KitBash : 3D Modeling for Non-Artists, Fast and Free. [PREVIEW RELEASE v0.1]

Feedback Requested (First Release! Please review!) KitBash v0.1 ALPHA (20131212)

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KitBash is a 3d modeling tool designed for Non-Artists, allowing you to quickly create high-quality 3D assets for your game.

Digital KitBashing: Save you time, save you money
Using the free library of model parts, quickly create unique, high-quality 3d assets.

For example, I (a person with no 3d Modeling experience) am able to create the following:


after 20 min

after 40 min

after 70 min
PS: This xwing model is included as a sample in the downloads if you want to see how it's made.

Many teams will find this kind of result usable for production use, but if not, you can always use it as a high-quality “functional placeholder” and once you have your gameplay figured out, you can hire an artist to do your final artwork.
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Feedback Requested
This is our first release so if you think the idea of this KitBash editor is interesting (even if the current features are lacking) please leave a message in this thread, or email me: JasonS <aat> novaleaf <doot coom> any feedback you may have.
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What’s New (v0.1)

• First Public Release!

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Features (Right Now, v0.1)

• A unique yet intuitive modeling workflow (Hierarchy Based)
• Version for Windows
• Libraries: Spaceship (100+ models)
• Templates (make an engine, put 4 of them on your ship, then auto-update all copies when you make a change)
• Import to Unity

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Upcoming Features (Soon, but not finished yet. sorry!)

• More Free Libraries
  • Bling Library: Lights, Particle Effects, Skybox, Toon Rendering
  • Do you want to contribute model parts for the community? PM or Email me! (some ideas: Terrain, Urban, Vegetation, Dungeon, Medieval)
• Material Editing
• Runtime API
• UI Polish (Usability enhancements)
• Version for Android Tablets, Mac

The next release will contain material editing, such as shown here:

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Features for later (we are planning it... sometime!)

• Version for iOS, Linux
• More Free Libraries
• Export to .obj
• Texture editing
• Scripting
• Animations

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Roadmap
If you like seeing our progress, you can vote (and comment) on features here: https://trello.com/b/atmLzFlj/kitbash
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Pricing: (Free!)
The editor is free to use, and will be free after the beta period ends too. We plan on making money later by selling themed libraries in the future, and maybe a pro version of the editor for exporting to different engines.
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Licensing (Terms of Use)

1. Do not reverse-engineer: By using this product/project you agree not to try to steal our source code, reverse-engineer our functionality, or do other bad things.
2. For Non-Commercial Use: We haven’t worked out the licensing mumbo-jumbo yet, so the safest way of handling things for now is to say “do not attempt to make money off of this or what you make”
3. Get a new version within 1 month of downloading: We will be aiming for weekly or bi-weekly releases. So do not use the version you have for more than one month. Get the update!
4. Give at least 1 Piece of Feedback: We need your feedback to see how you like the features, and what YOU want us to focus our efforts on improving. So by downloading you agree to post one message to this thread, send me a PM, or email me! (JasonS aat Novaleaf doot coom)
5. You are okay with breaking changes: This is an ALPHA PREVIEW version of the KitBash editor. Because of this, plan on the features changing, and save-files breaking over future releases. Of course, we will try not to break anything unless we need to, but don’t get attached to what you make!

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Download
After you agree with the above Licensing (Terms of Use), you can download the editor from here:
https://googledrive.com/host/0BwZ2bMDOKaeDYWYzYzgxNDYtNmQyYi00ZDk5LWE3ZTYtODQ0ZDAzNTBkY2M4/kitbash/installers/140106-install-kitbash3d-alpha.exe
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How to Use the Editor
While the editor is fairly self-explanitory, the biggest trick to getting started is how to add a new model or group: just right-click on the "Root" in the Hiearchy view, and click "Add Child".
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ChangeLog:

• 20131212
  • First Public Release! (v0.1)
• 20140106
  • Improve UI, fix ui bugs
  • Cache thumbnails
  • Start improving materials (include specular and normal maps to library)
  • rename 'favorites' to 'workspace'
  • BREAKING CHANGE: fix file format for inverted x axis when importing to unity

Happy Bashing!

- Jason

 

Looks interesting, do you plan a version for ios? It would be nice to have something similar on my iPad.

 

I try to use Kitbash and it's great! Very easy to create stuff.
Now I create my tank from space models and export to Unity. I got a zip file and how can I import to use in Unity?

 

Looking good! Downloading, and will try it soon!

 

@dronman5: we will do an iPad version eventually, but unfortunatly none of us are iOS devs so from what I hear it's kind of a pain in the butt to do "fast itteration" with iOS. So we will do android and webplayer first, and once the features get stable, then we'll release the editor on other platforms.

 

@aeksaekhow: we will be releasing the unity importer next week. That will let you use (and manipulate!) your KitBash model in your game.

 

Okay... After playing with it for a little while, I have a few issues I noticed:

Your UI doesn't scale with the window correctly. You can fix this by playing with the settings on the UIRoot GameObject if you are using NGUI(I think you are using NGUI right?)... Or you could create a slider in a menu to change the UI size(hooked up to the size value on the UIRoot object in your UI).

Pressing Ctrl+Z causes the selection to go to the top of the Hierarchy, and un-hide everything that was hidden... Minor inconvenience, but irritating after a while...

BIG feature missing - Selecting multiple objects... I understand that it might be a little daunting for an initial (pre-)alpha release, and that moving, scaling and rotating might be an issue with multiple selections, but when you are moving objects into groups, or to another group, multi selection is a must. Also, you might want to include dragging-and-dropping for moving in the Hierarchy.

All in all, this is looking like a tool that will be very useful in any Unity user's workflow!

 

This would be perfect for the complete art talentless person I am. Looks great!

 

Thanks for the great feedback Axtel.

Yeah we use NGUI so I will add that to the bug list

For the other feedback, thank you, that is exactly the kind of feedback we need (otherwise it's just me designing the features!) I will try to get fixes into the release for this comming Friday!

 

You are most welcome!

After reading through what I said, I realized that I may not have made it clear that I felt like the UI was rather big for the application itself.
Perhaps you might want to take a look at some other applications for a reference point?

In any(or all) cases, this is looking good, and I am definitely looking forward to the next release!

 

yeah, the UI is big to support small devices (we want to put out an android/touch screen build), though like you mentioned, it should be dynamically resized (based screen size, not resolution)

we are trying to focus on fast feature itteration speed right now, that's kind of why the ui is so.... ugly... 1 or 2 builds from now we'll have something better, i promise!

 

That is good... On another note, will there be some sort of function to combine everything in the scene to one mesh and export to .obj or .fbx?

 

I found a basic .obj exporter so I'll try to get this into the next release too.

 

Sounds good!

 

just released the importer for bringing your model into unity: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/21...-Free-Import-into-Unity?p=1458131#post1458131

 

Looks Great! Will send you any feedback. Def. interested.

 

Haven't tried this yet but it looks great for prototyping, is there UV editing in the pipeline?

Also get the legal mumbo-jumbo squared away, that way when Autodesk buys you out we'll still have the old free version without restrictions

 

fyi, new version is up!

@mateodon: I'll square up the license ASAP (by next release). Also we plan on open-sourcing the editor after we get the primary features done.

For uv editing, it's not planned, but we do want to let people do uv painting (decal stamping too). but we are short on dev staff so it might be a while

 

Any updates?

 

Wow im totally going to check this out. My art skills suck.