Mega Book - Easily create working 3D books Comics

Introduction
If you have ever needed an animated book in your game then MegaBook is what you need, it is a complete procedural book builder and animator with an advanced page turning animation system and content builder.

MegaBook allows you to quickly and easily create multiple page books with page turning animation in Unity. You can have any number of pages and have the system generate the page meshes for you or you can provide your own custom page meshes or objects and the system will animate those and create a complete book for you. You have complete control over the textures used for the pages and there are options to allow you to have background textures and content textures merged with a mask option. You also have complete control over the generated page meshes with options to control the size of the page and how many vertices are used to build it. Also included is a system to swap pages out for ones with holes in so for big books overdraw is greatly reduced.

The page turning animation can also be controlled so you can define how much a page turns, where it starts to turn etc, MegaBook has dozens of parametes you can tweak to change how the book works all of which can be changed in Editor mode or at runtime if you need. You can also attach objects to each page so it is easy to add GUI elements or even 3d objects to each page and the book system will manage those for you, turning them with the page and disabling them when they cant be seen.

There is an API of methods you can use to easily control the book such as NextPage, PrevPage, SetPage also methods to replace content textures per page or even download new textures direct to a page from the internet or from files.

Features
Some of the features of MegaBook

• Fully Animated 3D pages
• Control where and how pages turn
• Natural Page turning with extensive controls
• Create a book in a couple of clicks
• Any number of pages
• Easy control of book thickness
• Masked texture content
• Procedural page meshes
• Option to use custom page meshes
• API for controlling your book
• Attach system to stick objects to pages such as NGUI objects
• Unity GUI objects can also be attached to pages
• Add mesh content to pages
  
• And more

Masked Textures
One of the features of the content system is the ability to apply your content textures over a background image with the option for using a mask, this difference can be seen in the two images below

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Get it now

You can out more about the features of the system by visiting our MegaBook Website and below is a video showing some of the features of the system. The system is available now on our Website or on the AssetStore The early adopter price is $40.



Video
This video shows some of the features of the book system in action.

Adding complex mesh data content

 

At last you could do the perfect 3D book !!! Wonderful !!!
6R

 

Looks fantastic SpookyCat. Just to check does it work OK with Unity Free?

 

Yes works just fine with Unity Free.

 

I have started to play with your Megabook. Great asset !

* When I modify some values Unity becomes very very slow.

* If I understand well, the objects attached to the book are not movable anymore !?! They become "inactive" and are visible only where we positioned them through the inspector at start. I have tried with :
- a 3D cube : Unsueful to add a simple transform.rotate script because it doesn't work. We can rotate it with an animation !
- a 2D animated sprite : I can see the animation on the page (great) but the spite is fixed at the predefned position !

* Generally you include all we can see in your videos...
Where is this ? (I don't know the name in english !?!)



6R

 

Thanks for the purchase I will look at the slowdown, not seeing it here, as a matter of interest how many pages do you have in your book as the system will rebuild the pages depending on which settings you change. You can move attached objects by changing their pos values but the best thing to do is just attach an empty game object and have you animated objects as a child of that, then they are free to do what ever you need and the empty game object just becomes the anchor to the page.
The object you are pointing at is the spine of the book, it is just a simple mesh with a bend modifier on it from MegaFiers, as MegaFiers isnt part of the book system it didnt get included.

If you could submit a support ticket at the website with some steps so I can see if I can recreate the slow down issue that would be great. Also which version of Unity are you using and what system and OS

 

I actually simply use YOUR book for testing and learning : my textures, attached 3D objects or 2D sprites, and so on...

Ah ? OK ! I will try with an empty gameobject and a child... Thanks for the tip ! So, you mean with your trick we could click on a sprite for example to animate it or to instantiate a particle system or others !?!

I have Megafiers : So I could add this object at the spine ! How to do that ??? To allow this object follow the book changes !?!

I use Unity 4.3.4 Free, on Windows 7 (64). Maybe you have a more powerful computer !?!
Could you add a simple script to click on the right side of the book (and the left side) to turn (and back) the pages, please ? So, no need of buttons or slider...

Thanks,
6R

 

It seems to work with an empty gameobject and children... I will test further...

I would like to be able to use the book vertically (for the Unity physics !). Actually a vertical book rotates and rotates if I click on the Next (page) button !?!

With your plugin the Inspector panel doesn't appear correctly anymore (not full !!! For example I can't see the z transform case anymore !?! It doesn't adapt to the size I give it !?!)

If we attach a gameobject on a back of a page, the gameobject disappears after the page has completely turned !?! Or what are the right value in this case ???

Thanks,
6R

 

There is nothing special that happens to an object when it is attached so you are free to do anything you like with it, the only thing that happens is the objects transform is changed so it sticks to the turning page, so whatever you want to do with it and its children is up to you. The NGUI elements in the video for example all have child objects which animate and change color etc when you click on them.

I will add in a simple next and prev page script but it really is very very simple you just have to call the NextPage() or PrevPage() methods of the BookBuilder component.

If you need a vertical book then again ts just best to create an empty game object and make the book the child of that then you can rotate the book however you like using the empty object transform.

Not sure what is going on with you inspector panel. I suspect it is the wonderful Unity bug of converting older projects to 4.3 which generates the Mesh Serialization errors which inturn seems to lead to internal issues in Unity. If you save the project then restart Unity it should go away but again not seeing that here and not had any reports from other users of any inspector issues.

Again if you could use our support ticket system on our wesbite, Unity forums dont always send out new post emails so you may not get an answer quickly here all the time. Also if you submit a ticket I can send you the spine mesh. To make a spine object turn with the book you just need to make it a child of the book object.

 

To adjust when the objects attached to the pages appear and disappear you just need to change the Visible Low and Visible high values.

 

Just submitting a new version to the store which does greatly speed up the inspector when changing any params to do with attached objects. Also added the spine object fbx as a helper and added a simple script to show how to the use clicking on colliders to turn the pages. Just so you know there is also a script called MegaBookControl.cs which has key controls as well as a GUI slider and GUI buttons to change pages. I have attached the simple script below as well.

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2.  
3. // Very simple script to allow mouse clicks to turn pages
4. public class MegaBookMouseControl : MonoBehaviour
5. {
6.     public MegaBookBuilder book;
7.     public Collider            prevcollider;
8.     public Collider            nextcollider;
9.  
10.     void Update()
11.     {
12.         if ( book )
13.         {
14.             if ( Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0) )
15.             {
16.                 if ( prevcollider  nextcollider )
17.                 {
18.                     RaycastHit    hit;
19.                     if ( Physics.Raycast(Camera.mainCamera.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition), out hit) )
20.                     {
21.                         if ( hit.collider == prevcollider )
22.                             book.PrevPage();
23.  
24.                         if ( hit.collider == nextcollider )
25.                             book.NextPage();
26.                     }
27.                 }
28.             }
29.         }
30.     }
31. }

Changes in v1.01

• Greatly sped up the inspector when changing params for attached objects.
  
• Added helper spine object
  
• Added simple script example for clicking to change pages MegaBookMouseControl.cs
  

 

Thanks Spookycat for all of this...
I thought my questions/your answers here could help other customers !?! But if you prefer the ticket system, no problem...

6R

 

I dont mind questions here it is just I can't promise a quick response here

Yeah there does seem to be a problem with the very last page and objects turning off when the book is fully closed, I will get that fixed and a new version submitted today.

 

New version in the store which does fix a bug when adding new attached objects I managed to introduce in the previous update. The object visibility setting does work it is per page so for the last page you would just need to change the high value to be say 3.0 then the objects will stay on with the book fully read, same for the first page make sure that the visibilty low setting for that is -2 or so, just a case of tweaking the values as they will need to change depending on the height of objects that are on the page to avoid objects poking through the page above.

Changes in v1.02

• Fixed exception error when adding new attached objects.
  
• Fixed object visibility setting not being updated.

 

OK ! It works fine with the Mouse Control script. Thanks a lot !

(No changes with the inspector size !?! Unity issue ?)

I have no issue to attach 3D or 2D objects on the first page (funny to see your cup turn with the page !) but issues with the cover and the second one for example !?! (I didn't test with the other ones !)
Not easy to find the right parameters (offset and X, Y Z) to place a sprite !
Maybe it's different with an horizontal book !?!

6R

 

The attach pos values are quite simple the range is from 0 to 100 on each axis, the x and z values control the position on the page with x = 0 being the left edge and 100 being the right edge, save for z being the top of the page and bottom of the page, so to put the object in the middle of the page set the values to x:50 z:50 The y axis controls the side of the page though doesnt really matter but usually 0 is for the front of the page, and 100 for the back. I can look at improving the coordinate system for the next update but if you know the size of your page which is easy if you are using the procedural pages then positioning is just finding the normalized position on the page and multiplying the values by 100.

Not get any problems with the inspector on my machines here, if you could send a ticket with a grab so I can see what is going on but I dont do anything special, the object just has a custom inspector and that's it.

 

The more I use your Megabook the more I find it great and clever. I need a few seconds to create my comic book for example.

Thanks for the infos...
I think it isn't good for sprites but for 3D objects.
Don't you think you could add a hard cover as an attached gameobject for example !?! With the front and back pages invisible or disable !?! With a boolean to check or not an hard cover !?!

6R

 

I have not used Sprites in Unity but I will take a look and see what I can do. I will be adding a spine and hard cover system in upcoming updates as well as possibly dust covers. If you have any other ideas please do let me know, as ever it is always interesting to see the systems get used in different ways that shows up issues or new uses.

 

Great to know you will look at Sprites/2D Objects and you will add a spine and hard cover system !!!

* I would like to reach the number of the actual opened page per script (or when it is closed) from another script to add events following the opened page or not... Could you add here some lines of code with the "if"......
I have to use "public MegaBookBulider book" like your script above to reach the right script but what's the "if" for this or this page ???

* Is it not interesting to add visible Low/high values for each attached objects ? For example an object next to the spine can't "disappear" at the same time as an object at the right side of the page !?!

6R

 

Yeah could be useful to have a per object override for visibility I will add that in. A simple bit of code is below that shows how to get the page number an to see if a book is fully read.

Code (csharp):

1. float page = book.GetPage();    // Position in your book, whole number is page, fraction part is how far through a page turn to the next page it is
2. int pagenum = (int)page;    // Get the actual page number as an int
3. if ( pagenum > book.pages.Count )    // Will add a method to get page count in next update
4. {
5.     // Book fully read
6. }

 

Looks very cool, indeed ! Very nice work, I love all your components !

 

Thanks Spookycat...
I'm waiting for updates.

6R

 

I think your 3D object options is fantastic ! My last tests with fixed or animated 3D models on the pages are very good.
Not only we create make a realistic 3D book (at last) but we can make it alive with this option. Great !!!

It seems there is a small bug with the attached gameobjects : When you add other ones and modify their position, the first one automatically uses the X,Y,Z positions from... the last one !?! We have to modify the first one values manually...

Do you think we could use the "Vertex Paint" plugin (for example) to paint directly textures on the pages ??? For example I have used a seamless grass texture on a page and I would like to paint a path with another texture directly in Unity to avoid to create the texture of the page out of Unity !?!
Do you think your system could accept that or not at all ??? (If yes, I could buy the plugin...)

6R

 

I will take a look at the inspector issue but that is something I have seen in other systems, ie issues with numbers updating from other fields, not a lot happens in the inspector code to go wrong just displays the fields but I will take a look.

If you are just using simple textures for the page as opposed to com-positing with a background then there should be no limitation to the texture used, during testing I had render textures on the pages so I could a game running on a page as it turned, so if Vertex paint is just updating a texture page then it should not be a problem using it.

 

OK ! Thanks...

I have found the "issue" with 2D sprites :
If you use an horizontal book, it works perfectly with 2D sprites and the right rotation on the page + right (Z) offset (= right distance between the page and the sprite ! We need it because of the curl of the page when it turns) !
If you use a vertical book, it doesn't work perfectly because of the (Z) offset that doesn't work here !

So, could you add an option for vertical books (useful for 2D physics) with a specific offset, please ?

6R

 

As I said not played with sprites apart from a quick test a while back but cant you rotate sprites so they are on the same plane as the book?

 

Ticket sent with pictures...

It isn't an issue with planes but with distances between pages and sprites.
But I have found a way to use 2D sprites on horizontal or vertical books : better to make a child of an empty gameobject then to adjust the transform Z position of the sprite (not the gameobject !) in the Unity inspector (not in the Megabook plugin).

The only one thing we ABSOLUTELY need for best results are "visible low/high" values for EACH gameobjet !!! And to see how to improve the back and front system for several attached objects on the same page.

Another great thing : We can use 3D text !!! So we can write and add objects directly in Unity...

6R

 

Arr seems a small issue with the normal calculation, Got a little hotfix for you which will mean attached objects will work fine and the offset will be correct regardless of the book orientation. If you change line 255 of MegaBookPage.cs to the line shown below all will workk nicely. Will be adding per object visibility values today and submitting an update.

Code (csharp):

1.             Vector3 norm = obj.transform.TransformDirection(Vector3.Cross(va, vb));

 

Thanks a lot ! I will try this...

After a lot of tests with the visible low/high values I have found the best settings for the front cover page (backside) : (I have tested with a 3D tree that appears when you open the book !)
When the turn page speed is 0.2 :
low : -0.5
high : 1.5
"Issue" : we can see it under the book !?! It isn't invsible before opening...

Great ! I'm waiting for the update... with a "page count" script already included ???

6R

 

Submitted v1.03 to the AssetStore and uploaded to our website. This brings a fix so attached objects work if the book is rotated, also adds per object visibility settings for more control of when an object will turn and off as a page turns and also added some new methods to the API.

Changes in v1.03

• Attached objects work correctly if book orientation changed, ie vertical books.
  
• Added per attached object visibility override values for more control over the objects.
• Added new methods to the API, GetPageCount, GetCurrentPage, GetCurrentTurn

 

Fantastic !!!

All is working well now :
* vertical and horizontal books !
* 3D models and 2D sprites (fixed or animated) !
* visible low/high values for each object !

Thanks a lot SpookyCat for a so wonderful support and a so great asset...
6R

 

Another quick update, forgot to fix an issue in the inspector when changing values for newly added attached objects. v1.04 fixes that.

 

Another fabulous looking system you have created for Unity. Quick questions, you mention you can use a custom page mesh for the book, will the same mesh be used for the whole book or can I have a different mesh per page? Also can the mesh have more than one material on it, and finally if I use a custom mesh and I change the size of the book pages does that only effect the pages the system generates?

 

Another quick update, this addresses an issue with the object attach system where the objects seemed to have extra rotation, this was due to a Fwd value being set wrong. All objects attached using the update will stick correctly to the page, but for any existing objects you will either need to delete them and add them again, or in the attach params change the Fwd value from 1 0 0 to 0.001 0 0 then everything should stick much better.

 

Seems something in the GUILayout system in 4.3 is causing the book system to have a very wide inspector. A new version is in the Asset Store now that has a reworked inspector that gets around the issue. Also removed the warning about mainCamera in Unity 4.3.

 

Yes, now it's working fine with the inspector...
Thanks a lot SpookyCat to be so reactive and efficient.
As usual a great support !

6R

 

Why am I getting this error? This script won't allow me to build my game :/ I'm using unity3d 4.5

Edit: I can no longer turn pages another either.. I'm also getting this error:

 

You cant use UnityEditor stuff in the final game build i think.

The Undo system would be tied to the editor though, so it should not be in the final game build. Maybe put the script in an Editor folder ?

I would like to buy this asset and start integrading in my game asap too, so would be nice to know if it worked or have an answer by the developer.

 

Arr the Undo code should be in the Editor folder, seems before Unity 4.5 it was allowed to have code outside the Editor folder and it was just ignored in the builds, seems in 4.5 that is no longer allowed. Anyway a new version in the Asset Store with the undo code relocated. You can just drag the MegaBookUndo script into the editor folder to fix the problem.

As for the Mount Control, that scipt is just a very quick and simple script to show the use of clickable colliders to turn pages, the error you are getting is due to no camera in the scene having the 'MainCamera' tag attached.

Also for future questions or issue a much quicker response can be gained by using the support ticket system on the website, the forum notification emails here are very hit and miss (hopefully will be improved with the new forum software next week).

 

Well, that was a quick answer , thanks.

I am getting the asset and will start working on the ingame book, will have about 100 pages

 

Sorry Mike I missed your post. You can choose per page a custom mesh or object, and if you choose an object for your page then you can have as many materials as you like. The size of any mesh or object you use for a custom page is scaled to fit the book size for you.

 

Hi

I am trying to get a collider on the pages. Is there an automated way i miss ?

Also when i add a collider and turn the page, the collider stops working (keeps the before the turn position), is it posible to script it in a way to keep the collider on ?

Thanks

EDIT: Here is a sample of what i try to do, i use the dynamic projection of gameobjects from Particle Dynamic Magic and try to project to the page while it turns (in the pic i have a mesh collider attached to the page)

I suppose if i make a script to get the mesh at each frame to the collider will work, but is there any other way ? It would be better if the collider was also procedurally created to follow the page and not have any synch issues

 

It is a very slow operation to update mesh colliders every frame though with the vertex counts in the pages it should not be massively slow, I will look at adding support for updating the collider for the turning page, in the mean time all you need to do is just use the mesh for the page and update a mesh collider in another object at the the same transform.

 

Just submitting an update to the Asset Store, this adds a beta option of enabling mesh colliders on the pages. There is a new option in the Mesh Params called 'Page Colliders' turning that on will add a mesh collider to each page and that collider will be enabled and updated for any page that is turning and has the object visibility on, ie the collider will only be on and updating as long as any attached objects on the page would be visible (you do not need to have any objects attached it just uses the visibility settings to control which pages colliders are updates as it is a slow process for a lot of pages).

 

Thanks a lot, that is a great addition

The asset is amazing btw, the motion and page turning is so well done

Another question, is there a way to control when objects appear, say i want it to appear when the page has opened and not while opening

 

If you want you object to only appear when the page is opened then you just need to set the visi low and high values to 1.0 I think.

 

Haha, I was just planning on programming something like this for books in my game. So glad my friend told me about this, this is a definite purchase for me! This is a payday pick up for me for sure!

What I'd love to see:

- single-page functionality that lets the user flip the page over to read content on the back of the page
- folded letter formats that let the player unfold or open up a single-page object

Can't wait to grab this!

 

Thanks for the tip and the colliders addition, i am getting some incredible results, this is definitly one of the best assets around

Great work

 

I look forward to seeing what you create with it

 

Me too , i have so many ideas right now. I have all these art pages for the various powers, areas, creatures etc

Initially i was simply going to map them to book pages and have something like Ni no Kuni book, but after seeing your book being so amazing and with so much potential and the particle experience i have now, i am thinking of making an interactive spellbook, something that will feel alive, at least for the spells seems will work and maybe i extend it for the creatures compedium too.

I managed to perfectly synch the appearence/dissapearence of the effects too with your tip, now things popup just as pages turn to an amazing effect, the illusion works wonders