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ProBuilder joins Unity offering integrated in-editor Advanced Level Design

February 15, 2018 in Technology | 4 min. read
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We are excited to announce a powerful new addition to our creative tools suite: ProBuilder (with other great tools) and its creators, have joined Unity. Please welcome Gabriel Williams & Karl Henkel to Unity!

Gabriel & Karl have been delivering awesome tools to enable fast and easy level design directly in the Unity Editor. With ProBuilder you design, prototype and play test rapidly your levels right in Unity. With Polybrush (beta) you refine your creation by sculpting complex shapes, painting in custom lighting or coloring, and blending textures across meshes.

In Unity 2017, we added powerful visual tools like Timeline, Cinemachine, a new FBX Exporter and we are continuing on our efforts to help artists, designers and developers create and collaborate more efficiently.

Starting today the full editions of ProBuilder and Polybrush are becoming part of Unity feature roadmap. They are now available at no additional cost to all Unity subscription plans (Personal, Plus, Pro and Enterprise).

Overview of ProBuilder and Polybrush

ProBuilder is a unique hybrid of 3D modeling and level design tools, optimized for building simple geometry but capable of detailed editing and UV unwrapping as needed.

ProBuilder lets you quickly prototype structures, complex terrain features, vehicles and weapons, or to make custom collision geometry, trigger zones, or nav meshes.

Here are a few key features:

Extrude and Inset

Procedural shapes

 In-scene UV Controls Indefinitely editable shapes

Probuilder has been used by many games made with Unity, checkout the highlight reel video:

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Here’s a more extensive but quick overview of ProBuilder features:

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See the documentation for more information, starting here with Installing and Upgrading.

Also check the ProBuilder tutorial series:

Polybrush enables you to blend textures and colors, sculpt meshes directly in the Unity editor.

Polybrush is in beta, and just got a new feature in its latest iteration, it now allows to scatter objects in the world with highly customizable brushes.

Blend Textures

Paint Vertex Colors

Scatter Detail Meshes

Sculpt Geometry

Check the Polybrush Introduction and Tutorial to learn more.

There’s more... ProGrids gives you both a visual and functional grid, which snaps on all 3 axis. ProGrids enables speed and quality, making level construction incredibly fast, easy, and precise. It is especially handy for modular or tile-based environments, but you will find that it significantly speeds up workflow and increases quality for all types of work.

Check the ProGrids Introduction and Tutorial to learn more.

Combine ProBuilder, Polybrush and ProGrid together, you get a complete in-editor level design solution for faster and more precise geometry construction.

You can of course take advantage of Unity’s seamless round tripping with Digital Content Creation tools (like Maya) so you can  further detail and polish your models with your favorite tools.

How to get the tools, what’s the roadmap

As said in the introduction, starting today these tools are available at no additional cost to all Unity subscription plans (Personal, Plus, Pro and Enterprise). Here’s how to get them:

ProBuilder is being integrated in Unity 2018.1 beta and a beta is available today via the new Package Manager.
Go to Unity Editor, menu Window>Package Manager, click All, select ProBuilder and click Install:

For Unity 2017.x & 5.6, add ProBuilder to your projects from the Asset Store. The version of  ProBuilder from the Asset Store will only receive bug fixes, no new features. All new features will be added to Unity 2018 and forward. Note that support for Unity 5.6 will end in March 2018.
If you purchased ProBuilder prior to its transition to Unity, you will notice that the Asset package is now deprecated. You can still access it from your Asset Store library, but this package will no longer receive any updates.

Polybrush is in Beta and the new Unity version is available from the Asset Store.
We plan to integrate Polybrush directly into Unity at some point in 2018.
If you purchased Polybrush prior to its transition to Unity, you will notice that the Asset package is now deprecated. You can still access it from your Asset Store library, but this package will no longer receive any updates.

ProGrids is available from Asset Store.
We plan to integrate ProGrids features directly in Unity at some point in 2018.
If you purchased Progrids prior to its transition to Unity, you will notice that the Asset package is now deprecated. You can still access it from your Asset Store library, but this package will no longer receive any updates.

Other tools ProGroups, QuickDecals, QuickEdit and QuickBrush are being deprecated. If you purchased any of those prior to the transition to Unity, you will notice that the asset package is now deprecated. You can still access it from your Asset Store library, but these package will no longer receive any updates.

We can't wait to hear what you think about the ProBuilder integration, so talk to us on this forum thread!

February 15, 2018 in Technology | 4 min. read

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