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

Just finished the User Guide section on making this castle:



And it only takes this many nodes to create it:



Well, if you open the tower node, there are another 10 nodes lurking in there, but not too bad!

I should finish the User Guide tomorrow!

 

Excellent

 

Prepare yourself for the new asset flip on steam I swear we will see this castle!

 

How are you handling all of these CSG operations? Is there a CSG library you are using?

 

Hi @ExtraAmmo - AX doesn't currently feature CSG, but hopefully will at some later date. All the boolean operations in the first release happen at the 2D level on Shapes (using the Clipper library). These 2D composite Shapes are then meshed as Extrudes, Lathes and PlanSweeps.

 

Another example model to ship with AX: The Villa Apresto!

 

awesome

 

So polished!

 

I had to make just one more texture, since the Villa Apresto was using a wall texture from an Asset Store package called 42 Architectural Textures. The new texture shown here can ship with AX, as will the villa!

 

Awesome work Rory,

A couple of things spring to mind. The first is the subject of LOD, and the second is the ability to save created geometry, and thirdly to have the editor give a running poly/tri count for the selected object.

 

Great questions, @Whippets!

1. In the lower righthand corner of the Node Graph Window is a field for "Detail Level". Its default is 1. If you lower it to a value between 0 and 1, all of the "segs" parameters in the model are reduced - essentially a parametric decimater. For example, in the above villas, the arches and molding profiles have a fairly low segment count because the Detail Level is set to .5. It is fun to build an elaborate model and then slide the Detail Level down to watch the triangle count drop precipitously. This way you can visually decide when the Detail Level is appropriate.

2. You can "Stamp" a model out to make it a "frozen" GameObject hierarchy with no AX data or scripts at all. This could be set as an LOD model. Then you could decimate some more and Stamp that out. In the future, I will automate this a bit to create a series of LODs automatically. In addition to Stamping, you can create a standard Unity Prefab from the AX model, again, with no AX data or scripts in it, with the Meshes saved to the AssetDatabase rather than just in the scene.

3. In the Node Graph Editor, you can see summary states for the model and on each node, the stats for that mesh.

In these two pages of the User Guide, check out the upper righthand corner of the Node Graph Editor (Stamp and Prefab), the lower righthand corner of the Node Graph Editor (model stats and Detail Level) and the lower left hand corner of a typical Mesher node (node stats):

 

A revamped Equatorial Hall of Heroes will ship with AX as well. This model provides a good demonstration of use FreeCurve in both Plan and Section for PlanSweep and PlanRepeater. As you can see in the last image below, this building is modeled right in Unity with only 7 nodes!

 

Really, really excited to use this- set the $ aside to buy it as soon as its on the store

I have a question about colliders- does Archimatix do anything in regard to generating colliders for the geometry? Can you add a collider to a node and that collider will be used for all instances of node? Just wondering if it can speed up the process of manually adding primitive colliders to complex geometry instead of using a mesh collider-

 

Thanks, @mdotstrange!

A ways back in this thread I posted some examples of how colliders are assigned. You have a few options, and yes, you can specify them per node so that all its instances use it. Also, your settings for rigid bodies, static flags, tags, etc.

 

Great! You really thought of everything- this is excellent! Can't wait to use it

 

Please just submit. I'm so sick of reading about this and not being able to play with it.

=)

 

The long tail of polishing does seem to be stretching asymptotically. But despair not, we are really close! AX still won't be perfect, but pretty far along the development curve. Making the docs and final example models has been a fun process because, in these last few weeks, there have been few bugs and I am getting a good sense of the flow of working with the system as an artist unencumbered by forays into the codebase. Looking forward to submitting next week

 

Actually means "These mockups of UI and results look really great. One day soon, I'll start looking at putting some code ideas down on paper"

 

It's submission week right?! =)))

 

Its pretty much ready to go! The code is sound, the User Guide is done. I am, however, just going to indulge in a couple more days to make a feature trailer video. So next week is officially submission week!

I added a couple more example scenes for inclusion in the package:

 

You're killin' me, Smalls!

 

SUBMISSION WEEK!

 

Why yes, yes it is!

 

Yay!!!!

 

tfft

 

Never did enjoy modeling architecture... but this... THIS... is beyond words.

Brilliance is an understatement.

 

which week? XD

 

If only I could time travel.

 

You might try cryogeny, it's forward time travel

 

Ok - I needed to spend a few days making sure AX runs in Unity 5.3 and 5.4 (since I have been developing in 5.5 for the last few months). But all seems to be in order now. Hoping to submit tomorrow.

In the meantime, let me toss out a little more bacon. Here are some of the slides that I have been uploading to the asset store page:

 

Really nice! Just as a reminder: the submit to assetstore is the big button on the right of your keyboard, some call it enter or return. Hope you'll find it soon!

 

I am glad you gave me the tip about the Return button, @cygnusprojects–it worked!

Package submitted!

 

I look forward to seeing AX live on Asset Store ....

 

Is it actually possible to create low Poly stylized models with this?

 

Beyond excited to get this @roryo Congrats Rory you hit Enter!!!

 

Yes, you can tailor the level of detail for each element, to whatever poly count you want. Should let us create LODs very easily.

 

Thanks, @Whippets. @Fab4, here is a slide illustrating the control of LOD:





In addition to controlling the number of polygons, you also have control of the break angles limits for smooth or hard edges. The classic low poly look would be in the lower-righthand corner in the image below.




With a couple of adjustments, we get low poly versions of the Equatorial Hall of Heroes. The low poly versions could be for a low poly world, or as low LOD versions for a hi poly world.

 

Going to make a huge difference to optimisation. Now the wait to test saving objects to asset-bundles and instantiating them as required. Instabuy for me.

 

When AX creates a Prefab, it is a standard Unity thing and should behave as any other Prefab included in an Asset Bundle. The caveat is that the Prefab loses its AX "smarts" and becomes a "frozen" version of your parametric model.

After this first release burns in a little, I will start working on the runtime API. Once that is in place, you will be able to include AX library items in your Asset Bundle. Library items save the graph as JSON and expand it to a generated model once the JSON is loaded. A model with tens of thousands of triangles when generated will only be a few K to download. And of course, with the runtime API, your scripts could manipulate the parameters of the model on the fly according to controls you offer the user.

 

Frozen is all good. A useful tool would be a LOD button that creates lower poly versions at given percentages, and groups them all together with a LODGroup parent, and makes that into a prefab

 

Adding this to the 1.1 feature list!

 

Interminable wait commenced

 

.... time passes ....

 

Getting excited about ARCHIMATIX, so I've been looking at some more exotic architecture lately:



The sloping tiled roof and the ornate front (between the poles) seem like they might be possible with ARCHIMATIX, though I'm wondering how long (and what process?) it would take to make them compared to more standard-looking buildings (or would this require external modeling tools to do structures like this one the best?)

Would this be one of the rare cases where a standard modeler would be better for generating the mesh (at least for half the task), since the roof is such a strange shape with curves and angles everywhere? If not, what would be the most reasonable process be to build something like this?

(PS: Not trying to discourage you here! -- just trying to feel out the limits of what ARCHIMATIX can/can't easily do! )

 

Thanks of rthe challenge, @awesomedata! For this kind of architecture, I think AX will do better once we have Deformer nodes available. In any case, here is a ten minute attempt with what we have coming in the first release:

 

Great asset ... I can't wait ...

 

Can you make a vid of this?

 

@roryo Challenge. Bring it on Archimatix

 

@Whippets - this would indeed make a nice tutorial. I'll add it to the queue. This week I am redoing the basic tutorial videos since the ones here are a bit long in tooth with UI changes in the last couple of months.

 

You got me on this one, @pixelsteam! This building may need to wait on a new class of nodes in the pipeline called Replicators. It could be fudged now with a few floors modeled with ShapeMerger and then FloorRepeated with a 90 deg progressive Y-axis angle: