[RELEASED] ProBuilder 2.0 : Seamless, Intuitive Level Design in Unity. Finally LIVE!

Is there a batch discount for people interested in purchasing ProBuilder, ProGrids and QuickDecals?

 

Looks great - I'll have to take a closer look at this because I need a level builder such as this for a future project =)

 

Sorry, batch discounts aren't possible in the Asset Store, and for legalities I have to keep the offerings equal wherever it's sold. Maybe they'll add something like this in the future, it would certainly be a good feature on the store.

Thaks imphy- very cool galaxy-creator by the way, gives me ideas of recreating Wing Commander/Tachyon/etc

 

This is so awesome and so silly fast

 

Thank you Hoegbo, that's the idea!

 

Some awesome new art by "SamV" - created in just a few hours!

 

Looks great again. It takes longer to texture map it than it does to model I am guessing?

(Thanks b.t.w. glad you like my space package =)

 

Actually, texturing is even quicker than modeling. I think it's more that, a greybox model always looks fairly good as long as you have interesting lighting, but texture has to really be done well to look good. We are working on a couple textured scenes to show off, I promise! Meanwhile. check out this video for texturing speed:

 

i wish i could make levels like these.

 

That's the point of ProBuilder- you can!

 

i mean thers no way to share prototype levels

 

You can share prototype levels, no problem there. It can be a bit complex though, yes- good thought, we'll work on a way of making this simpler!

 

Just to be clear, is the entire texture painting part (ie J) disabled in the free version?

 

Correct- the Free version only enables the core geometry editing features.
You can find the full comparison chart here:
http://www.probuilder3d.com/try-free-purchase-later/

 

eh im trying to make a space station so no template is a challenge.

 

just purchased probuilder 2 and find it brilliant...great work!!!

just two requests if possible... could probuilder "import" other meshes into its geometry? let's say I have a few objects done in blender and imported in to unity that I want to use in my level could these be imported and be made into a single object along with the rest of probuilders' geometry?

also, any change of getting custom actions of the runtime api for playmaker?

thanks in advance and keep up the excellent work...

 

Hi Yahodahan,

your tool is really cool.
Are you planning to release something like API to allow realtime mesh creating and editing with your powerfull tool?

Kenshin

 

Thanks!

We actually just added a method of "ProBuilderizing" any mesh at all, you bet We are excited for that one, too!
I've been hearing a lot about Playmaker lately- maybe I'll see if they want to chat about working together, good thought.
Welcome, just don't forget to show us some WIP images, always great to see what others are creating!

 

This is already there, yep! Well, in a fairly basic form, but we do include a fully working demo scene for exactly this. It's a neat use, and we hope to see some creative game ideas from it!

Thanks!

 

Hello yahoodan,

How compatible is ProBuilder 2 with occlusion culling? If you have a gigantic cube, one that forms the geometry of most of your level, would it easily work with occlusion? If not, how easy would it be to fix?

Also, could add in some sort of top down or side view like in 3D World Studio? Or at least a wireframe? It would be appreciated.

 

It's cool!

Are you saying that if I buy your asset I have runtime functions now?

Where I can see what function do you provide for the realtime part?

Kenshin

 

ProBuilder is specially built to work with occlusion, actually. I'm mobile right now but I'll post details in a few hours. Basically, efficient occlusion culling was a big focus for ProBuilder.

As for side, top, etc views, those are provided by Unity already

 

You bet! I'll post the links when I'm back, or just check out the site via my signature. Thanks!

 

Here's a demo of the runtime components at work:

http://www.probuilder3d.com/probuilder-rt/

I'm working on integrating Doxygen to the project for (hopefully) the next release.

 

It sound really god!

I'll be soon a new probuilder buyer.

 

In the documentation you say : "Prefab support, at the time of writing, is still very basic in Probuilder 2.0. We aim to fully support prefabs very soon, as they are core to an efficient workflow in Unity."

When do you think this area will be improved?

 

Hi Lundon,

With the exception of an occasional lightmapping bug we found recently, prefabs actually work fine in the latest version (r538 as of writing). The major difference is, the "Apply" and "Revert" buttons are not used- instead, changes you make are instantly reflected in all instances of the prefab. Generally, this is the behavior you want anyway. However, we are of course still working to add that secondary functionality, though I can't give an exact date. We are working fairly blind for a lot of these "deep" functions.

Thanks for the interest!

 

CgCookie appears to be down, do you have another link for the free version?

 

Apparently not.

 

My SINCERE apologies for the delay in replying- somehow the forums just now notified me of your question. I've noticed lots of issues lately, something tells me the new forum setup has quite a few glitches.

Anyway, I just checked the CG Cookie site, and it appears to be up and running fine, but if you still need any help at all, just PM me and we'll figure it out. Thanks for the interest!

 

sorry to ask, but whats the key to change global to local and vice versa when you are editing the geometry? Thank you

 

Don't be sorry! We are working on a "cheat sheet" to make it more obvious. The key is "P". You can change that (and others) in the Editor Preferences area!

 

Thank you very much for the kind reply

 

Feedback is unanimous- the new ProBuilder 2.0 is awesome! Of course, nothing is perfect, and we've taken the entire past month to hammer away at ProBuilder 2.0, relentlessly tracking and destroying bugs through nearly 200 code commits.

The user experience has also been greatly streamlined, with improvements such as:
* Drag selection support for faces.
* UV2 channel generation now totally automated
* New face selection graphic system
* Tweaks to many default settings
* and much more! Read the full changelog here: http://bit.ly/Zaoxyj

There is also the major feature addition of smoothing- Huzzah! More info on that soon, we promise a tutorial will be out ASAP

 

hi,

Meshsmooth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mt89CNpjgU) possible in your tool?

dev

 

Mesh smooth is a generally no-no for efficient game creation, so that isn't included by default.

However, I can certainly see it being added as an extension by one of our users, it could have some very interesting uses.

 

hi, thanks for your reply.

where i can find that extension? i really want it, i ready to buy Mesh smooth extension like in 3dsmax.

dev

 

Sorry, I didn't' mean to make it sound like that already existed- it does not, I merely meant it could be made by someone. A little tricky, but doable!

 

hi,

sorry for my misunderstanding,thanks for your support.

dev

 

Hello,

i want to buy this package, but i have a question about texturing. If i create a 3D-Object with ProBuilder, is there a way to 'paint' it? Or how people create textures for Objects made with ProBuilder?

Best Regards,
Marcel

 

Hi Marcel! ProBuilder works much like Hammer/UDK/Radiant, so you can apply any material onto any face of a "PBO" (ProBuilder Object). It gets even better- you can Rotate, Offset, Scale, Flip, and manipulate in even more ways, how the texture appears on the face. ProBuilder actually edits the UVs, so this doesn't add any drawcalls or extra materials, allowing (virtually) infinite different uses for a single material.

UV and UV2 unwrapping are handled completely automatically, of course

I've made sure that nearly every aspect of ProBuilder is covered by video tutorials, and more are on the way, you can find them all here:
http://www.probuilder3d.com/video-tutorials/

...and here is the Texturing-specific tutorial: http://youtu.be/Z1bG7n4qeG4

Thanks for the interest Marcel, let me know if you have any other questions!

 

I sent an e-mail to you yaho regarding ProBuilder, but I think I already got most of my questions answered (regarding dynamic rendering, materials, etc). However, one thing I am wondering about is Texture Atlases. You said this was an upcoming feature, but I was wondering - will ProBuilder make the atlases itself, or will you be able to use segments out of an atlas for texture repeating, etc.?

The reason why I ask, is with most BSP-type tools, each texture is on it's own, allowing it to be repeated endlessly. However, if I wanted to decorate a cube into, a store-front, I would have to use up to six textures for each side. And that'd be six draw calls. The way I've done it now using my own tools, is to make a texture atlas, map each side of a cube to the corresponding image in the atlas, and export/import into Unity but it's a pain.

I'm just wondering, I'd like to start developing in Unity and I've been looking for a tool like this. However, how I design my textures will affect how I build my level geometry, especially when it comes to repeating textures. (I hope this all makes sense!)

 

Hi again! We haven't had time to think on atlasing much yet- it's going be tricky business, and we want to do it "the right way".

It's true that each material creates a new drawcall, but since you can re-use those materials on many other items, they still end up batching down very nicely. I know that isn't exactly what you need, but it does help quite a bit. Also, you could always just use ProBuilder to build everything, texture, etc, using the super speedy method, be able to test right away yadda yadda- then, crunch your "BSP" down to chunks, and use...ah, here it is!
http://u3d.as/content/ippokratis-bournellis/batching-tools/2tT

That fellow has some very cool batching/atlasing tools. Maybe we should even just partner with him, no sense re-inventing the wheel!

 

Ok, so using two different tools - ProBuilder and then a baking tool - I could design the level using separate textures, and then bake it all into one? I mean, if I can use separate textures, load them up, and bake away... that'd be fantastic and easier than atlasing myself. I was looking at Mesh Baker 2.

I'd rather not throw away my money on different extensions when they may or may not work together for what I need.

 

Good point. I'll go buy that tool, and give it a try later today!

 

Thank you for the great support. I was looking specifically at Mesh Baker 2, because I do not have Unity 4... which the other tool needs. That, and the reviews of the extension that you linked to did not seem fantastic. I'm watching the videos [for Mesh Baker 2], and I *think* it does what I'm specifically looking for. Plus, it makes a duplicate copy of the meshes, so the originals are always intact for editing later.

Tag the original models as "hidden" via a script and remove their visibility during gameplay or something...

Thank you for the great service, looking forward to what your experiments yield.

 

Ah, ok- I didn't see the Unity 4 requirment till now. Good point! I'll check out Mesh Baker 2 then.

 

"Tiled textures can have tiling baked"

Mind...blown. Okay, testing this right now, the level designer in me is crazy excited!

 

Once again, looking forward to the results. I think if it works out decently enough, I'll be excited to start developing again. Right now, my workflow is a huge pain.... MS3D -> UU3D -> Unity plus having to make my own atlases, which makes texturing a pain, and MS3D sucks at texturing *sigh*.

The furthest and happiest I ever was developing was with Valve Hammer Editor, it was so much fun making levels. Pop in a texture and you'd be good to go!

 

Exactly my experience! Making levels for TF2 was just beautiful, simple, and fun- when I moved to Unity, I had to have that back! Hence, ProBuilder is very much a replica of Hammer, though I have done my best to make it very, very much focused on zero learning curve and user-friendly approach. Hammer was...not so good about that, haha.

But yes- making level design fun again. That's the idea of ProBuilder!