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

Hello,

Currently this is not possible. I will have to check and see if rotation along multiple axes can be done.

 

Oh okay, Thought I was just missing something.

 

For some reason I can't make the T + click function work. I've tried creating new scenes, deleting the Octave 3D world builder object and nothing. I'm using 2020.3.1f1 and 2020.3.2f1, same deal. I deleted the whole Octave asset and reimported, same thing. I'm using the latest Octave 3D version but it happened with the last one too... it just stopped working one day, I used to be able to use it.

Afterwards I created a brand new project from scratch, imported Octave 3D and nope, the T + Click/double click function doesn't work for some reason. I'm using URP if it matters.

 

Hello, just started using it and going through the videos. I haven't seen yet how you tell it to lay things on the ground, when I'm placing prefabs, the grid shows much higher than the surface of the terrain and all my placed prefabs are above the terrain,

 

Hello,

I've just installed 2020.3.2f1 and it works perfectly. I would suspect it also works in 2020.3.1f1. Please make sure that the Plugin object (i.e. the object with the Octave3D script attached to it) is selected while working with it.

For some reason, the ALT key is known for causing issues sometimes. So if for some reason, hotkeys don't work, try pressing the ALT key, release it and then try again.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

For placing objects on a terrain, you will have to use the Decor Paint mode. Please have a look at this video for a more detail coverage of this mode.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

I've used the tool for a while now, so no newbie mistakes hehe! I was indeed selecting the object that had the script attached. Even pressing ALT fails to make it work... it's such a weird bug. Sometimes it works, but it's like 1 in a 100 chance. I suspect it has something to do with the hotkey, maybe if it had an alternate hotkey or way of working it would help.

 

I did not say you were a newbie. I tried to suggest a couple of hints since to be honest I can not think of anything else. Especially since I can not reproduce this issue in my case. Those are the 2 things I can think about.

For the moment, all I can do is keep an eye out for this issue and hope to fix it as soon as I can find the cause of it.

 

Good news!

I found a workaround that uses ALT, I have to press T then without releasing the T key I press ALT and still without releasing T I click the object. It's the only way it works but so far it's consistent. Any other combination doesn't work.

Edit: I love the asset, by the way, I just wanted to report this issue.

 

Octave3D script as prefab

I want to setup Octave3D as a prefab. This way I can change and/or edit Octave3D at one place and it will get updated in all the scenes which are using Octave3D. Is this possible and if yes, how?

I've already tried the following:
- Created new scene
- Added octave worldbuilder script to empty object (at zero)
- Entered the settings in Octave3D
- Added the prefabs in categories
- Added groups and assigned them to the prefabs categories
- Checked if it all worked (and it did)
- Made a unique prefab from this
- Dragged this prefab in a new scene
- Shook my head in disappointment when seeing that this didn't work

Using a centralized prefab based workflow is necessity for game development. So it would be awesome if Octave3D can do this also (since it can do so much already).

 

Hi there,

It is not possible to create a prefab from the Octave3D object. However, you can use prefab configs for this, as shown in the image below:


Click the Save prefab config... button to save the prefabs, and then in another scene, you can click on the Load prefab config...

Cheers,
Andrew

 

The prefab config and settings config don't work as well as they should.
Not all settings are saved (pivot, group structure, group placement).
So when starting a new scene, you still need to go through settings and do some housecleaning.

Also, can I make a request?
The prefab replacement tool is almost perfect, but it also needs to take the original pivot setting in account. If I use it now, the prefabs do not line up anymore

Thanks for the fast response, by the way

 

Prefab configs save all categories, prefabs and prefab tags and associated object groups. I believe this can save quite a bit of time.

The original pivot settings is used only when working in placement mode and snapping objects to the grid. Prefab replacement works in a different way. I can look into it, but I can't make any promises.

 

I've added some before after pics.


Above pic is where I've setup everything correct. Then made both config files and imported them into a new scene and new Octave3D (empty with worldbuilder script).
It loses settings and hierarchy structure.
Below shows that it loses the pivot setting

 

Please add the "use active prefab category group" in Object selection mode.

Now when you use the 'extrude mode' or 'Duplicate' it is added to the selected 'Attach to object group' which means you always need to manually switch between groups. This is annoying and prone to mistakes.



Just use the same method as in "object placement mode" in that the prefabs are added automatically to the active prefab group

 

After watching the videos I created some prefab categories to practice. When I came back to my project the next day, all of the prefab categories were gone. Odds are good that I missed a "saving" step before quitting Unity but I'd like to confirm this before I recreate the categories

 

Hey, first I want to say that this is a great tool, awesome work!

I love the randomize prefab feature, especially when I want to place larger areas with floor tiles but one thing I couldn't find out yet is if it's possible to not only randomize by category but also by tag?
Currently, I'm sorting elements in a category like "Floors" and use tags like "FloorSmall", "FloorMedium" etc. to sort them in a simple way. Now, when I use Randomize Prefabs both, the small and medium floor tiles will be used, which I don't want in that case. I could also split all my assets in smaller Categories like "FloorSmall" but I think tags are so powerful that it would be cool to use them in that case as well (if it's not possible already).

 

Hello everyone,

Due to some personal issues, I won't be able to provide support up to the end of May. I realize this msy be inconvenient, but there is not much I can do about it.

In case I don't rrach out at the end of May, please feel free to contact me again and I will look into your queries.

Thank you for your understanding.

Andrew

 

I'm having an issue where the block placement tool offsets the placement of objects by a few grid squares. Here's a video.

Any idea why this is happening? I feel like I must have hit some shortcut key that borked everything.

 

Hey
I have been using your tool, and I really love it. I am now trying to get a full level done, and I ran into a problem that I am not sure how to resolve. I created my level, and then I went to combine my mesh, which works fine and my FPS went through the roof (very happy), but then I worked on having certain objects alpha fade based on raycast from the camera. Those specific environment objects (the front facing walls) were removed from the nested group of objects and then I re-combined the mesh, and left the uncombined objects out of that procedure.
After all that, I tested the camera, and the alpha fading doesn't work. I am assuming this is an issue with raycasting, but I am not sure why the separate objects that are combined would have an impact. I made a video to illustrate what I am saying, in it, I walk around the level with the combined mesh on, and you can see the raycast/alpha fade not working (expect from some top level objects, not sure why), and then I turn on the initial OctaveBuilt objects (they were disabled after the mesh was combined), and the raycasting/alpha sorta works, and then when I turn off the combined mesh, it works as intended:

So, any ideas on why this is? What can I do to get the raycasting to work with the combined meshes? I appreciate any input or insight you can give me on this.

thanks!

 

Hi there,

Sorry for the late reply.

Please make sure you instruct the plugin to create colliders for the combined mesh objects as shown in the image below:


Set the Collider handling to create New and choose the collider type. Only Box and Mesh colliders are supported. This is necessary if your original objects didn't have colliders in the first place.

Now the problem is this. When you raycast to decide if objects should become transparent, you will be raycasting against large chunks of your level because more meshes are now grouped into a single large group so I don't think mesh combining will help in this case.

What you can do is to select small groups of meshes at a time and combine only those using the Combine selection button. This will allow you to control the size of the mesh groups which can be faded in and out at the same time.

All in all, I haven never worked on such a system before so forgive me if my solution doesn't apply. But I can say that mesh combining in this case is not completely compatible with what you are trying to achieve. Maybe combine only the meshes which never become transparent. Not as good as combining all, but should still save some cycles.

Hope this helps,
Andrew

 

Andrew
Thanks so much for the reply, and sorry for my delay on here. I didn't get notifications on a reply on here.

Your suggestion on setting Collider Handling to New helped with alpha fade, so thanks for that. I appreciate the help. I am currently just leaving any walls that need fading as they are, and the frame rate is still at 100+ so I think this is a path forward.

Thanks again!

 

Hi there,

Thanks for letting me know I am glad to hear it was helpful!

I wish you good luck with your project!

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hey All / Andrew
I am still working away, and recently I am trying to get a build going of my game for testing load times, etc. I ran a development build and I came across a lot of errors like this:

A scripted object (probably O3DWB.AxisMouseRotationSettings?) has a different serialization layout when loading. (Read 32 bytes but expected 80 bytes)

Did you #ifdef UNITY_EDITOR a section of your serialized properties in any of your scripts?

(Filename: C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Serialize/SerializedFile.cpp Line: 2324)

I did some research and saw that it MIGHT be based on how [Serialized] fields are within the #if UNITY_EDITOR space, and I wanted to check if anyone else had run into these errors with builds.

https://answers.unity.com/questions/1288797/a-script-behaviour-has-a-different-serialization-l.html


It could be I don't have my scripts in the right folders (as in, Editor scripts not in the Editor folder), but I am not really sure. Really out of my current league on this one as far as understanding C# and why the build is running into errors, etc.
Any insight on this it greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Retro

 

Hey guys
Not sure if this was already covered, but the area I was testing in on a build was one that was just for battle purposes, etc. I still had the Octave3DWorldBuilder Object still active, etc. Deleting this removed the errors on the build for me. Hope this helps anyone else getting this.

 

Is there a version that supports 2018.4.5?

 

This error annoy me when I try to press Play button.
Can you help me fix it?

ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: objectToUndo
UnityEditor.Undo.DestroyObjectImmediate (UnityEngine.Object objectToUndo) (at /Users/bokken/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Undo/Undo.bindings.cs:94)
O3DWB.UndoEx.DestroyObjectImmediate (UnityEngine.Object gameObject) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Undo/UndoEx.cs:31)
O3DWB.DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.RemoveAndDestroyAllElements () (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Decor Paint/Brush/DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.cs:143)
O3DWB.DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.OnDestroy () (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/Decor Paint/Brush/DecorPaintObjectPlacementBrush.cs:247)

 

Hello,

Can you please tell me the version of Unity you are using?

 

Hi!
I just tried Octave 3D yesterday and stumbled on the gray previews issue (as shown below)
After restarting my PC (and oc Unity as well) the issue persists.
I'm using LTS 2020.3.16 on Windows 11 but I don't want to change my graphics API...
In addition to the previews in the prefab management, game view also got grayed out completely.
Is there another workaround for that?

Working with blocks kinda makes editing a nightmare


Edit:
Closing the prefab management window doesn't help but after removing the "Octave 3D World Builder" component the game view works again
I did a ctrl+z after that to bring it back and the game view still works but after opening the prefab management window again it got grayed out (and the previews are still gray)

 

I've recently bought Octave3D-Level Design trough humble bundle. I know this is not a new assets and since I'm using Unity 2018.4.5 I was wondering. Can I get access to the version of Octave3D-Level Design that supports Unity 2018.4.5?

 

Doesn't work for me 2020.3.16 LTS. no matters the graphics API

 

That's odd, I'm using that same Unity version, Octave 3D v2.4.3.3, Direct3D11 Graphics API.
The prefab previews are working fine here.

Ah, you may have to create a new Octave3DWorldBuilder gameobject, for the prefabs to be visible.
This caught me during my earlier tests, I had to create a new one.

 

Thanks but it still doesn't work.. I wonder what I was doing wrong I literally just install it.
I also tried different scenes on the same project which didn't change anything
Only when I tried this on a different URP project on 2020.3.12 the previews worked but the game view still got grayed out
So I tried a new URP project on LTS 2020.3.16 and it also worked with a grayed out game view. I know we don't need the game view to edit with O3D but maybe it indicates that O3D has an issue
Because now I'm pretty sure that something in my project (specifically) prevent me from using this lol me and my luck.. but all the other attempts has a "gray" issue

 

What do you mean by "grayed out game view"? I think I didn't have that issue. Can you send a screenshot?
Is the Octave3D World Builder gameobject on your scene? What happens when you delete it from your scene, does it fix your game view?

By the way, one very important tip about Octave 3D:
When you create the Octave3D World Builder gameobject (where you include your prefabs, categories, etc), watch out to not include it in any of your build scenes, because ALL the assets you add to it will be included on the build (even if they're not being used in your scenes).

I recommend creating a separate scene with ONLY the Octave3D World Builder gameobject, and load it additively in the Editor, whenever you need to work with Octave 3D. That way you can ensure it won't be included in builds.

 

Hi,
sorry I'm missing something easy I think.

After pressing "K" to set the grid size to the object grid.

How would I get back to the default grid??

I just can't find it.

Thank you!

 

Thanks those are good tips should be in the manual!
The second is a really good idea, this way (saving a dedicated Octave 3D scene and load it additively) you can also auto load the last configurations you used right?

For the "gray game view" issue, this is how (a fresh new) scene without Octave 3D component looks like

And this is after attaching the component and loading a saved prefab configuration

This is how it looks even after deleting the camera.. the "no camera" msg only appears when I delete O3D component (the game view goes back to normal I guess)

For the "gray previews" issue, my problem was a shader sub graph Color property that it's Alpha channel was set to 0 which I used in a complex lit opaque shader graph and (I'm guessing) accidentally plugged the Alpha output of it to the opaque material output which result in grayed out previews in Octave 3D's prefab manager but not in any other asset or anywhere in my project (O3D got this right)



Thank you andreiagmu for your help!

 

Hi,
is it possible to size & position the objects exactly with numbers?
(like resizing an object from 1 to 1.001)

 

Hi there,

No, this is not possible. You would have to use Unity's Transform UI to change the scale to the desired value for this.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Can we have another filter type? right now its filtering by "any" tag which is good but I think we also need a filtering by "all" tags
So in the image below I want to show only wooden boxes that are interactable and not all my wood + boxes + interactable prefabs

Also, can the tags list be flexible? so it can be stretched vertically to fill dead space
Oh and another thing, can you add a "reorder" buttons? so we can reorder the tags (like drag & drop, move up\down, by name asc desc etc..)

Thanks

 

Hi there,

The tags list can be made flexible.

I'm afraid this is not possible.

I am not sure what you mean. Can you give me another example? The idea behind tags was that every prefab that has at least one tag active, will be shown.

 

Awesome!

Not that important anyway just nice to have

Yea that idea is good, it'll show every prefabs that have any of the active tags which is desired.
I thought to add a filter that will show all the prefabs that have ALL of the active tags..
This way you can assign multiple tags to a prefab and can further narrow the filter.
I think this is inclusive vs exclusive...

Lets say you have 100 "wood" prefabs, 100 "door" prefabs and another 100 "stone" prefabs.
Now lets say you have one prefab that is a wooden door on a stone wall. you can assign 3 tags to it; "wood", "stone" and "door".
In the current "any" filter, if you activate all the three tags, you'll get 300 prefabs, if you only activates 1 tag, you still gonna get 100 prefabs whereas in the "all" filter if you activate all three tags you'll only get 1 prefab.
The show condition is "any prefab that have all of the activated tags".

I dig a bit in the code, the later is what I'm suggesting:

Code (CSharp):

1. // removed

Thank you!

 

Hello! Trying to get my bearings with Octave3d. I have some questions.

1- I'm trying to place a 2d sprite using the path placement tool, but there's a message at the bottom of the screen saying "Cannot begin path construction because the object has a 0 size component along the extension plane axes."

The object I'm trying to place is a simple 1x1 square sprite. I've tried changing it's size and even adding 1 to the Z axis as I thought that was the problem but it didn't work.

2- Is there a way to have snapping when moving objects using the object selection tool?

Thanks

 

Hi there,

There is now an update live on the store which includes the vertical expansion of the tag scroll view and the ability to select the tag filtering mode between: None, Any and All.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

Sprites are infinitely thin along their local Z axis so you must make sure that the path you are building extents along the sprite's local XY plane. Just press the E key until the green plane is aligned to the sprite plane and then it should work.

You can have object to object snapping in both palcement and selection modes. Here is a short video discussin object to object snapping.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Is there a way to use a prefab's default pivot point instead of the boxed/collider one generated by Octave?

 

Hi Andrew,

The categories listed in the "Active Category" in the "Prefab Management" window are sorted alphabetically and this is fine. When I want to move prefabs to another category, the list is not sorted and it is hard to find the category. Can you make that list sorted alphabetically?

Another problem is that the category list is very long in my situation. Maybe creating such a long list of categories is not the best practice, but to use tags instead of categories, I realized that for two or more prefabs I had to add tags while dropping the prefabs in the manager. Is there another way to edit the tags of two or more prefabs at the same time?

And I am getting this error in the console when I cycle to the end of the category with the shift + scroll wheel combination.
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
O3DWB.ObjectPlacement.HandleMouseScrollWheelEvent (UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Objects/Object Placement/ObjectPlacement.cs:565)
O3DWB.ObjectPlacementSceneViewEventHandler.HandleMouseScrollWheelEvent (UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Scene/Scene Event Handling/ObjectPlacementSceneViewEventHandler.cs:70)
O3DWB.SceneViewEventHandler.HandleSceneViewEvent (UnityEngine.Event e) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Scene/Scene Event Handling/SceneViewEventHandler.cs:61)
O3DWB.Octave3DWorldBuilder.OnSceneGUI (UnityEditor.SceneView sceneView) (at Assets/Octave3D World Builder/Scripts/Octave3DWorldBuilder.cs:464)

 

Wow that was blazing fast, thank you very much Andrew!

It's still not what I had in mind though.. I used your code for example but didn't fully understand the tag system.
After the update, I realized some things and changed your AreAllTagAssociationsActive method to the following;

Code (CSharp):

1. public bool AreAllTagAssociationsActive()
2. {
3.     var activeTags = PrefabTagDatabase.Get().GetAllPrefabTags().Where(tag => tag.IsActive);
4.  
5.     if (_associatedTags.Count < activeTags.Count())
6.         return false;
7.  
8.     foreach (PrefabTag prefabTag in _associatedTags)
9.         if (!prefabTag.IsActive || !activeTags.Contains(prefabTag)) return false;
10.  
11.     return true;
12. }

For this feature to work we need to check whether all the associated prefab tags are present and active in the prefab tags db.
I did changed the source to test it and it is now works

Thanks again!

 

Hi there,

In the main toolbar, click on the bottom with the magent to open up the Snap Settings UI. In there, you can check Use original pivot to use the mesh's default pivot.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi Roy,

I probably misunderstood something But looking at the code, it seems to do the same thing. It checks if the tags associated with the prefab are all active.

The idea is that you don't have to retrieve the all active tags. You just need to loop through all tags associated with the prefab and check if all associated tags are active. The check to see if the prefab tag is contained in the active tags list is not necessary. This is always true if a tag is active. The reason for this is because the tags associated with a prefab are the same tags stored in the database.

So choosing All filter mode, will show only the prefabs for which all associated tags are active.

For example, if you have a prefab called Fence and this prefab has 2 associated tags: Props & Village. The Fence prefab will show only if both Props and Village tags are active.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

I will take a look to see if the category list can be sorted.

Regarding the other issue, I realize the current UI is far from ideal, but I am currently working on a complete rebuild of the plugin in which I would like to improve on many things, especially UI. It's going slowly but steady, so I don't have a time frame, but it's really something I want to see finished. Until then, I would appreciate if you could put up with some of the bad design decisions which I have made in the past