ProBuilder 2.0 Beta is out- it's coming together, folks!

Note: ProBuilder 2.0 Released! This post is now obsolete!
Probuilder 2.0 is a complete from-scratch rebuild of ProBuilder, and is vastly more intuitive, powerful, and optimized. Check it out on the forums HERE, and the official page at "www.probuilder3d.com"

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ProBuilder is a tool for building your game levels right inside Unity. The focus is fast, intuitive, and most of all fun level construction. It can do much, much more than this as well- check out the official forum post for more details!

Latest Video (updated as Milestones are completed)

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ProBuilder 2.0 is a complete, from scratch, rebuild and overhaul of ProBuilder. The entire tool is being streamlined for even speedier creation and editing, massively more efficient final builds, and many new features. Want to know exactly what is planned? Check out this Google Docs list: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1HIPGNzIdsPmUQxtlKqjEApu9WpwMI0QoydyEUl9qbO0

ProBuilder 2.0 is being built and released via a series of Milestones, completed weekly:

Milestone #1: Catch up to Probuilder 1.x
Due Date: Nov 10th
Status: DONE!
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE_UmiKVVb4&feature=youtu.be

Milestone #2: 65% of all ProBuilder 2.0 New Features Implemented
Due Date: Nov 28th
Status: DONE!
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpwI3hx8cTg&feature=youtu.be

Milestone #3: 100% of all ProBuilder 2.0 New Features Implemented
Video: http://youtu.be/V_IiBhBALrQ
Status: Done!

Milestone #4: All Testing Complete, "Release Candidate" sent to users
Status: In queue...

Milestone #5: RC Pass Testing, GUI Done- Relase Final Version of ProBuilder 2.0!
Status: In queue...

Keep track of progress here, and on the ProBuilder facebook page at www.facebook.com/probuilder3d
Thanks everyone for all the support ProBuilder has received, allowing 2.0 to finally get pushed into full production mode!

 

Awesome! Looking forward to playing with this asap. Keep up the good work!

 

2.0's looking nice! I'm looking forward to it.

 

Thanks folks, should be some even better demos coming soon!

 

Very, very excited to announce ProBuilder 2.0's first Milestone completion- check out it out!

 

Just a bump, if I may, since this went up at 1am

 

This is looking really good! I am very impressed with how far it has progressed in such a short time period.

One thing I noticed is that the version with the updater would cause Unity to become unresponsive after I ran the update script or created a new box in a new scene. It is causing 100% utilization of one core of the CPU and Unity becomes unusable and must be killed using task manager. Once I deleted that version and installed the version without the updater, I was able to use it just fine. Also, the update script did mess up some of the stuff I created with the older version. It messed up the BuilderBoxes I had placed in an empty game object and rotated 180 degrees. The ones that were not rotated were fine. Hope this helps.

This is going to be an incredible tool for Unity. Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks dbryson!

Actually, I was just trying to track down the root cause of that slowdown, I had seen it happen as well. Good tip!
The update script is definitely unfinished, but handy in simple cases. Rotation I've also found to be an issue, and I'd assume scaling will be the same.

Updates being applied already for various things

 

Great! It's coming along nicely!

Would you say this milestone is already feature complete and stable enough to use in a production environment? Or is a little more patience needed while you further awesomefy 2.0?

Edit: Ah, there are milestones at the top of the page now. I guess that answers my questions. Looking forward to december 5th now. We in Holland celebrate Sinterklaas on december 5th (our version of Santa Claus) so can't wait to open that present.

 

As long time user of Call of duty Radiant this will be must to have. How much will be the price?

 

Looks nice!

I was just about to start a new project. Is there any chance I could get in on the beta? I purchased from the Asset Store, which I suspect complicates things.

Edit: I noticed in the video that you can justify the texture to top, bottom, left and right. Why not top and left both? It seems like you should be able to specify one for each direction.

 

Really Really Cool

 

@Cubez: There's still a little ways to go till it's "production ready", although at the next milestone it should be very close, definitely useable- for the brave of heart

@janpec: Thanks! ProBuilder already exists for purchase, as v1.6.4 currently. 2.0 is just a major upgrade that literally rebuilds everything from scratch and adds a ton of new features. You can purchase ProBuilder here: www.sixbysevenstudio.com/probuilder

@wcccrawford: I swear we've had this convo before, sorry if I messed up- could you "register" your copy per the ProBuilder docs? Basically I just need an email with your purchase number and then I'll get you registered for updates, previews, and all that. Thanks!

@ajmae: Thank you!

Just a quick reminder, there is a free version of ProBuilder available to try out! Check it out at the above link, if you'd like to give the system a try

 

It's probably me that messed up, being lazy. I don't think I ever registered it like the docs asked. I'll try to get that done tonight.

Thanks!

 

So your forums apparently require administrator approval for posts, which means I can't reply to my own thread there until it's approved. So I'm posting here.

Playing with 2.0 last night (the version you sent, which I assume is the latest), I was unable to build and deploy a project for webplayer or Windows. (I assume everything.) It wouldn't compile some of the scripts because it was trying to do editor things without being in the editor.

I was able to uncomment the #if statement in the first file, and then add some to other spots in other files, and get things to deploy. I did not have time to see if that broke the editor interface, though.

 

In the free version, hitting edit on a new box removes like half the tris... is that intended?

 

Hi PrimeDerektive- sorry for the late response, was away for a bit. That's a Unity 4 issue that needs to be addressed in the free version, will fix that up tomorrow!

 

Again, sorry for the delay- but back in the swing now! Milestone #2 is coming out tomorrow (well, technically today, it's 4am right now!), and it's going to be a really, really big update. Can't wait to show it off!

 

Love the concept and how I works in your tutorial videos, but I could never get 1.x to work properly. The grid feature just plain didn't work and there were plenty of artifacts.

Using Unity Free 3.5.6. Any idea what the issue might be?

Is the RC available to only paid customers? I'd love to beta it for you.

EDIT: I noticed the asset store version is of 4.0. Will your next release be 3.5 compatible?

 

Sorry it hasn't worked for you, odd though. Hate to sound silly, but did you make sure to follow the install/setup and documentation? ProGrids, however, should pretty much "just work"- I havn't heard any complaints on it yet, and use it everyday myself. What issues are you having exactly?

Speaking of reading those docs... - yes, there is a 3.x compatible version available, you just need to request it via email. ProBuilder 2.0 will do away this (and many other) silly requirements, but for now it's just an email away.

Beta/RC is only available to paid, yep- Milestone #2 coming out today, and I think it's going to amaze!

 

ProBuilder 2.0 beta, Milestone #2, is ready to use!

This milestone adds some very cool new features, such as:

• rotation and scaling
• ProGrids support
• ability to offset UVs with the movement "handle"
• super-speedy editing
• Export to OBJ
• Lightmapping
• ...much more!

Check it out in the attached video!

Help promote ProBuilder by "sharing" the facebook post to your wall (here), and you will be entered for a chance to win the "QuickEdit" tool that also allows mesh editing right in Unity 3D. Hurray!

Thanks everyone for your support, especially after the delay- sincerely looking forward to your feedback on this latest milestone, it's a major update and so much more on the way!

 

I don't know, I'll try the demo again... If I can't get it working I'll do a screen cast and show you.

Anyway, any idea on price? This looks good.

 

In the latest milestone, I don't have a probuilder panel window option... I only have "probuilder cube" and "update all objects to 2.0" options. Also, what is your recommended workflow for updating between these milestone updates? When I update to the new milestone all my previous probuilder objects go pink. I could go back and reassign the materials for each object, but... there's a lot of objects

 

Hi chingwa! Since we are still working at "beta" level for v2.0, a lot of issues will be cropping up for sure, Karl is aware of the material issue and it should be fixed by the next release, no worries. For now, if you are working on a "production level" game, I'd recommend using 1.7.2, the latest released ProBuilder (at the time of writing this). The only issue there is, UV offsets, tiling, and rotation may not transfer over to 2.0, though we'll do our best to make that work. So, I'd recommend working on building mostly, and leave complex UV editing for later.

Anyway, to answer your actual question- we'll have a fix for those pink materials soon, no need to re-assign them all!

 

Thanks Yahodahan, I'm having a great time just protoyping buildings and level elements with ProBuilder... haven't even got into texturing yet. After installing the latest milestone though I know longer have any probuilder controls. I only have 2 probuilder menu options... "probuilder cube" and "update all objects in scene to 2.0" I reinstalled it a couple times but it seems like I'm missing something.

 

Ah, this is something that was missed, it seems. However, just kit "CTRL-K" to create a new cube, and with that cube selected, click "Open ProBuilder" in the inspector. Sorry for the confusion!

 

Yup! That Works. Thanks!

 

Great! A commit was just pushed through on that front, FYI. Milestone # 3, coming this Saturday!

 

Look forward to seeing it. Hope to pick this up at some point.

 

Just an FYI, I don't know if others have been having this problem, but i started to have errors from ProBuilder when trying to build my project to standalone or webplayer. All these errors had to do with Editor specific code that the build script was not recognizing... so I made a few edits to two files which ended up fixing my issue...

first in ProBuilderMenuItems.cs I wrapped both the "using UnityEditor" line and the entire class in a conditional...

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. #if UNITY_EDITOR
3. using UnityEditor;
4. #endif
5.  
6. using System.Collections;
7.  
8. #if UNITY_EDITOR
9. public class ProBuilderMenuItems : EditorWindow {
10.  
11.     [MenuItem("Window/ProBuilder/ProBuilder Cube _%k")]
12.     public static void Cube()
13.     {
14.         ProBuilder.CreatePrimitive(ProBuilder.PrimitiveType.Cube);
15.     }
16. }
17. #endif

Second, in pb_Objects it was missing a value for "path" on line 707 and I noticed the code was only declaring path in the conditional, thus it had no value to return... I ended up declaring path first and then setting the value within the conditional as before. This at least gave the return variable a non-null value and seemed to fix the problem... (lines 688 - 690):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. string path = "";
3. #if UNITY_EDITOR
4. path = EditorUtility.SaveFilePanel("Save ProBuilder Object as Obj", "", "pb" + pb[0].id + ".obj", "");

Note, this was in the 2.0 Milestone #2... haven't looked at Milestone #3 yet...

 

Hey Chingwa, thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure why ProBuilderMenuItems is being included in compilation, and though pre-processor directives will work, you could also just move ProBuilderMenuItems to the Editor folder (where it should have been anyhow). I do believe this is fixed in the latest beta.

 

Huge update, now at Beta 4, which is basically "Release Candidate"- not quite, but so very close!

 

I am glad to see how much work you have put into probuilder. I remember many months ago, I was one of your testers on the first version, and I can tell its come a long way since those days! Not sure if your still doing public testing or not, but if you still are getting testers together, let me know, i'd tinker with it and see how much better it is! Good luck with the new release yahodahan!

 

Hey, good to hear from you MD_Reptile! No longer doing public testing though, sorry. There will certainly be a free 2.0 version you could try out, sometime after 2.0 is officially released Thanks!

 

sounds good, I'll keep my eyes peeled

 

Very nice. I hope to pick it up when it becomes available.

 

Have you thought about adding any CSG functionality to the system or more tools for building interior scenes? I had started making my own CSG level editor and it's quite nice for quickly building halls and rooms but I also like what ProBuilder offers with being able to do more than just boxes and CSG by moving points around (I also presume it has much better UV/texturing support than what I've got).

With CSG you can easily drop in a brush, check the "Hollow" box, and you have a room with all six sides. Put a couple of subtract brushes in there and now you've got doors and windows. If you want to move a door you just move the subtract brush and rebuild; extremely workflow efficient. With modeling you have a lot more work. You have to build up the six sides from six separate boxes and then to make the door I guess you'd break that one box into three separate boxes (each side of the door and one above it).

I guess in my mind the best answer is to have a system supporting both so you get the efficient workflow of CSG coupled with the power of vertex level editing. Hence my original question.

I like what I see in the videos, but I'm still concerned that building an interior scene like a building would be something of a pain, particularly for iteration. For example, can someone make a video building up a few interconnected rooms like something you might find in GoldenEye 64? And then if one wanted to move a door after playtesting, how much work is that?

It's entirely possible I'm just not seeing the right way to build a scene like this and what I want to do is entirely possible in ProBuilder so if someone can help me see the light that'd be great.

 

Hi Nick! CSG is something we'd love to implement, but it gets pretty tricky when also supporting the in-depth UV editing and other options we have in ProBuilder. So, it's slated for the future, but no promises on time!

The interior construction is actually very fast and simple, I'll have some videos on that soon Thanks for the comments!

 

Hi, is it possible to combine the meshes?

 

In 2.0, you can merge them in the editor, and choose to save or delete the originals. Or, you can set groups to "AutoCollapse", so they will stay editable in the editor, but automatically merge into one mesh at runtime.

 

Great.

 

It's one of my favorite features, honestly. Really helps with optimization, but requires very little work on the user's part.

 

Cool. CSG itself isn't strictly required as long as interior construction has a good workflow. CSG is just one possible way to get there. I look forward to seeing the videos on it.

 

Hi, I would also be really interested in seeing some vids on interior construction.

Thanks

iByte

 

Videos on their way, I promise! They were recorded using 1.x unfortunately, but get the idea across fairly well.

 

I am using Probuilder latest beta on Win 7 - Unity 4.0f7. I am using progrids 1.3.2. When I add a plane PBO to a grid enabled scene, the object is not snaped to the grid. Is that intentional?

Also finding it a little odd that a PBO cube is placed on the center point of a grid intersection so that when you go to move any points they immediately snap to the closest grid point which deforms the object. I hope that makes sense. I figured the object points which have been snapped to the grid be default?
I am sure must be doing something not intended

Edit: Okay I set the grid to half - that helped

Also when selecting preamade objects from the palette could the last selection chosen remain?

Thanks

iByte

 

Plane to grid- this is intentional, since the Plane objects are meant to replicate Hammer's deformation planes. In the future, we hope make them paintable, just like Terrain. We could give Plane objects a special toggle for snapping, though.

Snapping happens based on pivot point (transform) when you have any object selected. When you move into editing verts, they will then snap to the grid. This is a bit messy, I agree, and we are looking for the best method of dealing with things. However, ProGrids 1.3.4 now defaults to a 1/4 (.25) grid size, so this issue will be significantly lessened, especially for first-time users.

Sure, we could work in a way to save that latest selection/settings. That'd be very useful.

 

does 6by7 have any plans of making a run-time version of ProBuilder for games that allow players to build in-game content?

 

You bet! In fact, the ProBuilder v2.0 beta already includes this capability, and we are currently building a demo game around that exact feature. It's great fun being able to construct right in the game.

The v2.0 beta is available to all current 1.x customers, by the way.

 

O...M...G!!

I could kiss the entire 6by7 team for this! I've been searching the web for weeks trying to find a solution to in-game editing. I took a shot in the dark by asking if ProBuilder would have it, I honestly thought you would say no.

I'm definitely buying ProBuilder this week! thanks so much!