Octave3D-Level Design - Snapping, Prop placement, Multi-Prefab painting

Hi,

Undo doesn't seem to work on macOS while using 2018.3. It just rotates the selected prefab. I'm on the latest Octave as of yesterday, when I first installed it.

 

Ok. Thanks for letting me know. I will look into it.

 

@guybro_thunderboots
Hi there,

Just wanted to let you know I've sent you a PM.

 

@XGT08 On Unity 2018.3.8 Windows, Octave3D V 2.2.3.1.5 and find that just having the asset in my project (not even in the scene) intermittently breaks the ability to move GameObjects by their transform handle in Scene view.

Deleting the entire package was the only thing that solved it.

Is this a known bug? Anyone else having the same issue?

 

If you have a game object in the scene that has the Octave3D object attached to it, and that object is selected, then the Unity Editor gizmos will be disabled because the plugin uses its own gizmos (you gave to switch to selection mode to use them - press 2 on keyboard or click on second large button from left to right on the main button toolbar).

When this object is not selected, you can interact with the Unity gizmos as normal. I just tried it and it works with nor problem.

 

Thanks @XGT08 but that isn't what's happening for me. No idea why. Even in a scene without the Octave3D object present I get this occurring. I realise this sounds crazy and doesn't make sense but... as I say, deleting the entire package gets me back to normal.

It started happening in a scene in which I was trying out Octave3D (pretty much functioning as you describe) but then I noticed the same in other scenes in the same project. Ones that have never had the Octave3D object.

Shame, because I really like the idea of this asset and keep meaning to dedicate the time to learning it properly, but this just makes it a bit of a liability for me. Sorry.

 

I am sorry to hear you are having this problem, but I can not understand why this is happening. Looking at the Unity version again, I can see you are using 2018.3.8. I tested with Unity 2018.3.0.

Do you happen to have 2018.3.0 installed or maybe just an earlier version of 2018 and see if the problem still persists? I am asking because I would like to avoid installing an additional version of Unity for now. If you have an earlier version already installed and the problem can not be reproduced, then I will install 2018.3.8 because it would be clear that there is a problem there and needs to be fixed.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Thanks Andrew, that's a good idea re Editor version. I do have 2018.2.21. I'll try that later and report back.

 

Thank you very much! That would be great!

 

HI again @XGT08 sorry it took a while, I wanted to properly test this out before replying. So I'm having no problems at all in 2018.2.21. Works great, and I'm very much enjoying the workflow. Sadly still a problem for me in 2018.3.8

 

Hi there,

Thanks for trying this out. I installed Unity 2018.3.8 and I could not reproduce the same behavior. Here is a video in which I talk about this which also shows that it is working fine in my case: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dtvcf6k4m9pl5b/Octave3D_Handles.mp4?dl=0

Is there anything else you might have done to cause that behaviour?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

@XGT08 Hi Andrew, Thanks for the video Yeah, as you say it's one of those maddening bugs that you can't do much about until I find out what it is that triggered it.

I'll go back to a 2018.3.x project and see if I can make it happen again. Essentially the issue, once it occurred, was a problem in any scene - not just one with Octave3D in it. This might make you think that Octave3D wasn't the culprit, but by removing the asset the non-functioning scene view tools suddenly started working again...

Since I'm jumping across different Unity versions and different projects, can I ask whether there's an easy way to import an entire Octave3D 'library' (all settings and prefabs). I can see the save/load Octave3D config and save/load prefab config (in the Prefab Manager) but no data (no prefabs and their materials/textures) seem to be saved along with these files. Am I correct in assuming that if I want to port my Octave3D library from one project to another I first have to import all of the assets (in the same asset folders as they were before) then load the Octave3D config (in the Octave3D World Builder) and then the prefab config (in the Prefab Manager). Does that put everything back in place?... I'm a bit worried that asset IDs (File GUID and Local ID) will change between projects and break links to assets in Octave3D. Would it be possible to implement a single click export of everything, including assets, to facilitate reuse of Octave3D 'libraries', rather than having to recreate them from scratch?

and on a separate note... You videos are excellent. More of those please At the start of the first intro you mention "I assume you've already read the hotkeys docs, so I won't go into it in detail" - I did read it but I still find using the hotkeys quite hit and miss. Would be great if you could do a video going through each one, there are so many that it gets difficult in the doc to take it all in and more importantly to know what use case some might be useful for.

- would also be great to have a GUI notification (in the scene view) as to which key has been pressed and which mode has been used or activated (especially useful for keys that toggle a function on or off), or display a notification that the key will have no effect for ones that don't apply to the current painting mode. (like you currently show the active prefab name, just more user feedback of keys pressed)

- and I'm having what feels like an odd thing happening; after rotating a prefab as I want it (using X, Y, Z keys) if I move the mouse, the object resets to its initial orientation. Is there a way of making that stick?

Finally, just to say that I'm really enjoying using Octave3D (hence all the questions about usage!). I can totally see that the time invested in getting to know it will pay off in the long term

 

Hi there,

So, regarding the prefab configs, that is correct. The file path is used to establish references to prefab assets and the link will break if you move the prefabs to different folders or if you start a new project. In the future, configs will themselves be assets that will contain references to the prefab assets. This means that the prefabs could then be moved to different folders, but starting a new project will still break those links. I am not currently aware of how this can be fixed. If the resources are re-imported, the configs need to be rebuilt. This is not something I can change for now.

Regarding the hotkeys, I will try to record a video of the most important hotkeys or the more obscure ones which may not be immediately obvious how they could be used.

Can you give me a few examples? There is already some info there, and I would like to keep the scene view as clean as possible. So if you have anything specific you would like to see there, I will check to see if it can be done. But I would avoid writing too much info for now.

This is most likely because you have axis alignment turned on. When that is the case, whenever the mouse is moved, the rotation of the object is adjusted so that the object is aligned with the surface normal. The following image shows how you can toggle axis alignment on/off. The screenshot was taken for Point and Click placement mode, but the same format is used for other placement modes:



I am happy to hear you are enjoying Octave3D. I hope you'll make good use of it in many projects

 

@XGT08 Thanks, as always, for the super informative reply.

You're right, axis alignment was indeed the reason for the resetting on mouse mouse. However I'm also finding that using Q to offset the placement height also gets reset on mouse move (even with axis alignment off).

- Would be great if there was a keystroke to set that to the actual prototype. So for example I'm finding that once I place an object and realise that it's too high, I then use Q to set it down. I'd love to have a button press that would set that height as the default offset for the prototype.

Other feedback/requests after a little more use...
- a duplicate brush option would be useful. (Yes you can activate/deactive prototypes, but I like to be able to create new brushes from existing one... ideally with the ability to replace one prefab with another prefab.

- right click on a prototype deletes it from the brush. Oops, I didn't mean to do that...That really needs a confirmation!

Re. Scene view notifications, I guess it's all about affordance - letting the user know that their input has been received and is being acted on. Currently I can only see the name of the selected prefab in the top left of the scene view window. I'd love to see momentary key presses (fade in then out, maybe in bottom left) as well as status of any modes that have been enabled by a keystroke. e.g. surface snapping, object snapping, anything that can be toggled on/off

On a different topic... I'm currently being spammed in the console by a recurrent error. Occurs even after closing and reopening the Editor.

Code (CSharp):

1. ArgumentNullException: Argument cannot be null.
2. Parameter name: objectToUndo
3. UnityEditor.Undo.DestroyObjectImmediate (UnityEngine.Object objectToUndo) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Undo/Undo.bindings.cs:74)
4. O3DWB.UndoEx.DestroyObjectImmediate (UnityEngine.Object gameObject) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Undo/UndoEx.cs:31)
5. O3DWB.DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.RemoveAndDestroyAllElements () (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Decor Paint/Brush/DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.cs:143)
6. O3DWB.DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.OnDestroy () (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Decor Paint/Brush/DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.cs:247)

 

I've finally used Octave on a project in production enough that I felt I could review it. Posted this as a review earlier:

This asset handles most of the things you'd want when building levels from prefabs in Unity, and it probably handles a bunch of things you haven't even thought of that are even better.

Anyone who has ever used the Starcraft map editor (or something similar) knows how nice it feels to select objects from a palette and place them in the world with one click, seeing what they'll look like before you place them. But while Octave is built around this basic idea, it has a hundred other workflow features that make it even better.

Most of the time objects you place snap to nearby objects automatically, or snap to the grid (toggle between the two modes by pressing "u"). But Octave goes deeper than this. Hold "v" to select a vertex on the model you've currently selected to then snap it to any other vertex you mouse over on another model. This alone allows for building from modular pieces in a way that feels sane, even enjoyable. If you put 30 minutes into watching tutorials for this asset, you'll end up with a workflow that feels amazing. This holds true whether you're building a town or dungeon from modular pieces or just scattering rocks and shrubberies around the countryside.

Octave3D is a level design tool built around the uncomfortable limits and real everyday experience of making game levels in Unity, and it turns Unity's level design interface from about a 4/10 to a 9/10. It's an incredible step up if you're putting hours into making levels, and don't already have your own tools for placing, positioning, rotating, snapping, and organizing your own assets.

Thanks so much for making this asset, you've made my time working on my game levels extremely enjoyable.


Thanks so much for all of your hard work and great ideas, Andrew!

 

Hi there,

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a detailed review. It is highly appreciated. Very excited to hear you like the plugin! I wish you good luck with the projects you are working on!

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hi @XGT08,

Thanks for such a great tool, It significantly improved my workflow. The only thing I’ve encountered is an issue with object selection. The issue is the similar to this one but in my case it happens on iMac with Retina 5K display. I conducted a few tests and looks like Unity reports correct mouse position but incorrectly converts them to world coordinates. I found this thread and according to this the cause of the problem is Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint. I tried a workaround suggested there. In Vector2Extensions.cs I modified GetWorldPointInFrontOfCamera method and instead of ScreenToWorldPoint I used the following code:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. var ray = HandleUtility.GUIPointToWorldRay(point2D);
3. var point = ray.GetPoint(camera.nearClipPlane + distanceFromCamNearPlane);
4.  
5. return point;
6.  

Partially it helped, the border is drawn correctly but between border and fill there is an empty space. And selection also works as if only a half of area was selected. I haven't dug deeper in your code so probably there are more things should be changed in order to fix this issue for me.

Hopefully, this info will help you to find suitable workaround for iMac.

Best regards, Sergey.

 

Hi there,

Thank you very much for reporting this to me. It is quite unfortunate that it behaves in this way. I can't make any promises. I will look at the code and see if there is any idea that come to mind (aside from the great info you already provided) and hopefully I can do something about it. I do not own an iMac so testing is going to be tricky. If I indeed do manage to come up with an idea of how to fix this, I might have to contact you again to maybe test it out if that's ok with you.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hello,

First of all, I've owned this asset for a long time, but never had the chance to do level design since I bought it. Finally giving it a whirl today, and man, it's great! Thank you for building such a delight of a tool

I'm having a little issue where I'm trying to switch to full scene view mode, and I'm unable to do so if I have Octave3d builder selected.
I can however, switch to another GO to get out of Octave, reselect octave and then i'm able to shift + space into full screen editor mode. Any idea as to what's happening?

 

Sure, I'll help as I can.

Best regards, Sergey.

 

Hi there,

I left you a PM with the link to the pack that fixes this issue.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched, but couldn't find any answer. Is there a hotkey that will allow me to set the currently selected object to the active object for placement? Like the eyedropper in Photoshop?

Thanks!

 

Hi there,

You can't do that for the currently selected object, but you while you are in placement mode, you can pick prefabs from the scene using the R key. When you hover an object and press R it will activate that object.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Even better, thanks a ton!

 

I'm on a 4k resolution iMac, and I'm having two strange bugs that may be related to that:

1. When using block or path layout, the blocks aren't placed as expected. See gif: https://imgur.com/G7Jr8Xt
2. When trying to block select gameobjects, the green selection rectangle always appears offset to my mouse cursor by about 300 pixels, always to the upper left of where my mouse cursor is, and never quite the right size despite how i'm dragging the mouse. See gif: https://imgur.com/3M1NOXF -- unfortunately the capture didn't record my cursor, but I'm moving it over the top layer of blocks, trying to select them all.

Maybe it's the 4k resolution, or maybe its the high DPI?

 

@guybro_thunderboots
@ss-abramchuk

Hi guys,

I've sent you two 2 separate PMs with the links to the pack that is supposed to fix the iMac issue. If you get a chance to try it out, please let me know if it works.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi,

I got a project to fix some bugs, but when I opened it, I see some errors with Octave3D-Level Design:

Code (CSharp):

1. error CS2001: Source file `Assets/Store Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Inspector GUI/Views/Settings Views/Objects/Object Placement/Block/ObjectPlacementBlockAutomaticRandomHeightAdjustmentSettingsView.cs' could not be found
2. error CS2001: Source file `Assets/Store Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Inspector GUI/Views/Settings Views/Objects/Object Placement/Path/Tile Connections/ObjectPlacementPathTileConnectionTypeSettingsView.cs' could not be found
3. error CS2001: Source file `Assets/Store Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Inspector GUI/Views/Settings Views/Objects/Object Placement/Path/Tile Connections/ObjectPlacementPathTileConnectionTypeTexturePaths.cs' could not be found
4. error CS2001: Source file `Assets/Store Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Path/Tile Connections/Tile Connection Configurations/ObjectPlacementPathTileConnectionConfigurationDatabase.cs' could not be found
5. error CS2001: Source file `Assets/Store Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Path/Tile Connections/Tile Connection Configurations/ObjectPlacementPathTileConnectionConfigurationFactory.cs' could not be found

 

Hello,

I don't know what could cause that. Please delete the Octave3D plugin from the project and do a clean import of the pack.

 

Ok, Thank you.

 

Hi,

Can you tell me if Octave 3d is compatible with Unity 2019? Thanks!

 

Hello,

I have only quite recently loaded Octave3D inside Unity 2019 and played around with it and it worked with no issues, but I haven't performed any thorough tests. I did encounter a few issues with Unity 2018.3/4 but they were fixed. So it should work with 2019 too. Any issues that may pop out, will be fixed for 2019 also.

 

Thank you for the quick reply. I made some quick test last week and had some minor problems in 2019 but I will start a new project and see how it goes.

 

So here is my first question. I unchecked "align to surface" on all prefabs but when spawning on a unity terrain my trees still align to the terrain. Perhaps there something I am doing wrong? Thank you.

 

Works well in my case. Can yuo show me a screenshot of the settings? I assume you are using the brush placement mode???

 

Hi,

I unchecked the randomize trees rotations in the prefab settings and it seems to works fine now.

Thank you.

 

Hi,

I used the "R" keys to grab some prefabs from the scene into a prefab folder (working with ready-made levels). When I start spawning one of the prefab, I can't go back to use the "R" key anymore because the prefab is still attached to my mouse cursor. What is the shortcut to cancel the prefab spawning and go back to selecting prefab in the scene using the "R" key?

Thanks again.

 

No answer yet? Is there some other place to get support and answer to my question above? Also from the quote below
there should be a fix button in Tools for Octave. I can't find it anywhere... And where is the refresh scene located exactly? Sorry for so many questions, I think Octave3D is great but the documentation doesn't seem updated.

Thanks!

 

Hi there,

There is no way to cancel the prefab. But you can press R and just pick another prefab. Doesn't this work for you?

The fix button has been removed since it is no longer necessary. The text will be updated.

The Refresh scene button can be found in the Inspector:

 

Hi and thank you for the quick reply. The "R" shortcut to grab object in my prefab folder seems to work on and off. It could be a faulty wireless keyboard. I will try to find my old wired keyboard and test it furthermore. Of course it would help to know if anyone else has the problem.

 

I believe the reason why this happens is because you are clicking on the UI between presses. When you click on the UI, the keyboard focus is transferred to the UI so pressing R will not do anything in the scene. I believe I have implemented a kind of a workaround for this: pressing the same key twice will transfer keyboard focus back to the scene view window.

This thing with the keyboard focus can actually be verified outside of Octave3D, with the Unity Editor itself:

• select a game object in the scene;
• click in the hierarchy window (focus is transferred over to the hierarchy window);
• press CTRL + D to duplicate the selected object;

The object will not be duplicated because the CTRL + D key combo was sent over to the hierarchy window, not the scene view window. You would have to click the scene view window to transfer focus there before CTRL + D will work.

 

Hi and thank you again for the quick reply and informations.

Another small question. I noticed that when I click in the UI the closest feature gets activated (the boxes on the left become checked or unchecked. Is there a way to bypass this behaviour? I noticed that I often turn options on or off by mistake just by clicking my mouse on the UI.

Thanks!

 

I just realized that the box checked and unchecked when clicking is not related to your asset but to unity itself. I never noticed this before upgrading to Unity 2019. So please forget my question above.

 

@XGT08 Would it be possible to suggest what would be the best way to spawn cars in a parking lot. I know your amazing Octave3D can help a lot to make the process faster but I am not sure what would be the best way to do this. I would like to use random cars in my prefab and spawn them close to each other and aligned
them so they looked parked outside a shopping center for example.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks you.

 

I think I got it! Using the Block mode with randomize prefab and the "Y" shortcut seems to be what I am looking for.
This asset is amazing!

 

Hi there,

Yes, the Block mode is what you need here That is the solution

 

Hi
TL;DR Can one drag models into Octave3D prefab system to place in scene? If not, please...

Just started trying to use Octave3D after watching a few vids. All looks exciting but immediate confusion. I'm trying to test it out with Kenny's Assets (free 3D platformer pack) https://kenney.nl/assets/platformer-kit

I tried dragging "block" (which is really "block.fbx") into the prefab area but nothing happened. I realise it's a model so try dragging it into the scene then back into project to create a prefab. I'm currently using 2018.3 so it asks if I want to create a prefab variant (since models are kind'a prefabs in new prefab workflow). I choose "yes a prefab variant" and voila now I can drag that into Octave3D.

So it feels like models aren't 'prefabby' enough to be dragged into Octave3D. I hope I'm mistaken. Please could you fix my broken conclusion or, if it is the case, is that something you might be able to change? I have lots of model assets (packs) that are supplied as models and I really don't want to have to create prefab variants of every item in every one of them!

(I tried a quick search in case this was FAQ. Sorry if I missed it!)
Thank in advance!

 

Hi there,

Welcome to the forum!

Octave3D works with prefabs and this is not something that I plan on changing soon. The packs that I used for testing and video recording all come with a prefabs folder and to be perfectly honest, I think this is the responsibility of the asset pack creator. Octave3D gives you the possibility to place those prefabs into the scene using different tools.

You're not mistaken Models aren't 'prefabby' enough because they are in fact model assets, not prefabs.

All in all, I will however look into this and see if this feature is something that can be easily implemented. Maybe it will come in the form of an editor window that allows you to drag models and convert them to prefabs. Then you can drag those prefabs into the prefab manager and use them.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

So it seems like it is impossible to get grid snapping when placing objects on terrain? Is that right? I unfortunately bought the asset on the assumption that this is possible.

 

Hello,

I don't know exactly what you mean when you say grid snapping on a terrain. Grid snapping is used when building environments out of modular pieces. You can however switch to PointAndCLick mode and you can still snap to a grid. It will not place it on top of the terrain however.

If you provide more details as to what you need, maybe I can implement it.

 

I have a flat area of terrain and would like to place pieces there with the Octave grid just like in normal mode. But in terrain mode it seems that it is impossible to even get the grid to show on top of the terrain. If it is too difficult to eg. project the grid onto the terrain and then automatically adjust the height, then maybe if I could at least see the grid on top, and then just adjust the height of everything manually after, that would already be a help. Until then I guess, I could just put everything on a plane, then remove it and adjust manually, but even then I seemingly can't get the grid to show as long as there is terrain below it.