BSP-Style level construction tool for Unity

    Hi everyone, great site!

    In case there are any like-minded Unity users here, I'd like to post about a tool I built for Unity, that basically allows "BSP-Style" level building in Unity 3D, and other handy additions.

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    If you'd rather just download the free demo, or check out more videos/tutorials/etc, you can jump right to here:

    http://www.sixbysevenstudio.com/probuilder

    Basically, this tool, "ProBuilder", is meant to be a replica of Hammer for Unity 3D. I had been using Hammer for TF2 map modding (http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=16803, http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=6398, others), and simply fell in love with how fast, intuitive, and powerful the BSP workflow was. Once I made it past the cliff-wall learning curve that is, haha.

    When I started working in Unity, I immediately felt the lack of any construction methods was a serious problem. Using the built-in primitives was terribly tedious and limited, and doing the model-export-import-test-repeat loop was time consuming and just silly, for environmental geo. So, when the Asset Store popped up, I immediately went looking for something like Hammer's construction set- and found nothing! Long story short, I decided this had to exist, took a month off work, and taught myself Unity editor scripting while building "ProBuilder 1.0".

    The first version was... useable, it added great functionality but really didn't fulfill the promise of replicating Hammer for Unity. After several more months of upgrading, learning, and building, plus lots of really great feedback from users, ProBuilder is at version 1.6.5, and it's getting very close to that goal! Better yet, ProBuilder 2.0 is in the works, and is a complete re-build from scratch, using C# instead of Javascript, a massively more powerful and flexible base, and boasting all the best features of Hammer! Ability to create special primitives (stairs, arches, cylinders, etc), smoothing angles, advanced UV control, etc- all coming soon!

    So, that's the story on ProBuilder, and I really hope some folks here might enjoy it! Personally, as a long-time user of Hammer and UDK, this system feels like a must have for level building in Unity. I have really made every possible effort to make it simple, fast, intuitive, and powerful for level design, staying true to the Hammer editor...while skipping that nasty learning curve Well, it was nasty for me at least, heh.

    Comments/thoughts/etc welcome, I'd love to hear what this community thinks, and please help spread the word if you like the tool. Every bit of support helps to keep developing this and other tools

    DUDE that is super cool. I've been looking for something like this for a while (although UDKs FBX export works), but this is great.

    But I'll be honest, the price is definitely keeping me from getting it. I'll stay with the UDK solution for now.

    Hi Sentura- thanks! Exporting an FBX from UDK is allright, but still leaves you stuck with back-and-forth editing-testing etc. Not a good workflow, in my opinion. ProBuilder's big focus is, build AND edit right in Unity, with all the simplicity of Unity and power of Hammer

    yeah I get that. But it's also free =)

    If you guys had a trial or demo version I'd definitely be interested, just to see how big an improvement it would be.

    Pretty neat tool, used a bit to see if it could work for any future projects in our studio. Pretty impressed so far with the workflow and production speed. Though I need to use it a bit more to give some proper feedback

    Woot!

    I found this plugin in the Asset Store months ago when I was searching for something better to prototype levels, but I haven't tried it out. I'll try the demo!

    It seems a lot more robust that the version I saw before.

    Quote from iwxanthi

    Pretty neat tool, used a bit to see if it could work for any future projects in our studio. Pretty impressed so far with the workflow and production speed. Though I need to use it a bit more to give some proper feedback

    Thanks iwxanthi! It really is all about speed and simplicity for the workflow- looking forward to your further feedback.

    Quote from Al Anselmo

    Woot! I found this plugin in the Asset Store months ago when I was searching for something better to prototype levels, but I haven't tried it out. I'll try the demo! It seems a lot more robust that the version I saw before.

    Much, much more robust than a few months ago, for sure. Thanks for trying the demo, should be a huge time saver for prototyping and even building final level geometry.

    I haven't had a chance to dig into this yet, but you mention using Hammer as a reference - have you spent much time with Radiant? It's a good bit less polished than its peers in Hammer and UnrealEd, but the speed factor is virtually unmatched for raw construction, mostly by removing the need to switch between different tools and modes as often. Might be some valuable reference there.

    That said, great work! I think people are too quick to dismiss BSP-style construction these days; there's so much value to rapid in-editor building.

    Quote from KungFuSquirrel

    I haven't had a chance to dig into this yet, but you mention using Hammer as a reference - have you spent much time with Radiant? It's a good bit less polished than its peers in Hammer and UnrealEd, but the speed factor is virtually unmatched for raw construction, mostly by removing the need to switch between different tools and modes as often. Might be some valuable reference there.

    That said, great work! I think people are too quick to dismiss BSP-style construction these days; there's so much value to rapid in-editor building.

    Interesting- I'll look into this! Any particular features that you liked best?

    Well this is neat! I have been thinking of moving to Unity lately. BSP takes a lot of flak sometimes because the technology behind it is outdated, but who doesn't want to build the level in the level editor, and who doesn't want to make walls out of walls? I really like the way your manipulation tools look to function.

    Radiant made my mind break back when I was new.

    Quote from Warby

    so there is a free try it out version now ? than i shall try !

    Great!

    Quote from Mr. Happy

    Well this is neat! I have been thinking of moving to Unity lately. BSP takes a lot of flak sometimes because the technology behind it is outdated, but who doesn't want to build the level in the level editor, and who doesn't want to make walls out of walls? I really like the way your manipulation tools look to function.

    Radiant made my mind break back when I was new.

    Thanks for the compliments- other than functionality, the goal of ProBuilder was to be really, truly, simple and easy to use. And yes, BSP takes a lot of flak unfortunatly, but this system doesn't come with the need for portals/vis blocks/etc, so it should be much simpler for everyone.

    i watched your videos ( havent tried the tool yet) and i have some "concerns"

    -PERFORMANCE o/ the way it looks from your videos (being able to assign materials per face and the unity vising making individual faces of a cube dissappear) id assume that every one of your cubes adds 6 drawcalls to the scene ? ( make that 2x or 3x depending on dynamic shadows being used). thats too much ! everything that has the same material within a "visleaf" or what ever untiy calls its vis zones needs to be merged into one drawcall.

    -PRIMITIVES the steps of your stairs are really awkwardly build out of overlapping cubes rather than wedges do you really only support cubes at the moment ? you need wedges and cylinders man ! in fact any kind of convex geom should be doable. and they should be created with:

    -CUT TOOLS manipulation beyond moving verts would be nice because in hammer i almost exclusively use the clip(cut) tool and in unrealed the extrude function (at least back in the day) a bit more advanced manipulation would be great

    -COLLISION when i first heard of this tool my thought was: "i wonder how he handles the collision for this he cant just assign mesh colliders to every brush that would ruin the physics and the async level loading" but from your videos it looks like you do -_- mesh colliders introduce a huge amount of lag when you do background level loading merging all the geom of a room/zone/visleaf and just assigning one mesh collider would be better but really every primitive that is still in "cube" form should get a cube collider they are much fast and less laggy during async level loads and they fuck up the physics less frquently too.

    LIGHTMAPSPACE. the way you have it right now every brush is essentially a func_wall or a func_detail and nothing really gets merged/culled so a large ground plane covering multiple rooms and corridors will get a lot of wasted light-map uv space. i think in order to avoid this you will need:

    -CSG/MERGING this would fix a lot of the before mentioned problems to be able to do fast physics and reduce amount of draw-calls and not waste any light-map space you have to introduce a "pre-calculated csg step". no matter how much i hate pre-calculated stuff there is a reason why its done that way ... but compared to lighting and vising csg in other engines is lightning fast

    i love that you are heading down this road ... unity really should have shipped with this functionality !

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