3DForge Exteriors

Gee Shawn67, that reminds me of that Simpson's episode where Homer chases after the dog with a puffy tail

Thanks for the advice, your method du jour sounds like me trying to mod Skyrim. It looks like it comes down to personal taste, time and ability. I'll continue with the "puffy tail" approach.

And thanks to @AdamGoodrich and his POI, there is yet another approach to consider

 

I'm trying to and it has worked so far. Makes me keep on track as to what is complete. Once I'm ready to start town building, I may start off by using just the core boxes to get an overall idea before placing actual complete buildings.

As I'm having interiors in completely separate scenes from the exteriors, I first create the outside on a temporary scene and when I'm happy with that, I create a prefab out of it so that when it comes to final placement on my terrain it's just ca case of drag and drop

I'll then pull the same prefab into a blank scene and centre it around 0,0,0 and then start disabling roofs, extra floors, etc. so I can start building the interior walls and then the furniture.

Of course, you could always do all this in one go if you're going for seamless transition from outside to inside

 

Hi,

I am only an artist and do not produce games, so take it from that angle.
But I would think of what type building I need size wise and shape, build them in a clean empty scene, make prefabs of them and then drag and drop them into the scene that they are for and take it from there.
If you look at the screenshot below, I have included basic templates for several house stypes
with empty childobject inside them that I use myself if you look at my included predone ones.
I use this to keep things neat so that is easy to edit later, for I hate it when you look at a prefab or scene that has this LOOOOOONG list of prefabs, nothing grouped or organized.
This will assist with that.
The actual game building parts people like @Shawn67 & @smada luap are better equipped to answer you


Cheers
Cobus

 

That is one of the big reasons for the BLUEPRINTS as well, you have aa HUGE amount of ready to use prefabs, that can use as is, or grab and edit and replace wall textures, add rooms, change the roofs, so basically make completely new items from them.

NB, remember to with each new one, make your own new prefabs for future use

Cheers
Cobus

 

lol... Speaking of distracted dogs and puffy tails, we seem to be chasing each other between threads... lol

Definitely agree. But I really think you have found a great group of folks and producers to help you out. Both Adam and Cobus have been doing a great job of pulling a core group of asset publishers together to collaborate and help each other. With tools that I've picked up from just the people in that group, I could have probably had a game out by now. Cobus' art packs, in my opinion, are second to none. They are the best value on the asset store for medieval type work. And if he ever gets through his wish list of additional packs he wants to create, as well as just finishing the exteriors kit... All I can say is WOW!

Then you have @smada luap who wrote and released Simple Fence Builder. I fought with fences trying to layout my homestead POI the other night for two hours. The next morning he was talking on Skype in a group we are in and mentioned his fence builder... I was like, crap, I have that. I deleted the fences (which I still wasn't satisfied with) and rebuilt them in 15 minutes with Simple Fence Builder. Here is a screenshot of my Homestead POI spawned by new Gaia. Both fences done in 15 minutes.



Then you also have @ElroyUnity with his Trees Manager System and uConstruct (last of which was a name I suggested heheh). Trees Manager System lets you take your terrain trees and have control of them like they are game object trees. You can set collider distances so colliders are turned off until you are within that range. You can use the colliders to chop them down. I think there were some other stuff you could do with it too but those were the two main things I got it for. And it is also network aware with support of some of the more popular network platforms. VERY worth the money!

And with uConstruct, you can set up in game building options for your players (with full support of 3DForge Exteriors Kit) where you take the pieces and add uConstruct sockets to things, set up foundations, and rulesets and your have a complete building system. TONS of possibilities with this system! Not just placing buildings. You can pretty much set up all kinds of things with the sockets. I'm planning on using it for homesteads where players can build their house, lay out a garden, fence of a pasture for their animals, etc. Very powerful and lightweight system.

And @turboscalpeur with his awesome grass packs. Between his two packs of grass and pack of ferns, I'm wondering where I'll ever use them all! lol

Also @NemoKrad with his terrain shader pack Distingo, Crepuscular Rays, and other ideas currently in the works brings a shader expert into the works!

GameTextures.com with their ground textures and MotuProprio with his rocks..

And.. and... lol I'm sure there is probably some folks I am leaving out.. I know there are some other great artists and developers working with the group. Look for lots of great things coming down the pike!

 

Lol.. Forgot to post the screenie in last message. I had cleared all my spawners in Gaia after finding a couple problems with it earlier and was rerunning Game Object spawner while typing last message.. I still need to do my masks for the paths/heavy traffic walking areas and include the texture and grass extensions for the POI. But this is how it stands so far... and by the way, those three trees are part of the POI too.

Also all assets (other than the trees and ground textures) are a combination of interior and exterior kit assets.. The barn started out as one of the blueprints from the Waterhouses pack. And the house is one from the Mountain Village blueprint pack. At least I think that is the one... I will have better screenshots when I get all the scene together.

 

The Weekend is here, with them both shot up under 3DModels/Environment to
Village Interiors Kit #3 seller
Village Exteriors # 12 seller

" Because they were made for each other"

For a limited time, only 4 days both the Village Interiors Kit & Village Exteriors Kit are on a

-33% Valentines SALE











Just to add EXTRA goodness for all the people that have already purchased and planning to get any one or both of the packages. Remember the FREE BLUEPRINTS that is yours to go grab, 276 of them already

Make sure you have the latest version of the packages to fully enjoy these free prefabs

At the BLUEPRINTS section I have a HUGE section with many Exteriors Only BLUEPRINTS
And a section that have Combo's, so Interiors + Exteriors

Exteriors BLUEPRINTS

Interiors + Exteriors BLUEPRINTS


*** Please don't forget to STAR rate and review 3DForge packages that you have.

Have a fabulous weekend testing your new packages

Cheers
Cobus​

 

It would be nice to have a way to download all of them in one pack.

 

More fun playing around with lighting using Cobus' Sewer Kit

 

Thanks You to everyone that have made use of the Valentines Weekend SALE

Some wonderful feedback
Under 3D Models/Environments/Fantasy
The Village Interiors Kit >>> #1
Village Exteriors Kit >>> #2

Under 3D Models
The Village Interiors Kit >>> #7
Village Exteriors Kit >>> #12

I am grateful for each sale and want to encourage others to also make use of this opportunity
Neither will be on sale again in the near future, with many Updates still coming, More FREE BLUEPRINTS landing
you can really not go wrong.

Enjoy your purchase and contact me if you have any questions.

 

Saw some great results posted by @sarum over at the Gaia forum thread #3796 & #3797

"hello again
i got the 1.5 beta a few days ago .. just awesome !!!
nothing was hand placed in the following screenshots, it is all the new Point of Interest feature .. so much fun !

Assets used : Gaia
SE Natural Bloom & Dirty Lens
1 skybox from All sky"

This is such a nice example of the Village Exteriors Kit usage








Cheers
Cobus

 

Spent some time overnight testing the new POI (Point of Interest) system that is in the next Gaia update. I converted the 3DForge ComboInn blueprint into a Gaia POI and spawned it through Gaia's spawners on a couple of new stamps I created.

The first one is a night shot. You can see the lights in the windows of the lonely inn which some fool built on the reef surrounding Bora Bora in the Leeward Islands, which you can see a silhouette of in the background.



The next two screenshots are on a stamp created from heightmaps of the island Huahine in also part of the Leeward Islands archipelagos. The first shot shows the same inn POI at sunset, the setting sun poking rays through the trees and the second is of sunrise on the other side of the island, no buildings in that one. (sorry Cobus)

 

Great work Shawn with the POI's
The bright sunny screens are very cool, but many of my own game time hours are spent at night time.
Have spent countless hours in Oblivion and Skyrim exploring night life and these are nice examples

Thanks for sharing

Cheers
Cobus

 

@smada luap , I really like those screenshots posted above. I actually like the colour contrast between your warm look dominated by browns/orange/yellow and the "Deeper down" demo supplied by Cobus. It actually shows that you can use the same assets and by imply changing the lighting positions and colour you can alter the entire feeling of a location.

@Shawn67 , is that Unistorm or Tengkoku? The POI for Gaia, looks rather robust from the outside. Is the functionality grid based, seed based or proximity based placement...I could ask this over at Gaia, but since we're lurking in the same forums

@Cobus , blueprints look great, and quite useful and insightful for the new user. It is a welcome feature because this can be quite overwhelming at first, for instance with multi level structures (prefabs like smada luap suggested) that will sit both below and above the ground surface.

Now I am fully aware that these asset packs contain graphics and models only . I'm hoping someone can point me to a user friendly store asset that includes the scripts & animations (in C# as opposed to Java) to open doors, gates, windows etc, and to also pick things up such as the axes and torches etc. What asset are others using to complement the assets in this?

 

The answer to both questions is pretty much none of the above..

I'm using Time of Day. Great day/night but no weather. @Olander has a free one out there I want to try that works with Time of Day, I just haven't had a chance to figure out how to get it all hooked together yet.

In the POI system you basically set up a new scene and add a flat terrain. Make sure Y is at 0. (Very important it is at 0) Then you just create what layout you want. Where you put it in your layout is where it will be spawned when your POI is spawned. You can also go into your DNA setting for each individual object and set whether you want it to conform to the terrain slope or not. I have been unchecking it for buildings but leaving it go for fences and smaller objects. I guess you could say it is sort of grid based but more of a freeform placement and it will calculate where everything is based on original X Y Z potions. You can also set up the masking and stuff as well so you can set it to nograss and it wont allow the normal grass spawners to put grass down but if you run the grass spawn extension as part of the POI, you can tell to use that mask to do grasses and even texturing. I still need to dig into that. Haven't done it yet. I started creating a mask for my homestead POI with worn walking areas and a road coming up to the house and barn and then Adam told me the masks wouldn't rotate with the POI so I exited Photoshop without saving it. Then a couple days later, probably after getting tired of me harassing him about it, he fixed it so the masks rotate too.

It is really a powerful system. One you will definitely probably want to watch whatever videos he puts together on it!

 

Meant to reply to this too. If you like the blueprints system, keep your eyes open. Something pretty cool and similar will hopefully be out in a couple of weeks...

Not sure on the other.. I picked up some scripts from somewhere a while back that dealt with doors and windows but can't remember where (or at this point what I even did with them lol).. I would think the would be something common enough that it would be easy to find. I've pretty much been doing so much with Gaia and other testing that I really having worked much on my game in a while. I know @smada luap has been working on some of that kind of stuff.. Maybe he can point out some assets or tutorials that helped him along.

 

You are right, in my Deeper Down DEMO scenes I just used an overall green lighting setup, so it is really whatever your idea of your scene is, just use lighting colour of choice and you can provoke a whole new/different mood

Cheers
Cobus

 

For the doors, what I've done is to put a box collider trigger in front of the so that when the player enters the trigger area and then presses a button, it calls an iTween function to make the door swing open.

What I've recently been experimenting with is Unity's own Animator/Animation pairing but still working on the same principles as the doors - ie. when inside the trigger, call the Animation defined in the controller set in the Animator component.

Here's some very quick code for what I'm doing.

Code (CSharp):

1. private bool inside = false;
2.  
3. void OnTriggerEnter()
4. {
5. inside = true;
6. }
7.  
8. void OnTriggerExit()
9. {
10. inside = false;
11. }
12.  
13. void Update()
14. {
15. // drop out of Update function if not inside the collider
16. if (!inside) return;
17.  
18. if (Input.GetButtonDown("Action"))
19. {
20.     // Set your animation going and anything else (sounds, etc.)
21. }
22. }
23.  

 

Thanks.

I probably spend as much time placing individual lights as it takes me to put an entire room together. Maybe even longer lol - and even then I can be ultra-picky with myself and I'm pretty sure someone else could quite easily come along, take a look at what I've done and within the same amount of time put some lighting together that knocks mine for six.

 

Hi Corbus,
I'm new at this, sorry if this is not a great question, but is there a reason the first person camera cannot go up the stairs, something I have to add maybe? I'm using this with Gaia, is the default scale appropriate? Adam has the camera a 2.2 in his demo, but I found that a bit high no your buildings? Great looking models!

 

Thanks smada Luap, I could tell by the lighting placement that "ultra-picky" time had been used...it pays off though

Abut the script, thanks for presenting that. Is that adding a 3D object/cube, and then adding the script to it as a component?

Hey Cobus, now I know a lot of progress is repetitive practice and experimentation, but I do seem to totally suck creating even a level floor without gaps Are other using another asset like snazzygrid2 to line up grids to snap the meshes and prefabs in order to obtain exactness in placement? Is it simply slow and steady wins the race, and attention to details?

Also as kerrmedia mentions above, I have the same issue. Is it that the bottom step has to be level with the ground in order to walk up?

 

Hey @kerrmedia.. It is actually Cobus..

As for the question both you and @TheSeawolf asked, the buildings included with Gaia are a bit different than the ones that come in the Exteriors Kit. I'm in the middle of coding some stuff and don't have anything right now where I can test this, but I would assume you are colliding there because I think the only colliders on those buildings are the ones Adam uses to place them. If you look at the model, you would need either a mesh collider or a rotated box collider to it so you could climb the stairs.

As far as height, I have found that a character that is 1.8 units tall work fine with Cobus' doorways.

 

Hi,
I am 100% sure all is in order, @Shawn67 is on the right track with the answer.
It is very likely that the collider that the assets all comes pre-loaded with is now slightly above ground level when you try ascend the stairs. So you are then running into the bottom edge of it, easy fix.
If you check, these prefabs has a child collider object that can be extended by making it longer and then pulled down deeper into the ground so that you have a smooth entry of the staircase.

After a long time of using Unity only did I discover Vertex Snapping and am using it all the time.
Short Vertex Snapping Video tutorial
There are many cool little tricks in the video, so watch the whole thing.

It is one of the best little less known functions.
I use Progrids2 or SnazzyGrid2 when I do interiors that works well on a grid.
As the included docs suggest, 0,5 is a good setting for the 2,5m X 2,5m x 3,0m all gets accommodated.
Use 2,5 as snap grid size if only doing single floor buildings.

Shout if I or anyone else can assist, rather ask then getting stuck and frustrated

Cheers
Cobus

 

Great little tutorial well done. I need to do a few more of those I think. My attention span is pretty short though.

Wait...you've got documentation?

 

HAHA, yeah, it is a submission requirement.

It does not have a HUGE amount of information for it is not a tool set of some kind that have functionality to understand, but I do remember saying something about the snapping grid size

Hope this could help you and guide you in a productive direction.

Open Step By Step scene, then careful look though the stages.
You will see that the walls snap and sits On Top Of the floor tile, not next to them
Very important !!!

Cheers
Cobus

 

The script snippet I showed would need to be on there same object that has the box collider trigger

 

right, I'm using the actual Exteriors kit, not the sample Gaia prefabs.

 

Hey there,
It is still just a collider adjustment that is required. The default that each prefab comes provided is basically a ramp to give a nice smooth stair climb.

So as Gaia's powerful terrain generation methods are employed, you get lovely natural uneven terrains.
If you look at the image, the plinth and staircase is more then what is needed, so the idea is that when you place a building that you have to slightly adjust the building in the Y direction so that the geometry that you can see as well as the provided collider geometry intersects the terrain and give a smooth collision.

So the plinth is 3m tall, it needs to by pushed down to 2,5m or so to be used as intended


Cheers
Cobus

 

Ah so what you're saying is I should read the assembly instructions before attempting to build the computer desk, I guess that makes sense, and could save some time

Is the plinth the entire foundation base in the screenshot, or is it dais joined together to make a plinth, and are they in the prefabs already? If so, I need to apologise for asking dumb questions and get back to work

 

The plinth is all of the parts that form up the rock foundation/basement type thing. Inside the exteriors kit, there is a whole folder of modular pieces which allow you to construct your own. Some of the blueprints have them, some don't. I believe all of the original samples Cobus gave Adam to distribute as samples with Gaia had them but I'm not sure if the new samples with 1.5 do or not. I never really paid that much attention when I ran the POI spawners.

There is another alternative to the plinths in the exteriors kit as well, stilts. That way for your buildings in marshlands or along a shoreline, you have the option to build a house with a foundation the water isn't going to beat the crap out of.

Oh.. In the picture Cobus shared, the plinth is the foundation that the house is getting ready to be placed on. But like I said, in the kit you also have the individual parts that you can use to create them from scratch.

 

Hey @TheSeawolf
I gave all the loose parts and then also did a bunch of predone ones to help anyone getting along quicker.
The predone ones just drag into the scene the size that you want and start build your house.

Cheers
Cobus

 

Thanks Cobus, I had a lot more time to review the packs last night and was quite blown away by the amount of content, but try as I might I couldn't locate the intact plinth like in post #2028?

These packs are very complete , thank you.

Regarding your plans as mentioned on page with the packs
3. Castles & Cathedrals Exteriors Kit > Next Update
*(will be a full kit, also to be sold standalone)
4. Wooden and Stone City Walls Kit > Next Update
*(will be a full kit, also to be sold standalone)

Do you have any screenshots as to the progress, and are per chance taking any suggestions?

 

Hey there,

Wonderful that you have star started to dig though all the many prefabs
here is a screenshot that will show you where they sit. I have provided them in both the stone texture types, I will still grow this selection with each update creating more interesting one that include stone stairs as part of them, not just up the middel, but fun side ones.

The barrels are a peak at some of the coming items.

As soon as I have lots to show, the screenshots will start to come.
Share ideas you have, they very likely are part of what is getting dropped with the FREE Update anyway, bt I would like to hear

Cheers
Cobus

 

Nice variety of textures on the barrels

 

OH, the ones you see here are only 4 of the 12 texture types, the large ones just scaled

The final will not just be scaled, actual different textures assigned
4 X Large
4 X Medium
4 X Small barrels

Cheers
Cobus

 

Oh those barrels! I assume we will have broken versions too?

 

Yu will have open and closed version with the lid separate.
Let me see about the broken, for the texture has the metal band on the flat.
But I have space on the texture sheet to solve that

 

I was asking because I did already tried to blow up your barrels with Exploder and the result doesn't look correct because parts trying to use the original texture. I hope to spawn some planks and wreckage instead.

 

Hi everyone,

Just want to do a shout out for the release of Distingo
The great new replacement for the standard Unity Terrain shader
For only $10, it is like FREE

Cheers
Cobus

 

Hi

First off, love both interior and exterior packs.

Though would it be possible to get a dictionary of all the bits - there are so many pieces you sometimes miss things.

Regards
John

 

There is a lot in both packs and a few of us joke that you need a map, torch and gps to find your way around Cobus has added so much into them that the initial exploration is overwhelming.

Thankfully it's laid out in logical areas and often a quick use of unity's search shows you what you're looking for. Would I have laid it out differently if it was my asset? Quite possible - but then that's my own opinion

 

Warning - beware of what you find if you start exploring the sewers - you'll never know what you might find down there...

 

Hi,
Nice lighting and shadows

 

Thank you! Like a lot of others, I've been waiting for this with baited breath.

 

Mmmm...magic mushrooms. Wait...I feel funny. Do you see that rainbow Unicorn, too?

 

Hey everyone,

The long awaited Gaia v1.5 is LIVE !!!

Here are the release notes:
Significant New Features:

• Turboscalpeurs HQ grasses
• GameTextures.com textures
• 3D Forge Village Exteriors props
• Screen shotter with customisable water mark
• Point of Interest (POI) spawner system
• Customisable spawner extension system
• Non destructive composable resources system - create terrain from multiple resources
• New noise masking at stamp, spawner and rule level
• Gaia eXtensions and extension exporter
• Gaia sessions and session manager
• Gaia directed random terrain creator
• Player camera FX configuration
• Simple scene lighting configuration
• Normal map texture exporter
• Splatmap texture map exporter
• Waterflow mask exporter
• Terrain height adjuster
• 150 stamps!

Enhancements:

• Sea level now taken from terrain defaults file and managed at session level
• Clustered detail spawner automatic configuration for flowers and grass
• Multi terrain check - stops attempts to use Gaia when multi terrains are enabled
• Max instances on spawner changed to long, added override to ignore, set ignore on for textures and grass by default
• WebGL build bug - added manual versions of the missing routines - will no longer generate errors
• All new objects centered on actual terrain Player, WindZone, Visualiser, Stamps, Spawners, Scanner
• Automatically select terrain layer in stampers, spawners and visualiser
• Visualiser now shows relative to 'sea level' settings
• Increased terrain texture masks from 4 to 8 layers - stamper, spawner
• Button enabling / disabling if no resources file set
• Spawner range exclusion check more accurate
• Using non zero centered terrains now alerts and offers to move terrain - stamper, spawner, visualiser
• All spawns now check their resources against the terrain and alerts to add them
• Duplicate resource file names updated to allow dropdowns to work eg SameRes, SameRes 1 etc
• Water added to session manager, visualiser, spawners
• Many tweaks to all settings to provide better default experience
• Defaults now remembered between sessions and new gaia settings object added
• Player and water prefabs can be overidden in default settings
• Fixed water 4 spawn so that there are no nasty lines
• Clear trees - now calls reset on all tree spawners
• New collider and collider based collision management system
• Spawned game objects now aggregated by type - allowing for easier management
• Add player - reposition on terrain if called again and allow to substitute another one
• Add water - reposition on terrain if called again and allow to substitute another one
• Global tooltips - can disable them in gaia settings

Bug Fixes:

• Spawner range exclusion check now correctly enforces spawner volumes
• Resources mesh grass not correctly handled
• WebGL no longer reports issues with ReadAllBytes and WriteAllBytes

I will start making video tutorials available for the new system from tomorrow.

Enjoy!!
@AdamGoodrich

Cheers
Cobus

 

Wonderful news !!!

Not only did Gaia get updated with it's first major feature updates, but it is also part of the MADNESS SALE !!!

To give all existing and new Gaia owner the chance the get these great 5 STAR rated assets, I have placed both on a -33% discount for the duration of the current MADNESS SALE.

Village Exteriors Kit & Village Interiors Kit




Cheers
Cobus

 

Had some fun early this evening working on a way to do "reveals" of certain areas rather than just have the lights on, so-to-speak

 

very nice, like the nice subtle way they pop into existence

 

I get paid on Thursday. You'll be taking my money soon. Muahahahahaha!