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Polygon Reduction Plugin Preview

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by bibbinator, Mar 5, 2012.

  1. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi,
    I have uploaded a new tutorial video with the latest progress. I'm getting pretty close to a first release.

    Tutorial Video

    YouTube video here


    Preview #2 Videos

    Vimeo video here (better quality):



    YouTube video here (same video, lower quality):



    Older preview #1 videos:
    YouTube video here.
    Vimeo video here.

    Features

    • Written as native plugin for ultimate speed (requires Unity Pro)
    • Runs inside editor
    • Single or multiple file conversion (batch)
    • Adjustments to the quality of reduction can be previewed live
    • Ability to generate multiple LODs from a single higher resolution mesh to support the new LODGroup in 3.5 right from the conversion window
    • Ability to adjust settings from the root of a mesh that propagates to all meshes
    • Root adjustments can be absolute or relative, with relative adjustments preserving any manual adjustments that were previously made
    • Out-of-the-box settings ensure no holes appear in meshes even at low quality
    • Introductory price of only $100, price will go up later on

    For those that are curious, the plugin is based on Balancer and if you want to see how it will work on your meshes, you can try out the demo or lite version in their site.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2012
  2. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    Wow! this is just what I have been looking for!!

    As for price anything below 50 dollar would be fine for me.

    Can it also reduce textures for the LOD stages?
     
  3. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi Lars,
    Thanks for your post!

    At this point it doesn't reduce textures since the normal import setting on textures generates mipmaps and it will do the right thing already in most cases. If you have a specific use-case where this doesn't work, let me know and I'll see if it's something we should add.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  4. joni9887

    joni9887

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    Great work and much wanted. Will buy surely.
     
  5. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi joni9887,
    Thanks for your note and positive feedback!
    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  6. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    One thing I think that could be useful is to have the LOD stages generated from the tags or layers that the objects belong to.

    For instance if I tag 20 objects with high poly, 40 with medium poly, and 30 with low poly, than it would generate highly reduced versions for the 20 objects, slightly reduced versions for the 40 objects and no reduction for the 30 objects.

    Basically I'm thinking about ways to optimize large scenes with many objects automatically, just before compiling for iOS.
     
  7. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @Lars

    The conversion window shown in the demo will have some additional things added, namely it will allow you to choose how many LODs to generate, and at what targeted qualities. The plugin will also include a "mesh browser" that basically allows you to configure these same things and apply the settings to a set of files.

    But at this point, the LODs must be generated during edit time, not build time. And you'll have to link them to an LODGroup attached to a GameObject as per how it works now in 3.5. Currently the LODGroup doesn't expose a public API, so I can't set these for you automatically.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  8. p6r

    p6r

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    WOW ! Great !
    I always had to use another software to reduce the polygons... And I couldn't know if it is OK in Unity !
    With your plugin, it will be more efficient immediately !
    Congratulations !

    6R
     
  9. garyhaus

    garyhaus

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    Nicely done! Looking forward to this greatly!!!

    Gary
     
  10. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    p6r and garyhaus,
    Thanks for your posts and encouragement!
    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  11. janpec

    janpec

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    Perfect!
     
  12. raoul

    raoul

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    This looks great! I have a system in Unity that creates meshes, most of the time 65.000+ triangles so I have to export and optimize in a modeling app first. Will your tool be able to take care of this or will it require a mesh input?

    Good luck on the further development!
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2012
  13. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @janpec Thanks!

    @raoul

    The plugin is designed to work with any object that has a MeshFilter or SkinnedMeshRenderer attached to it. But you can also manually put the controller on an object of your choice, link it's Mesh field with a mesh somewhere, and it will be able to reduce that too (I think :).

    But if you generate prefabs (model prefab, user prefab, model instance prefab or user instance prefab) then these will work fully with all the plugin features and windows.

    As mentioned above, if you're unsure it would work, you could supply me with a sample and I can try it out and let you know if it worked or not.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  14. SpookyCat

    SpookyCat

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    Excellent looks like it works amazingly well.
     
  15. raoul

    raoul

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    Ok, hope I will be able to use this, looking forward to it...
     
  16. runonthespot

    runonthespot

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    You mentioned it works with mesh or skinnedmesh - In the skinned case, do animations survive, or is it a case of experimentation to see the end result?
     
  17. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @SpookyCat Thanks! Love the MegaFiers plugin!

    @runonthespot

    Thanks for your post. Yes, the animations survive (or it's a bug ;-)

    Bone weights, colors, uv, uv2 and tangents are all supported in the reduced mesh. That said, the remapping may not always do what you think. This plugin never moves vertices, it only removes vertices and collapses faces. So for a given vertice, it's color, uvs, bone weights, etc. are fixed. There might be use cases where somebody would want to average some of the data, but I haven't found such a clear case yet.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  18. gregmax17

    gregmax17

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    This looks like an amazing tool. I will surely be getting this.
     
  19. fffMalzbier

    fffMalzbier

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    If the Price is fair we will use is probably.

    How is your development time plan?

    ETA 1 Week or 6 month?

    PS: We are using the Balancer at the moment for reducing CAD data for use in Unity.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2012
  20. TouchSoft

    TouchSoft

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    I hope this is released soon, I could really use this.
     
  21. Lypheus

    Lypheus

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    Ya same, this is something i'd like to see as part of Unity3D itself - very useful tool!
     
  22. pixelsteam

    pixelsteam

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    Really impressive and VERY useful!
     
  23. Toad

    Toad

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    This looks fantastic! Day one purchase for me.
     
  24. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Thanks for all the posts and encouragement!

    @Malzbier I'm hoping to get this done and released within March. It works well and is stable on the meshes I have tried, but hoping a few more samples will come my way for testing to be sure there isn't something I missed.
     
  25. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hey all,
    Thanks for the continued interest.

    I updated the initial post to clarify that this is a native plugin and will only work in Unity Pro. Sorry for not making that clearer in the original post. The underlying tech is licensed and the licensor requires that the licensing system remain intact, so the plugin will also not be available in the Unity Store, but rather directly from our website (which isn't setup yet, but will be shortly).

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  26. imtrobin

    imtrobin

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    Do you need to run it within unity editor? The editor itself is as slow as it is, I think it would be better to make it standalone. And please add maintain quad support.
     
  27. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi imtrobin,
    Thanks for your post.

    It runs within the editor. If you want standalone that does same thing, see http://www.atangeo.com/

    The idea is to sit seamlessly inside Unity and map everything between a raw model and game object as is, but convert the mesh. It makes certain workflows much more fluid and easy, and supports Unity's new LODGroups.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  28. vdek

    vdek

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    Pro only? That's unfortunate :(

    If this was would run on Unity Free/Basic I would gladly pay $50+ for it...
     
  29. runonthespot

    runonthespot

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    Will this work on PC MAC?
     
  30. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @Vdek Yeah, sorry, at this time it's Pro only. We'll try to figure out possibly a fully managed version in the future, but for now, we need the core to be native code.

    @runonthespot Yes, both Mac and Windows supported.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  31. Lypheus

    Lypheus

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    Ok, so when a mesh is optimized, will it create a new asset or how does that piece work? I'm wondering if this will affect which platforms I'll be able to target (i.e. can this be used with WebPlayer)?
     
  32. imtrobin

    imtrobin

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    atangeo does not have maintain quad reduction feature.
     
  33. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @Lypheus

    Yes, it creates a new User Prefab. The prefab will map everything back to the original except it embeds a mesh into itself instead of the original. So if you already have a user prefab all configured, and then convert it, it will embed the mesh into that and remap it. None of this should effect which platforms can be used, including web player.

    @imtrobin

    Quads are hard to work with when collapsing polygons because it has to keep it coplanar and a triangle is coplanar automatically. I'm not sure this is something that can be done in this plugin at this time, sorry.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  34. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    Please submit to assets store today! :) you can always update it with new version after feedback.

    Thanks
     
  35. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Haha, yeah, I wish I could do it today really! But it will be done soon. And just to point out, it won't be in the asset store at least initially, it will be sold on an external website for now.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  36. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi all,
    New updated preview videos and new features added to the polygon reduction plugin.


    Vimeo video here (better quality)

    YouTube video here (same video, lower quality)

    Cheers,
    Brett

    PS: I need a model with sub meshes (not just multiple meshes in a model, but sub meshes). Please PM if you can help. Thanks :)
     
  37. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    Great new features! I'm really impressed with the plugin! do you need beta testers? I would be happy to give it a spin!

    One question; why not release simultaneously on the asset store and separate store, the asset store license is non exclusive.
    I like the fact that I can keep all my purchases and updates in one place in the asset store. Despite it's slowness.

    Does this plugin also allow the reduction of trees created with unity tree maker, or the export of unity trees to obj? this would be really welcome for mobile use of unity trees. At the moment they take too many draw calls but I still like to use them on mobile.


    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012
  38. sjm-tech

    sjm-tech

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    Awesome, I can't wait to see it on asset store!
     
  39. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi Lars!
    Thanks for the post and encouragement!

    I'm still considering my testing options, but I'll be sure and let you know if I need some help, thanks for the offer!

    I hear you. The issue lies with licensing: I must maintain a licensing system for this plugin due to my agreement with the provider of the underlying technology and the asset store doesn't currently have any way to do this, so it's simply not an option. That said, I will work with the licensor to see if we can solve this down the road, but for now, I want to get this thing out in the wild first.

    It won't support trees in the initial version. Actually, I'm probably going to release the core plugin mostly as it is now that supports the standard prefab types. Then, I plan to release specialty add-on plugins (via the asset store), that will handle special assets like trees, terrains, characters, etc. This will allow me to really tailor the add-on to the task at hand; e.g. since the plugin knows that it's a Unity tree it will be able to do a great job of generating the LOD and staying synched. So in the first, core version, it won't but soon after you'll be able to get one I think.

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  40. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @Sjm Tech Thanks, me too ;-) Keep in mind that the first version at least won't be on the asset store though.
     
  41. raoul

    raoul

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    Looking forward to this! I'll be happy to pay in advance and test things...
     
  42. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    The fact that you mention unity trees will be an option is superb!! I will get this add-on, as I've been struggling how to convert a nice unity terrain with unity trees to mobile, it would bring back to Unity it's core premise of "create once export to multiple target platforms."
    This is technically already there but practically limited because of poly differences, material draw calls and shader features.

    Your tool would instantly make unity more user friendly for mobile use, and LOD creation in general, just takes to much time to do manually for all the trees.
     
  43. Toad

    Toad

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    This is looking really, really good! Can't wait for it to be released...
     
  44. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    you know what I think would be nice is a master balancer slider, that influences all the differenct object that use balancer, in fact you have this already with the parenting, but I like to see it also as a seperate tool in the interface to make different version for iPad, iPhone, iPad 3, mac, web etc. just to get a few different settings for different platforms.
     
  45. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    Hi Lars,
    I did consider this, and it could be done, the problem is that you almost always need exact control over each object to get something sensible/reasonable looking.

    But I'll probably include a multi-select way to adjust the settings so it will be achievable to try anyway...

    Cheers,
    Brett
     
  46. MaliceA4Thought

    MaliceA4Thought

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    really looking forward to this :)
     
  47. Games-Foundry

    Games-Foundry

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    +1 sale here once you go live. The fact you will preserve skinned mesh animations is a huge plus point. Simplygon is too expensive for most indies, so we're quietly hoping your solution is affordable when launched. The other huge plus is having this within Unity, and not as an external app. That's really going to help our workflow, as it allows the programmer to tweak LODs for performance without having to go back to the art team. Good work.

    EDIT: Just been over to the Balancer website and noticed their pricing model which would require separate purchases for Mac and Windows. I've created a thread asking them to change to per seat. If you have time please head over there, register, and give the thread a +1 so they know to change their pricing model.

    http://www.atangeo.com/node/90
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2012
  48. KatanaSim

    KatanaSim

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    Am very much looking forward to this. Nice work! Purchase is a no-brainer for me.
    Will this also support any other file format apart from .obj?
     
  49. runonthespot

    runonthespot

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    Sounds like they are planning on changing the license to a single seat that works for Mac/PC so that's a win!
     
  50. bibbinator

    bibbinator

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    @Sebas

    The plugin works _inside_ Unity, so it doesn't care what the source is really. It basically will support out of the box any model imported in any format as long as it has a MeshFilter or SkinnedMeshRenderer attached.

    @runonthespot

    Yeah, it's a per-user license and you get both Mac and Windows native plugins so you can switch back and forth between Mac and Windows and all works well.