (not to mention stanky) labyrinth. Happy Halloween yall!

 

Nice! Well, creepy, but, nice!

 

Hello, all

I'm brand new to Archimatix and just started learning it tonight. I'm impressed with the quality of the documentation!

My sandbox project (not a production project) is in Unity 2017.2b11, because I thought it might be useful to combine my learning with some testing of AX itself in the newest Unity.

AX seems to work fine so far, with one exception. If I select away from my AX object, then re-select it, the widget handles fail to appear, and I have a lot of the following error (shown here with full stack trace) in the console:

Code (CSharp):

1. [Exception] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
3. Mesher.generateFirstPass()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/Generators/Meshers/Meshers.cs:350
4. Extrude.generate()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/Generators/Meshers/Extrude.cs:417
5. AXParametricObject.generateOutputNow()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/AXParametricObject.cs:4413
6. AXModel.generateAlteredPOs()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/AXModel.cs:2931
7. AXModel.generate()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/AXModel.cs:2783
8. AXModel.isAltered()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/AXModel.cs:2735
9. AXModel.isAltered()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Core/AXModel.cs:2721
10. ExtrudeHandler.drawControlHandlesofInputParametricObjects()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/GeneratorHandlers/MesherHandlers.cs:207
11. GeneratorHandler.drawControlHandlesofInputParametricObjects()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/GeneratorHandlers/GeneratorHandler.cs:192
12. GeneratorHandler.drawControlHandles()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/GeneratorHandlers/GeneratorHandler.cs:268
13. GeneratorHandler3D.drawControlHandles()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/GeneratorHandlers/GeneratorHandler.cs:1717
14. GeneratorHandler.drawHandles()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/GeneratorHandlers/GeneratorHandler.cs:158
15. ArchimatixEngine.SceneGUI()    Assets/Archimatix/Scripts/Editor/ArchimatixEngine.cs:1379
16. SceneView.CallOnSceneGUI()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:2440
17. SceneView.HandleSelectionAndOnSceneGUI()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1759
18. SceneView.OnGUI()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1591
19. MonoMethod.Invoke()    /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222
20. MonoMethod.Invoke()    /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232
21. MethodBase.Invoke()    /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115
22. HostView.Invoke()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:285
23. HostView.Invoke()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:278
24. HostView.InvokeOnGUI()    C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:245
25.  

If I go into the node editor and just slightly move any node, forcing a rebuild, the object begins working normally again.

I'll probably restart my sandbox in 2017.1 to avoid this, as I imagine it's specific to the Unity beta, but I wanted to report the error for your reference.

 

Hey @syscrusher

This is actually an actual issue and it has popped its head up to a few users today besides yourself actually. Rory is aware of it, and has already fixed it. There is an updated build available via the slack chat.

 

Welcome aboard, @syscrusher! If you PM me with your email and invoiceID, I can get the slack.com invite to you so you can download the latest build. Otherwise, version 1.0.10 should hit the asset store early next week.

 

Terrific, I'll do that right away! FWIW, I'm the person who hiked with you back to the hotel after the first-night mixer at Unite. I *told* you I was going to get started learning AX this week.

 

This is actually made following your last example with an added circle node, shapemerger and extrude for the walls...

 

good thing I haven't bought it yet I get to go straight into the patched release

 

FWIW, the dev has been extremely responsive, and he's getting me set up with early access to the patch. The asset is working just fine for me other than this one bug, which is already fixed in the new version.

EDIT: I got the new version from Rory this morning, and I can confirm that it works under 2017.2b11.

 

Hello, all

I'm Alex,i have followed Archimatix for a few month now but i just started applying it to a couple of projects at work and at university. At the moment I'm trying implementing it in a urban design studio as a computational tool in architecture, which can generate of urban form, from measures of future density of living per area that are expected to come to a new region in Sydney.

I saw that you where working in an "urban planer" tool, is it a tool available to be found in the Archimatix inspector or is the info about it some where? an help would be tremendously appreciated.

awesome documentation by the way is was extremely clear to start using the Archimatix tool.

Thanks, Alex.

 

Hey guys,

I've been hitting this glitch where I'll be in the middle of working on a model and the archimatix editor will just blank out. I won't be able to edit the model or mess with the nodes at all at that point.
It seems to mostly happen when I'm transforming a curved object.

Has anyone been experiencing this same kind of thing? It's really killing my productivity because I just end up scraping the model and starting over.

 

Hi @NicholausFox - the bug you are hitting has been fixed. I am submitting an update to the asset store today, but you can get it sooner if you join the slack.com site for Ax, where intermediate builds are posted (and fun discussion is had!). If you PM me your asset store invoiceID and an email address, I can send you the slack invite pronto.

 

Hi Alex - we have big plans for doing urban modeling, but the effort is still in its infancy. I would love to find out more about your research strategy to see if Ax can help out sooner than later. Perhaps we could meet on the slack for Ax? I just need your asset store invoiceID and an email to send the slack invite to. You can PM me these in a private conversation here.

 

That would be great! I always appreciate the quick and great customer service you provide.

 

Those sidewalks and curbs are a great use-case for AX!

EDIT: Let me explain why I say that. Curbs typically have rounded edges, because (1) it's hard to make concrete do a sharp right angle, and (2) even if you could, the convex right angles would chip easily in the field, and (3) convex right angles on concrete aren't very safe for pedestrians. In a modeling tool like Blender, it's pretty easy to make rounded corners like that, but once you do, changes to the general geometry become more cumbersome (well, once you apply the modifiers so the mesh is ready for export). With procedural generation, you manipulate only the upstream part of the geometry, and Archimatix applies those edge rounding modifiers procedurally and automatically. I've done this the hard way, and this sort of thing is one of the main reasons I bought Archimatix.

 

It been a bit of learning curve for me, like I posted I've never used anything like this. But it's actually pretty cool to work with.

 

Parametric modeling takes a different mindset from traditional modeling, but, as Substance Designer demonstrates in materials design, it's a real game-changer for designer productivity once you learn it. I'm just coming up the AX learning curve myself, as you are, but I have a slight advantage from some parametric model experience in CAD systems.