Introducing SabreCSG Brush Tools for Unity

We had pre-release betas last year leading up to the 1.0 release

Exporting to OBJ is built in, which is supported by most art tools including Maya. Some projects are building all their level geometry in SabreCSG, others use it for rapid prototyping of spaces and then export out to Maya/Max for final geometry.

We're looking into a trial version, but right now I'd recommend checking out the videos of SabreCSG in action and also the reviews on the Asset Store which should give you a good idea of how SabreCSG works in the real world

 

I finally found time to play around with this a bit. I will give some more detailed feedback on working with it later, but first I would like to report an issue I am having with CSG models and global illumination.

I am using SabreCSG version 1.3.2 and Unity 5.3.5f1

Here are the steps I take:

• create new project
• import SabreCSG
• create CSG and rebuild mesh
• make mesh static
• set directional light to baked or mixed
• save scene
• build lightmap

This is what it looks like


The same happens to an exported OBJ from a CSG
I tried applying unitys default material to the OBJ but it produces the same result. The cube behind is unitys default cube for comparison just to make sure I didn't mess up the lighting somewhere


Using precomputed realtime GI seems to work fine by the way. However, that's of no use to me personally.

Cheers!

 

My bad on the exported OBJ. It works. I just forgot to switch on "generate lightmap UVs" in the import settings.
Still I think it would be nice if GI worked on the generated CSG mesh directly.

 

Hi 2dgame, thanks for buying SabreCSG!

To use lightmaps with CSG you just need to turn on lightmap UVs in the CSG Model build settings. This will then automatically unwrap the built geometry producing the UV2 channel which lightmaps require.

Please let me know if you have any more issues or feedback

 

Thanks did you re-create an instance of hidden geometry not being removed?

 

Wow, I totally didn't see the collapsed build settings. While it does kind of work now I still get a lot of artifacts. During the lightmap building things look really nice.

However, once the build is completely finished it looks like this.
Things I tried is restarting unity and exporting the scene to a fresh project. No success.

If you want, I could send you the project folder so you can take a look at it.

 

I haven't been able to recreate it, if you have a reproducible scene it would help me a lot if you could send me a copy at barnaby@sabresaurus.com

 

I should make that clearer, I'll stop it being collapsed in the next version, thanks

That's strange, I've not encountered this issue before. If you could send me the project (barnaby@sabresaurus.com) I'll take a look and get back to you with a solution

 

Having problems in Unity 5.3.3 and SabreCSG to use prefabs at all (at least without errors and issues)

If I drag an item (child or parent) from within the CSGModel hierarchy to the project a prefab is made but I get a null error in console.
Click the prefab in Project view - null error.
Drag prefab into scene - broken (not built) and another console error - perhaps because not under CSGModel
Drag prefab directly into Hierarchy view under CSGModel - appears to work but error in console:
(NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.PrimitiveBrush.UpdateVisibility () (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/Brushes/PrimitiveBrush.cs:536))
Also Auto rebuild does not work for prefab - have to force rebuild EVERY time prefab moved if it has any children.

Seems fairly unusable to me with prefabs at present - no one else have these issues?

 

Hi Andy,

I've replicated these issues, the errors thrown look like they're harmless, but I'll remove them in the next version. If you drag the prefab directly under the model you shouldn't get any errors. As far as I'm aware, using prefabs under a CSG Model should work fine, it's just there's some annoying errors in the console which I need to remove.

With regard to auto-rebuild not working with prefabs, I believe it does, but there is a separate issue unrelated to prefabs where moving a parent object will not mark child objects as needing rebuilding. This is something I'm also going to fix in 1.4

 

SabreCSG 1.4 Beta 2 Released

Hi everyone, Beta 2 of SabreCSG 1.4 is now available to download from our pre-release portal.

This includes many new features as well as fixes for the issues andyz and 2dgame raised.

Some gifs of new features:

Radial menus on the J key to quickly align to different views

New default material presets, making it quicker and easier to work with vertex colors

Hold C and drag a material across faces


In addition the vertex colors implementation which was partially complete in the first beta is now implemented across SabreCSG

Full release notes:
NoCSG brushes are now displayed differently to add and subtract brushes to make it clearer that they behave differently. Both brush color and hierarchy icon are new.
While copying material with the C key held, you can now click and drag it over multiple polygons rather than each polygon requiring a click
New radial menu when you press the J key in the scene view for aligning the camera more quickly
UI for CSG Model build settings has been rewritten, making it much clearer and easier to use
Added option in Build Settings for setting the default visual material
Three new presets for default visual material - lit texture, lit texture that tints by vertex color, unlit vertex color
Changing the visual material on the CSG Model instantly updates the built meshes and doesn't require a rebuild
Brushes from other CSG Models are now displayed while editing a CSG Model and are selectable. Selecting a brush from a different CSG Model will automatically switch the active CSG Model to the new selection's parent.
Copy material and follow last face now support copying vertex colors
Removed the margin from the Create Brush buttons so they look a little nicer
When you change any of the build settings, the build engine is now aware that a full rebuild is necessary. If auto rebuild is on this build will occur immediately, otherwise it will occur when you next activate rebuild. Note that the build engine compares against the last rebuild, so changing a flag and changing it back before a rebuild occurs will not trigger an unnecessary full rebuild.
The tag on the CSG Model object is now copied to built meshes in addition to the existing support for layer and static flags
When duplicating objects inside a CSG Model, the order of the objects is now respected. This works around a Unity bug by transparently overriding the duplication command when CSG is being edited.

Excluding and reincluding a face in the face tool now respects vertex colors
Stopped polygon hovering when your mouse is over the face tool UI
Fixed subtractions not using vertex colors
Fixed issues with translating vertices resetting vertex normals for smoothed polygons
Fixed selecting a brush prefab in the project producing a null reference exception
Fixed dragging a brush prefab into the scene but not under a CSG Model producing an error
Fixed flipped UVs when drawing brushes in certain situations
Fixed regression in 1.4 Beta 1 with layer and static flags not being preserved in built objects
Fixed static flags, layer and tag not being copied when transferring polygon material (which creates a temporary new mesh game object)
Fixed an issue with lightmap UV unwrapping producing overlapping UVs that caused lightmap artefacts
Fixed an issue with hidden geometry not being removed
Fixed a performance slow down when deleting a brush in scenes that have huge numbers of brushes
When reincluding a polygon, tangents are now generated in all cases where the last build had generate tangents enabled
Fixed issues with auto rebuild and partial rebuilds not picking up changes to nested brushes if the parent is transformed
Fixed some performance issues in the Face tool

Download SabreCSG 1.4 Beta 2

 

@mviuk:

Firstly, let me begin by saying that I love SabreCSG's approach to level design! I've tried a number of assets, and none are as intuitive for me as yours.

Although I purchased it a while ago, I've just begun using it a few days ago, and have come across a few glitches that are hindering my workflow.

1. Undo/Redo frequently doesn't work properly. Sometimes it will undo volume changes, but won't update the Auto Rebuilt geometry -- other times, especially for operations involving multiple volumes, it will not undo incorrectly.

2. Face selection doesn't display in the scene view when lighting is enabled. It took me a while the other day to figure out why all of my highlights had gone missing.

3. I now have a scene where the highlighting appears to be frozen. All of my CSG objects are highlighted in the cyan shader in every mode except Face selection, and this has persisted after restarting Unity.

4. While working on a scene, I'll occasionally do something in the SabreCSG bottom toolbar that causes some of the options to disappear. It seems like I'm accidentally clicking and dragging them outside of scene window. I've tried repeatedly to re-create this, but have not yet succeeded. It always happens when I am passionately editing something. To fix it, I must close and re-open the scene window.

Apologies for the somewhat vague descriptions. All of these issues (except the face selection) are very intermittent, and thus difficult for me to provide precise instructions to re-create.

As of this moment, I'm in the process of teaching myself level design, so nothing that I've lost due to the Undo/Redo issues has been important. I'm hoping that a resolution might be found, though, so I can comfortably use SabreCSG for actual production.

Thank you in advance, and be well!
- S.

PS: I am using SabreCSG v1.4.0 in Unity v5.3.5p7 on Windows 10.

 

Thanks for buying SabreCSG, I'm sorry you've run into these issues, I will try to resolve as quickly as I can

Regarding 2, is this a consistent issue or intermittent?

Could you send me the scene that has the frozen issue (barnaby@sabresaurus.com), also if you could take some screenshots if any of these issues happens again that would help a lot.

I'm away at the moment, but as soon as I'm back I will take a look into replicating and fixing these issues

 

@mviuk: No worries, sir. Thank you for the quick response!

I'm actually going to be away for about five hours myself, so will see what I can do when I return.

When you say the scene, are you seeking just the scene file, or the entire project? Unfortunately, the project itself is quite large (3.5GB) due to a number of assets that I had implemented. The scene file itself shouldn't be a problem.

Interesting, #2 doesn't seem to be an issue in this new project I started. One difference is that I was using Alloy Physical Shader Framework textures in the other project, and I'm not in this one. I'll check if that seems to be an issue.

One Undo/Redo that appears easy to reproduce is that in Face selection mode, clicking and dragging to offset the UV texture cannot be undone or redone.

Once I return, I'll check your responses, send you the scene file (if applicable), and will continue to use it, taking notes and screenshots as issues occur.

Thank you again for your prompt response.

Be well!
- S.

 

#1: I'll keep a list of actions that cannot be undone and post them here once I have a number.

#2: Upon reloading my project, #2 no longer seems to be occurring. No idea what caused it, but it was most assuredly stuck.

#3: I've Emailed you the scene file with the highlighting being stuck. Additionally, here is a screenshot:

(The textures are white brick walls and gray cobblestone ground)

Hope that helps!

#4: I've figured this one out. Options weren't going missing, per se. They were being hidden because, unbeknownst to me, my selection was changing, so they were no longer applicable.

It appears that clicking / click and dragging actually registers through the bottom panel. If the bottom panel could be made to occlude the scene, that should fix the issue.

Thank you again, and be well!
- S.

 

@mviuk:

Thank you so much for addressing all of my concerns via Email!

Be well.
- S.

 

Hi Barnaby,
do you think that working with brushes of any shape not just convex brushes could one day be a thing or is such functionality just to complex to implement?
I think being restricted to convex brushes is the most limiting factor of SabreCSG and being able to use any shape (e.g. subtracting with a brush that itself got a hole subtracted into) would take it to a new level.

Looking forward to the SabreCSG v1.5 beta

 

Absolutely, supporting concave brushes is a planned feature and some work/research has been done on it already. It won't be ready for the 1.5 release, but it's definitely on the way!

 

Awesome!

 

Thought it was some sort of mistake SaberCSG free on the asset store.

Checked out the news on your website, disappointing it didn't bring in the sales (you should have gone with more flash sales or lower price before this open source no? ) but guess now now everyone has free access to some good CSG tools they can close https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/editor-csgbsp-map-creation-too

Anyway did have some errors with the current asset store import...

Only this warning on import:

Code (CSharp):

1. Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/Tools/SurfaceEditor.cs(1064,21): warning CS0618: `UnityEditor.TextureImporter.normalmap' is obsolete: `normalmap Property deprecated. Check [[TextureImporterSettings.textureType]] instead. Getter will work as expected. Setter will set textureType to NormalMap if true, nothing otherwise.'

And these errors if I use any of the [WASD] keys in viewport....

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.ResizeEditor.OnKeyAction (UnityEditor.SceneView sceneView, UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/Tools/ResizeEditor.cs:284)
3. Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.ResizeEditor.OnSceneGUI (UnityEditor.SceneView sceneView, UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/Tools/ResizeEditor.cs:83)
4. Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.CSGModel.OnSceneGUI (UnityEditor.SceneView sceneView) (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/CSGModel.cs:445)
5. UnityEditor.SceneView.CallOnSceneGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:2077)
6. UnityEditor.SceneView.HandleSelectionAndOnSceneGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1404)
7. UnityEditor.SceneView.OnGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1241)
8. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.CSGModel.OnGenericKeyAction (UnityEditor.SceneView sceneView, UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/CSGModel.cs:593)
3. Sabresaurus.SabreCSG.CSGModel.OnHierarchyItemGUI (Int32 instanceID, Rect selectionRect) (at Assets/SabreCSG/Scripts/CSGModel.cs:1077)
4. UnityEditor.SceneHierarchyWindow.OnGUIAssetCallback (Int32 instanceID, Rect rect) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneHierarchyWindow.cs:458)
5. UnityEditor.IMGUI.Controls.TreeViewController.DoItemGUI (UnityEditor.IMGUI.Controls.TreeViewItem item, Int32 row, Single rowWidth, Boolean hasFocus) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/GUI/TreeView/TreeViewController.cs:464)
6. UnityEditor.IMGUI.Controls.TreeViewController.IterateVisibleItems (Int32 firstRow, Int32 numVisibleRows, Single rowWidth, Boolean hasFocus) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/GUI/TreeView/TreeViewController.cs:607)
7. UnityEditor.IMGUI.Controls.TreeViewController.OnGUI (Rect rect, Int32 keyboardControlID) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/GUI/TreeView/TreeViewController.cs:538)
8. UnityEditor.SceneHierarchyWindow.DoTreeView (Single searchPathHeight) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneHierarchyWindow.cs:585)
9. UnityEditor.SceneHierarchyWindow.OnGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/SceneHierarchyWindow.cs:399)
10. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)

Keymappings seems to have an associated script cannot be loaded.. anyway this was imported into a new project from asset store. And same problem with the current github source aswel.

 

Got it working turns out it was another compile error that was causing the above problems...

PrimitiveBrush.cs has this line UnityEditor.EditorUtility.SetSelectedWireframeHidden(GetComponent<Renderer>(), true);

SetSelectedWireframeHidden does not seem to exist in 5.5.. anyway commented it out for now and KeyMappings works now.

 

Does the latest version support the CSG operations in Game mode? API support for using it in Game mode is available?

 

Great! I know there have been a few issues with the Unity 5.5 beta, I'll be updating the source on github with a fix for that. I'll also be updating the Asset Store entry to point to the github location which is where SabreCSG will be maintained in the future.

 

There was some experimental work towards this, but right now there are a couple of bottlenecks that are stopping it being particularly performant. You could certainly use the open source SabreCSG as a good starting point for this, but as things stand it would likely require you to do some code changes to SabreCSG to make this work well for your needs. If that's something you're prepared to do there's some docs on the code API here

 

PrimitiveBrush.cs line 108..
UnityEditor.EditorUtility.SetSelectedRenderState(GetComponent<Renderer>(), UnityEditor.EditorSelectedRenderState.Hidden);

works for 5.5b now

 

Thanks, this and the compiler warning have been fixed in my latest commit to the SabreCSG repo

 

Hi.

Thanks for the SabreCSG Tool. It's very good to work with.
Though I have a problem. I have a data deserialization issue in build game. It's a "A script behaviour has a different serialization layout when loading (...)" type of error which - similarly to NullReferenceException - cascades to other areas of the build. It's caused by serialized field being in #if UNITY_EDITOR macro. At least two classes has this issue: CSGModel and PrimitiveBrush.

Can you provide a guide of how to change the macros so a game can be compiled without deserialization/conditional compilation issues?

 

What version of SabreCSG are you on? There was an issue with this in earlier versions of SabreCSG, but in more recent versions CSGModels are stripped out at build time. If it's still an issue in 1.4/1.5 I'll take a look.

 

Sorry for not responding. I wasn't on the forum for a while. I'll check this later this week as now I'm temporary on different project.

 

Unfortunately I don't have access to the original project but I've tested latest SabreCSG on different one and the issue doesn't occur.

 

Is there a easier way of lighting csg with a covered roof?

 

Does this system also provide the BSP-like rendering or does it just utilize Unity's built-in rendering techniques?

 

This uses the built in rendering. Why would you want BSP rendering? The reasons for BSP rendering (Front to Back rendering order) stopped being relevant about 20 years ago.

 

BSP is Binary Space Partitioning and it's a very efficient rendering technique for indoor scenes. But perhaps Unity's occlusion is more efficient. I'm no expert. I just thought I'd ask.

 

BSP was an efficient rendering technique 20 years ago, when people were software-rendering or using a 3DFX Voodoo card. Now it is inefficient as it increases drawcalls. BSP is used for forcing the rendering in front-to-back order (or in some cases back-to-front). This is no longer useful. It's way more important to order your drawing by material.

 

I need help...

I want to cut a hole into a tile of my mesh terrain, but it says that it's concave.

What exactly does that mean, and can I fix it without external tools?

 

@ Ju_M I don't know what that means exactly but I did something similar with a cube brush, moved a verticy and got a concave warning.
It still made the mesh however, so it can't be that bad..?

 

I want to use UFPS for my game together with SabreCSG. And I've googled quite a bit but I have an issue I can't find an answer or even mention of.

UFPS uses textures to define footsteps, footprints, bulletholes and more. The gameobject also requires a collider.
Sabre creates a single gameobject with all colliders, and then a gameobject with mesh per material.
Thus UFPS can't know what bullethole to use, nor what footstep to use etc.

Is there a smart way of fixing this?

 

Hi @mviuk,

When I saw your last update, it looked like the lightning wasn't a problem at all. I just wanted to know what version of Unity3D you're running. I'm (sadly) still getting these weird patterns/splats like mentioned earlier in this topic.
But on the other hand, I love designing maps with SabreCSG. In my opinion SabreCSG beats ProBuilder which I used a lot before, but that's going to change.

Thanks in advance.

 

Unfortunately there's not a built in way to do this in SabreCSG. What you could do is write a post build hook that removes the collider game object and duplicates the renderers as colliders. There's a couple of post build examples here

I'm not aware of any current issues regarding light baking causing splats. I've recently baked with SabreCSG on both 5.5 and 5.6 and not had any issues. Assuming you are on SabreCSG 1.4 or higher and that you have Generate Lightmap UVs enabled in the CSG Model settings it should work.

 

OK, thanks

 

@mviuk Hey thanks. I did toggle Generate Lightmap UVs but it often results in a sort of "splat" placed on the lightmap.
That was the bad news. The good news is that I will be moving onto a different (new) workstation soon. In fact, my new gaming pc with high end specs. I'm sure everything will be fixed once I got everything up-to-date etc etc.

 

Hello,

Is anyone else having any issues with the following error code when using SabreCSG with Unity 2017.1?

 

This has now been fixed in my latest commit to Github, if you update to the latest on the Github repository this compiler error should now be fixed.

 

Hmm, this may not be a big issue but sometimes this happens.


As you can see there's a sort of hole in the wall. It usually occurs when I have a thin cube (or any thin object) placed near a wall, like this. I don't know if there's any workaround for this.

 

Thank you very much for that commit in July. I appreciate your support and response to the previous issue. I love using this asset. It is so easy to use and, I have enjoyed using it to make a simple room for my project. I have another question, I just upgraded to 2017.2 and I noticed that when I click the CSG model the resize button does not show an exact shape of the model in the blue preview. Does anyone know what is causes this behavior? What can I do on my end to make the blue preview box match the shape of the model as it used when I used 2017.1? Thank you for your consideration.