96 replies to this topic

[DPRoberts]

*** EDITED post to add download to start of thread

 

DPR House Builder Asset Package v 1_2 - download

https://www.dropbox....itypackage?dl=0

 

***

Putting tutorials together. Goal for release by tomorrow at latest.

Its seemingly innocuous appearance belies its power. I redid everything. Started with what I learned from the BETA and just made it better. The blocks and the texture generator are more logical. The blocks are built off meter increments, allowing most to align/snap with each other. The roofing snapping will allow for gables and hips of varying pitches and significantly more options than me hand building each roof you may need. The texture mapping is seamless between all blocks and roofing pieces. To boot, all mapping is a single 1024x1024 for the base blocks and accessories and a single 512x512 for the roof. You will have a roof_generator and a texture_generator (all built for compatibility with CS2 and after) and of course plenty of premade materials should you fear Photoshop. You'll have pillars, porches, railings, towers and more.

It's BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER. It's COLOSSAL. It's MEGA. It's EPIC! Or as epic as a silly house builder can be.

Coming soon...

[NoPutt]

Super Brobdingnagian, can't wait to try it.

And thanks in advance, for the Epic work.

[pingzing]

Dp must have a  secret  Factory somehwere, wonder if he knew willie wonka- he could be his son you know 

 

Thanks Dp

[Dazmaniac]

DPRoberts.

 

Take a bow sir.

 

[DPRoberts]

Took one on the jaw tonight. I am fighting a Unity or mipmap issue that I am yet to resolve. It's a bit like the jaggy issue with the grass billboard textures. It was not apparent in the Beta as I was less reliant on tiled UV mapping as I am now. I don't give up that easy but I may be 2 steps back unless an easy resolution presents itself.

 

Up close things are good.

 

Back away and vertical seams are blipping. Damn...

 

More apparent on Brick which contains many vertical/horizontal lines and siding which contains horizontal lines. Variegated stone, cedar shake and more random patterns are not affected or not readily visible in game. Scaling down the UV to allow more "breathing room" at the ends of the texture map did not solve my issue like it did for the jaggies.

 

I have a plan B in my back pocket but I wanted to fish around here for any thoughts first. I may need to head to some offsite Unity boards for some ideas as well. If my late father Willy W. were only still around, he'd have an idea.

[NoPutt]

Wish I could help DP, but being one of your Blender

students, all I can do is leave an apple on your desktop.

I do however get seam flickering at times when my

texture is not perfectly seamless, which I assume yours is.

[DPRoberts]

Sorted out the mip mapping nonsense. Have some minor issues with Z-fighting or Z depth buffer sorting to figure out and then (fingers crossed) release. Never use S**N in a post. I know better. The release is "just around the corner". I'm rounding third and heading home.

 

Intro to some of the new stuff - think "Minecraft meets Unity"; apologies to any "red/green" colorblind folks, poor choice of colors in the demo

[johnmeyer]

Superb work DP, fantastic stuff

[rmoor13]

Just a thought DP, maybe the Brick texture needs to be offset.  Could those vertical white lines be the halo effect.  Would be easy to check.

[DPRoberts]

In the pictures at the beginning of the post, it was even happening with the siding texture which only have horizontal lines. The texture was part of an atlas and UVs were being split and overlapped for the cube. I tried to create a pixel border because I think it is a mipmap thing. That worked but the border showed as a dark hued line because it was basically brick minus the mortar. If you have a suggestion for that fix, I'm all ears. I'm not up on the lingo of the "halo effect" so you'd have to tell me what I can try.

Nevertheless, I think it was a fortunate mistake that led me down a different path.

I have changed the mapping to a base texture that tiles with no issues. The only downside is the block now has two textures. One for the base and one for the windows. The upside is you can import any seamless desaturated/greyscale texture at 512x512 into Unity and you are off and running without photoshop. Most of the customizing is moved to Unity which is what I think people would prefer.

The house builder Beta and the one at the start of this post were more dependant on photoshop because the windows and base texture were in the same material. It was a beneficial mistake that allowed me to decide to split materials at the expense of an additional draw call. We'll see if that proves to be a bad decision.

Regardless, tonight, I just corrected all Z fighting issues, the only minor blipping that occasionally shows comes from the roof but it's not overly noticeable.

Can I get it out this weekend before running into any more road blocks? I sure hope so...

[rmoor13]

I hope so too DP.  I got to tell you I only understand about 1/3 of what you're doing so I'm not much help, lol.  The halo thing is not related at all.  I don't know why I wrote that.  I was thinking of something totally different, haha.  Don't mind me.

[NoPutt]

Fantastic DP, Everything in one neat building package, excellent

job. I can envision golf course communities sprouting overnight.

Thanks.

[DPRoberts]

I hope so too DP. I got to tell you I only understand about 1/3 of what you're doing so I'm not much help, lol. The halo thing is not related at all. I don't know why I wrote that. I was thinking of something totally different, haha. Don't mind me.

No worries. I could make putting together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich sound complicated. I tend to get verbose.

[DPRoberts]

Done for now. Let's see what kind of problems arise. I expect some issues given that I covered the majority of proofreading. Thanks to NoPutt for doing some testing for me and identifying a few problems.

 

DPR House Builder Asset Package v 1_2 - download

https://www.dropbox....itypackage?dl=0

 

Included in the package are 100 building blocks, 13 base materials, 6 roofing materials, 6 railing materials, 2 window materials, a "window_door_generator_v1_2.psd", a "base_texture_generator_v1_2.psd", and a "railing_generator.psd", and a handful of custom block prefabs and materials

 

I have actually provided less combination blocks than the beta because I want to allow you to get your feet wet. It's a bit like "Minecraft meets Unity". I think the deficiency may be in provided window textures. However, this is all customizable in Photoshop with the window_door generator. If you build a window texture with the generator, please save it as a ".PNG" file as it will bring in the alpha channel need for correct transparency with the window material. If you are Adobe deficient and need a window combination, please let me know and I will try and help within reason.

 

Getting started with your first house build

[QBL_MrCobra]

Hello DPR, 

I was wondering, if it's normal to have those flickering on the building when you play with the Dynimic Sky on 

If I turn off the Dynimic Sky. I don't have those flickering and the FPS is higher.

 

Thank you

MrCobra

[clubcaptain]

Wonderful work again DPR.

[DPRoberts]

Dynamic sky "on" has been discussed as a problem that is probably not curable at this time with objects. It even happens with PP courses.

[NoPutt]

Wow!! I'm dizzy just thinking of all the possibilities.

Great Job DP, this is a fantastic community contribution,

and will go a long way toward adding realism to courses

for years to come.

Thanks for all the hard work, now get back to Kiawah,

I'm itching to have a go.

[Larrykuh]

Wow, great asset package. I do have a couple questions:

 

1. Every time I drag the Quick Build or All Blocks into a scene, they are positioned way above the terrain. I have to lower the Quick Build by -379 and All Blocks by -340. If I drag an individual block, it snaps to the ground where I place it. Is there a way to have the two collection of blocks snap to the terrain also, or am I doing something incorrectly?

 

2. Can you add some blocks with a trim along the bottom that can also be textured, similar to this image? You see this in quite a few clubhouses and commercial buildings.

 

 

Thanks a bunch for your brilliant work.

 

Larry

[DPRoberts]

Larry,
I was worried there could be issues dropping in the all blocks or quick blocks. I will have to see if others are reporting the same issue. It may be how I packaged those into the prefab container. I will try and update if there is a fix for that.

I think a two textured block like you are showing there is something worth considering. For now, you have 2 options. You can use the base_texture_generator and place that trim along the bottom. If you are not Photoshop savvy, you can also use the 0.5mx3m block (first block, first row, first column, I believe) and stack that to get a 1mx3m base trim.

I made this with my generator which you can download from here, add this into Unity and use for the texture for your base material.


Enjoy!