Hi,
I’ve been working on some editor building tools, initially for my own project, but It’s getting to a point where it could be of use to more people than just myself. I created this thread to gather feedback and insight and whether or not I should develop this as an (paying) asset store plugin.
(NOTE: the art assets are very basic, as I have focused on the technical parts for now. One of the to do’s is creating some beautiful showcase examples. Please bear with me for now and look beyond the ugly models.)
This started of as a way to generate cities, and evolved into a procedural building tool because I dislike the modular approach used in city generators. I am focusing on manual creation and control right now, for artists and level designers, but the generative approach is still possible.
(I seem to be hitting some file size barrier here apparently, more to be found in next post)
The idea is that volumes (blueprints) and building styles (style-sheets) are independent assets, so you could draw layouts for level design and change a whole city style on the fly.
Almost everything is parametric right now combined with user models ( windows, doors, statues,…).
Oh and everything that’s generated is unwrapped, even the splines/lofts.
It has decent collision and uses prefabs. So If you have animated doors with triggers on them as a prefab, your building will be instantly interactive.
There are no overlapping or inner walls. (Room generators are not on the to do list for now)
You can save blueprints and style-sheets as assets so you can build an entire library of building types in almost no time.
For now this is all realtime and has no loading times:)
I have a lot of to do’s and features in mind (like generating streets based on splines, can be coupled with other road plugins this way hopefully), but I really want to base them on your feedback.
If this works out, I’ll also make some asset packs to quickly make styles.
Also note that this is heavy WIP, and I will only be pleased with it once it has a lot more visual complexity for the buildings. The goal is next gen buildings very fast, but enough flexibility for even the lowest poly worlds.
So whether you might use this for blocking out scenes or actual production, I want to hear your preliminary feedback! I know I’m not giving a whole lot of information, but I want to put my toe in the water before I dive in. Nonetheless, please be serious, I am too.
Specific questions:
- What is your first reaction to this?
- Would you use this in one of your projects? If so, how/why?
- If not, why not? ( Is there something missing? is this too much from your current workflow…)
- What would you need to go 100% on this?
- Would you use this more for high end, or low end projects?
- What is the workflow you see for this.
- Do you want to use this more as an artist, programmer, level designer?
- Would you rather buy asset packs that work with this system or make your own?
- How about in game adjustments, necessary or nice to have? (I’m thinking light baking issues…)
- feedback?
Thanks for reading, I appreciate it!
