ARCHIMATIX PRO Node-based Parametric Modeling for Unity [Unity Awards Finalist]

@mangax, thanks for a great question! Archimatix cannot currently bevel a mesh after the fact as in the example you provided, but that is certainly possible for a future release. Currently this is as close as we can come to your example:



I just realized that I did not make in inner square void rounded, but this is possible as well (see last image below). For the concave notch in external corner the L-shape, it is also sharp. Rounding that would not be as easy as rounding the inner square, but also possible in the current version of archimatix. The shape offset algorithm I am using is fast but for now does not round concave right angles. I would like to add a better rounding of 2d Shapes, but this will not be in the first release.

Here we are manipulating the inner square in realtime and playing with the segment counts on the Shape generators:



As a note, Archimatix is not a "solid modeler", meaning that it can't, for instance, subtract a sphere from a cube. I do not currently have that in my road map, but the system is also extensible. Coders with expertise in solid geometry could create a solid boolean plugin for archimatix and sell it on the asset store, in which case it would show up in the menu as a new kind of palette.

The reason Archimatix does not yet dip into solid modeling (something external 3D modelers do very well) is that its goal is to provide a tool for architectural settings rather than objects that are sculpted or molded such as characters or machine parts like guns and cars. Architectural typologies are not served well in Max, Maya or C4D (though they are in complex packages like Revit or AutoCad). Architecture is characterized by rhythm, proportion, repetition and material planes such as walls, floors and glass enclosures that come together to form spatial environments for characters to play in. Although it could be used for architectural visualization, Archimatix is about game level design that is more architectural than what one might see in the early level editors in the Unreal engine, where one was always sort of carving a cave out of a huge solid world. Set designers in film and theater often come from an architectural background because they have developed an ability to give the audience a sense of architectural space.

In the Archimatix versions of your example above, there are more triangles in the quarter sphere of the top and bottom corner bevels. However, we do gain some nice "architectural" texturing with this.


As for texturing in the example above, we see that the horizontal polygon has a different uv mapping than the walls, i.e., there is a seam between the floor and the walls. Usually in architecture vertical and horizontal surfaces have different materials with and "edging" or molding defining the transition between the two.

For example, if we "architecturalized" your example, we might get something like this:



This architecturalized model has 16 palettes in the node graph. Once those palettes have been rigged up, you can save your new parametric model to the library and stamp out dozens of variations of the theme with no tow being exactly alike.

 

the samples you provided looks good enough for me! the last screen really amazing!

thanks for the whole insight about the product idea, and i am so aware of the huge potential in aiding world creation!
Your tool makes me look at 3d modeling programs as old tech now! am waiting eagerly for it's release..

btw many tools in asset store are made to help cutting the time spent in modeling or other stuff, but i realized from experience that many of these tools start lag/crash editor when a scene gets a bit complex!
i hope you pay extra care for this, as lagy/buggy tools can fight against the goal which made them to be made in first place!

from the look of it, it won't disappoint!

 

For the time being, Robot Kyle has evaded the air patrols, but he is afraid that eventually his luck will run out.

 

Hello! i hope things going well with development!
i noticed there are stuff like "texture" in the nodes you use to generate meshes and shapes..

how archimatix work with "materials" when it comes to mesh generation?

do i set materials then work with it?
or it takes a textures then generate new materials that contains every texture used on final mesh?

also , i wondering if your tool can work fine with vertex color shaders?
for example can it maintain vertex colors of a shader when creating new vertices?

thanks in advance!

 

Hi @mangax - development is going well, though for the last three weeks I have been distracted by another (though not totally unrelated project). Next week I will be back on Archimatix in full force.

For textures, the UV-mapping is done automatically with somewhat of an architectural bias so that textures wrap around objects in a way that respects how real materials might be used. In the Texture foldout of the node palettes, there are parameters for scaling and shifting textures. Any node that does not have material assigned to it will inherit the material from the node above.

If a node is set to "Combine Meshes", then all the meshes generated under it are combined. If there are meshes below that have different materials, the mesh combination happens per material. For example if a house with brick walls and wooden roof are repeated on a grid, and the grid node has CombineMeshes checked, then after the model is "built", i. e. turned into gameobjects, then the grid will have two child objects, one with all the roofs as a mesh and one with all the walls combined as a single mesh.

If the grid does not combine the houses, then in the hierarchy, the grid gameobject would have several children called "house 1", "house 2", etc. and under each house a roof gameobject with a roof material and a walls gameobject with a brick material.

For vertex shading, once the model is built, it is a standard unity GameObject with a standard Unity Mesh attached, so any shader that works with any mesh in unity, should work with a mesh generated by archimatix.

Can't wait till after this weekend when the joy of coding Archimatix can continue apace!

 

i see!
then is it possible to add functionality to apply or Set vertex colors to shapes that will be generated? i don't think it is complex to implement

it will be super nice if i can pick a color for per shape in the nodes (as same as how i set textures) then all generated meshes contains that vertex color is implemented..
then at the end when all meshes finally generated as gameobjects .. i can change to my personal vertex color shaders then i see all textures painted based on the vertex colors generated in the mesh!

The reason for this,
am targeting mobile, and having multiple meshes + materials can have a major performance drop due to draw calls accumulating easily specially with new unity 5 shaders.

the best solution i found to have multiple textures with many meshes while maintaining lower draw call numbers (and maintaining good looking graphics) is to use vertex colors to apply multiple textures on same material shared on all meshes.

it will be so easy to achieve my goal if i can set vertex colors for per shape!
interesting to work with as well, as i can maybe try to visualize all shapes with solid colors!

 

Hey,

This asset looks super cool.

Look forward to one day playing with it

cheers

Nalin

 

Thanks @puzzlekings!

 

Hi Rory

I have a couple of questions while thinking about how it could be used:

1) With the node editor would it be possible to feed the output (e.g. each floor of the Domino house) into an AI solution such as Apex Path so it can calculate the A* grid in the process?

2) Will it be possible to have points within the formation defined so as to enable a path to be created or have those points fed into a spline solution such as Curvy? This way if you look at the AX 1 video it could be possible to define a race track or a camera path etc.

Actually I have the obvious third question which is whether it might be available this side of Christmas?

cheers

Nalin

 

Hi @puzzlekings,

1. I am not sure about feeding into Apex Path, since I haven't used it, but that looks like an interesting idea. Archimatix is extensible, eating the Apex folks could write a node script as a plugin to archimatix.

2. Since there are several assets in the store already that do this well, I don't have this on the front burner at the moment, but it certainly should be in the mix! 3D splines with extrusion will be available in a future release.

3. Not sure about the release date. wWe are in early external beta testing and finding lots of bumps on the road to making Archimatix solid...

 

Thanks Rory

1 - Not sure if it is already possible to call other functions from a Node after it has executed? ( a bit like UGUI) This might remove the need for specific plug-ins to be developed which can be a barrier in general.

2 - I know that there are spline solutions already, so what I was suggesting was simply having a positional node that say bisects two shapes within the scene so that when you change the layout, the positional node moves in relation to these two shapes. Then the positional node could feed into the other spline solution e.g. Curvy, or it could be used to position 3D content procedurally.

Ok. If you need any help to Beta Test I may have some time in 3/4 weeks

N

 

For the most part, I am debugging and refining workflow, but couldt help adding a new UI feature when @sloopidoopi pushed me over the edge on the need for it: zooming in the node graph editor window!

 

Hi @puzzlekings, both are nice ideas! May have to wait for later releases ;-)

 

I'd like to second @puzzlekings' idea for integrated Curvy support. That would be fantastic.

- S.

 

Thanks, @S_Darkwell and @puzzlekings - I just downloaded Curvy to check it out. Looks like a great asset!

 

No worries, Curvy is amazing

TBH it does not even need to be integrated with Curvy, more in the first instance that it would be an idea for a positional nodes. Understood this is one for the future as you need to get something solid out the door first

 

The RadialRepeater now has a fromAngle and toAngle...

 

Looks great!

FYI just seen this on the asset store and I thought it was interesting regarding what you said earlier about booleans...

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/47418

N

 

@puzzlekings, I saw that and thought, wow! That looks like a very powerful modeling tool - would love to ask the developer to make a solid geometry boolean node for archimatix which could be sold separately and probably would no are much time for him or her to do!

 

Robot Kyle hesitates before the time portal. He remembers last time!

 

Today I am working on optimizations to get Archimatix just as snappy as can be!

 

Robot Kyle explains that, although the city looks empty, there may still be robot zombies lurking in the shadows.





Except for the Terrain in the center, this scene is a pretty simple Archimatix model - a building repeated on a grid. The building itself, if you show the subsides, is just a series of boxes.

 

Who can guess how many Archimatix nodes it took to make this mega prison-block scene?

 

If you guessed 11 nodes... you're right!

 

Robot Kyle is sitting pretty with the new performance gains in Archimatix!

 

Kyle seemed confused after passing through the time portal...

 

Robot Kyle wasn't sure who built this thing, or even what it was, but he was pretty sure he could fly it if he could just find the controls.



But that was going to take a little longer than he anticipated...



After much searching...


...he did manage to shift its shape.


This Archimatix model is from a few months ago, but today I was testing instantiation of library items and indulged in a little scene-ing. This thing (whatever it is!) will ship with the first release of Archimatix.

 

That stuff is absolutely tops, getting a strong ico/sotc/last guardian feeling

 

As Robot Kyle greets the first day of the new year, he knows that he must be patient; that the Archmatix Beta Program must run its full course before release... but that does not make the waiting any easier. Cheer up now Kyle! You know 2016 will be the Year-of-Archimatix!

 

Looks awesome. Love Robot Kyle I am sure I could see some of these amazing creations in a Gaia generated world

 

Thanks @AdamGoodrich! I guess Kyle's landscapes could be a bit more elaborate than a flat plane! I am looking forward to trying out Gaia. I would like to ship AX with a few nice demo scenes that have Gaia-generated landscapes in them. Especially if I add terrain placement to the Repeaters (ok, ok... I know I'm not supposed to add new features during the beta, but it would be a relatively easy one ).

 

Hehe. I am notorious for adding new features during beta's

 

Kyle was smart... he knew that having the sun to his back give him a better chance of surviving this long-awaited showdown.

 

Robot Kyle had the distinct impression he'd been in this arena before. And if his memory banks served him correctly, it ended badly...



"Then again," thought Kyle, "this beast might be more bark than bite." And besides, Kyle was packing a modest nucleoblaster that could dispatch most carbon-based lifeforms with ease. That is, if he remembered to reequip his deutronium cartridges... if not, well, that would be bad.






Another day of bugs fixes, code refactors, and indulgent scene-ing comes to a close in arctic NYC. And early tomorrow morning a new one begins! Good thing Archimatix is a joy to work on (and with!).

 

Archimatix. Now with super thin-shell technology!

 

Robot Kyle is pleased with his upgraded hovership...



This model was constructed entirely in Unity in about 15 minutes using several Archimatix nodes. The first circle (on the left side of the node graph) generates the plan for three other nodes: the hull, the decking and the vertical posts. If you make that circle larger, the rest of the ship is generated with more vertical posts, since the posts are "ShapeRepeated" along the circle at a certain spacing.

 

Just manipulating a couple of the shape gizmos in the SceneView generated this variation of the hovership model:

 

Almost done with the final polishing on the Mesher nodes.

 

Hold on, Kyle. This thing isn't even at cruising speed yet!

 

This looks ridiculously powerful. Does it mesh well with Substances?

 

Hi @orb,

Here is the cruiser depicted above but several centuries into the future with the help of Allegorithmic's metal_plate_005 Substance:


And shifting and scaling the texture....



And with metal_floor_003

 

Cheers! Where's the "BUY" button?

 

LOL - I am still working on that feature! Thanks, @orb!

 

Way too much fun this morning! Back to work, me!

 

Robot Kyle has fallen into the role of the Silent Sentinel...



Modeled in Unity in a matter of minutes using Archimatix!



Duplicating the model and varying the Shapes using the SceneView Handles generates this in a few more minutes:

 

For you Roman fans out there, this temple was modeled in Unity in about 20 minutes using Archimatix (it helped that the column was already a parametric object in the AX library).



It will ship with Archimatix as a parametric library model. This means that you will be able to drag its parameters and make different permutations of the temple. For example, in this next image, we have tugged on the blue handle to increase its width, turning it from a hexastyle temple (six columns in the front) to an octastyle temple...



Altering the column heights and shapes gives something more fanciful...

 

Adding a little architectural hardware and lighting...

 

The parametric model of the temple roof, which can be its own AX library item, may seem like it has a complicated node graph. But if you were to model this in Cinema4D or 3DMax, you would need to have this logic of the Greco-Roman roof forms internalized in order to create all the pieces of the mesh.



The good news is that rigging up this graph goes pretty quickly. Thereafter, you can make dozens of variations in minutes, seeing only the top-level node for that parametric object.

 

After musing over his bygone days as a would-be chariot racer, and pondering recent progress with the Archimatix parametric modeler for Unity, Robot Kyle began to wonder if Rome could indeed be built in a day!





This is a quick sketch model of parts for Roman theaters, amphitheaters, circuses and odeons. Making such example is a great way to polish Archimatix as well as generate library items to be included with the release of Archimatix.

 

Adding nodes to the Archimatix graph just got a whole lot easier with the addition of a graphical menu to the right side of the NodeGraphWindow...



I feel like I am icing the cake now