"ProBuilder"- Fast, Simple 3D Modeling in Unity- Beta Test to Win a Free Copy! :)

If I still can, i want a beta test version for my zombie dungeon crawler Project Zombie Fortress.

 

hey i ma making a dungeon game and thinking that this may be a nice tool to use , can u please send a link so i could test it out

 

Sorry brendon and chris, Beta is over, but there may be a "trial" version coming soon, and another contest to go with it

 

Will there be an "extrude" type feature sometime soon? With the batching/nodraw it's not so much of an issue, but it would be nice.

 

Hi Stardog-

This is something I need to address better, but am not sure how to yet. The thing is, extrusion/cutting/etc works fine for pure 3D editing, but not always fine for game creation. Or, not as efficiently that is.

The shortest, and maybe best, explanation is- look at ANY Valve/Source Engine game. Team Fortress, Portal, Half Life, etc. All are stunningly beautiful and rich in detail, yet are also known for running extremely well on even very old computers. A big, big part of the reason is they use the "BSP" building system to construct literally around 95% of everything in-game- this system is the inspiration for ProBuilder. It's definitely a different style of creation, but it is a very powerful, proven, and efficient method.

ProBuilder can't do everything Valve's genius engineers have put into the Source Engine and Hammer World Editor, but it does emulate the core optimization features (occluding, NoDraw, volumes, etc), super fast building and texturing, and also the wonderful ease-of-use.

I have also decided to release my "ProGrids" tool for free with ProBuilder, so extrusion will no longer be needed, among other very, very handy benefits.

 

Yeah, I was thinking about situations where you might want trim textures at the top and bottom of walls. If they're not merged into one texture, then that would mean 3 seperate cubes on top of each other, instead of 1 extruded.

 

Hey,

I really meant to give this a try this weekend, so today, I am dedicating a bit of time to it and trying out so I can give you feedback.

I really think this is a very worthwhile tool that will free modelers to do more heavy duty work than modeling box buildings. I will install and try today, and post up a few WIP results if I have something neat to show.

 

View attachment 35225

This is just a small building I created trying out the tool. Used a couple of our models to spruce it up a bit.

My feedback:

I created the house by creating one large wall, then duplicating it and rotating it for the other walls. This produced some bugs, which came back whenever you selected any of the walls created through this rotation process.

Basically, whenever you select the rotated wall block using the ProBuilder tools, the texture becomes horribly skewed/garbled. The collider also appears to be rotated incorrectly, and essentially a lot of strange things happen due to this.

I managed to correct the issue by basically resetting the rotation with the object selected and probuilder on, then retexturing it, and finally turn off probuilder and rotate the wall again to the correct place, but this made some of the process quite painful and confusing, obviously.

I also noticed you have a Gismos folder that sits outside of the 6by7 folder. Can this be moved inside of that folder, is it Unity crazyness that requires to sit outside?

Regarding prefabs: Is there a particular reason prefabbing these objects doesn't work well? Let's say I build a house, then decide to prefab it. If I don't intent to ever modify its vertices, will this still be an issue in some other way? I'm talking about duplicating cookie cutter houses here, mostly, as an example.

The tool is definitely very nice and I think that with some improvements, its well on its way to becoming a great asset to have in your library. My offer of course, still stands, if you'd like some help working out some of these issues.

 

This is true. However, while making a seperate box for each of those parts might seem strange, the important part is, it's the same (or better) performance than extruding or meshing the shapes. And you can still edit the geometry and textures as needed!

 

Hi Rico,

Thanks much for your thoughts and testing! What you have looks interesting from what I can see...but maybe just a tad more light so we can see more?

The rotation issues are indeed problematic- I'm working to figure that one out, meanwhile the documentation simply advises against rotation or scaling. Normally, those two are not needed for the style of building that this uses, so hopefully it won't be too big an issue.

 

ProBuilder submitted to the Asset store on Tuesday night- hoping to hear back from Unity soon!

fingers crossed!

 

THIS IS A PIPE DREAM , but I'd like to make destructible environmental with this .
Like BF3 , but still its a fantastic product . How much will it be- 50$ the sweat spot, unless you bundle it with textures and prefabs, then 100$

 

Actually, the destructible part is implemented- I just disabled it due to occasional bugs caused by it. Once I get those worked out, it'll be ready to rock

Thanks for the compliments!

 

Really?? What exactly do you mean like breaking apart the "built" bits of model? Physically effected by the stuff around? If so that would have some pretty awesome uses...

I would think having them break apart would create the problem of like, the planes non-textured sides becoming visible? Please elaborate more on this

 

Yep, exactly. It can't "shatter" a single block or anything, but it does (did, lol) work great for fairly simplistic, but very fun, destruction. And because it auto-calculates mass based on volume (and a density you provide), it's super easy to use

 

To all who helped out with the ProBuilder Beta- thank you very, very much!

Now the Big News: ProBuilder is finally live on the Asset Store, HUZZAH! After many fixes and upgrades thanks to you folks, it's ready to rock your Unity game making workflow. If you want to get the most out of ProBuilder, I will also be giving away both "ProGrids" and "ProGroups" to the first 5 folks to purchase and leave a review on the Asset Store!
http://u3d.as/content/six-by-seven-studio/pro-builder/30b

In case you haven't seen those:
ProGroups is an extremely handy grouping tool (works wonders for large scenes). See it in action here:
http://youtu.be/A9fkdko58SI

ProGrids is a grid+snapping tool that is also very useful (read: life saver) for working with exact positioning and especially dungeon/tiled levels. You can see it in action in this time-lapse video of ProBuilder:
http://youtu.be/CFRyVjm9QPc

Thanks again everyone, let me know if you end up purchasing and reviewing- if these tools help you out, please do, so that I can continue making and supporting them!

 

Model something anyone?

 

Purchased earlier ... excellent product! This will augment/simplify the build process. Just what Unity needed.

 

Thank you very much ChiefPMM, can't wait to see what you create with it!

Send me a PM with your email address and I'll get you the "ProGroups" and "ProGrids" ASAP, you'll love 'em combined with ProBuilder!

 

I purchased, but I can't seem to select anything in the viewport when Probuilder is active...??

 

Good to hear, Stardog- thanks!

About the selection I think I went over that in the documentation/tutorials- when activated, the tool needs to do a lot of fairly special things regarding selection, so only ProBuilder objects are selectable. Just click 'DeActivate" and everything goes back to normal.

I know that may seem like an extra step, but since there is a lot going on behind the scenes, I wanted to make absolutely certain that nothing would break and cause trouble in your level later. Different "modes" was the only sure-fire method of achieving this.

Thanks again- ProGrids and ProGroups are on thier way to too you!

Running out of time to get those advance copies for free, folks!

 

It was because I didn't notice the Readme (doh). Maybe put that into the Documentation file somewhere.

It works perfect now.

 

Hi Just purchased and looking forward to see what this beast can do.

Ste

 

Hi- I think this is due to the way Asset Store downloads and imports the files. There is some manual work involved if you purchase from the Store, unfortunatly. There should have been a "README.txt" in the folder it downloaded, right? It explains the steps to move things around.

Basically, the Asset Store will import the folder structure like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Assets
3.      ProBuilder
4.           6by7
5.           Editor
6.           Gizmos
7.  

...you just need to move all the folders out of the "ProBuilder" folder, and then delete the (now empty) "ProBuilder" folder, so it looks like this

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Assets
3.      6by7
4.      Editor
5.      Gizmos
6.  

Hope this makes it more obvious- of course, you won't actually have to worry about any of this, since I'm shipping you the full ProTools package right now! It will just import easy as pie!

Thanks Stardog!
PS- that README.txt was in the folder, right? Or do I need to update that?

 

So the file was there eh?

 

Hi disaldo, many thanks for the purchase!

If you could PM me your email, I'll get the full ProTools package shipped right over- makes it a whole new "beast"!

 

This means only 2 more chances to get ProGroups and ProGrids free, before release even!

 

Yeah it was there.

Can you make the default UV mapping to not be flipped and rotated in the next update?

It's 90 degrees off and mirrored right now, so you can't get a texture going the correct way:


Also, what are some best practices for using it? Such as is it ok to duplicate a box and edit? It seems like that's a bad idea. Also, it says in the manual to never rotate.

 

Easy fix would be to set negative tile value and counter-rotate the texture by 90 degrees, although it would be easier to have the correct rotation by default...

 

Thanks Phobic, that's true- you could get it working correctly by flipping and rotating.

But that's just silly, of course- yes, I'll get that fixed ASAP, thanks for bringing it to my attention!

 

Yeah using -1 etc doesn't work either. I think the offset is also off by 0.5 on the X axis. You can check be deleting the middle cross of the texture.

 

Duplicating is the best way, actually. Simple and fast method of building is just to keep duplicating bits and modifying.

Very, very rarely, I have found that duplicating a box will lead to it becoming "instanced", in that it and it's original will mirror each other when edited. Just delete the new and re-duplicate, and all is well.

Rotating works fine geometrically, but the textures are UV'd in world-space, so if you go into either edit mode after rotating, the textures may look odd. For convenience sake, this is a list-topper in my update list, but generally it hasn't slowed me down at all while building scenes. I just don't ever rotate or scale, really.

Speaking of, scaling is a big no-no. With ProBuilder, there shouldn't really be a need for it though

"Best Practices"- good theme for a new tutorial vid, thanks!

 

Hi I just picked this up in the Asset store. ProGroups and ProGrids still available?

iByte

 

You bet- Just send me a PM with your email and I'll send 'em right over!

Thanks much iByte!

 

Hold up- 6 purchases already? How did that happen? Let's do just one more- next purchase gets the final freebie, both ProGrids and ProGroups!

Make sure you post here and send me a PM with your invoice number, so I can verify the winning "ticket". Thanks everyone!

 

Will creations made with ProBuilder be exportable as standard meshes (or other formats) at some point?

iByte

 

Looks good, just picked this up!

 

Absolutely, 100%, you bet.

Maybe I should make this a selling point- I'm really just an artist who absolutely needed this tool, saw that nobody was making it, and so taught myself editor scripting and made it myself.

This tool isn't just an asset I'm selling- it's crucial to my own game development, and extras like mesh exporting are definitly coming soon, because I need it too

I will also be setting up some sort of forum/request form so folks can let me know what features/additions/changes they would like. Obviously, not everything can be done, but I'll sure try!

 

Wow, that was fast!

Okay, tell you what folks- all the way until ProGroups and ProGrids officially hits the market, I'll keep giving these both away with all purchase of ProBuilder. Maybe that'll give me real motivation to finally get those done for the Asset Store

If I'm lucky, that could be tonight...otherwise, tomorrow night for sure!

 

I'm not sure weather the beta is still going on, but if it is, I would really love to try this out. I am working on a project for my schools TSA, and I cant really afford Maya or Lightwave. Besides, those never import correctly, and it seems so cool not to have to go through the hassle of importing. If I could try this out, it would help my team tremendously. All for the purpose of education of course!

 

Hi TSA, sorry but the Beta has ended- I'm hoping to have a "free" version sometime in the future, but that will be a month or so probably. Keep in touch if you are still working on it, and good luck with your project- just made it out of college a few years ago myself!

Best advice I ever received- do 3x whatever your professors tell you to do. 1 for the grade, 2 for your portfolio and learning!

 

Here's my first request. Support substances as materials on the blocks. I can drag and drop a material from the free substances package on to a face but then of course have no control over it like we do with regular materials.

iByte

 

Got, it adding to my list.

By "control" I assume you mean the ProBuilder texture options (rotate/scale/offset) don't affect it? That seems odd, as I'm not actually doing anything to the material, only moving the UVs around on the plane.

 

Sorry your right. I had the main block selected vs a particular face when adjusting the coords. When you get a chance download the free substance pack. Add a regular cube to a scene and then add a Probuilder box. The add the same material to each. Good to note the differences.

iByte

 

Hmm, so the texture controls do work though? Don't have the time to test the Substance pack right now, will do it soon. But the controls still work, yes?

Thanks for the info!

 

Yes, they still work. There are a coupe of anomalies but I think it can wait till you get a chance to see for yourself.

iByte

 

Hi Yahodahan

I have been fiddling with ProBuilder to get used to it and I seem to have build errors each time I build a scene to run around in. The errors are shown in the attachment. I am sure it is something I am doing or have not done so any help would be great. The learning curve on this tool is sweet and swift thanks for producing such a great asset. I am running a Windows 7 64 box, and Unity Pro (Educational License).

Thanks in advance

Ste

 

If I had to guess, I'd say you entered "Play Mode" without first de-activating ProBuilder?

Could you check if that is the problem?
Adding an auto-exit to my todo list, regardless.

 

Whew, good to know it works. I'll be checking into that more in depth, too.

 

Hey Yahodahan,

Really got to grips with the beta today, took it out for a test run, great tool - here's what I came up with:



I have a problem with the textures on the wall near the door, is there a way to take multiple boxes and merge them together with the same UVs? I've come across this issue quite a lot in the level designs where I need a wall with a hole in it.