Feedback Probuilder is totally useless

https://forum.unity.com/threads/pro-builder-is-totally-useless.769241/

Been 4 years, still totally and utterly useless.

 

It's just so unbelievably, shockingly terrible.

Observe my attempts to move an edge loop on a plane using PooBuilder

Truly next level stuff going on here. Inb4 'You should file a bug report'

 

Well, ProBuilder definitely has its issues, but i wouldn't say it is 'completely' useless. Well, i manage with it anyways. But as for professional individuals / teams, etc... i don't see it being used much if at all. There is definitely far superior software / tools for the job.

 

Ever since moving on to SabreCSG I just don't even bother with ProBuilder. ProBuilder is a buggy, awkward to use mess and it feels like it's been left to die as far as usability is concerned.

 

It is a niche tool that has been used in production successfully. Obviously if you know blender well, you can probably run circles around it. And some people are more comfortable with CSG.

Is it still being updated? IIRC the creator released it as opensource when he couldn't make money with it. Unless I'm misremembering.

 

No, that's right. Since then it's been updated to at least as far as Unity 2021.2, but GitHub shows no commits since early this year.

Still, if it works, it works.

 

It's not, but what issues it has are minor and stillmuch easier to work around than ProBuilder's are. I've used it in basically every project of mine for greyboxing for years now.

 

RealtimeCSG and SabreCSG creators are now working on Chisel.

 

Why do you have to post in 2 forums?. If your that upset after 4 years, why havent you moved on to another solution?. After less than 1 year, i would have moved on. You are just wasting time bro, really...

 

I post in 2 forums because I'm butthurt af about Unity wasting my time so shamelessly with this utter junk package. You're right though I am wasting time (also). Venting is good for the soul however. I shall move on to realtimeCSG now.

 

What the hell is even going on there? Poobuilder developers let their toddler kids write their runtime logic?

 

ProBuilder devs just recently posted questionnaires for future development, and are now prioritizing CSG editing. See ProBuilder forum.

As far as RealtimeCSG and SabreCSG are concerned, I remember one wouldn't even work due to compile errors, and the other was not like the thing that blew ProBuilder out of orbit usability wise. And if my memory serves me well, the CSG operations were destructive. I may have used it incorrectly but given that those tools haven't been updated for years and will definitely not see any updates anymore, it will be a matter of time until you cannot use them anymore as Unity development goes on. So I didn't want to spend much time on them.

The Chisel thing ... as much as I like to see it working, it has practically no commits over the past two years. I'd consider it "dead for the time being", definitely more so than ProBuilder.

 

Yeah I bought at least one of those but they were broken or limited in some way and Chisel seems dead, so disapointed!

 

UModeler has shown a lot of promise as an alternative, unfortunately every time I try to use it, I find a major bug and decide to wait a while, so much for a 5-star asset!

 

serious question - you guys ever try making basic grey box kits in an actual modeling program like blender and using that instead? Even with import to game engine, I still find that preferable to using clunky in-editor controls for modeling. To me the speed of dedicated modeling app is 100% more efficient than any sort of in-editor tools I've used (talking both unity and other engines here).

I dunno why, but viewport navigation and gizmo handling in every game engine I've used is pretty rubbish compared to what you get in 3d modeling softwares.

 

this is true, but is there a modeler that uses the Unity coordinate system cuz damn blender uses a different one and sometimes it is annoying to switch?!

 

Using the probuilder runtime API to procedurally generate geometry is pure gold ...

 

The ability to greybox levels or objects directly in the Unity editor, all in relation to the rest of your scene, taking into account scale and position etc, is a hard benefit to give up. I usually use Probuilder to get the basic size shape of what I want in editor, then export and rework the object in Max for the actual final object. Probuilder is a short but vital intermediate step.

 

i dont mean make the level layout in blender, but rather make kit in blender, send pieces to unity. One app open on each screen - once you get the import/export process down its basically instantaneous.

 

They are not in either of them so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

edit: Hell, if we're talking about destructive workflows, that's literally what ProBuilder is. It's one of its biggest downfalls when it comes to iteration.

I have, and there are a lot of considerable issues:

1. Setting up collision areas becomes increasingly tedious if you're working on something where you can't just use the mesh collider
2. The roundtripping process becomes time consuming as time thanks to Unity's lacklustre MeshSync package and the as of yet non-existent Omniverse plugin
3. Iteration time becomes time consuming as you jump in and out of play mode, the modelling application, waiting for the import, and dealing with all that entails

While Blender and other modelling applications may have faster workflows (something that should have been solved in Unity the moment they acquired ProBuilder), they quickly start running into issues with Unity's asset import/export workflow.

 

I use Wings3D and it is fine. Wings3D is easy to use and free, although they removed .fbx export/import a while back, but there are still other export options that are fine for use with Unity.

 

Exactly.
Personally I'd love more if Unity would implement a nice, basic 2D image editor where you can fix some pixels, paint some UI shapes, change shades of your sprites and textures etc., than full on 3D modelling software. The later just takes a magnitude higher amount of work to get properly done. Hence why there are whole companies dedicated to those. Basic functionality just doesn't cut it for nowadays requirements which have skyrocketed in the 3D field.
I mean sure, it would be great, but we can't have everything

 

Yes, it absolutely sucks for blocking out levels compared to CSG.

The point of CSG is that it allows you to instantly alter things IN editor without jumping back and forth between multiple programs and going through export windows. So you can quickly graybox stuff.

Originally all levels were made using CSG, but right now many people prefer meshes (and some are downright fanatical about using only meshes), but CSG is still incredibly useful for blocking out stuff.

Basically, when you want to plan your levels and set up areas, CSG is the way to go.
When you want to make level kit, blender is the way to go.

 

I feel for the OP, as ProBuilder and UModeler (which i use), are really are the only viable solutions available. So we are stuck using one or the other and dealing with the bugs/probs, and hope we can find work-arounds and deal with what we have.

What we need is Unity to step up and work on ProBuilder to address issues users have reported, and im sure they are, but the changes/fixes just cant come fast enough....

 

As far as I remember, the main issue with the pro builder is that the team responsible for it isn't capable of maintaining and upgrading the tool.

It's not only because the team is understaffed (typical for this company) but also because they are responsible for many complex tools. Just look at unity's forum, the same people are responding to issues related to the pro builder, poly brush, splines, and new tooling system visible in the scene view. I think they also were maintaining pro grids, but they've decided to abandon it.

You can see similar problems in 2D rendering and UI Toolkit. These are big projects, and teams for them are clearly too small, so they have to decide what to focus on and what to abandon.

The truth is, the entire "pro core" toolkit isn't usable outside of low-quality white boxing and tiny scenes. To fix this, unity would have to bring a dedicated team.

 

I switched from Probuilder (even bought it before Unity got hold of it and wasted my money giving it away for free) to UModeler. UModeler isn't flawless, it's a bit quirky but gets the job done for me, that said I'm not doing massive levels or anything so your mileage may vary. UModeler has a free version i think, so it's worth giving that a try.

 

I have to admit that I'm feeling this...I've tried using ProBuilder several times, but the combination of bugs (undo frequently creates extra objects out of the void) and the lack of critical features (non-destructive boolean operations) is just painful.

I used to use RealtimeCSG -- with very little experience, I could easily block out a whole building -- but it's non-usable on my Mac (and it's not supported nowadays, either). I just really wish the built-in tooling could reach that level!

 

I find it's works pretty good if you are making an N64-style game with a triplanar-projection shader, but yeah.