Introducing SabreCSG Brush Tools for Unity

Hi everyone,

I've been working since December on a feature I've always wanted in Unity, the ability to build levels using Constructive Solid Geometry. Adding and subtracting shapes together to build complex levels. You can make some pretty decent block outs in Unity with the in built cubes, but I found it frustrating not being able to carve a doorway in a wall I just made or to resize blocks with handles rather than using scale factors. So over the last ten months I've been beavering away at building an entire level design toolset around the core concept of boolean spaces and SabreCSG is the result!

Check out SabreCSG at the Unity Asset Store​

Core Features of SabreCSG:

• Boolean CSG technology (BSP-like) that allows you to add and subtract brushes together, allowing you easily to create complicated geometry very rapidly!
• Built geometry uses Unity meshes and mesh renderers, so it's no different to work with than any other mesh. Geometry is batched by material to give you built in draw call minimisation.
• Advanced resize tools allow you to resize brushes intuitively, rotate and translate them
• Vertex tools let you go in and adjust individual vertices, to easily make ramps or flowing archways for example
• A set of surface tools allow you to change materials on faces and edit UVs
• Clip planes allow you to bevel brushes, cut chunks off them or even split a brush into two!
• Supports procedural programatic offline building of levels through editor scripting
• Import 3D meshes from art tools for use as convex brushes
• Export built geometry to .OBJ for use in external 3D tools

Screenshots:

Pillar is an atmospheric exploration level built in SabreCSG that gives the sense of an ancient ruin abandoned in the desert.



In this image I've superimposed the brushes on the left (blue are additive, orange are subtractive) with the final geometry on the right


Pillar is a multiplayer FPS map, this shot shows off one of the interior corridors


A shot of part of the exterior:


Another composite image showing some of the brushes on the left and the final geometry on the right:


Building with CSG:

Here's a quick example of how CSG let's you build something really quickly (as an indication of time this only took me about 2 minutes to create):


I've built a floor, a couple of walls and a ramp out of a few simple additive shapes. Then I've added subtractive shapes to cut out an arched door and a path at the top of the ramp. This then produces the following geometry:


I've put together an entire site with tutorial content and reference material which you can visit at sabrecsg.com/learn

Please let me know if you have any questions, either through a reply or email me direct at barnaby@sabresaurus.com

Check out SabreCSG at the Unity Asset Store​

 

I'm guessing you came from Unreal.
I really never liked that building approach - though some awesome levels were created using the boolean/brush additive/subtraction process in U Tournament days.

The tool looks pretty sweet - for those who like this process.

 

Thanks! I've not had a chance to work with Unreal, my background for the last 4 years has been working in Unity, before that I worked with in-house engines mainly or self-written engines.

One of the perks of CSG is it enables a bunch of different workflows, in addition to building the entire level in CSG (which of course might not be right for you), it's very rapid for prototyping out spaces, so even if you wanted to mesh over it later you could use CSG to get the space right then add meshes in as appropriate (either as a mix of meshes and CSG or as a complete replacement), or you can even just use CSG for the collision geometry.

 

This looks very interesting. For those that don't understand what CSG is see this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

 

This looks nice! But is there an scripting api? Runtime support? That would be great!
Cheers
Michael

 

In his FAQ he says there is scripting for offline support. I don't know about during running during your game though. Are you planning to make an in game editor, or is it for destructible environments?
http://sabrecsg.com/faqs/

 

I am interested in this asset, but I'd like to know:
-can I control the tiling texture size like in Probuilder?
-are the subtractions destructive or do they work as a modifier?

Also, a bit off-topic, but I see the template of your website used a lot recently?
Care sharing how is it called and where can it be found/adquired?

 

Yes. See the section 2. Applying Materials over here:
http://sabrecsg.com/learn/reference/brush-tools/

I just bought it recently and can tell you there is a list of brushes that produce a final mesh. You can change the order of the brushes at any time, which changes the mesh that's produced.

If you want better answers, you might like to email him. From what he says on his assets store, that's the way he prefers to be contacted.

 

This asset intrigues me. I suspect that the reason I haven't bought it yet may be down to marketing - the available videos are detailed but they plod along. A short video that showed something cool being made very quickly, without explaining every part of the system as you go along, is what I'm missing.

 

As Ariegos said right now there's support for editor scripting, but as soon as SabreCSG 1.2 is submitted we'll start looking at run-time support in 1.3 to allow CSG to be used for destructible environments, in-game level editing and other things.

We'll be releasing a beta for 1.3 in the next couple of weeks hopefully, right now you can download a beta of 1.2 at the SabreCSG Download Centre

Again thanks to Ariegos for answering this, SabreCSG allows you to change UVs and materials through it's Face mode. This has been upgraded in 1.1 with new alignment tools, along with new adjacency selection helpers coming in 1.2

None of the CSG operations are destructive, meaning you're free to reorder, duplicate and move whole chunks of level very rapidly without worrying about fixing up underlying meshes yourself, which is one of the big perks of CSG.

Thanks, I'll record a couple of shorter new videos next week, one giving an overview of the asset and the other showing the new 1.2 features that are coming.

In case you've not seen it, this is the video showing the features that were introduced in 1.1:

 

We've just released a new update for SabreCSG - 1.2, full blog post is available here including a breakdown of changes with gifs showing most of them in action.

 

I am very intrigued by this, but can anyone who has tried this compare this to Probuilder?

 

Any more info on runtime in 1.3?

thanks

 

1.3 has just been submitted and includes support for auto-rebuilding in the Editor (as well as a huge number of other improvements). From 1.2 to 1.3 the entire build engine has been rewritten, making a lot of new features possible that will be introduced over the next couple of releases. One of these new features will be support for using SabreCSG for CSG calculations at run-time in deployed builds and is the main feature coming in 1.4.

Most of the groundwork for run-time usage is now complete, the main thing for 1.4 is exposing a good API for programatic use and creating documentation and examples. There should be betas available in the next couple of weeks and aiming to submit 1.4 mid-April.

You can see the features in 1.3 and download the submitted build (if you have bought a license from the Asset Store) at the SabreCSG Download Centre. The 1.4 betas will also be available from the Download Centre soon.

If you've like to get emails when new betas become available please send me an email at barnaby@sabresaurus.com and I'll add you to the distribution list.

 

excellent. Thanks very much for the info.

Tony

 

I bought it and like it so far but there are some oddities, for example, if I clone a brush, move it to the side of the old one so that their edges perfectly line up, then rotate and move it around a little and then rotate and move it back in the old position, the edges suddenly do not line up anymore and are off by a smaller distance than the grid snap setting. Is it me doing something wrong or an actual bug?

Also it would be really helpful to get a tutorial on creating a whole level, just like ProBuilder did, just to get a feel of how to approach level geometry efficiently with the brush philosophy.

 

I suspect what's happening here is related to having a centre point of brush off grid, if you could post some screenshots or send me them in an email at barnaby@sabresaurus.com that would be great. If a brush does go off grid you can press Snap To Grid to bring it back. We're also going to be introducing pivots for rotation which should help situations where the centre point is off grid and also make certain rotations quicker.

There's a video recorded with an earlier version of SabreCSG of building an arena here:

We're currently in the process of updating the tutorial videos, but all of what's in the previous videos will still be transferable it's just there may be easier ways to certain things subsequently introduced.

 

Our biggest new update is now out, there's a full blog post detailing all the new features here

Check out SabreCSG on the Asset Store

 

I am really torn between knowing which is better: ProBuilder or SabreCSG. Both look good but for me, being a developer, it's difficult for me to know which has the easiest and most efficient level creation approach and process...

 

Hi Steven,
I agree, picking the right tools for your workflow is really important. Personally I've always believed in building levels spatially (by representing spaces as brushes) and non-destructively, so that levels can be tweaked in small ways and huge ways without worrying about breaking/joining and fixing meshes manually. The main reason I created SabreCSG was as a games developer I was frustrated by the existing methods of level design in Unity and wanted to create tools to make it quicker and more natural to build levels in.

I recommend you check out the videos on our Youtube channel and also the reviews on our Asset Store page.

Please let me know if you have any questions, either by posting on here or sending me an email at barnaby@sabresaurus.com

Thanks,
Barnaby

 

I had been leaning towards your product for a while which is why I didn't end up jumping on ProBuilder's recent sale. I just need my wallet to cool down from recent Asset Store purchases before I buy this (or else I'll have to answer to my wife ) In the meantime I am going to watch your videos and read up on the tutorials some more.

Thanks for the response!

 

Hello there!

I have bought the asset today and I'm liking it so far, however, I'm having a pretty serious problem.
The editor often freezes when I'm working, forcing me to restart Unity, and often losing my progress. This seems to happen when using subtracting brushes (which are the reason why I bought this asset in first place). I don't believe that my specs are the issue, as my computer is rather good. The brushes themselves are pretty simple (hexagon shapes), so it's not like they are too complex either.

Are you aware of such a problem, or do you have an idea how to solve it? It's unusable for me at the moment.

Best Regards,
Kristina

 

Hi Kristina,

I'm sorry to hear about these problems, I'll try and make sure they're resolved as quickly as I can

Could you confirm what Unity version you're on and also if you're on Windows/OSX?

Also are you using the new Auto Rebuild feature? If you have any screenshots of the sort of geometry you're trying could you email me them at barnaby@sabresaurus.com and I'll take a look into it

Thanks,
Barnaby

 

Just wanted to say that we talked about my problem via email, and that the developer solved it really quickly and was very nice about it.
(Just in case anyone was wondering to what happened.)

Best Regards,
Kristina

 

That seems to be the EXACT Unity asset I've always wanted! I am a huge fan of Valve Hammer Editor and I could never get used to the main modelling software like Blender and stuff. I really want to map in my game and also make some prefabs (like buildings) but I basically can't, but with this I could make anything I want!

Can you confirm to me that I can use your asset just like if I was in Hammer and then I just make a random building, I texture face by face (just like in Hammer) and then I just use that building as a unique prefab in my level and it will act as its own GameObject? And also, are each faces (or triangles) individual in the finished mesh? What I mean by that is: can I use a script that I have which "pushes" children GameObjects of a main GameObject to simulate an "explosion" when the main GameObject gets destroyed?

Looking forward to your answer and I will surely buy it even if what I am requesting is not 100% there since you seem to be very active and I can just look forward to your next updates and I'm sure those will be very helpful.

Oh, and my project version is 5.2.3 right now, I guess that's fine?

 

Hi essbee, yep this is a brush building level tool as opposed to a mesh tool. You can make buildings or levels in SabreCSG then it produces a game object with the meshes under it. So if you want to make two different sections you could use two CSG models if you wanted them to be independent of each other.

Texturing is also done per face and there's a dedicated video tutorial on texturing you might like to check out.

There's some quick videos in this YouTube playlist which will give you a good idea of how SabreCSG works

Regarding having a destructible building, that could certainly be achieved through multiple CSG Models. We're improving the workflow for dealing with multiple CSG Models, so while it should be quite easy already in 1.3 it'll be further streamlined in 1.4/1.5

Please let me know if you have any more questions and thanks for commenting

 

Hey thanks a lot for your answer!

It's already awesome that everything I want to do is actually possible, even if it's not in the easiest way possible yet, I don't mind that!

So I could make a building consisting of multiple "blocks" instead. Hmm yeah that make sense and I can definitely see how it could be done watching your videos, that's great!

This is very cool, I will buy it in the next few days, probably tomorrow

Cheers!

 

Oh, and is there any way for me to take a look at the "planned" features for the upcoming versions? I know you've posted a few infos about that in your earlier posts but I was wondering if there was a more "official" list.

 

There isn't a public roadmap because priorities tend to shift quite a bit based on what users are saying. I prioritise feature requests and suggestions as much as I can, so if there's a feature you'd like to see send me an email at barnaby@sabresaurus.com and I'll do my best to integrate it in the next release.

The next two releases are going to be:
1.3.2 which will be some bug fixes and also some lightmap unwrapping options, this should be submitted in the next week
1.4 which will include brush drawing support, the start of a programmatic runtime API (allowing for example procedural dungeon generation), the start of vertex colouring and a lot of other features.

Also you can get a good idea of what's in progress by following me on Twitter if you're a Twitter user

You can also download betas or the submitted build (before it is approved and on the Store) at the SabreCSG Download Centre. When new builds are released I send an email out to let people know, if you'd like to be on the email list (regardless of whether you've bought SabreCSG yet) please let me know your email address, either by emailing me or sending me a PM on here.

 

Ok perfect! I'll send you my email because I am really curious about what you are going to come up with. That video for 1.4 seems very similar to the 4-windows interface of Hammer where you had the top, side, front and camera view, is that what you are aiming for? If so, that does seem pretty awesome from what you've shown !

 

It's always been our aim to make SabreCSG work well both in 3D views and 2D views, a lot of Unity users are used to just working directly in a 3D view, but a lot of people are used to working in a 4 Split. Unity actually has a preset for a 4 Split layout built in, in SabreCSG 1.4 we've extended that a little with an option that will jump you straight into a 4 Split optimised for level design:


The new draw tools work slightly differently in 2D and 3D views, in 2D they are based on the grid and infer their depth values from previously selected objects. In 3D they work the same unless you start drawing on another brush, this allows you to actually draw additively on brushes and draw subtractively from brushes in 3D which I think is quite a nice workflow. This is also reflected in the other tools which while they share most of their feature set between 2D and 3D, where it's appropriate I've added features that only work in 2D or 3D to make them a bit faster to work with.

 

Thanks a lot for adding my email and also for your in-depth answers!

One last question (just thought about it now): Since the "face-by-face" texturing is something I really enjoy doing, I was wondering if it was possible to use an existing mesh made in any other 3d modelling program and then texture it with SabreCSG directly in Unity? I guess that's quite a complex feature, and not too necessary I would say but I am still curious about it.

 

I bought the asset and tried it, it's very very good to work with, I enjoy how comfortable it is!

I have a problem though: When I finish making a mesh, I want to make a prefab out of it so I add my mesh to an empty gameobject and make is as a prefab to try and reuse it after, but every time I drag the prefab into the scene, the mesh is invisible. I can go back onto the CSGmodel inside my prefab to rebuild it but it rebuilds it out of the "blue zone".

Here is an image with the "steps" from green to red:



- The green square is the first mesh that I modeled put into an empty gameobject.
- I then drag it into an empty prefab.
- Then drag it into the scene.
- I have to click rebuild so that it appears.
- And finally, the red square shows that it is actually outside the bounds.

Is this a normal behavior?

Thanks!

 

Thanks, that's really great to hear!

The alignment issue appears to be that the built mesh assumes the CSG Model is at the origin, I'll fix that in 1.3.2. There should be a beta available tomorrow, so you'll receive an email when that's available.

The prefab issue is because the built mesh lives in the scene file, so the prefab doesn't actually hold the mesh, requiring a rebuild once you bring it into a scene. If this is a problem for your project, which it sounds like it might be, I can take a look into it in the upcoming 1.4 release.

 

Great!

Yeah I guessed that I was maybe using the plugin in an unconventional way and something like this might happen. I guess most people just build levels with it and mostly never have to actually dynamically "spawn" something. Good to hear that I help you improve your asset with this

Cheers!

 

Hi essbee,

Sorry for the delay, a beta of 1.3.2 is now available to download at the SabreCSG Download Centre, which includes the fix for some inconsistencies in rebuilding moved CSG Models

1.3.2 includes the following changes:

• Lightmap UV unwrapping can now be configured on the CSG Model build settings
• Fixed issue with unloading a level with high brush counts taking longer
• Fixed building hanging in certain situations
• Fixed issue with extraneous polygons
• Fixed issue with missing polygons
• Rewritten subtraction code
• Fixed some inconsistencies in moving a CSG Model and rebuilding
• Fixed an issue where a Force Rebuild could ignore root transform changes

I'll be further improving multi-model support in 1.4. Please let me know if you have any more feedback and I'll integrate it into our next releases

Thanks,
Barnaby

 

Very cool man!

I will try it out and see how it goes

 

I just tested it and it's great! It works much better now for what I need!

I guess something else that would be nice is if I have a prefab that has a CSG model in it and is placed multiple times in the scene and that I modify one the CSG model on one of the prefab and that I hit "apply", it should modify all the CSG models

Maybe also an easier way to apply materials? It just feels a bit clumsy, I don't have a suggestion for it, just pointing it out!

Thank you for your work, your asset is great!

 

Hi, I just bought SabreESG and really like it so far. Now I read that you are going to include vertex color functionality in 1.4 and I just wanted to say that would be very useful! Will it be possible to set Vertex colors per face, with a hard border? Thanks
Jan

 

I'm looking into entire CSG Model prefab support in 1.4, so hopefully that will come in with this

I've also got some further plans for applying materials

Great! 1.4 will introduce solid vertex colors per face, then a later release (probably 1.5) will add more powerful vertex coloring support based on the feedback from 1.4.

 

Awesome! Thank you

 

Hi everyone, SabreCSG is currently 33% off for just under the next 24 hours



Get it now at the Asset Store

 

While the modelling looks nice and simple with this asset I found it hard to tell what kind of model you end up with at the end - for example in this tutorial -

- the stairs mesh created was far from a nice clean mesh like you would get with say ProBuilder - all the box brushes made overlapping polygons or non-connected side quads - do these sort themselves out into a clean mesh at some point which can be prefabbed?

 

I would instantly buy this asset, but the OFF sale cames after the pro builder sale. I was never sure about in unity mesh editors, because Im using Blender for meshes and there are no faster mesh editors. But I changed my mind, because for creating props in Unity.
I see no sense texturing in Unity, for that we need 2D tools. In my case Substance Painter. Indie developer have no time for prototyping.

 

Just to clarify, are you asking if it creates overlapping polygons or are you saying you've tried it and it's creating overlapping polygons? Where brushes overlap interior geometry should be stripped out from the final mesh, if that's not happening please let me know and I'll fix it

SabreCSG is a level design tool rather than a mesh editor, so I wouldn't advise using it for making props. But if you want to rapidly build levels in Unity, not just prototyping, then that's what SabreCSG is designed for

 

Im creating an RTS game, for that I don't need too much meshes. For creating missing things on the fly, like barrels, fences, buildings, bridges and so on. The advantage would be, that I see how the fast created object looks with the another ones. So, mainly for filling the level with atmosphere. And for that important task, I guess, is your asset not bad.

Hint: Your Unity forum is not linked from your asset in the Unity store.

 

Yes that is what I meant - I have not bought it yet but thought it would be nice in the videos or screenshots to see the final optimised runtime mesh.

 

I'm trying this out now and it has great potential but I am having some issues:

If I place 2 boxes side by side or a set of steps next to a cube, which are snapped to the grid, the polygons between are not always hidden - it seems there is some degree of innacuracy with the sizes and/or positioning which is not corrected when the build is done. Should it not always snap 2 boxes on adjacent grid points together as if one object before building the polys? Or must you manually erase 'inner' polygons?

Pivot/root points - the root point of each brush is always in the centre which can be bad for positioning a box exactly where you want it - I would much prefer an option to have it in the bottom left so I can place the corner on the grid, not the centre - is this possible or can it be added in future?

Also the auto [world] UV generation is good but can it be enabled always, as default?

 

hmm had my eyes on this since it was released but short of actually getting a taste of it not sure I'm really needing it...normally I get in early testing phase for free and buy later. But seems you've skipped that phase...Sooo my question is any plans to do some sort of free version, and exporting out to fbx? is that natively supported? It's another area of lameness with unity still needing another package so wherever things like that are bundled in is always good.

really just wish unity would cough up for integration of something like this natively, until then I'm using maya but hammer/quake bsp modelling is missed for level design buts its more complementary thing now so I'm reluctant on buying to try than try before buy.

 

Thanks I will add a link in the description in the next update

Hidden geometry should be removed, if that's not happening then it's a bug, I'll take a look at it and fix it.

Custom pivots are in the works, hopefully coming in 1.5

I'll take a look into always on auto-uv generation Thanks