Unity, please buy 'uModeler'. It's insane.

So Probuilder works ok, but I recently tried 'uModeler'. It's better, not just a bit better, but WAY WAY WAY better. It's basically a full on Sketchup modeler inside of Unity.
https://www.tripolygon.com/

Why doesn't anyone know about it? It's expensive sure, but it deserves to be. Which is why Unity should buy it, because it'd directly increase the quality and reputation of Unity and Unity products.
Seriously, this should be a replacement (or addition) to probuilder (which doesn't seem to be being maintained anyway and is full of bugs).
It's been actively developed for 3 years and can do full modeling+UV texturing (with the 'push/pull' tool from sketchup which is incredible). Everything is so intuitive, much more than even Blender.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/rel...e-in-unity-unity-awards-2018-finalist.462506/

 

I rather prefer they invest in a proper bridge between Unity and Blender including modern file exchange formats like gltf.

 

https://www.blender.org/press/unity-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-a-patron-member/#:~:text=Today, Unity Technologies has joined,for creative and technical pipelines.

looks like they may start to do just that. nothing specific mentioned yet, but it's a nice step in the right direction and shows that they realize that it's a common pipeline. this was just before they went public though, so i'm not sure how that will play into everything.

 

Sure, but we could have both! 'In context' editing is the killer feature of Probuilder and uModeler. There's no substitute to be able to model something right then and there instantly and uModeler is a genuinely great modeler. Probuilder is a toy compared to it and Blender is actually worse in some ways as uModeler has sketchup features.
Blender is still great of course, so if they could get a TWO way mesh streaming, so INSIDE of Blender you see the current Unity scene meshes (even if it's greyed out), that would be the best of both worlds.

 

I agree on this. uModeler solved all of the pains I had with probuilder. Of course, don't remove probuilder, as some might like that uModeler, but you could either:
- Purchase uModeler and add is as a free package (alongside probuilder)
- Support uModeler to drive the prices down

 

It's on sale in this Humble Bundle pack. Much cheaper plus you get all the other stuff! https://www.humblebundle.com/software/unity-games-and-game-dev-assets-software

 

All great modeling tools, but they all lack in the level design department

 

I dunno, uModeler has room tools, can subtract spaces from large areas (ie boolean actually works, unlike ProBuilder). I found it much much easier to quickly make a bunch of rooms with corridors than even Blender.

 

In modern level design, tools like Umodeler or probuilder don't have really many purposes. They can be used for quick prototyping (whiteboxing) and that's honestly it. You can't really use them in texturing and even if you try (like creators of Umodeler did in their promotional video), the level will always end up in lower quality, plus it will be overall harder because even Umodeler can't keep up with something like maya and substance.
I personally use probuilder from the beginning to the end but only for the most basic shapes that the player isn't even going to notice, and to lower the amount of draw calls.

The times when you used something like a probuilder in 100% of the scene ended a decade ago and since then everyone moved to better solutions. If you want to create levels with similar complexity like developers had to 10 years ago, then that's fine, but even then probuilder is enough and Umodeler is a bit nicer tool with solid feature creep, but nothing more.

Something that a probuilder needs is any form of actual development because for the last few years it has been on life support, only most common bugs are fixed (and only the ones that are reported). All of the cool stuff is in the experimental stage for years.

Overall the whole "world building" division feels heavily understaffed. It's not just that they release new stuff slowly. For every single stage of making 3d levels in unity, for any type of game sucks in some way. The team simply can’t keep up with all of the changes the industry is making.

 

I dunno, I feel any modeler without 'push/pull' tools seems very old and slow. The 'real' modelers are VERY slowly adding these types of tools, but none are as good as sketchup and uModeler. You're thinking of the looks of a level, but I'm mostly concerned with gameplay colliders. Which uModeler is way superior to Probuilder and doesn't compete at all with any external modeler, because it's out of context to the game play

 

Right now, you can do pretty much everything in probuilder that push/pull tool allows in sketchup. Probuilder offers worse workflow but nothing serious, and definitely, no reason for unity to buy out a whole tool and try to waste a year or more for adapting the new plugin into their engine. Especially when there are many more fields unity is failing and hasn't progressed in years.

And also, about colliders. You should always design a level in a way to not use mesh colliders or use them as little as possible.

 

There's a few drawbacks to MeshColliders, but for the most part people aren't going to be noticing them. No reason to prematurely limit yourself to primitives.

 

It's not about limiting anything, but about balancing both options in the right way. From my experience, mesh colliders are useless in almost every single case.

 

But it's not part of the engine, just a totally optional handy tool. No integration needed (or wanted). It's for students, beginners, QUICK mesh work. So yes, Probuilder could probably do everything, but it'd be so slow you're much better off just using Blender. Which defeats the purpose of it.

What's wrong with using static mesh colliders?
The benefit of uModeler is the speed, so prototyping level layouts should be as fast as thinking. For the same reasons we use C# instead of c++. You obviously could do everything in c++, but it's slllooww to iterate.

 

That's not true at all. Progrids is a bit slower, but the amount of time you lost is calculated in seconds. Tools like Umodeler and probuilder do have a very narrow range of use cases, and It's not going to change without years of work and hundreds of people.

Most of the 3D related work everyone will have to do in tools like blender and substance painter. Umodeler isn't going to save anyone, and the most important features are easy to add, only if the team would want to.

 

Pretty sure Fall Guys used ProBuilder, saying these kind of tools are obsolete is silly.

It's clear ProBuilder is not getting my love and uModeler looks superior. Just buy it and give it away like what was done with Bolt.

 

Manifold Garden used ProBuilder, although they have a custom toolset that handles CSG. That game is gorgeous. A true work of art.

I used ProBuilder for all modeling other than character models, though I admit my results aren't amazing. ( http://seespacelabs.com/the-godkiller/ ) You could full-model a game with PB and get good results if your game has a more abstract or shape-driven aesthetic. uModeler looks really nice, and if I were starting a new game/prototype, I would try it.

If it wasn't the same guy (me) who was putting levels together and modeling, I'd use a separate tool for modeling. But it really saves me time to stay in the same environment with the same commands for prototyping, level-building, and modeling. I tried switching back-and-forth between Blender and Unity to do things and that was quite cumbersome.

 

ProBuilder is mainly intended for quick prototyping (blocking out your levels). This is what the Fall Guys devs did: https://unity.com/de/case-study/mediatonic-fall-guys#quick-3d-model-round-tripping
However, they also used Maya in-between.

For serious level designing, you would choose Blender, Maya and alike.

 

Just to dispel the (very persistent) Maya myth:


For serious level designing, you would use Houdini, as a bridge to Blender / Unity scenes.

Throw Maya back to the 90's where it belongs.

Spoiler

There's a reason everybody is jumping ship from Maya to Blender (and others) -- Maya isn't going anywhere.
Just like Adobe, Maya is entrenched in corporate greed -- and now there are finally alternatives.
Blender, for example, is rocking the software world these days -- now everybody (even Zbrush) is struggling to keep up.
Even major R&D-centric developers/publishers (like Ubisoft) are supporting Blender's development due to this.
Maya, on the other hand, had its chance.
There's better software out there for modeling -- Why not use it? :/

Houdini, while not much prettier than Maya, is as general-purpose of a tool as Maya ever was (or will be). However, unlike Maya, Houdini can actually sit "inside" Unity projects. This means you can do your modeling in Unity by providing Houdini a simple line/curve authored in Unity, send the line/curve to Houdini, and receive back a new Houdini-processed mesh all at once in Unity (similar to how Substance does with texture-processing capabilities -- except w/meshes _and_ textures).

While I wouldn't be averse to having uModeler in Unity (for simple projects), anything more complex (i.e. anything that's got a modern PBR workflow and realistic characters) would need serious tooling behind it, especially for level creation.