Visualize (Visual Logic Editor for Unity)

Hey everyone,

So with the announcement of the Asset Store, I figured it was probably time to announce a plugin we've been working on the past few weeks.

It's called Visualize, and as the name suggests, it's a visual logic editor for Unity. If you have any experience with the Unreal engine or UDK, you know that Unreal's Kismet is a very powerful tool. Well, Visualize essentially brings that awesomeness to Unity.




And here's a nice big copy-pasta from our website (which has bigger and better screenshots):

Creating a custom action looks something like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. [SequenceAction(Title="Spawn Enemies", Description="Spawns enemies.")]
3. [InputLink]
4. [OutputLink]
5. public class SeqActSpawnEnemies : SequenceAction
6. {
7.     [VariableLink(Title="Pool")]
8.     [SerializeField]
9.     private SeqVarSpawnPool spawnPool;
10.  
11.     public override void OnActivate(int triggeredInputLinkIndex)
12.     {
13.         base.OnActivate(triggeredInputLinkIndex);
14.        
15.         // Do cool stuff here!
16.        
17.         // All done.
18.         TriggerOutput(0);
19.     }
20. }
21.  

The plan is to release it via the Asset Store (provided it's approved). No pricing or release date is set yet, but I will say that it is fully functioning right now (we're using it ourselves), so it's not some far-away thing to hope for that'll never get released.

NOTE: The initial release will probably only include a few built-in actions, events, and conditionals, so DON'T expect to use this as a visual scripting system (at least out of the box). Its real power (and Unity's, for that matter) comes in its extensibility and broad applications.

 

Looks pretty good, any idea's on price just yet?

 

Looks great, good work.

 

Not yet. We're trying to find that balance between "this is something that's very useful and a lot of hard work was put into it" and "OMG that's too expensive I hate your face!"

 

I've been asking around looking for a generalized node/graph editor so this is very interesting. Does it include the ability to define custom graph types and associate nodes (actions/variables/etc) to that graph type? For example, could you create a 'shader' editor that only offered shader-related types of node? Or is it a single unified framework (so any action/whatever you define becomes available in every graph)?

 

For a complete programing novice like me this will be great,i tried the
Unreal's Kismet version got things to workalmost strait away.I have decided
to use Unity as i find it a lot simpler to use,Just need the money for pro now.Anyway
thats enough rambling,thanks for all your hard work on this.

Dave

 

Looks like custom actions need be defined in C# only? I understand C# is the general coding platform for extensions, but I worry, since our development is entirely unityscript, there could be problems?

In other words can I define custom actions in C# and still hardcode the rest of the game in unityscript without running into issues? Or is there anything you could foresee being a problem.

It looks awesome, but I think one thing I'm struggling to understand is if nothing is hardcoded, say I have an enemy and I build the logic for his AI and patterns, can I save that logic system out, reapply it to different enemies and alter the values like a script in the inspector?

E.G. can you reference already created logic systems as individual instances?

Another question, can we contact the logic via scripting. So can I output some of that information into a script or even have a script look into the logic editor, find a value and retrieve it?

I only ask so many questions because I'm very interested in buying this once it becomes available, but I will not pay "OMG that's too expensive I hate your face!"

 

Man, you should think about your own design instead of copying the existing one! (Antares : VIZIO)

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/59121-Visual-Logic-Editor-(Antares-VIZIO)-(video-amp-screens)

 

Hi guys. Sorry, I had to sleep sometime, heh.

At the moment, it's designed towards the unified framework style, meaning everything (actions, variable types) is available to every graph. The backend is flexible enough to create a "shader-only" version of it, but that's not publicly accessible. However, what you're suggesting is pretty interesting. So, while I'm not making any promises for that sort of functionality, I'm certainly going to look into it.

Good questions. First off, you can definitely write your custom actions/events/conditionals/variables in JavaScript. That would look something like this:

Code (csharp):

1. @script Visualize.SequenceAction(Title="Spawn Enemies")
2. @script Visualize.InputLink
3. @script Visualize.OutputLink
4.  
5. class SeqActSpawnEnemies extends Visualize.SequenceAction
6. {
7.     function OnActivate(triggeredInputLink : int)
8.     {
9.         // Do cool stuff here!
10.  
11.         TriggerOutput(0);
12.     }
13. }

Sidenote: If anyone knows of a way to do a "using" style directive in UnityScript so that you don't have to throw "Visualize." everywhere, I'd appreciate it!

Secondly, the sequences are entirely instance-based, meaning that a sequence is only ever attached to a single GameObject. Two examples: 1) You have a prefab that you're using to instantiate from, and that prefab has a sequence attached to it. When you instantiate that prefab, each new GameObject has its own copy of the sequence, so they can execute independently. 2) If you've got a GameObject in your scene with a sequence, you can then duplicate the GameObject, and then modify the sequence on the duplicated GameObject without modifying the sequence of the original GameObject. It behaves like any other Unity component.

And lastly, as for getting info "out" of the sequence, it's possible, but possibly not as straightforward as you (or even I) would like. Your custom actions can take a reference to any GameObject (there's a GameObject variable type), and you can have that custom action write or send information to that GameObject, but the reverse might be tricky. Let that simmer in my brain for a bit, and I'll get back to you on it.

 

What? A design that uses the built-in Unity editor window style? Yes, we're both guilty of using it.

edit: If anything, I thought you would have pointed me towards this one.

 

Your answers were just what I wanted to hear. Logic in JavaScript, I'm sold! Where do I send my blank check, SS number and bank information?

 

Edit: When's this coming out?

 

Very soon, hopefully. We have some beta testing to do first and foremost, and we're also waiting on Asset Store approval. Of course, if that takes too long, we may just sell it directly.

My best guesstimate is by the end of this month (but hopefully before that).

 

The Editor APIs? For the most part, I quite like them. There are a few bugs though: The HideInHierarchy hide flag just... doesn't work; the EditorGUILayout.PropertyField doesn't work properly with vectors if it's called *after* drawing GUI windows; and I never quite got the data format I wanted for the sequences (though it works perfectly fine how it is). The best part is having all of the Mono/.NET stuff available. The plugin literally wouldn't be possible without some of the more advanced features of .NET.

By the way: Love the shader editor you developed! It was sort of an inspiration to me that a tool like that could actually be done in Unity (and look like it fits).

 

I can't be the only one still interested in this, any news on its release?