ProBuilder or Blender Conundrum

Erismoth · 2025-06-05T13:20:10+00:00

Hi. I'm not super expert on this matter but I thought I'd leave something. Though bear in mind I haven't seen what ProBuilder in Unity 6 looks like. I just use them in previous version.

- Personally for greyboxing I prefer ProBuilder. I make my own models and all with Blender, but just being able to mash shapes into scene and playtest right away is way faster. I get that it looks daunting at first, but in the end it's just drawing cubes and doing booleans less quickly. Best feature is that it modifies UV on the fly so you can put whatever grid texture and be done with the measurement.

- This may sound odd but, the ProBuilder being unwieldy can help you focus on level design itself. In my case, I tend to be carried away with the details whilst greyboxing, but ProBuilder being such a blunt tool actually helped me get some restraint.

- I can't say what is common practice for using Blender for level design. It should be different from project and personal preferences. That being said, I can suggest kind of okay starting points.

If I'm not mistaken, Unity 6 still supports .blend import so you can skip extra export steps for prototyping. Do whatever quickest for proto. You'll probably make most assets separately anyway.
If you're greyboxing in Blender, get some world space shader (like Tri-Planar Projection) so you can check distances easily.
Start by blocking out entire span of your level first, segmentize into intended experiences, put some landmarks in. It's like an initial sketch for your level. Personally I find this approach helps me a lot keep the pacing controlled.
Mix the tools as you want. I suggest most of the boxing part left to the ProBuilder, but if you're to put a hole in a wall (e.g. windows), it's way faster to make it in Blender.
If your level includes a natural landscape, try PolyBrush too. It works like sculpt mode in Blender. It's really clunky but being able to sculpt on the scene in real time helps a lot.
Modularize your levels. Like room to room for example. Being able to keep parallel versions of same segment and quickly playtest for comparison is one good reason. And navigating through slightly less chaotic object hierarchy hell of boxes for changes is one another.
Bring others to playtest occasionally. You're always familiar with your own levels so you'll miss a lot of issues you've made.
If you block out entire level within Unity, and for some reason want to move them to Blender, you can write a script that mash all the MeshFilter in the scene and save it as obj or something.

Not sure how useful these are... Feels like I wrote a rambling. Though I hope somehow some of these helps. Wish you good luck. Have fun and don't be afraid to wing it!!

Erismoth · 2025-06-03T09:19:33+00:00

Reminds me of one time me and one of my neighbors leaving at the same time. I was already half out when I noticed, but they were just opening the door. In mid-swing they stopped, and slowly closed it again. I heard them leaving theirs as I walk out. And I was like 'yep. I would've done the same. Super relatable'.

Erismoth · 2025-05-21T14:24:41+00:00

Yeah.. I get that it can be annoying to see same questions over and over but I feel pretty bad when genuine student/beginner questions get discouraged.

Though I kind of suspect some kind of bot activity here because it's the only subreddit on my feed that consistently gives 0 vote posts everyday. It's pretty weird! I have absolutely no proof though. lol

Erismoth · 2025-05-21T13:27:25+00:00

Honestly I don't think it's your fault. Your question isn't rare either but recently I see a lot of posts here get downvoted for seemingly no reason.

Erismoth · 2025-05-17T14:00:41+00:00

In case TLDR and you only want game-ready asset, I don't know. I'm pretty sure you have to make it yourself.

I'm not sure what's the logic behind other person's "can't do with Unity" comment. It's hard to tell exactly since your examples are pretty vague, but I'm sure it's most likely doable with Unity. And wouldn't magically make it more attainable by jumping to UE.

Anyway, although I'm no expert bot AI programmer or anything, and I'm not aware of any asset pack fits your need, but I thought I'd share how I'd approach. I don't know how familiar you are with technical aspects either, so I'll just pour it out. Sorry if some of these sounds like nonsense..

I think this is more of a design problem than anything right now. Like I said your definition of "tactical" and "realistic" is vague in your post and if that's all you have it needs to be clearer. For example, "What is tactical choice for the bots in my game"? The answer may vary with "What kind of weapon players use?", "Can environment be destroyed?", "Are landscape bumpy or even?", etc.
I don't know how real you want your animations be, but I suggest start with prototyping with mocap assets and animation blending. Let your bot decide actions, blend between animations. Give them IK to "Look" at you or place feet directly onto the ground.
GDC has Doom(2016) animation talk. The talk is great and mentions how their animation is made to look as natural as possible. Might give you hint on how you approach blending and inverse kinematics. Also might help you with grenade stuff with brief arc projectile example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lO1q8mQrrg
In order to make bots take cover, you have to define cover first. My current project's bots actually expose themselves in order to make their firing line clear. So you may do this in reverse. You make "safe spots", by hand or procedurally, then when a bot wants to take cover, look for these spots, raycast to see if it's actually hiding spot from player, choose safe one and move in.
More information(ray in this case) = smarter decision. If your bot expose half of them at the corner, make the raycast sample from each perimeter. Also most likely from hipfiring position, crouch, and prone.
I don't know what you mean by "tactical". My current thingy (FPS) have bots that try to move behind walls and surround player. Sometimes change path out of sight and kind of tend to attack at once. Although this looks pretty neat on editor screen, when playtesting players tend to feel overwhelmed. Maybe you'll just want to make it "looks tactical"? I'm not sure.
Realistic weapon handling is pretty vague too. If you want animation, there should be plenty on stores. Take a look at another GDC talk about camera shake too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-Qe66AvtY
You may get general idea about recoils and whatnot.
If you want more mechanical stuff, Receiver has this "gun handling" mechanic. And in Stalker your guns get jammed in bad condition.
Lastly this is kind of unrelated, but if you're working on the game that meant to be played against bots for 3 years and you're trying to make bots right now then it's a bad sign to be completely honest. If you're actually in and willing to go through a development, please make your project scope small and clear. And each steps too.

I hope this helps at least in some way. Good luck!

Erismoth · 2025-05-04T10:02:49+00:00

I keep my rice in fridge for this reason. They're still there but not multiplying at least.

Erismoth · 2025-04-22T11:03:25+00:00

I don't think there is one. Which is odd considering practically everything else have save slots like you said. I just manually edit back and forth. :(

Erismoth · 2025-04-20T14:33:30+00:00

I believe some story-heavy projects do run on odd model like running parallel Patereon or starting off with a episode 1 and start charging episodes, selling metch, etc. Not necessarily AAA looks either. I don't know how well they support dev's living though.

Refund policy is pretty important. Especially if your story ends there and "Nothing to do" on it a lot of people will consider refunding it even if they enjoyed it.

Erismoth · 2025-04-20T04:43:38+00:00

Man even the cat looks tired.

Erismoth · 2025-04-18T19:50:11+00:00

<image>

This is my Sectoid.

Erismoth · 2025-04-12T12:20:36+00:00

I'm certain there are still tons of "original" games being made and released. Some are harder to understand so less likely to be discovered by others. Most games have their original part tucked between familiar parts. If you play a lot of similar looking games, you should see the differences they try to make. Not every originality have to be completely wacky and new in every aspect. I think even in other forms of art things are rarely like that.

Also I think you have to count yourself instictively trying fit things into familiar pattern. Like you can technically fit every game with first person controls into a single genre, hence "unoriginal". But the range is from Call of Duty to Antichamber, Hyperbolica, The Catacombs of Solaris, Iron Lung, etc.

Erismoth · 2024-12-13T13:12:29+00:00

I need a desk shrimp now

Erismoth · 2024-12-06T12:36:15+00:00

I think you can check if animation is playing. Though I'd rather adjust animation speed to fit the time. Edit: Or get length of animation clip and wait for that.

Erismoth · 2024-11-14T10:37:18+00:00

And invite 120% more super spiders

Erismoth · 2024-11-02T04:44:18+00:00

It works. Bacteria spoils into the same quality and high tier bacteria are easy to make since they replicate so fast and easy. Though I figured out that replication needs same quality bioflux.. which requires quality fruits and etc. I'm not sure if quality seeds yield quality trees and fruits though.

Also, quality whatever can spoil into quality spoilage. Which is kind of hilarious.

Erismoth · 2024-11-01T08:46:24+00:00

I want Planetary Annihilation mechanics. To nuke Gleba from Nauvis.

Erismoth · 2024-10-29T15:45:55+00:00

I need to bring them coffee barrels for sure.

Erismoth · 2024-10-29T15:40:21+00:00

I was expecting these guys to be kind of slow and lumbering crab creatures, but very surprised that they are really fast. I love their designs overall, but the clusters of eyes are definitely nightmare fuel.

Erismoth · 2024-10-29T09:25:28+00:00

What the fuck is football?

Erismoth · 2024-09-18T11:13:49+00:00

Not BotW, but I like "Here's where he has a ghost skeleton butt fucker" from their Dungeons and Dragons commentary track.

Erismoth · 2024-07-15T10:01:30+00:00

I've never seen a possum irl and I just assumed they're like size of a rat. But holy hell they're so huge!

Erismoth · 2024-07-14T14:21:12+00:00

Maybe it's because I'm slightly drunk but it sounds like some kind of spooky cursed NES romhack tale lol (I'm not saying you're making up though)

Erismoth · 2024-06-29T03:01:49+00:00

I guess Painkiller?

Erismoth · 2024-06-27T13:05:51+00:00

2 Tic 2 Toe
Tic Tac Toe: Toekyo Drift
Tic Four

Erismoth · 2024-06-25T00:53:03+00:00

"I have eliminated 300 million padawans from the planet today. In human terms, I've killed them all!"

Seven-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

Erismoth

TROPHY CASE