Posts by sixbyseven

  • [UNITY] Need mappers for (possibly crazy) "House of the Dead" speed-build!

    Hi Sentura,

    Oops, I might have made that confusing- each "scene" would be a final full-texture scene, yes.

    The "gray box" is a separate thing, if a person is both interested in working on this and also in the ProBuilder tool, just post a great "proof of concept", ie 2D concepts and a ProBuilder grayboxed level + final meshes, and I'll send over a full version of the tool, to finish the scene and to keep, as thanks for helping out. "graybox" because the free version of ProBuilder doesn't allow texturing, just building.

    Hope that clears it up

  • [UNITY] Need mappers for (possibly crazy) "House of the Dead" speed-build!

    Hi everyone!

    Call me crazy, but I always really enjoy speed-building a quick game, especially retro-remakes where the general game design is already set, and the task is just to take that initial concept/design and run with it. That way, it's all about technical execution and working fast with a solid goal in mind!

    I have always wanted to make a "House of the Dead" style shooter, just a fun and casual rail-game, like we (probably) all used to play in the arcades. With Halloween in a mere 2 weeks, this is just the crazy/impossible/ridiculous type of speed-build that I love, and perfect timing.

    Perhaps there are others here who share this desire to wreck their free-time and/or sanity in a mad dash of game creation? Let me know here!

    Okay, the details of what I hope to accomplish:

    -6+ scenes. A "scene" is an area that the player will be moved through, fairly short. Usually 3 or 4 stops to shoot things while moving through it. Remember, the camera will only be looking from specific points in a specific direction(s), with no player-controlled movement or looking, so you can get away with a lot of visual cheating.

    -These "scenes" can be any environment that seems fairly logical, ie that we could easily "cutscene" to from another. An example series of suitably cheesy scenes:


    1) Mall (always classic, good start)...

    2) ...into City street...

    3) ...to Subway (hey, we already have one started!)...

    4) ...down into a gothic sewer (maybe this is London?)...

    5) ...up into a fancy/Victorian house...

    6) ...down secret elevator, into underground sci-fi lab (oh no, a TWIST!)...

    7) ...escape through tunnels/etc...

    ...into the woods, game ends.

    I will take care of the coding, unless another (more qualified) member would like to? Should be fairly simple, as far as these things go. At one scene per-person, this could be knocked out quickly, I believe.

    Bonus Points! Make a tutorial/sped-up walkthrough of creating your scene, and I can probably arrange to have it shown to thousands on http://www.unitycookie.com, exposure + possible pay for you!

    Super Combo! I'd like this game to help promote my "ProBuilder" tool for Unity- if you show me a really knock-out concept and greyboxed version (via ProBuilder free version), I'll happily send you the whole pile of tools I make, for free!

    Thanks all, lots of talent here, so I really hope to hear back from a few of you

  • BSP-Style level construction tool for Unity

    Okay, proper response:

    -PERFORMANCE: you are 98% correct, and this is a (if not "the") major focus of v2.0. Currently, Unity will batch all static meshes that have the same material, down to one drawcall. So, and I've tested this, 3000 boxes with 18,000 sides, will batch down to 1 draw call if 1 material, 2 if 2, and so forth. However, that all goes to (bleep) in a handbasket the instant you add in pixel lights, multi-drawcall shaders, and even lightmaps (though, that's a Unity bug). At that point, you end with applause-worthy drawcall numbers, and a lunchbreak between frames, heh.

    So what is being done about this? Well for one, in v2.0, there will no longer be the current method of seperate planes- all ProBuilder objects (hint: more than cubes!) will be procedurally-built meshes, and instead of seperate "planes" will employ sub-meshes for per-face materials. Yes, I realize a sub-mesh has the same drawcall hit as a seperate mesh, however it allows for much, much better batching and all sorts of other exciting things. Related to this, it means the ability to "collapse" groups of objects down to a single mesh object, prefab and instantiate that object, and even un-collapse that object for further editing! I am ridiculously excited for this There will also be "auto-collapse" groups the user can create, something like visleafs, wherein the user will designate a group of Objects to collapse into a single mesh at build-time (or when hitting the "Play" button, but NOT on "Start()", no in-game hit). Again, the submesh drawcall applies, but this shouldn't be a major issue. For example, if you make a pillar from 16 boxes and 2 materials, it will collapse to 1 mesh, with 2 submeshes, thereby 2 base drawcalls and some seriously fine texturing due to the tiling and control. Of course, a savvy builder would find a way to do such a thing with just 1 material, but just for example...

    -PRIMITIVES: absolutly- this is another feature I'm really, really excited for. Since v2.0 will create all it's geo procedurally, there will be cylinders, tubes, triangles, arches, stairs, and more, all with the ability to set resolution of the mesh and other options, just like good 'ol Hammer does it.

    -CUT TOOLS: here, I have to say...maybe. At the 3d studio I worked at till recently (http://www.studio2a.net), we called the Boolean tool "the evil one", and it was only used when there was absolutely zero other option. Clipping and cutting creates really, really nasty geometry when used incorrectly, and it's really easy to go crazy and do just that. In fact, on TF2maps.net, I believe they also regard it as generally evil and a no-no, except in very skilled hands. Personally, I never used it in Hammer, and never missed it. Oh, it also would be seriously tough to implement- but that part actually makes me WANT to add it in, ha, love a good challenge. So...maybe.

    -COLLISION: Could you link me the supporting docs on this? I was not aware of that limitation. Seems very odd, since everything in Unity is mesh-based. Perhaps I'll have to figure out a "build collision" that would build one collision mesh from multiple boxes. Very doable, with the new system. Generally though, I wouldn't expect people to create complex collision requiring many boxes with this- just like hammer, you should only be building simple player clips, ramps for stairs, wall collision, etc. This does sound an issue though, and thanks for bringing it up!

    -LIGHTMAPSPACE: Hmm. Wouldn't you would want to create multiple sections so the vis leafs could break things up properly? It's entirely possible that I remember that incorrectly, it's been a while since I worked in-depth with Hammer, sadly. Regardless, yes, some sort of merging/CSG/pre-calc would be great, that's partially where the "Auto-Collapse" groups are aiming. If you have any thoughts on how to best implement this, without going full-BSP (impossible for me technically, would infuriate and put off new users just coming in). Vis leafs and portals and hint brushes etc, I remember there was so much to optimizing in Hammer that it was just crazy as a newcomer. True, it did make for some amazingly efficient games/levels, but I hope to strike a compromise in the sweet spot- very easily usable with good enough performance for starters, but plenty of under-the-hood tweaking and optimizing available for those who know/care to really dig in and squeeze every last bit of FPS from the system.

    Thanks again Warby!

    PS, When I said (I think I said) "ProBuilder is being rebuilt from scratch", I meant exactly that- the ENTIRE code base is being scrapped for brand new. Even moving from Javascript to C# for every little performance boost and extra low-level capabilities. Also, I am honestly just an artist who wanted this tool so badly, I taught myself Unity editor scripting as best I could to create this tool to the best of my abilities, in a reasonable amount of time. For v2.0, I have found a "real" developer to do the heavy lifting, and build this thing proper- It's going to be a whole new beast!

  • BSP-Style level construction tool for Unity

    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.

  • BSP-Style level construction tool for Unity

    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?

  • BSP-Style level construction tool for Unity

    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.

  • 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