Early look at MegaShapes

I have been buys lately on extending the MegaShapes system ready to be released as it’s own product (MegaFiers will continue to include the basic version). The new MegaShapes will, like MegaFiers, expand over time to a complete system for all things spline or curve based, so such things as general spline code for path following complete with controller for moving objects along curves such as cameras, as well as an exporter for Max for getting your ready made shapes from there into Unity complete with their animations.

MegaShapes will also include turning shapes into meshes with options for extruding the shape but the real power of the new system will come from the advanced systems such as the lofter. The lofter allows for you to use shapes together to create complex meshes, such things as tubes and racetracks. The lofting system makes use of a layer system so different lofts can be combined to create even more complex and useful meshes and various different types of layers are available such as the basic loft a shape a long another shape, or cloning of objects along a path to form fences or barriers, to complex lofts with any number of cross sections being allowed to give fine control over the mesh. And this combined with the ability to map layers such as the clone to other loft surfaces so objects are automatically aligned to the ground.

All the systems are fast enough to be updated at runtime for dynamic animated surfaces and this also allows for meshes to be generated at runtime with different params based on the power of the system your game is running on. And the amount of options provided for each layer gives you total control over all aspects of the generated meshes from vertex counts, to uv mapping, to alignment settings. I will be posting more info on this system as we get closer to release but to start you can view the very early development shots in this post to get a little idea about what is to come. Many more systems to add and new loft layers to do so keep checking back. Will be doing some videos soon and we are busy working on a fun little game that uses MegaShapes for its game levels, Tony has performed his magic again to really create something very special.