[RELEASED] Nottorus - Unlimited Visual programming plugin

Asset Store link

I worked very hard on this plugin and after more than one year of developing I'm ready to release it.



The main idea of this plugin is to write any code whatever you want without any restrictions. No matter what type of code you're making, it can be a game logic or network protocol or multi-threaded code for some system. Nottorus plugin allows creating each of them. Output code can be created not only for Unity Engine.

This plugin use reflection system, which allows accessing all Types and their members in all assemblies that project works on, including project scripts. Based on this method the plugin will generate all available nodes (functions, accesing properties/variables etc).

Also plugin has integrated State Machine editor as simple as Unity Animator.

List of supported code objects:

• Classes/Generic classes;
• Structs/Generic structs;
• Constructors;
• Fields (Variables);
• Properties;
• Indexers;
• Methods (Functions);
• Enums;
• Delegates;
• Interfaces;

Works with generic types (generic variables, methods etc). Have all possible member modifiers (except async and volatile).

Script Editor Features:

• Intuitive interface;
• Dynamic nodes database (more than 200,000 nodes generated from reflection on default assemblies);
• Contains all features of C# language;
• Compiles into C # without any garbage;
• Runtime Debugging;
• Undo/Redo;
• Integrated State Machine;
• Description for each node (loaded from assemblies);
• Opening multiple scripts in same time (you can copy nodes from one script to another);
• Autosaves;
• “Modified outside plugin” (checks and show message if script was modified in text editor before rewriting script file after compilation);
• Pre-compilation (before script file will be written to the disk the code will be compiled in memory to detect all possible errors to prevent the script with an error was written to a project) (disabled on MAC).

Spoiler: More screenshots

This asset includes:

• Script editor
• State machine editor
• Integrated SCharp parser (conversion of scripts into nodes)
• Example scene (prototype of the ball game on Nottorus scripts)

Other viedos (workflow):

Simple 2D SideScroller
youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-w-yIHbPM

Simple Shmup
youtube.com/watch?v=0qVnMbBAkho

Simple Inheritance
youtube.com/watch?v=K_JDseVX0lU

iTween interraction
youtu.be/bAWWAB0lmAQ

Screen-shoter tutorial (Counting Instances of Objects)
youtube.com/watch?v=fLQJVM1gHWM

Simple Shooter project
Pt 1 - A [Hit Detection ]
Pt 1 - B [Scene SetUp]
Pt 2 [Projectile Shooting]
Pt 3 [Raycast Shooting]

For more information check GettingStarted.pdf.

Asset Store link
Documentation site
Forum


Requires Unity 5.0 or higher.

 

Looks like a very clean professional interface. What price will this be released at?

 

Thanks for making.


Any planning for demo version?

 

Thanks, the price will be 350.

I'm not planning to make a demo because technically it's hard to cut off some functionality in this convergent (concurrent) system.

 

The site with documentation and forum is now opened

 

is this tool build by the team/person that build Anteras Universe? The profile photo reminds me NeoDrop.

 

No
I heard about NeoDrop, but not familiar with him.

 

I love seeing new Visual Scripting tools, so thank you. I have bought most that are on the store, pretty much a hobby in itself... but I tend to convert prototypes to code because it usually ends up less complicated.

Given your price point compared to the others already well established, can you give us more insight as to why this is better or different?

uScript and Blox2 generate C# from their graphs, each require programming principles to get the hang of how they work.

Playmaker & Gameflow don't create C#, but are more simplistic for the basics & can be extended through code.

FlowCanvas targets somewhere between the above... doesn't produce C# but is easy to pick up & appears very fast (current post on their forums). I'm sold on this for now, but I'm not trying to sell it lol.

I like that you mention this can be ported outside of Unity, definitely a selling point. iCanScript was going down that route until the developer put it on hold several months ago... and once again I had to change tools. For me to consider parting with 350 I would want to be able to produce graphs faster than any of the above.

Maybe post the sample graph on the Rolling Ball demo, would give us a better picture.

Looks very similar to Blueprint. Great job...

Rix

 

Thanks Rix
I don't try other visual systems, but I have seen few videos how they work and reviews. So I saw the systems, which allows to make basic gameplay logic, but not more.. Some of them are not allowed to compile to C# code, some of them is inconvenient at all.

As I said, the main difference of my system that it allows you to write C# scripts as you did it in mono or visual studio. There are no dependencies on the visual system, only clean code.
You write the code as it actually works, rather than "macroses" of other visual systems, which can makes a feeling of some limitations..My system is not for beginners, and its a professional high-grade tool.
After creating script you can delete my plugin, and no one will know that this script was created on visual system

You can copy some code from internet and parse it into nodes. As I know no one visual system can do it.

You can see it in demo video You want to see the graphs of some functions?

 

Most important: Spend $ 350 (!!!) to a 'new player in the Store' for a new 'No-Source-Tool (full of DLLs)' !!?. Who can guarantee that you will be here in a year ?. It is increasingly frequent : abandoned products.(Tired of spending money for it. (Always the most expensive, by coincidence .)
Bookmarked (nice tool ), but sorry, i'll wait to see things are going to happen.

 

I think you should ALSO target beginners. Nottorus seems like it is based on Blueprints... which was developed for those who can't completely handle C++ ie designers & indie coders alike. If you are solely targeting experienced programmers, then I'm not so sure they would put down the keyboard to pick up drawing graphs instead... unless they use it to train their designers for the smaller tasks. It's a collaboration of both that makes Unreal Blueprints so popular. Just my opinion of course.

Do you work for or have an agreement with Unreal? I notice your editor is or at least was Blueprints editor, as per your post on the Flowcanvas thread.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/flowcanvas-inspired-by-unreal-blueprints.245646/#post-1924848

If true then I would imagine you will get some serious interest from the community, I wish you good luck but really hope you reconsider us Indies. The only key to bridging the gap is a load of tutorials.

Could you consider watermarking a trial version similar to how uScript does it? I'm guessing the level of interest/sales will help gauge your decision...

Rix

 

For beginners I mean those people who newer works in visual systems and don't know their basics.
Blueprints is not for beginners too) Without a basic knowledge of programming there's nothing can be done there. My system is not more difficult than blueprints.
And yes, my plugin is very similar to a Blueprints, so for peoples who works in BP its not be a problem to work in Notorus.
I'm not saying that I will not target beginners. For now I'm writing documentation for beginners. And I'm gonna make a lots of tutorials (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced).

For the first time I had to make a logic and I did not have time for painting design part. So I decided temporarily borrow the design from the most similar system- BP.

 

Excellently written. If you stick to this, you have the clear winner in category

I'm going to keep posting thoughts so that this thread keeps getting bumped, I want as many people as possible to see this. I'll shut up once the professionals show up

OK so on face value, this is actually better than Blueprints

It has all of the functionality, with the ability to produce nodes from code. I can't believe it can really do that!! So if I'm struggling with either code OR nodes, I work the other way around to see how the opposite is produced. Pure genius. We can self teach.

Often I see comments "Unity should include this by default" and I think, yeah maybe. This is the exception. Visual Scripting is on the Unity roadmap, if they see this they will give up... and most likely want to buy this from you. They incorporate this, then there is very little reason for anyone to choose Unreal over Unity.

The other VS tools cover 90% of scripting, but they lack complexity of code for such things as nested loops. Can you pop this code in and show us the nodes it produces? I've stripped out my variables for the below:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     private void SomeTest () {
3.         int x, z;
4.         for (x = 0; x <= 20 ; x++) {
5.             for (z = 0; z <= 40; z++) {
6.                 if (x == 0) {
7.                     if (z == 0) {
8.                         someVar1 = 1;
9.                     } else {
10.                         someVar2 = 2;
11.                     }
12.                 } else {
13.                     someVar3 = 3;
14.                 }
15.             }
16.         }
17.     }
18.  

Thanks,

Rix

 

Nodes
I like when the opening bracket written on a new line

After compiling the variables names of loop nodes are defined automatically: prefix "i_" and the id of node. Its allows to create an unlimited number of cycles without variables names conflicts.

As thay do it with nGui plugin?) Some people told me that this can happen.

If I knew how difficult it would be to do it, I'm not even sure that would have start to implement it. But this is one way to stand out)


I suppose you want to know what is the "//MD5Hash" line at the top of script.
The plugin checks whether the script was modified outside a plugin. If you made some changes in source file- nottorus ask you about overriding after compiling. I think this can be very usefull.

 

Lol, it's the old programmer in me - as few lines as possible!!

And stand out it does!! I'm sure you considered the same for Unreal, but I doubt C++ would be as achievable. If it is then go sell them the formula and retire from the profit

That is an excellent, clear & concise graph produced on the nested loop. This really is a programmers dream. I want it!! Unfortunately for me I have to go start saving.

With that said, I'll comment on thoughts you probably won't like to hear. Sorry in advance!!

Price. Your position is targeting professionals, and you figure software houses will not think this steep. Indies will though. Go check out the competition. uScript was doing well when it was in (forever) beta, selling at around 100 Euro. The past couple of months, they went to full price at 200 Euro. Go look at their reviews... zero since it went full price. Their community was once strong but now dwindles. They are not gaining enough members.

I'm not saying you need to drop to 100 Euro, but you should at least consider an opening sale. You need to build the community to succeed. Get some early adopters. Or you will probably get off the ground slower. Look, seriously, this is King of category. It can't get any better than Nottorus, there is no room for other developers to improve on. I would think that at 150 Euro, you would get 3 to 4 times the numbers as you would at 350 Euros. The math is in your favour if you attract the masses. Again, I'm saying as an opening sale... put it back up again after X amount of weeks. At least then, people will see a thriving community which will make the price less relevant.

Source code. As ZJP said earlier, developers want the source code in case they are forced into updating the product should you move on elsewhere. At the rate Unity updates, assets also continually require updates. I'm tired of seeing "obsolete" errors when I upgrade. I usually have to go chase devs or make the fixes myself. I realise this means giving up the keys to your palace... but maybe you can go with a half measure... I surely wouldn't hand over the code on converting code to nodes Nodes to code would probably satisfy most people. And you should also charge double for those who want the source, just like many others do.

Just thoughts, I understand if they don't pull any weight. I'll save up either way but I won't get there for a while, my Wife won't let me after the hundreds I've already spent lol.

Edit: on the source code front. Ultimately everyone has graphs with compiled scripts. If we have scripts, we don't bottom out if you leave. There is zero dependency. Scrap this idea.

Rix

 

No, its ok. I am glad to receive any responses

Agree, publication of the source code is inevitable. I'll do it in the future.
I think it must be as separate Visual Studio project that will produse dll files. No sence to place all source code instead of dlls because it will increase building time of unity project scripts. For now I have 32 000 lines of code (25k for plugin and other 7k for a parser), 73 source files for a plugin and 163 for a parser.

You're right, but for my last released product I provided support for more than 2 years. But that was free and non-commectial project. I will support the product for as long as possible, but at least 3 years.

I will change the price, but in any case it will not be less than 200.

 

Suddenly I am more interested.

 

This

I know it is very early days for you, but I have one more suggestion: consider integrating a Behaviour Tree asset I foresee a beautiful marriage

There are a few out there, but the most popular are NodeCanvas and Behavior Designer. The former has its own visual script (FlowCanvas), so integration might be more unlikely.

I own licences for both assets, wonderful tools. Each generate C# so integration would be seamless.

Rix

 

@Stridemann - I couldn't find any contact information so send me a PM or email if you're interested in integrating with Behavior Designer. Integrations with visual scripting assets work really well because you can have the behavior tree control the flow of the logic while the visual scripting asset controls the function.

 

If I understand correctly the Behavior Designer (BD) its like my state machine but more extended and all what we need is to execute my functions on BD events (as its works in my state machine).
I just watched "Behavior Designer uScript Integration".. So u make a script in uScript, than set the gameobject with this it in a BD event, than you call "SendMessage" to execute function in that script? This is really dead evil. The SendMessage function is used by devil when he beat the tambourine to call all dead animals.. Do you know that?
And for each event (function) you create a new gameobject with new script? Really?
Oh.. we should solve this in another way .

Okay, I will contant you today.

 

The uScript integration isn't as streamlined as I would have liked because of some uScript limitations. For a better example take a look at the Playmaker integration. Finite state machines are similar to behavior trees in that it is a form of visual scripting, but the nodes are executed according to a different logic. Here's a page that explains the differences.

 

Ok, I understand.
My system has no such limitation so the easiest way to link with BD is to create a function with pre-defined name and set the gameobject with this script in BD event. Thats all.
But I think its will be better to have some event system on delegates. It would be correct.

"Support E-mail" in assetstore page, but nwm, I sent you a PM.

 

Stridemann,

Could you enable uploading of files on your forum? Posting web links is a pain in the ar$e.

Thanks again for the price reduction, I'm waiting for it to hit the store so I can start playing...

Rix

 

Just lol !!

 

I don't understand, what "tags"?

Just press "URL" button and insert link in: [url ] [ /url]. Don't understand what is the problem

Done.

 

Wow. I must really commend you on building this.
The functionality looks amazing.

I've been using UE4 since the start, BPs and C++ and I must say what you've come up with
on your own is amazing, I am impressed.

My only advice would be to re-theme it as soon as possible.
Because right now it's actually a blatant copy of their UI design.

I'm just saying it can be completely avoided by making a few minor and major changes.
Good luck, looking really good.

 

Tags as in the URL tags. Never mind, sorted.

I'll keep these posts to Nottorus website...

 

Thanks

I think about this for a long time and I repaint all theme. Isn't it?

 

Okay, one more undocumented feature: pressing icon button on the node will open unity documentation for this node
PS. Allso works with microsoft (MSDN) documentation.

 

I just posted this over on Unreal. A bit of healthy competition for them...

https://forums.unrealengine.com/sho...them-their-own-Blueprints&p=515158#post515158

 

for hobby I'm work with UE4 BP system and really like it!!!!, but on my work i create animation in unity so if this plugin like Ue4 bp system its very cool!!!!! and i can finally start do advanced game logic on unity, but now for Ukraine its to expansive for just to "test it", so can We have demo version?

 

the feature of this tool reminds me iCanScript. I spend almost a year learning and helping developer but he just escape. So now I am not wasting time on learning this things.

 

Is that you, Red?

If so, then I would hope to try to encourage you to come aboard. The difference between iCanScript and Nottorus is that the latter is already complete !! Aside from that, functionality wise it seems Nottorus is literally Visual Scripting - not having to learn the ways of the tool, but rather the ways of coding !!

Add the fact that it can generate code from nodes, and this is the ultimate C# teaching tool.

The author has stated he will support this for at least 3 years, and also he will provide the source code at a later date.

And the reason I would like Red (my nickname for him) to join is that he was outstanding with iCanScript - a very helpful poster who liked to post tutorials to help people for no personal gain.

Rix

 

Yes, RED here but now I am not so interested in using VS tools. Actually I gave up learning unity too.
I hope this tool grows as promised by developer.

 

it looks great so why change it? keep it as is.

I dont understand the request to change the theme?
does it harm you or epic?
is epic going to get mad and come after him?
are you getting confused and dont know when ur using blueprints or this asset?

please leave as is. its a beauty.

 

I too am very disappointed by iCanScript. I won't go back there under any circumstance.

Have you given up on game development in general, or have you decided on another engine?

I wish you well for your future, good chatting to you again.

 

Probably it will be VERY useful for a "Not a Programmer's".
I think it would be inconvenient for most programmers.
But it has a very professional UI and a very cool features!

 

looks very cool, especially the parsing functionality!

 

This looks really interesting... I have 2 questions.

- How does this deals with some OOP stuff like inheritance and polymorphism? (is that possible with nodes?)

- Can it be used to create Unity's StateMachineBehaviours? the ones used on Animator controllers

 

This isn't necessary as there isn't any confusion. Epic would let know if it was a problem. I did not feel confused since they do look very different already.

 

Okay, thanks)

Yes) Encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance.. All this was done. For example: inheritance, the class inherit all script objects (properties, functions, variables etc.) from monobehaviour class..
http://nottorus.net/articles.php?article_id=35#inheritance

The state machine in nottorus have "hard" logic, it don't have a bending and blend trees. All the rest can be realized.
But in demo project I use a state machine to control the animation controller of model. It helps to execute some code (spawn objects, etc.) before animation starts or ends (I change the camera target at the middle of ball converter animation, that was shown on video).

And not only for a "Not a Programmer's") At this moment I use it for procedural generation of geomentry.

 

Ok.
I Agree, it can be used and for programmers.
Really cool tool.

 

Oh thanks for reply, What I meant was if I can make a script derived from StateMachineBehaviour instead of MonoBehaviour?

http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/StateMachineBehaviour.html

But looks like I should just type that at the top left panel right? And I should be able to override the methods (like
void OnStateEnter () ) and be able to attatch the generated script to the animator State?

I'm really interested in this Asset..

Another question that I don't know if you would be able to answer is, do you have any plans to put the Asset on Sale soon? I don't want to sound cheap but in my country the exchange of currency to US Dollars... well.. is not so easy to pay the $350 dollars

 

Re-read post #16 , the last comment ;-)

Rix

 

Oh thanks... well $200 sounds better.

 

Yes, just select it from dropdown list and you will get all avalible functions (to override too)

For now the price is 250. I change it 4-5 days ago and I'm still waiting when unity administration update it (why does it takes so much time?).

 

love to see this on sale

 

I haven't got it yet, but I have a pre-costumer request (I don't know if it's already implemented)

In ShaderForge and uScript also, there's a way to take a screenshot of the full graph and save it to a image file... it comes really handy to share graphs on forums and such.

Unreal's BluePrints as far as I know or at least the last time I checked, doesn't have that feature, and is really hard to share a screenshot of the graph when things get big, since you have to zoom out a lot and you can't read what's going on.

 

Yes. I made dat button to make a screenshot for bug report, but I'll also place it somewhere on toolbar.

 

I understand the interest of blueprints to avoid c++ in unreal engine( and even there you can write a bit of c++ to complement your blueprints for the hardcore stuff), but for unity's api and use of c#, I have serious doubts.

And I really have a hard time with this kind of things :
http://forum.unity3d.com/attachments/scr1-png.182043/?temp_hash=938cffecf6e8bb2fba6dade4498aa16a

The flow takes so much screen space !

What do I gain by using the tool, as a professional programmer from the business world ? I would not code loops and all that basic stuff that takes just a dozen lines of code visually, states machines and behaviour trees are okay but there are cheaper proven ones on the store.

Really, honestly asking, why should I use that and pay the price ?