[RELEASED] Prototype : Build Levels and Props in Unity, then Test and Tweak Instantly

Pleasure!

 

I couldn't get the menu command to come up using the code by simple copy n paste (not being a programmer I'm probably doing something wrong). But there's a link to a packaged version in the comments that worked fine when I imported it.

I've tried it and the exported obj loads ok in Max. So I think that will do me just fine. Great.

Thanks again.

 

Glad that worked!

Exactly! Prototype is great for this. Also extremely handy for creating collision, triggers, and other volumes- we made sure to keep those in Prototype's feature-set.

Of course, ProBuilder is always moving forward- we have subdivision essentially done, and fully manual UVW unwrapping on the way!

 

I just bought the Unity Tool Prototype and still am having the same problems with the advanced tools creation where it freaks out my Hierarchy. If I could get the patch file sent to this email that would be great.

-Nathaniel

 

Odd, that's definitely fixed in the current version- if you could just "register" your purchase with me (instructions at very top of the documentation), I'll get that sent right over. Thanks Nathaniel!
gw

 

Ah, yep, this is fixed internally, and we'll have a build out soon

Welcome! ProBuilder has quite a few more tricks up its sleeve, no problem if this one is available and known. The goal really is to make level design/prop building fun and fast, vs frustrating and tedious.

 

The community OBJ exporter was created as a free resource, irregardless of what assets you are using. Moreover, I even shared the resource with @yahodahan for ProBuilder, as he'd told me their OBJ exporter was busted (I own ProBuilder and still use the community exporter for clean-up in Maya.)

See here.

Actually, part of what prompted me to help user @robinball was:

Which is, all things considered, a shady thing to say.

@yahodahan

When I originally shared the community OBJ exporter with you, I was trying to help you and ProCore just as I did yesterday with @robinball. Only posting this because I feel somewhat betrayed by that now

 

Hrm. I typed a whole lot here, then realized- I agree with you, lod3. I do apologize if I made it seem like OBJ export was unique to ProBuilder, since that is clearly not the case (although as the tool evolves, a complex and unique method will likely be needed). Hopefully my willingness to promote the free tool at least helps show "shady" is not my motivation

What the actual case is, and what I should have said, is:

Everyone should certainly know that there is an OBJ Tool available, free and developed by the community, for sure. That's why I was glad to see it posted. Having the functionality built into the Pro-tools menu is really just a nicety that ProBuilder offers, though that will grow as ProBuilder does.

 

Thank you for saying so. Know that my interest and intentions are to see (and even help thru feedback) make your BSP tools the best they can be. I truly hope this is understood.

 

You bet, glad to hear it

Just wait till you see what we are creating in the back room...it will become very clear why we work so hard to make these tools great They really are used for our own game dev as well, we'll be able to show that off soon!

 

I have a bug report: Sometimes I become stuck in Scale mode after I scale a face (as in, I can't unselect the Scaling tool and go back to the Move or Rotate tool, either by pressing the hotkeys or by clicking the buttons). Only restarting Unity fixes this.

Also, is there a discount yet for Prototype users who want to upgrade to ProBuilder?

 

Sorry DesiQ, Unity forums never notified me of your post. Could you actually email me directly (address in docs), so we can work through this more easily?

I actually believe this is a Unity-related bug, as I've had exactly that happen multiple times when using even blank projects. The manipulation mode just "sticks" in one mode and simply won't change. Regardless, we'll take a look and see what can be found on our end!

 

Is it possible to get undo/redo into this tool? Right now I'm dealing with some issues where I try to operate the camera but it mistakenly moves a vertex or a face, and I have no way to undo the action.

Another great addition would be to have the tool customize frame bounds for camera framing based on the selection. Right now tapping F will frame the entire object in the view (the default behavior for a mesh). If you have a custom Editor you can implement your own method for supplying the frame bounds which then allows you to customize where the camera would frame, so if I only have two vertices selected, you can frame just those vertices:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     bool HasFrameBounds() {
3.         return true;
4.     }
5.  
6.     Bounds OnGetFrameBounds() {
7.         // return the correct Bounds that encompasses the selection
8.     }

This would also be useful for me as I'm having some difficulty aligning the camera to some points when using one large shape for walls or ground that stretches a fair distance.

And one last suggestion: it'd be great if I could apply a face color to an entire object without having to manually go and select each face.

Also I got this warning that sounds kind of important:

TELL KARL THIS WARNING WAS THROWN
UnityEngine.Debug:LogWarning(Object)
pb_Editor:OnSelectionChange()
UnityEditor.HostView:OnSelectionChange()

I was in geometry mode and hit Cmd-A and that showed up. Figured I'd mention it.

 

Prototype completely supports Undo now - it does have some quirks in Unity 4.3+ though. When moving vertices, the Undo stack marks 2 undos; one for movement and one for selection. You can just undo twice to get the previous state back. There are some fixes related to the Undo system coming through the pipeline now as well, which might alleviate some of these issues.

Yup, this is a great idea. I wasn't aware of the OnGetFrameBounds methods, that sounds much better than my initial attempts at eating the 'F' key before Unity sees it

You can double-click faces to select the entire object. It would also be handy to enable vertex colors in top level editing mode though, I'll add that to the case tracker.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks for reporting it! This has been fixed for the next release (and for the curious, is was indeed caused by the Cmd-A shortcut).

 

Is that fixed as in "fixed in the shipping version" or "fixed in the next version"? I'm using the latest (according to Unity) Prototype and ProGrids and have no undo/redo.

EDIT: I tried restarting Unity as I noticed I had no undo/redo for even built in commands. That seems to have resolved it; guess Unity had some internal error?

Ah, that'll do then. Didn't realize that shortcut.

 

Sorry, should have clarified. Fixed in the next version to be released. Hopefully in the next week it will be available on the asset store.

 

Is it possible to remove faces? If i extrude something, and later come back and want to remove that extrude, is that possible?

Also, Are there plans to allow me to select vertices and merge them into one?

 

Hi Steamroller!

Remove faces: sure thing, just select any number of faces, and hit "Backspace" (not "Delete"!) on your keyboard.

Re-add a face: Yep! Select two edges, hit "Alt-B" to bridge them.

Select and Merge Vertices: Already works! Select any number of verts, and hit "Alt-C" to collapse them all into one.

I know, I know- we need new video tutorials! Working on that
~gw

EDIT: Bridge, Collapse, and Delete Face are only available in ProBuilder, not Prototype. Sorry for the confusion!

 

Amazing, Ill try this out when i get home.

 

Thanks Steamroller!

 

Oh no! I confused threads, very sorry- the face deleting, bridging, and vertex collapsing are only in ProBuilder and not Prototype. Super sorry!

If you need a refund on Prototype, just let me know, I'll make sure it goes through. Still an awesome tool, but the advanced modeling features (and texturing) are mainly in ProBuilder.

gw

 

Yeah, If that's the case, i would actually like to upgrade to ProBuilder. Is that easy? possible?
It would be good to get a refund so I don't have to pay for both.

 

No problem- hopefully Unity will add an "Upgrade" feature at some point, but for now, just email directly (via the docs) and we can work that through. Thanks!

 

Upgraded and as you described it all works as advertised. Thanks I'll take any further discussion over to the ProBuilder thread. Thanks!

 

I got some problems with Prototype and networking. I build a tank prefab out of 3 Prototype-objects and some empty gameobjects. If I try to spawn the tank with Network.Instantiate, I get an invisible tank and and error in the console whenever I select the invisible tank in the Hierarchy:

How can I fix this? I got everything working, but this issue really puts development to a stop.

Edit: The tank reappears when I close and open the Prototype window, but that doesn't work when I build the game, obviously. :/

 

Hi RayKatz - this happening because ProBuilder needs to reconstruct it's mesh whenever it's instantiated. The easiest way to do this is to use 'ProBuilder.Instantiate', which is an override of `GameObject.Instantiate`.

Alernatively, you could just attach a little script to call `Verify()` on any pb_Object you're instantiating.

So it would be:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public class InitProBuilder : MonoBehaviour
3. {
4.     void Start()
5.     {
6.         // I can't remember if GetComponentsInChildren includes components at the top level,
7.         // this might not be necessary.
8.         GetComponent<pb_Object>().Verify();
9.  
10.         foreach(pb_Object pb in transform.GetComponentsInChildren())
11.             pb.Verify();
12.     }
13. }
14.  

 

Wow, it works wonderful now! Many thanks! Everything works now as it was intended.

 

Hello all, I'm experiencing a bit of a problem with Prototype/Progrids and I'm wondering if anybody knows of a quick fix (note: I emailed the developer about this. They were very responsive in telling me that they think this is a glitch that will be fixed in the next update. But if there's anything I can do in the meantime, that would be great.) Anyway, it's probably easiest to explain with an image:



When I first started working on this scene, new shapes would snap to the grid, as with the top cube. Now they will only snap to halfway between the gridlines, like the bottom cube, and I can't figure out how to get it to switch back. If I switch to 0.5 snap, move the bottom cube to the gridline, then switch back to 1.0 snap and try to move the cube, it will still snap back to the halfway points. Anybody know what went wrong?

 

EDIT: Sorry! I keep getting my threads confused...

 

I'm having two problems. One is the same problem being reported by phelpscd right above me. In a new scene, with a fresh install of progrids and prototype, all of my objects are snapping in between units on the grid, and not to the grid. If I change to .5 snap, move it, then change back it will snap back to the being between two units.

Second I get the "asterisk" sound that plays when you push a key that isn't a defined hotkey every time I press G to swap between Top/Geometry editing. All of the Prototype hotkeys cause the sound to play. They work correctly otherwise. This is kind of a bummer. Prototype isn't as useful or fun when you have to mind your placement manually, and I don't want to trudge on with stuff off the 1 grid and then a patch/update come out and it all go to hell.

 

Quick answer till I'm back in town, the Pivot issue is fixed and will be uploaded ASAP! The "beeping" is an troublesome issue that occurs on Macs occasionally, we are working toward a complete fix, or you might have an old version. Could you send me an email directly (via email in the docs)? That way I can send over the very latest build, just to be sure. Thanks!

gw

 

Edit: I think I just saw your email already sent

 

I'm using the version from the asset store of both ProGrids and Prototype, downloaded about an hour before my previous post.

 

I'm using Prototype along with UnityVS and Visual Studio, and while things compile fine within the Unity Editor, I get errors when compiling in Visual Studio. Specifically "The type or namespace ProBuilder2.Common does not exist" and similar for all the namespaces. I figured out the reason this was happening is because the ProBuilder dll's are compiled targeting the .NET 4 framework and have a dependency on mscorlib 4, while UnityVS forces projects to Target .NET 3.5, since that's as high as Unity actually supports. (If you put any .NET 4 specific code like the "dynamic" keyword into your dll, for example, it will fail to compile in Unity). I think you can fix this for Visual Studio users by changing your ProBuilder dll's to target .NET 3.5 instead of .NET 4. It will also probably be safer for you guys in the long run so that you don't accidentally put any .NET 4 code in there.

 

Hi everyone, I'm out of town for the weekend but will be back Monday. Sorry to make you wait with these questions.

 

Thanks for the info! I'll let Karl tackle this one

 

Ok, thanks- we have a new build of Prototype and are checking for any other kinks. A lot of fixes rolling in from the ProBuilder update that will also be added into Prototype, as well.

 

That's strange - the libraries are compiled targeting 3.5 (for the reasons mentioned above) using MSBuild.

Actually, what's your project setup look like? Does your Editor project have a reference to ProBuilderCore.dll ?

 

Sweet. Drop a reply email when the new builds are uploaded, I can't wait to get started with this, and really haven't been able to due to these bugs. Haven't heard anything back via email yet, but if the new builds go up on the asset store that's just as well.

 

Yeah, the projects have a reference to ProBuilderCore.dll and ProBuilderEditor.dll. Oddly, Resharper and Intellisense can parse the references but it fails to compile. The error is that the namespaces like ProBuilder2.Common don't exist, but they're preceeded by a series of warnings like this:

Warning 51 The primary reference "ProBuilderEditor" could not be resolved because it has an indirect dependency on the .NET Framework assembly "mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" which has a higher version "4.0.0.0" than the version "2.0.0.0" in the current target framework. UnityVS.Castlecraft.CSharp.Editor

Switching the projects to target .NET 4 gets rid of the warnings and allows it to compile, but this breaks UnityVS and gets set back to 2.0 compatibility every time Unity recompiles things.

Edit: The "indirect reference" was actually the key here... while both ProBuilder dll's do correctly target .NET 2, the SixBySeven.dll in the Shared folder targets .NET 4. So I believe if you recompile that one to target .NET 3.5 or earlier it should fix it.

Edit #2: I used dotPeek to look at SixBySeven.dll and it seemed to just be a small "Shared" class with three public properties. I deleted the dll and replaced it with a new dll using the .cs file with those properties but targeting .NET 2, and everything then compiled and worked. So yeah, the problem is definitely that SixBySeven.dll is targeting .NET 4.

 

When I upgraded to 1839, it removed all of the colliders on my objects, and I don't see an easy way to bulk re-add them. The Pb_Entity inspector does not allow bulk editing. Help?

 

Hi Greg, sorry for the troubles. I can't believe we missed this bug! Here's a script that provides menu items for adding meshcolliders and boxcolliders to every selected ProBuilder object.

I've also gone ahead and fixed the pb_Entity inspector not allowing multiple object selection, and will get an update pushed out pronto (also includes the fix for disappearing collisions on update).

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine;
3. using UnityEditor;
4. using System.Collections;
5.  
6. public class MassAddCollider : Editor
7. {
8.     [MenuItem("Tools/" + pb_Constant.PRODUCT_NAME + "/Actions/Add MeshCollider to Selection")]
9.     public static void MenuAddMeshColliderToSelection()
10.     {
11.         int i = 0;
12.         foreach(pb_Object pb in pbUtil.GetComponents<pb_Object>(Selection.transforms))
13.         {
14.             i++;
15.  
16.             // remove existing colliisions
17.             foreach(Collider c in pb.gameObject.GetComponents<Collider>())
18.                 DestroyImmediate(c);
19.            
20.             pb.gameObject.AddComponent<MeshCollider>();
21.         }
22.  
23.         pb_Editor_Utility.ShowNotification("Add MeshCollider to " + i + " pb_Objects");
24.     }
25.  
26.     [MenuItem("Tools/" + pb_Constant.PRODUCT_NAME + "/Actions/Add BoxCollider to Selection")]
27.     public static void MenuAddBoxColliderToSelection()
28.     {
29.         int i = 0;
30.         foreach(pb_Object pb in pbUtil.GetComponents<pb_Object>(Selection.transforms))
31.         {
32.             i++;
33.        
34.             // remove existing colliisions
35.             foreach(Collider c in pb.gameObject.GetComponents<Collider>())
36.                 DestroyImmediate(c);
37.  
38.             pb.gameObject.AddComponent<BoxCollider>();
39.         }
40.  
41.         pb_Editor_Utility.ShowNotification("Add BoxCollider to " + i + " pb_Objects");
42.     }
43. }
44.  

 

Argh, great catch. I didn't even think to check that, as the build process doesn't rebuild that library unless a change has been made (which has been months). I'll take care of recompiling that asap. Thanks for taking the time to deconstruct and track that down!

 

Edit: Updated with info

I noticed some new weird behavior. If I put the scene view camera into "Perspective" mode instead of "Orthographic" while the prototype window is open, the "Top/Geometry" buttons jump up about 100 pixels so they're overlapping the scene view title bar, and then the mouse pointer selection in the scene view is offset by about 100 pixels as well. For example, if I click in the scene view, it selects something about 100 pixels above wherever I actually clicked. If I set the scene camera back to orthographic it fixes it. Have you seen this before?

 

I've seen this when the Deferred Rendering path is enabled - and I still have not figured out how to fix it. Unless you're using forward lighting, in which case I've not seen it before.

 

You are right, it only happens in Deferred Rendering mode. Weird.

 

Really great tool! Love the simplicity and ease of use.

However, I'm getting errors with Prototype created objects in play mode. Clicking on a Prototype object while in play mode gives a NullReferenceException and the error "The targets array should not be used inside OnSceneGUI or OnPreviewGUI". Also, perhaps because of the errors, these objects cannot be moved/rotated in play mode. I'm using play mode persist and it would be great if Prototype objects can be manipulated in play mode.

Also, it seems that Prototype objects will reset to the default prototype material when changes are made to their geometry. Is there a way to keep this from happening? Cheers!

 

Hey absameen, could you post the error messages you're getting?

 

Sure, here are the errors I'm getting on Unity 4.3.4f1:

Code (csharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. pb_Object_Editor.OnSceneGUI ()
3. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
4. Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
5. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232)
6. System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115)
7. UnityEditor.SceneView.CallOnSceneGUI () (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1649)
8. UnityEditor.SceneView.HandleSelectionAndOnSceneGUI () (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:1051)
9. UnityEditor.SceneView.OnGUI () (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/Editor/Mono/SceneView/SceneView.cs:928)
10. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
11.  

Code (csharp):

1. The targets array should not be used inside OnSceneGUI or OnPreviewGUI. Use the single target property instead.
2. UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()
3.  

 

Same, I'm hitting some pretty crazy stuff while in play mode. The scene view just freaks right out and the graphics are garbled.

It only seems to happen if you have a Prototype object selected when you're in playmode. You can select it in playmode or before you enter, the result is the same; sadness.

This all happened after my last update 1471 -> 1872

As long as you remember to deselect before you hit play everything is fine. Problem solved right