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

Hi,


I’m using Octave3D for level design, but somehow the grid will no longer show and all other functions outside of object placement aren’t working. I cannot select, or delete objects.

I'm creating an empty gameobject, and applying the Octave script, as I usually do.
I haven't made any significant changes to the project, I just opened a new scene, but now all other scenes won't work either.

Thanks,
Mo

 

Enable gizmos in the upper right corner of the Scene window.

 

Hi, is it possible to change the position in which the preview render textures are generated?

 

Yes this was the problem, silly me It's not the first time either, thanks for the support, it would have been hours or days before I realised haha

 

Hi there,

I am not sure I understand what you mean. The previews are always rendered in the prefab manager window. Do you mean to change the prefab rotation in the generated previews? This is not currently available.

 

Hi! Great asset but i have a few questions i did not find in the tutorials!

Is there any way to adapt the selected prefab to the scale of an already added prefab? IE: Make the wall the same size of a floor without modifying the original prefab


Also I am having problems with changing the grid to the size of the current selected asset. Can you tell me if there're any hotkeys for these problems? Thanks in advance!

 

Hi there,

Regarding the first point, it is not exactly what you need I think, but it is possible to pick a prefab from the scene by also inheriting its scale. So if you hover a game object in the scene and press R, it will pick the prefab from that object. If you also hold down the Shift key, it will pick the prefab and also set the scale to the scale of the object under the cursor.

Regarding the second point, you can use the K hotkey for this. However, I recommend checking if the artist provides a manual with recommended grid settings and change the grid size manually from the Inspector.

Grid snapping will be changed in a future version and things will be a bit differently.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Thanks for answering!

First point: I found the R hotkey, but what I needed was to make the current selected prefab the same scale as another one already added. I think this is not available, in the end I just created a prefab variant of the size I needed.

Unfortunately I've tried the K hotkey with no avail! It didn't change the grid size to the size of my floor. Or maybe it did but I am talking about another grid? I meant the grid that appears over a prefab when you want to put an object over it. I managed to snap stuff better while holding the CTRL key while positioning the prefab.

Its a great asset all in all tho! Managed to make scenes really fast!

 

Ahh I see... Regarding the grid that appears over other objects. This will be removed in a future version. This feature was implemented before other features were added. I think it should be better to use object-to-object snapping or simply use the Decor Paint mode to place objects on top of other objects.

 

Oh! I did not even know Decor Paint existed. I'll check it out. Once again, thanks for the asset!

 

No problem! Regarding Decor Paint mode, you might want to take a look at this video.

Hope this helps,
Andrew

 

Oh! one more thing! Is it possible to add new prefabs as childs of another gameobject? I've seen I cant place new prefabs as childs nor can I modify a prefab if its the child of another gameobject!

 

I want to create X cubes and use these X cubes to form a circle. Can this function be achieved using this plug-in? For example, I set the radius, click on a point in the scene, and automatically create X Cubes around this point, and they are all facing the center of the circle.

 

Hi there,

I think object groups are what you need in this case. Please have a look at this video.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

No, this functionality is not implemented. I am not sure if it will make it in any time soon.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hello,

Assuming I have 3 different wall prefabs: Wall1, Wall2, Wall3.
Can I use the path placing mode to create a wall from these prefabs placed in order? Looking like this:
Wall1-Wall2-Wall3-Wall1-Wall2-Wall3...

Thanks in advance

 

Hi there,

I think I understand what you mean. It sounds like a good idea, but this feature is not implemented. I will try to make sure it gets implemented in the next major update.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hello,

Recently I began using this tool, and noticed Object Erace just deletes EVERYTHING in the hierarchy up to the top parent the object is in. Isn't this supposed to delete the single part I click? I'm sure I'm not accidentally using a giant erase circle or something.

Same goes for deleting with Object Selection.

 

Hi there,

Yes, this problem could be solved for the moment using object groups. Please see this short video. The idea is to mark some of the object groups (i.e. containers for different kinds of related objects).

The current strategy for removing objects involves deleting the entire hierarchy of which they are a part of. This was done to handle situations where an object is composed of different small pieces, but you want to delete the whole rather than the parts. There used to be an option to disable this behaviour, but it no longer works with newer versions of Unity, so it was removed.

This way of deleting objects will be changed with a more intuitive system in the next major update.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

thanks, I'm looking forward to the update!

 

Hello,
First I really enjoy this tool and use it on a daily basis now! Great work.
I have a simple question/problem
I built my structures in a separate scene for now, where I was able to work near the origin in a clean area.
But now I have some structures and interriors in the actual game map I want to quickly alter some structure there and add some things using Octave. No problem so far it works, but I always have to use the XZ grid rotation options to align the grid to the current situation.
That is no problem so far I can get the rotation value from the target transform and use the values.
But when I want to place new prefabs they're by default always rotated identity like and I have to rotate them to the target rotation using fine rotation controls - but you know it is not precise exact value.
I'm wondering if there is some functinality like the "I" hotkey - reset to identity - but a function like reset to grid rotation.
I know I could somehow use object 2 object snapping and stuff but would be cool to use the normal workflow aswell

If I'm not missing something that would be my feature suggestions.
1. A button or hotkey to set the grid rotation to the currently selected transform rotation or something.
2. A button or hotkey to reset the placement guides rotation to the current grid rotation.

And I have a little bug:
Sometimes STRG + z for undo crashes unity when I'm doing a place action. erase and so on can be undone without an issue.
I got to work around this by just not using undo anymore when placing things - just switch to erase mode real quick and clean it up that way. I don't know if this is because of some conflict with another plugin or something, since the crash logs and so on do not really give reasonable information to me.

Thank you for the great tool and hope you can help me or take the suggestions into account

 

Excuse me, the tool just ... stopped working. Now when I place prefabs objects cannot be snapped.
Yes, I pressed U and W, without any effect.

It could be useful if the snapping status is visible in the inspector too, but anyway, can anyone guess what's going on?

(EDIT) Sorry, it was just that I was in Decor Paint mode instead of Point and Click mode. The issue is solved.

 

Hello everyone!

I startet using Octave 3D recently, and like it very much so far! I have a question about prefab placement: Is it possible to constrain the coordinates where prefabs can be placed? I would like to prevent placing objects outside of a certain bounding box, but Octave's grid seems to go on indefinetely.

Any pointers and hints to any Octave settings I might have missed, or any other possibility to constrain the coordinates where objects can be placed would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance and best regards,
Patrick

 

Is there any way to align placing prefab to already placed pieces? I placed a wall, angled it a bit, then I realized I cannot add stuff to the placed wall because rotation is off.

I wish hotkey to copy rotation of the existing prefab or something.

 

(Initially posted in its own thread)

I've recently started using Octave3D and it seems like a very handy tool. However, I ran into an issue with selection tool picking up all kinds of other objects than the ones that I need.

I.e. I made a small fence around and area with UModeler (which creates pretty large bounding boxes depending on the created object size) and now when I'm inside it, the Octave3D likes to snap to that particular object's bounding box by surface. I can toggle off snapping, but then it won't snap to the other objects in the scene and that's a problem with modular pieces. Also I don't want to move or hide the fence as it shows me the area where I can build.

Also when I'm selecting the modular level pieces it keeps picking up other elements I have placed in the scene like the background mountains or the ground level through the object that I'm trying to click. Then I need to move around inside the bounding boxes of the earlier mentioned fence area to be able to click on items. From the shortcuts list I can't find any button to mark items to be ignored, also it doesn't respect Unity's own "pickability" options.



Or maybe I'm just too blind to find the correct workflow.

 

When you have many objects attached to a common parent, it is recommended to mark the parent as an object group. So the objects that exist in the scene for the purpose of scene management, should be marked as object groups.

Please have a look at this video.

Octave3D attempts to select entire hierarchy of objects in order to deal with cases where an object is part of a larger hierarchy. Of course, this doesn't always work as expected. This will be improved in a later update I have planned where selection will behave differently and it will also take Unity's pickability options into account

Until then, you can also change the following field:


So in the Object Selection Settings UI, there is a field called Selection update mode. You should set this to Single Object.

All the best,
Andrew

 

Thanks, that's useful info to have, but not quite the issue I was talking about. I did select the "single object" option, but that selecting whole hierarchy hasn't been an issue as all the objects have been set into their own object groups. I recorded a couple of example of strange selection behavior. In first you see me trying to click a wall piece, but mostly being able to select the surrounding object, but if I click on top of the wall piece it will be selected (as it's slightly over the top limit of the enveloping object), although the actual object is shown as a huge box which is the Umodeler's reported object size.



In the second you see the selection tool picking up some faraway objects in both far right and far left. I understand the part where it selects the ground behind it as the selection box touches it. There doesn't seem to be an option to cull the objects in the back from the selection, like at the end of the animation.


The first case might come up easily if one were to make an object in Blender and try to insert items via its apparent openings. Second will come up in complex environments where you want to select items that appear to be in front of you, but end up selecting everything in the camera frustum.

However, I'm happy to hear that the pickability options and selection will be improved in the future. Kudos for maintaining the project, it's really one of the more unique assets around.

Edit: Also, while at it, is there any way to reset the placement grid to something standard, or adjust it manually to for example .5 or 1 units etc.? I didn't find keys for that in the PDF.

 

Hi there,

In the first case I do you mean the you click on an object and the object is not selected? If that is the case, it might happen when you place objects in the scene manually (using Unity's interface). If that is the case, you should press the Refresh scene button in the Inspector.

Regarding the second case, yes, objects which are behind are also selected. This is because the selection happens in screen units. While a solution to sort objects and filter occluded objects could be implemented, it would probably be slow and I am not sure how it would be done. Also, Unity seems to do it in the same way. When you select objects with a rectangle, it selects all of them.

As for the last query. You can set the grid size manually in the Inspector:

 

Are there any known peculiarities with saving prefab configurations? I seem to be getting strange behavior with saving/loading prefab categories.

Edit: Ohh, found it! If a prefab category is created by dragging-and-dropping a prefab from the scene, it will not save. It must be dragged from the Project window.

(I absolutely love this program, by the way!)

 

Thank you for the grid size tip, I must have overlooked it!

In the first case, I've clicked the refresh scene, but it actually starts picking the surrounding UModeler object if I pass the object boundary. It's a bit difficult to explain, but I suppose I'll just disable the object while working inside it, or build the fence from prefabs.

In second case, I understand now that it picks objects in selection box regardless of distance, but what I don't understand is when nothing is selected, and I start making a tiny selection box, it suddenly selects background elements pseudo randomly although the selection isn't touching anything. As depicted by the red box and arrows pointing at the scene elements it actually selects.



The selection shouldn't be anywhere near the bounding boxes for those prefabs.

 

Hi there,

I think this happens because the object basically surrounds the camera and its screen rectangle fills the entire screen. So the selection rectangle always intersects it. I think this could be fixed, by unchecking Allow partial overlap in the selection settings UI:

 

There is definitely some problem with undo (ctrl+Z).
All worked fine and happy, but at some point Octave started to crash Unity. After creating an object in Octave and pressing ctrl+Z there is a crash. Every single time.

There have been so many changes in the project it is hard to tell which one exactly made it start crashing. Not using undo fixes the problem of course. But the problem is there. Something triggers it, but I can't tell what exactly. I wish I could.

I use Unity 2021.2.13f1

 

Hi there,

Thanks for letting me know about this.

It would help me if you could send a screenshot with the errors in the console if there are any. Or does it simply crash?

Also, can you tell me something about placing objects? What tool were you using when it happened? (PointAndClick, DecorPaint, path etc).

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hi,

re crashing on undo

Place any prefab(s) using single object, path or block mode (possibly others but I haven't tested)
Hit undo (Ctrl Z)
Unity crashes - crash log below

Unity 2021.2.3f1

Thanks

Code (CSharp):

1. Obtained 34 stack frames
2. 0x00007ff6551d640a (Unity) Transform::InitializeTransformHierarchyRecursive
3. 0x00007ff6551d652c (Unity) Transform::InitializeTransformHierarchyRecursive
4. 0x00007ff6551d79da (Unity) Transform::RebuildTransformHierarchy
5. 0x00007ff6562c9595 (Unity) UndoManager::CheckConsistencyOfAffectedTransforms
6. 0x00007ff6562ceec4 (Unity) UndoManager::PostApply
7. 0x00007ff6562c9297 (Unity) UndoManager::ApplyUndo
8. 0x00007ff6562d2ada (Unity) UndoManager::Undo
9. 0x00007ff655dec2b0 (Unity) MenuController::ExecuteMenuItem
10. 0x00007ff655deb992 (Unity) MenuController::ExecuteMainMenuItem
11. 0x00007ff654bae2be (Unity) EditorApplication_CUSTOM_ExecuteMenuItem
12. 0x000002928008b6fa (Mono JIT Code) (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEditor.EditorApplication:ExecuteMenuItem (string)
13. 0x000002928008b633 (Mono JIT Code) UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.MenuItemEntryDiscoveryInfo:<.ctor>b__7_0 (UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.ShortcutArguments)
14. 0x0000029280049808 (Mono JIT Code) UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.Trigger:HandleKeyEvent (UnityEngine.Event,UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.IContextManager)
15. 0x0000029280048b63 (Mono JIT Code) UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.ShortcutController:HandleKeyEvent (UnityEngine.Event)
16. 0x00000292800489eb (Mono JIT Code) UnityEditor.ShortcutManagement.ShortcutIntegration:EventHandler ()
17. 0x00000292800488dc (Mono JIT Code) UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallGlobalEventHandler ()
18. 0x0000029190611cb5 (Mono JIT Code) (wrapper runtime-invoke) object:runtime_invoke_void (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
19. 0x00007ffa61cfe034 (mono-2.0-bdwgc) [mini-runtime.c:3445] mono_jit_runtime_invoke
20. 0x00007ffa61c3e724 (mono-2.0-bdwgc) [object.c:3064] do_runtime_invoke
21. 0x00007ffa61c3e8bc (mono-2.0-bdwgc) [object.c:3111] mono_runtime_invoke
22. 0x00007ff6553be4d4 (Unity) scripting_method_invoke
23. 0x00007ff6553b9154 (Unity) ScriptingInvocation::Invoke
24. 0x00007ff6553b2b05 (Unity) ScriptingInvocation::Invoke<void>
25. 0x00007ff6554d39cb (Unity) Scripting::UnityEditor::EditorApplicationProxy::Internal_CallGlobalEventHandler
26. 0x00007ff655ec653a (Unity) CallGlobalInputEvent
27. 0x00007ff6564189fc (Unity) GUIView::ProcessEventMessages
28. 0x00007ff656412563 (Unity) GUIView::GUIViewWndProc
29. 0x00007ffaf2471c4c (USER32) CallWindowProcW
30. 0x00007ffaf2470ea6 (USER32) DispatchMessageW
31. 0x00007ff6563ed943 (Unity) MainMessageLoop
32. 0x00007ff6563f22db (Unity) WinMain
33. 0x00007ff6577013a2 (Unity) __scrt_common_main_seh
34. 0x00007ffaf29954e0 (KERNEL32) BaseThreadInitThunk
35. 0x00007ffaf3ac485b (ntdll) RtlUserThreadStart

 

Hi there,

I installed Unity 2021.2.3f1 and I can place objects and Undo/Redo with no issues. I can create a video recording if you think it would be necessary.

I honestly do not know what could be causing this. Can you try to delete the Octave3D folders and do a clean import?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hi Andrew,
I too am getting the undo crash. Exactly the same logs as @gaco79.
Using 2021.2.15f as well.

I found that the issue only occurs when using object groups.
My object group was also nested under another GameObject but unsure if that matters.

Cheers Krooq

 

Hello and good day.

I got this issue on unity 2021.2.1f1 and the current version live on the asset store... and when I click on any manipulation type (Pos, Rot, Scl), the manipulator it's not showed on the scene, it's that normal?.

 

Hi,
apologies it's taken a long time to get back.

As @krooq says, the issue seems to be when objects are assigned to groups. Sorry, I'd forgotten I'd enabled that!

So this definitely causes a crash:

New unity 2021.2.3f1 project using 3D Core template
Import Octave3D
Import some 3D assets
Create octave3d GameObject and assign Octave 3D World Builder Script
Assign prefabs to Octave 3D

At this point placing and undoing work fine

Octave3D World Builder:
- Go to Object Placement / Object Groups
- Create group
- Enable "Attach to object group"

Prefab placement still works fine, but will now crash when undo is performed.

Quick video here:

I clicked "use active prefab category group" in the vid, but you don't need to do that to cause the crash

Thanks,
Gareth

 

Note that in 2020.3.30 this feature is working fine.

 

I am also getting the same crash and I'm on 2021.2.10f1
I think it's this bug from Unity. It will supposedly be fixed from the next version 2021.2.17.

 

Just curious, does this work with hexagon tiles sets?

 

Hey there,

This might be related to a Unity bug that was patched in 2021.2.17

Release notes: https://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/2021.2.17

 

I gotta say I'm a huge fan... but... this isn't the first time a plug-in-breaking bug was found. I've tried re-installing, and there are no errors... any idea why this is happening?

 

Hi
When I place prefabs using Octave3D they are always placed at y=0.2 rather than y=0. As a result if I use it in scenes where I have been provided pre-created areas I always have to do some fiddling. Is there a way to set the default Y to zero when using Octave?

 

Also, any chance of a feature request? I use the Synty asset packs a lot and they've always been set so that the default facing direction in a preview is away from you (so you see the back of the object). Very annoying. Is there any way in Octave3Ds Look and Feel settings you could put a "Rotate Preview" option with a degree number?

The screenshot shows what it looks like in the preview in the prefab pane. It's impossible to know which wall variant I'm using (not your fault at all) and a "rotate preview" option would be really useful.

 

Is this still supported?.. No updates for 6 months, dev not present in forum for 3 months...

 

Hi there,

The objects should be placed at y = 0 by default. Have you changed the grid position? Can you show me a screenshot with the snap settings? (the Magnet icon in the main toolbar).

Regarding the prefab previews, I understand and it will be available in the next major update (which is a complete remake of the plugin). It will take a while, but it is something I really want to do and I would like to focus my energy on that update only

Cheers,
Andrew

 

I have started rebuilding Octave3D from scratch and I would like to focus on that only. Therefore, there are no new features planned for the current release and therefore no new updates. I try to fix bugs when I can, but it is not always possible. The plugin simply needs to be re-coded from scratch.

 

If you need any beta testers, let me know. I absolutely love this asset!

I've found the current version to be stable.

 

Sounds great. Here's the screenshot



I also get a similar problem when trying to snap things against vertical objects. They don't sit ON the wall but rather sit away from it.