Mega Book - Easily create working 3D books Comics

@p6r,
Can you offer some info regarding drawcalls? or iphone 4 performance?

 

I'm not the author of Megabook ! I'm just an user. I don't want to give bad infos about this. Sorry...
I hope SpookyCat can help you here.
6R

 

Sorry for the delay in replying the forum still seems reluctant to send out notification emails. Lets see if I can answer the questions.

You can use any mesh for the content but obviously if the mesh you use has height then it will poke through pages, if you need to use objects with heights then it is best to use the object attach system then the objects will be enabled and disabled in such a way they wont poke through. Also if you use that system those objects are free to animate, have child objects, move around etc.

If you added meshes to the pages then those are created when the book is built, the system though to reduce over draw and draw calls will only show the pages with full content when they are visible, otherwise it uses a page with a hole in it.

This can be done via the attach object system, the objects then can have whatever collider or scripts attached to them which you can use to whatever actions, one of the video shows NGUI buttons on the pages to move forward and backwards through the book for example.

It will work with any objects that have a meshfilter.

The system works fine on mobile devices, you have complete control over the number of pages and the vertex count per page so you can tailor the detail as required. The page hole system greatly reduces any overdraw that would happen if full pages were used for the whole book as well. The number of draw calls depends on the content of each page, if you use the texture system then it is 2 draw calls per page. If you use the mesh content system then the number of draw calls depends on how many extra materials your mesh content has. Text/graphics/3d content are all the same to the system it is just mesh data, so how it performs is really down to how much detail each page has.

No this is a totally new system which much more advanced page animation and features. The book example in MegaFiers was really just an example script to show how the page flip modifier could be used to build a simple book, MegaBook though is designed to do one thing an that is make it easier to create books and have different content.[/quote][/quote]

 

Chris, happy to see this released!
Is there built in functionality, or future features, where the book can fill the screen, e.g. on an ipad?
So it has a bit of an apple iBook feel.

thanks,

shwa

 

Thanks for the clarifications

 

@shwa - That really is just setting the camera up, not really something that needs a custom script for or am I missing something

 

"The number of draw calls depends on the content of each page, if you use the texture system then it is 2 draw calls per page. If you use the mesh content system then the number of draw calls depends on how many extra materials your mesh content has."

Would I be able to use Meshbaker tool
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5017

to combine the meshes and then use it as mesh content for the book?

 

If you mean you want to combine mesh data before it is used as content for a page then that is fine but you then combine all the books pages into one mesh as the vertices for each page need to be deformed to allow for the page turn effect, combining meshes results in vertex reordering etc which will make the page turn animation very hard to do, also the size of the page and its thickness is used in the page turn algorithm so again combining pages into a single mesh just isn't feasible. How many pages are you thinking of having? And for which device are you aiming as your low end?

 

Hi,

I have noticed that when i close my first page a tiny ripple effect takes place just before it settles. Even though this is not what the purpose was i guess, this is a super cool effect to have per page, enabled when page turns, for things like water.

Can you add that ripple effect with option to enable per page ?

I cant describe what effects this would allow , what do you think ? Would be a huge selling point too, imagine waving water in one of the pages, i drool at the very thought

Have i said how incredibly amazing this asset is ? Well, it is, the possibilities are endless, i am only touching the surface in my spell and log books.

 

That's odd I have not noticed any ripple effect, have you been tweaking the animation settings at all? Extra effects could be added per page but I am not sure how many people would find that useful. You could always make use of the object attach system to have objects appear and have them deformed by say MegaFiers or a shader, or you could use the dynamic mesh system and have one of the objects being attached a water surface with a ripple shader, that would do what you need.

Would love to see your spell book when you have it done, with all the amazing particle effects you have in your fab particle system it should look rather splendid

 

Thanks, i will try the deformable mesh solution probably, maybe i attach a water surface from another asset, would probably do the job , i will let you know how it went

The particles indeed fit very well, i am constantly adding the spells in the book as i create them inside the game, goes very well

The whole thing is extremely impressive so far, and i am coming up with ideas all the time

Just added the much required flickering candle on the desk side too and played with the PNG transparency to get the pages look worn.

EDIT: About the ripple, it is only for a small instant, like a tiny ripple in the water from a vibration, but gave me the insight how cool water would be on the pages instantly , it is hard to notice in general

 

Hi there,

I've just purchased this and it simply doesn't work.

I have read and followed the docs, I understand.

I've added a texture to the cover. It's upside down. How do you fix this?

I've tried widening the pages, and only the pages widen, the front and back cover do not.

Whenever I add one of my textures to the page and hit run, it disappears and restores the default page texture. Why?

How do you add the inside texture for the front and back covers? There are supplied textures for this but it doesn't tell yo u anywhere in the docs how to use them.

It's very buggy and has already crashed Unity twice in less than an hour.

Pretty much spent 40 dollars to be a beta tester.

It's a beautiful plugin, if it works, but it doesn't.

Needs a lot of work.

 

Try to rebuild the book after adding the textures, maybe this helps.

Do you use Unity 4.5 ?

 

Yeah tried that, it does the same thing but does it before running.

Running 4.5.2f1.

Tried both PC and Mac. Same deal, textures just get removed and the MEGA-FIERS texture gets automatically placed back on the cover.

Totally useless, doesn't work.

Thanks for the help.

 

I have 1.18 version too in Unity 4.3.4 and do not experience these issues (besides the cover upside down texture), so it is probably the Unity version that makes the difference.

Hopefully these will be solved for 4.5

 

@ShinyTaco - Sorry you are having problems, if you submit a support ticket at the website we can help you out. The cover objects though are custom objects they are not procedural so it is up to the user to scale those as required and apply the materials they want to them. As for textures changing it sounds like you are changing the textures in the materials of the pages or on objects instead of in the page settings, if you do that they will get over written at play time when the book is rebuilt. You cant just change the objects materials, it will as you see change in edit mode but unless you disable the script before pressing play the book will be built at runtime and any changes you make to any object settings or material settings on the pages will be over written.
We have not had any other reports of it crashing Unity or any bug reports so if you could submit a support ticket at the website www.megafiers.com with the bugs you are finding and the steps to recreate the crashing we will check that out for you.
Chris

 

Did a very quick video showing the texture on the cover object being changed and it not changing back when play is pressed. Also as you can see in the inspector the front and back covers are just Unity cube objects, and they are just simple examples to the system working, front covers for books will very much be some different for each use so the cover option just allows you to use whatever object you like as a cover. As it is a Unity Cube then the texturing on it results in textures on the back being up the other way, the video shows that you can just rotate the example over to have the texture on the front up the other way, but as I said it is purely a simple example of an object being used. We do have plans to have procedural objects for covers and spines so then we can control the uv mapping etc but again as it is a custom object then the look and uv mapping is up to the user.

 

I have not made any changes in the code side yet, I just followed the tutorial in .PDF and in your website, and I'm getting this error:

"
ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
Parameter name: index
System.Collections.Generic.List`1[MegaBookPageParams].get_Item (Int32 index) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:633)
MegaBookBuilder.MakePageObject (.MegaBookPage page, Int32 pnum) (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:652)
MegaBookBuilder.CreatePage (Int32 i) (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:1945)
MegaBookBuilder.BuildPages () (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:2000)
MegaBookBuilder.Update () (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:1830)
UnityEditor.BuildPlayerWindow:BuildPlayerAndRun()
"

Any help to solve this ? Thanks

 

@BooCode - Could you possibly submit a support ticket at the website with the steps you are taking so we can try and reproduce the issue.

 

Hi there, I came across your Mega Book asset pack and before purchasing wished to ask a few questions;

I plan to create a interactive book for the iPad, how does your system work with mobile touches?

Also in the demo you have shown the book on a table, I wish to have the book closer to the screen, therefore have the user using the iPad as a book, hard to explain. Do you think this is possible with the kit etc?

Thank you.

 

@MrEsquire - Will be no problem making the system work with touches, there is a simple API you can call to turn to a page which you can control in any way you like, the example has a couple of GUI buttons you can click or touch, also there are some collider objects under the left and right side which again can be used with touch events. As for the book on the table, that is just the way I set the scene and camera up, you can use what ever camera position and angle you like, or an ortho camera if you choose.

 

Hello!
Nice asset.. i ' m very happy to have buy it but i need some hints on how to change the easing type of the turn animation: i have a 100 page book and when i go from -1 to page 50 the initial animation is really too fast.

Thanks!

 

@todbertuzzi - Thank you for the purchase, if you could submit a support ticket at the website we can help you out with your question.

 

Have just submitted an update to the Asset Store, this brings some bug fixes and small improvements, we have also updated the docs on the website to show the new additions to the system and added a page for the Dynamic Mesh Content system.

Changes since v1.16

• Added context help to the MBComplexPage inspector, right click and select help.
• Fixed exception when no pages were present on a book.
• Updated docs on website the new params for the book builder.
• Added a page to the website on the Dynamic Mesh Content system.
• Fixed exception if page added before base materials have been set.
• Hidden the Edit Page slider if only one page added.
• Small update to MBComplexPage
• Added custom inspector for MBComplexPage to make more user friendly
• Fixed class name for MBComplexPage.cs system

 

Another quick update is in the store. This fixes a bug in the dynamic mesh system where materials for the front and back content could be getting mixed up, and also stops an exception if you had an odd number of dynamic pages set.

Changes in v1.21

• Fixed an exception bug in the Dynamic Mesh system if you only had an odd number of pages and fill pages was off

 

Does anyone know if content made with TEXT BOX (asset store) will still be "clickable" if it's used with Megabook?

Has anyone tried using html webpages (or web content) as textures in Megabook?

 

Hi SpookyCat,

After learning more about the current workflow of setting 3D objects
to work with the book, I am discovering that placement of 3D objects
on the page is very cumbersome and difficult - especially when one is
making a 3D interactive book with many objects and many pages.

It's much more intuitive and Unity's way to doing things if we could
move the object using the object's gizmo or some custom gizmo in the
scene window. Megabook is so awesome and really is the best book
asset on unity's store. Adding support for an intuitive placement of
objects on the pages would make working with Megabook so much more
enjoyable. Would you be willing to add support this feature in the
next update.

Cheers

 

I will put it on the todo list. Though is is not straight forward since the objects are positioned not via a Vector3 value but by barycentric coordinates based on the normalized pos values and the nearest point on the page mesh so a slightly complex process.

 

Had a quick play as it is Sunday and have added a position handle to attached objects, also added an option to link the Edit page to the page slider so you dont have to adjust both values constantly. New version in the Asset Store now.

 

Thanks SpookyCat for adding the changes.

I think I'm a bit thick because I can't seem to understand the workflow for adding/repositioning 3D objects.
In the video below, I am using the example scene that already has an object on page 9 to demonstrate how "Lost" I am in trying to do the following:

1. Open the book to page 9.
2. adjust the position of the cube using the new handle.

Edit: It's been a long day.. brain is really dead. To open to the correct page, had to use the upper slider. The edit page slider doesn't flip the page - this is quite confusing.

Here is a video of trying to move the object but it's not moving in the inspector. When I hit play, the cube is somewhere else.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48378123/MegabookObjectHandle.mp4

Video of not being able to find how to flip the page.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48378123/MegaBook3dObjPlacement.mp4

 

There are two slides in the inspector, one is 'Page' which allows you to flick through the current book and see how the pages turn, objects turn on off etc. The other is the 'edit page' slider which selects the page settings to display in the editor for altering. If the page setting is causing the attached object to be disabled then the position handle wont change its value. I added the link option to the page slider so it will automatically change the edit page, and there was also another update earlier today that would hide the position handles for objects not on the page being displayed and edited to save confusion.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

Just downloaded the new version. When in play mode, I can move the object using the gizmo in the scene view. If not in play mode, the object is locked. Did not find what is causing the cube to be locked.

Video during play mode: Dragging to the left edge makes the cube go wild. Also the movement has considerable lag - might be due to being in play mode.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48378123/MegaBookPlayModeDrag.mp4

 

Hi SpookyCat,

I'm using Text Mesh Pro and when it is added to a page you can see aliasing around the letters. Here is a reference shot, the top text is combined with the page mesh, and the bottom text is the Text Mesh Pro source. I haven't found a way to fix this, and the Text Mesh Pro element isn't scaled. Any tips?

 

Is it possible to submit a support ticket with an example project? Been using TMPro last week with the system and not had any problems so hard to say what the problem is without something to look at and test.

 

It turns out that if I adjust the softness and dilate values slightly I get better (not perfect) results.





The bottom line is the source object.

I've submitted a support ticket with an example project for you to investigate.

Thanks,
~C

 

I have a silly feature request:

Under the rebuild button can you add a check box with a drop down list to map the rebuild button to a key on the keyboard? Currently I am switching back and forth between text objects and the book object to see position updates and it would be great to position and element, hit a key on the key board/rinse/repeat for faster iteration.

Thanks,
~C - - -

 

Stupid question, I must be missing something, and I hope someone has the answer. How do I add objects to the left page? When I add objects the are added to the right page...

 

SpookyCat,

How to move the object on the page when not in play mode ? It's always locked.

 

Will look into adding a rebuild key but not too sure how Editor scripts work with keyboard input but will investigate. The page you are adding objects to is set with the edit page slider, and as to where that page is currently shown is set by the page slider, so if you are adding objects to page 3 set Edit Page to 3 and the page to 3 to open the book to that page, the page will be on the right if you want to see the page turned so it is on the left set the page slider to say 3.9.

To move objects that are attached you will need to change the Pos and Rot values in the Object section, or drag the position handles that appear when the book is open to correct page. You can not select the object and then move it normally as its position is controlled by the book script. If you want to move objects like that then add those objects as a child to say an empty game object then attach that object, you will then be free to move the child object however you wish.

 

The Object can easily be moved using the Object Section boxes in the inspector.
Moving the object handle seems to change the object's values in the object box but does not move the box.
Here is a video: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48378123/MegaBookObjHandleNotMoving.mp4

 

Arr that seems to be an issue with Unity 4.x, seems in 3.5 OnSceneGUI would mark the object as dirty if handles were changed but in Unity 4.x onwards it doesn't, if you are comfortable editing a file add at line 920 in MegaBookBuilderEditor.cs the line EditorUtility.SetDirty(target); and that should fix it.

 

I added it at this location and now I can move the handle. I have to report that the dragging experience is not very good for 2 reasons. First is that dragging to the edge of the page sometimes makes the object disappear. Even when I try to get the object back by manually changing the values in the object box doesn't work. Second is that the movement has considerable lag which makes it hard to properly position the object. Moving the object using the handle is like trying to move a full cup of coffee with fingers full of grease. Something could go wrong at any moment.


mod.UpdateAttached();
}
EditorUtility.SetDirty(target);
}

 

That must be another quirk of Unity 4.x as it works just fine here, will take a look. Think you may have put the new line in the wrong place as well, it should be just after the mod.UpdateAttached(); line not after the '}'

 

Hey SpookyCat,

I think I understand, so if I want to have objects visible on the back pages I need to add them to the front page and then adjust object visibility so they are only visible on the back of the page. Is this correct? Or I can add an empty object and then position objects off the page.

While fiddling with object visibility I found a bug. I've submitted a ticket, but here it is for reference in case other people are having the same issue:

---
Hi,

I managed to get the following ArgumentOutOfRange exception by adding/removing objects and by unchecking Link Edit Page.

I was hunting a bug where the object is disabled and never able to be renabled until the object is deleted, the book is rebuilt, then enabling the object and adding it back to the page. I'm not sure if you've seen this bug, but I get it often.

Here is the exception. Every time I try to add an object to the page it happens now.

ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
Parameter name: index
System.Collections.Generic.List`1[MegaBookPageObject].get_Item (Int32 index) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:633)
MegaBookBuilder.UpdateAttached () (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:1985)
MegaBookBuilderEditor.DisplayPage (.MegaBookPageParams page, Int32 i) (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/Editor/MegaBookBuilderEditor.cs:854)
MegaBookBuilderEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/Editor/MegaBookBuilderEditor.cs:431)
UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor editor, Int32 editorIndex, Boolean forceDirty, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect, Boolean eyeDropperDirty) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:1124)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

Unity 4.5.5f1
MegaBook V1.23

Thanks,
Chane

 

I made the correction but still the same problem. Dragging to the cube towards the center of the book makes the cube goes wild and then disappears completely. Here's a video:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48378123/MegaBookCubeGoesWild.mp4

 

New version in the Asset store that fixes the exception that can happen when adding and removing objects to pages. Also added limits check to the object dragging, note you can not change the offset value with the position handle only the xz positioning. To change the offset from the page you still need to use the inspector.

Changes in v1.25

• Fixed issue that moving objects with the new handles wasnt updating the object position in Unity 4.x onwards.
• Fixed exception that could happen when adding a new attached object to a page.
• Added limits check to dragging attached objects to avoid object doing odd things when not actually positioned on a page
• Note: Can not change offset for attached objects with position handle only with offset value in inspector
• Fixed warnings in Unity4.x

 

Hey SpookyCat, I am having an issue where the book that I have created with 16 pages now has the cover and first page clipping through each other.

Here is a video for reference:

I have spent a couple hours adjusting all the parameter and the only thing that appears to fix it is setting book thickness to 3, but at that point the spine and page turn options don't appear to be configurable to allow pages to fully turn to the desired positions.

Can you take a look to see what I am doing wrong?

Before you ask, I supported a ticket with a test project.

Unity 4.5.5f1
MegaBook V1.25

Thanks,
~C - - -

 

Ok with a little fiddling and a couple questions from SpookyCat I got it to no longer clip by setting the Turn Min Angle to -1. Thanks! Pretty sweet package.

 

Hey SpookyCat I created a couple buttons in NGUI and attached them to the page as objects. But when I turn the page the buttons don't conform with the page mesh. The are sliced buttons. Any hints as to what I am doing wrong? Here is a screen shot for reference.


Thanks,
~C - - -

 

Hey SpookyCat,

I'm using the object attachment system and I am getting this infinite spam:

Look rotation viewing vector is zero
UnityEngine.Quaternion:LookRotation(Vector3, Vector3)
MegaBookPage:UpdateAttached(MegaBookPageObject, Single) (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookPage.cs:310)
MegaBookPage:Update(MegaBookBuilder, Single, Boolean) (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookPage.cs:240)
MegaBookBuilder:Update() (at Assets/MegaBook/Scripts/MegaBookBuilder.cs:1898)

From what I can tell it looks like it happens when setting the FWD value to 0.

Note this is the default Fwd value that gets set when I add an object to a page:



If I don't set the value to 0 I am unable to see the object. When I set it to 0 I see this (only half a quad):


By setting the offset to -.01 I can see the whole object.


I don't see anywhere to turn this off and performance (only in the editor) is impacted, especially if I have 6 objects attached (I go from 60FPS to 15-20).

Unity 4.5.5f1
MegaBook V1.25

Thanks,
~C - - -