[RELEASED] GSpawn - Level Designer (3D Tile Rules, Curve Spawn, Scatter Brush, Modular Walls ... )

Cool assets but has a few annoying problems. The ones that stuck out to me were the multi-scene editing problem and the heavy load on cpu when you have a lot of assets in a project.

The first is, for example, curve path (spline) does not detect terrains (with the option selected to work on terrains) that are not in the main scene, even when the component gspawn is in the same scene as the terrain (multi-scene editing with multiple terrains).

The second is when the project has several GBs of assets then the plugin slows down the editor and the domain reloading.
If I remember correctly the problem is in ObjectSpawnTool::Awake (I'm writing this from memory so I could be wrong but it's good to fire up the profiler for the editor).

One more problem is low collision precision for physically dropped objects (rigidbody). It's even visible in the tutorial videos.

 

Hello,

I will have to look into the performance issues you mentioned. Are you using a pack from the asset store? If so, would be great to know the name. Maybe I can give it a try.

Only objects present in the active scene can be interacted with. Not sure if supporting multiple scenes is possible. I need to keep track of all objects present in the scene and update a BVH when necessary.

EDIT: Object groups are another reason why multi-scene editing might not work.

Regarding the collision precision, it could be because of the colliders. I am simply using Unity's Physics system here so I don't know what else it could be. By default, the plugin will add a box collider to the objects if none is present. Otherwise it just uses the collider it finds attached.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hey Andrew,

what would be the ideal workflow for editing existing prefabs? For example when i build a house, finish it and prefab it for later use but then i want to make some changes... what would you recommend? Because I can't just put the prefab back in scene and select some objects in selection mode + how do i get the grid to match the old grid?

Also when I try to make a prefab through GSpawn: Select all object in selection mode and klick create prefab, it unpacks all object groups. Is this intended?

Cheers,
Michael

 

Hey Andrew,

I use "Fantasy Adventure Environment", "SUNTAIL - Stylized Fantasy Village" and several others as well as a lot of icons. I think the problem is with the amount of GameObjects (Prefabs / Assets) that AssetDatabase has to search for. I think you can reproduce this when you copy folders a few times to reach up to ~5GB from the assets you already have.

 

Hi there Michael,

You can open up Edit > Preferences and under the GSpawn > Object Selection item, check the Allow child select toggle. This allows you to select children of a prefab:


This is more flexible but it can cause issues if you are not careful. For example, you could accidentally select one of the children of a prefab and use the extrude gizmo when in fact you wanted to extrude the entire prefab hierarchy.

Another approach would be to select the prefab and pres ALT + T to perform a selection transfer. Selection transfer will switch between GSpawn selection and Unity selection. Using Unity's interface you can change the selection as you wish and maybe use the move gizmos to make changes to the objects. Then you can switch to GSpawn again and create a new prefab.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

Ok. Thanks for letting me know!

It could be because of the number of prefabs.

There are 2 issues here: first, the UI items that need to be updated. The bigger the number of prefabs, the bigger the time it takes to update the UI. This should only happen in certain situations (e.g. Undo/Redo when the UI needs to be rebuilt).

The second issue (and I think this is the one you are experiencing) is that these prefabs have to be stored as assets that need to be serialized/deserialized as needed. My guess is that it takes a bit of time to serialize these assets.

To be completely honest with you, if this is the case, I currently do not have a solution for this. I haven't tried to repro this yet. Maybe I can find some way of making it work faster once I do.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi Andrew!
Like GSpawn very much so far
I have a small issue with prefab previews
Looks like it doesn't take LOD's into account (see first picture below) and the alpha is incorrect. basically I'm using a dithered alpha in my shader for almost all of my prefabs and in the previews looks like the alpha is < 1


1. How it looks in the prefab manager window
2. How it looks in the scene view and
3. How each LOD looks
4. How it looks with alpha set to 0.75

 

Hello Roy,

GSpawn does handle LODs when generating previews. However, it treats them in a special manner. For some reason, some prefabs with LOD appear and disappear when rotating the preview. In order to fix that I had to use only the first LOD level (LOD0).

The plugin makes the assumption that all LODs are children of the same parent (should always be the case if I'm not mistaken) and the first child is LOD0.

Can you should me the hierarchy of the prefab that uses LOD?

Regarding alpha, I'm not sure where I should be looking at? Objects seem be rendered opaque in the image you sent me and they also appear opaque in the prefab manager.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

This is correct! Although I'll always use Unity's `LODGroup` to manage LODs..

This isn't always correct.. it varies from one prefab to another and we cannot guarantee that.
The best way to get LOD0 I know of is like so:

Code (CSharp):

1. void GetFirstLODExample(LODGroup group = null)
2. {
3.     if (group == null)
4.         group = FindObjectOfType<LODGroup>(); // get the LODGroup component somehow
5.  
6.     LOD[] lods = group.GetLODs();
7.     LOD lod0 = lods[0]; // each LOD holds an array of Renderers used in its specific LOD level
8.  
9.     // to get the actual materials and meshes we can do the following
10.     for (int i = 0; i < lod0.renderers.Length; i++)
11.     {
12.         Renderer renderer = lod0.renderers[i];
13.         Material[] materials = renderer.materials; // if we need to do something with the materials
14.         MeshFilter filter = renderer.GetComponent<MeshFilter>(); // if we need the mesh, maybe to combine it with all of the meshes for LOD0
15.         GameObject gameObject = renderer.gameObject; // or if we need the GameObject itself
16.     }
17. }

__

Sure! here:

This one (I've created myself) is what the plugin assumes, I guess, but.. it could differ one of the other.
For example, take a look at these two prefabs:

The first LOD is a child of the first child and not the first child itself.. and in the second example, there are 2 LOD0 objects, one of them is the 4th child.


__

I'm using dithered alpha (see Pablo from DE explains it here maybe skip to 3:30)
You can see small uniform "holes" in the preview in prefab manager.. this is how all of the prefabs looks in the prefab manager despite all of them having alpha set to 1.
I'm using this technique to crossfade LOD transitions.

 

Hi @RoyBarina

I made some changes to the way in which LODs are handled inside the preview generation code. It works for the simple LOD hierarchies which I have access to, and it should also work for more complex ones. Unfortunately I can't test it with the models that I have.

Please send me an e-mail at octamodius@yahoo.com and I will send you the updated pack. I am curious if it works with the hierarchies you showed me in the images.

Regarding the alpha issue, I am assuming the alpha value is a material property? I am simply instructing the preview camera to render the preview scene. The rendered objects maintain their original material. Does this effect require any special camera parameters?

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Oh so fast..
Will do now.

I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶L̶O̶D̶G̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶o̶n̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶s̶s̶f̶a̶d̶e̶.̶.̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶L̶O̶D̶0̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶(̶s̶)̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶e̶l̶f̶,̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶L̶O̶D̶G̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶o̶n̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶?̶ ̶U̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶v̶a̶l̶u̶e̶ ̶`̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶_̶L̶O̶D̶F̶a̶d̶e̶.̶x̶`̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶p̶h̶a̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶d̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶d̶e̶r̶.̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶p̶a̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶p̶h̶a̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶.̶
Edit: ayt I fixed the issue. I had to flip the way I'm using the dither node <insert facepalm emoji here>

 

Hi Andrew!

I'm having some few more issues with GSpawn:
1. The box selection seems to be misplaced the far away from the "origin" point you initiate it. Maybe because I'm using a custom 125% DPI? it still does selects what I wanted to though so it's not critical..

2. When selecting stuff, looks like the wireframe selection for obscured meshes are drawn too. is that intended? can we change the selection to a simple outline? I think I saw it's possible in your videos.
Is it possible that the pluing draws every LOD mesh in the object? ignoring if it's obscured or not by the LODGroup component?

3. Can we control when the plugin draw handles? it looks like now they're being drawn first and if we select a complex mesh or (in my case) LOGGroup object, the handles are being obscured behind the selection (see attachments)

Thanks!
Roy

 

Hi Roy,

The initial version of GSpawn was supported only by Unity 2022.1 or above. Starting with 2022, an API is available that allows me to implement selection highlights like the ones Unity uses in its own selection mechanism.

However, there were quite a few people that were still using 2021 so I had to find a way to use something other than selection highlights. This is the story behind wireframes.

Regarding the issues you mentioned:
1. Interesting. If I remember correctly, this problem was also reported in Octave3D quite some time ago. I will check to see if I managed to find a solution for it.
2. I think you're right. It may be that all LODs are rendered regardless of whether or not they are visible. I will look into it.
3. It's not possible at the moment. It should be possible to reorder this in code. But I hope that fixing number 2 will also solve this issue.

I will let you know as soon as I have some updates.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi @RoyBarina ,

Managed to fix the issues you mentioned. Please send me an e-mail at octamodius@yahoo.com so that I can send you the updated pack.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Done.

Oh I understand. I tried once to upgrade my project to 2022 but too many things broke I had to revert..

 

I forgot to mention one more thing ‍[face-palm]
I noticed when creating a prefab using the "Prefab Lib DB" window, prefab links gets broken. (like when we right click a prefab in the scene and selecting "Prefab > Unpack Completely")
It's like the plugin uses regular `Object.Instantiate` rather than `PrefabUtility.InstantiatePrefab`.

 

Hi Roy,

Do you mean when you drag and drop a prefab in the scene from the prefab manager? Objects are always instantiated using Prefabutility.InstantiatePrefab. Except for the spawn guide which is disconnected from its prefab instance.

 

When creating prefabs for tiles & tile rules. like here (at 1:43):
GSpawn - Tile Rules (Part 1) (Prefab Creation & Tile Rule Setup)
The resulting prefab breaks any child prefab.

I've created a simple scenario.
Consider these 3 prefabs:

When creating a tile prefab using Prefab Library Manager, my expectations when opening the prefab were a root object and the 3 prefabs inside it like so:

But in actuality, the prefabs got broken like so:


Prefab creation dialog:

 

Hello all!
I currently started using GSpawn and I really love how it works. Unfortunately, I'm having a similar issue as some others have. The buttons/hotkeys won't update the inspector. Sometimes if I click off of the GSpawn object and back, it will be updated correctly, but after a few times of that, it seems to not want to update then either.
I'm using 2022.3.1f1 and have Game Creator 2 and all its modules installed, nearly every Synty Fantasy style asset, Loading Screen Studio, Magica Cloth 2, Malbers Horse Anim Pro, Rapid Icon, and URP Time of Day. Everything is up to date. No other version of GSpawn or the old Octave has ever been installed in this project.
I have no issues with the prefabs spawning or displaying. It's just the inspector updating with the buttons and hotkeys. I read through the posts above, and I'll look through them again. Restarting the editor, changing scenes, and entering/exiting play mode doesn't work either. No errors. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hello,

I would first like to ask you if you could test GSpawn with the same Unity version, but without all the other extensions installed. Just to get this out of the way. If it still doesn't work, then I will have to investigate it.

However, if it does work without the extensions, it means that some of these plugins take control of the Editor Input. GSpawn does the same. So there may be a conflict here, but let's hope not.

Regarding the Inspector not updating, do you mean that when you click on a button in the Inspector, it doesn't do anything?

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi Roy,

I will see what I can do about that.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi Andrew,

I have an question about building the walls.
When I have a wall block mesh, let's say the width is 5.2 unit, but use 5.2 as the width to tile the block, the gap comes between the each wall blocks. It should be use as 5 unit to keep no gaps.
In this case, how can I tile the wall with a desired size, not just use it's real size.I think it is not only appear in the walls.

 

Hi there,

Inside the Wall Profile window, at the bottom, there is a field called Truncate forward size. If you check that, it will use the whole size (5 in this example):


Hope this helps

Cheers,
Andrew

 

I'll give that idea a test! Yes and No, most of the time when selecting placement or selection mode it will switch functionality but the inspector wont show that I have one or the other selected. It will not highlight which one I'm using, kinda making it frustrating to know which is active. It will sometimes just stop changing though and I'll have to exit the whole editor and restart.
But lets hope it will work without all the other clutter. I'd be ok with making my scenes in another project and just importing them seperately.
Thank you for your help!!

 

Unfortunately, right from the start, it does the same thing. Fresh install in a URP project. Post Processing, Synty Dungeon, and GSpawn installed. I'll attach a .gif of the issue.

 

Hi there,

I can see there is an error in the console. Can you please show me a screenshot with the error message(s)?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

That's my fault, I should have mentioned that as well. That's is the Straight Wall error, it happened when I clicked on the modular wall icon without walls set up

No StraightWall prefabs were found in profile 'Default'. Make sure the StraightWall rule has at least one prefab assigned to it that is marked as 'Used'.
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError (object)

 

Ok. Got it.

I think what would work here is to do a clean install of the plugin. Simply delete the GSpawn folder, and import it again. There is literally no reason for it not to work

Please let me know how it went.

 

Hello! Sorry for the delay, work has been crazy lol
But I had just deleted GSpawn entirely, restarted the editor and reinstalled/imported and sadly I'm getting the same results. It's not the worst bug in the world, just rather inconvenient. I'll still be using GSpawn, but I'll just keep an eye on the package manager for updates.

 

Hi there,

I am sorry to hear that it still doesn't work for you. If you wish, you can send me the invoice via e-mail at octamodius@yahoo.com and I will contact Unity to arrange for a refund. That's the best I can do I'm afraid

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hello Roy,

I have started working on a solution for this. It works with standard arrangements, but it doesn't seem to work with nested prefab instances. I will get back to you when I have a solution for this.

By nested, I mean the ones that have the + icon.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

There wont be any need for that! I'm still happy with the purchase and aside from this little inconvenience it's a great asset! Still, thank you for your help!

 

Ok, so I don't know if this is 100% the problem I was having, but I believe I found the cause.
I run my projects with 2 Inspector tabs open. I just flipped to my other Inspector tab and GSpawn is working perfectly fine and normal on that one. No hiccups or anything. I don't have a lot of time to test it out before I leave for work, but I'm going to assume this was the cause. GSpawn assumes a tab as the *main* one, and the other will just act goofy.
I hope this helps others! and once again, thank you for your help and for making such an amazing asset!

 

That's great! I am happy you can use the plugin now. Honestly, this wouldn't have crossed my mind

 

Hi @XGTy I don't think package works on m1 MacBook. I have tried 2021.* or 2022.* First of all, there are so many glitches, then whenever I create object group and assign it to one of the prefab, whole unity is stuck for a while. Also same thing happens If I perform any prefab drag operation or prefab rotation operation.

Let me know if you send a video.

 

Hello,

I am sorry to hear you are running into issues.

GSpawn runs on top of Unity, so it really is a matter of how Unity handles Macs and it doesn't seem to be handling them very well. For example: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-apple-silicon-m1-version-crashes-very-often.1314990/

Maybe try to install a newer version of Unity if that is something you can do? Please do let me know if it works.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

@XGTy yesterday I ran some tests, I installed old Octave package and that is working correctly even there are no glitches in scene view.

About installing new version. I have tried that as well. Installed brand new unity 2022.3.8f1 and ditto same behavior I also tried 2021 latest version, same behavior.

About the thread you shared, my unity hardly ever crashes, last time I remember it crashed due to incompatibility of materials I imported which were supported only on URP and I was using Built in RPL.

Today i will try to install intel unity as well and try that test as well.

 

@XGTy I have also tested package on Intel Unity on m1 Macbook pro and Intel Unity version on Intel Macbook pro 2016. Glitches have been removed but when I dragged og group onto prefab, same behavior happened.

I made a video for you
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yz4hnggtq4dabv0/gspawn-recording-english.mov?dl=0

 

Hello,

I looked at the video you sent me.

I can tell you I don't think this has anything to do with GSpawn. For example, GSpawn doesn't implement the window dragging/docking functionality. So I doubt that the stretching glitch is because of GSpawn. Same for the other stuff.

EDIT: Although somewhat different from the issues you are experiencing, it sill proves that Unity can be buggy on Macs: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-editor-windows-content-texts-are-broken-on-macos.1353605/

Maybe the reason why Octave3D works is because it doesn't use Unity's UI Elements to draw the user interface.

In any case, since you can't use the plugin, what I can do is to grant you a refund. Please send me an e-mail at octamodius@yahoo.com with the invoice and I will contact Unity for a refund.

One last thing When you @ me, make sure you write XGT08. XGTy is the somebody else's user name Just wanted to let you know

Cheers,
Andrew

 

haha @XGT08 I didn't know unity forums is as buggy as their mac's unity UI. When I write at sign it should have shown your user, it automatically selects someone else.

In video, stretching only occurs because when I drag og_group to prefab, right at that moment gspawn is stuck, as it turns out any mouse drag operation, gspawn is stuck and unity is stuck with it. but this never happens with any of the plugin.

About refund, even without this issue, I am able to create environments really faster, so refunding won't do me any good. I need next updates as well.

Only problem is I am unable to drag wall prefabs to that wall building sets where we set each corners and straight wall, if you somehow show me or tell me how can I assign wall prefab to that set without dragging, that will resolve my problem for now.

 

You can load the prefabs using the button shown in the image below:


Simply select the prefab(s) you want to use in the prefab manager and then press this button

 

Nopes, tried everything and it is not working on macbook, not even intel one, most of the shortcuts do not work due to command button. I will borrow Windows laptop from someone and will try on that

 

Hello, I've noticed theres a lot of really great selection tools for selecting tiles.

Is there a way to copy and paste those selected tiles and maybe rotate them as well? Being able to rotate them in all axes while staying on the grid would be so amazing! Other things I like in voxel programs are things like selecting all the tiles of the same material/type like a paint/flood select.

 

Hi there,

Copy pasting is not possible, but you could use something similar like duplicating (CTRL + D) and then moving the tiles in a different position. You can rotate the selected tile using the X/Y/Z keys or its variant (SHIFT + X/Y/Z) to rotate around the selection center.

In terms of selecting similar tiles, you can use SHIFT + A to select all tiles that are linked to the same prefab.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

thanks a lot ! i had the same issue, which is solved now

 

hey small question
i noticed that, when i am in selection mode, modular snap does not work, even if its enabled


also, there was the cool feature, where we would do
Shift+C to rotate around normal
and Shift+Q/E to rise up/down smoothly
maybe i am tired and missing it in the shortcuts window, but i can not find them sorry

 

Hi there ! I'm actually discovering this asset and trying to build a wall (following the first tutorial). I do have some issues with the corner, which are not oriented in the correct way. I checked several times the prefab and the names, it looks ok. By the way, i don't have corners out of the box, so i've created them with two walls through a prefab. Any tip on what i could do to get the correct angle for the corners ? Thanks !

 

I also miss the cycle prefab selection with the mouse wheel.

I'm facing a similar issue with tile rules.
Seems like the plugin chooses the wrong tiles.. maybe it's related.
I've setup a project to test that against something I wrote (and made it look similar to GSpawn)
See in my attachments the blue rails are the tiles made with the plugin and the orange rails are the ones I've created

 

Hi there,

In ModularSnap mode, the concept of surface normal is no longer used because the scene grid is always the surface and that's what the objects snap to. So when you press the Y axis, you are essentially rotating around the surface normal which is the grid Y axis.

the Q and E keys can be used to move the guide up/down in increments of the grid cell size along Y. You can also hold down [CTRL + SHIFT] and use the mouse scroll wheel to do the same.

Again, smooth rotation and offset are no longer available in modular snapping. This mode is specifically designed to always snap objects to the grid.

On the other hand, Props Spawn can rotate around the surface normal by holding down [SHIFT] and moving the mouse. Smooth offset is also available by holding down the ALT key.

In order for modular snapping to work in selection mode you need to activate it by pressing the [D] key. You can then left click to commit when you are satisfied with the object(s) position(s).

Cheers,
Andrew

 

Hi there,

There are 2 things I can think of right now:
1. make sure that when you build the example prefab, the middle straight piece has a rotation of 0 on all axes. Place this piece first, reset its rotation to 0, and then build from there.
2. When you don't have access to corner prefabs, you shouldn't assign them to the slots in the modular wall profile window. You only have to assign the straight wall piece.

Can you give this a try and see if it works?

EDIT: I made this video for a customer a while back. I believe the same assets are used. I think it might help you out:

Cheers,
Andrew