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Lesson 2.3 - Adding ProBuilder Shapes to the Set

In this lesson, we’ll learn how to create more complex shapes using ProBuilder. While primitives serve as a good start in constructing the cityscape, with ProBuilder we can add additional refinements to edges and bevels, or add more organic architectural shapes, like curves.

Lesson Overview

ProBuilder is a world-building tool within Unity that allows you to create geometry and modify faces, edges, and vertices. This further integrates the features and flexibility of a Digital Content Creation (DCC) tool into Unity. For those with experience using 3D modeling tools, many things in this lesson will be familiar to you. If you are new to modeling, take your time going through this lesson. You’ll be learning valuable skills. 

Note: For the time being, ProBuilder will automatically use any pre-existing settings from previous ProBuilder installs. If you had installed ProBuilder previously the settings might look different than they do in the following steps.

We can install the package in a few steps:

 Navigate to the drop-down menu in the top left and select 

 in the search bar and install the package by clicking the 

 Once ProBuilder is installed, open it by navigating to 

By default, this opens a floating window. Let’s dock it to the right of the Project and Hierarchy windows, then re-save the Layout we created in Lesson 2.1 (

 ProBuilder opens up in Text Mode by default. Click the 

 button in the upper-right corner to change it to Icon Mode (

) — don’t let them overwhelm you! We will walk through a few of them here step by step.  

We can start modifying our primitives with the ProBuilderize Tool, which is represented by this icon (

). The ProBuilderize tool converts objects in Unity into ProBuilder-editable objects. The icon will appear grayed out if you don’t have at least one 3D Object selected. 

To begin, let's ProBuilderize all the primitives we created in the last lesson. 

 Shift + left-click each primitive we created in the Scene or Hierarchy to select them all at once, then select the ProBuilderize tool to convert them to ProBuilder shapes. 

Installing Probuilder

Now that our primitives have been ProBuilderized, we can modify them in interesting ways. Notice that when you installed Probuilder, a new tool menu appeared at the top of the Scene view. The tool menu displays Probuilder’s various object editing modes (

 Manipulate the object as a whole, much like how we manipulated the primitives in the previous steps

: Push and pull the vertices of an object

: Select and move only the edge of an object

: Select and move only the face of an object  

Let’s begin by modifying the edges of one of our SmallForegroundBld Cubes to create a sloped roof.  

Select ProBuilder’s Edge editing mode (

 In Edge editing mode (third from left), select the front top edge of the Cube. It will highlight yellow (

 tool selected, use the green “y” arrow to translate the yellow edge downwards (

When you’re done, you can click another object to edit the edges or not. Just remember you are still in the Edge editing mode, so you’ll only be able to select edges until you switch back to Object editing mode.  

Creating Slopes

You can create rounded corners via a series of bevels. A bevel simply cuts an edge at an angle. Multiple bevels in succession can create more rounded surfaces (

 Again, in Edge editing mode, select the vertical corner edge of the building. It will highlight yellow (

 tool directly (without the Alt) once more and your Cube’s edge will bevel at 

Notice how the Bevel created a new face, with the new edges highlighted in yellow. 

 Select the left-most vertical edge of the new bevel (

 tool once more and your Cube’s edge will bevel at 

 Select the right-most vertical edge of the new bevel (

 tool once more. Your Cube’s edge will bevel at 

 If you choose, select the edges of the bevel as needed and carefully adjust their positioning with the 

 tool. The bevel edges may need slight adjustment based on the size of your object. 

Congratulations! You now have the power to slope and bevel edges! Try out your new skills on the other foreground buildings (

Creating Bevels

Cubes will take us far, but sometimes we want to quickly block in other basic shapes. ProBuilder’s New Shape tool helps with that (

The New Shape tool has a variety of options including Prism, Stair, Cylinder, Door, Pipe, Cone, Arch, and Sphere. We are going to use the tool to add a door and stairs to our Scene. 

tool to access its settings. In the drop-down menu, select 

. A door will appear in the Scene. Make sure you’re in Object Mode, not Edge Mode and position the door so it’s at street level and against a building. Be sure to press 

 at the bottom of the New Shape settings window to finalize your object. It will turn from white to gray (

tool to again to access its settings. In the drop-down menu, select 

. A set of stairs will appear in the Scene. You can adjust the stairs in the settings menu. Position the stairs somewhere in the Scene. Be sure to press 

Creating New Shapes

You’ve learned to modify primitives and add new Probuilder objects; now let’s try a little more modeling on a new object using the Extrude Faces tool (

This tool won’t appear in the Icon Mode tool menu until you are in Face Selection editing mode. 

If this is your first time modeling a 3D object, follow the next several steps closely, as there are many new concepts introduced here. In these steps, we are going to model a rough space needle (

If you are experienced with modeling, you can skip steps 1-14 and use the Extrude Faces tool, along with the Move and Scale tools, to model something more like this (

 Before we use the Extrude Faces tool, we need to use the 

 tool to create a new Cube. Scale the new Cube to X:5, Y:5, Z:5 and Build it (

 Move your Cube to the ground plane and away from other objects to make it easier to work with. 

 In ProBuilder’s Face Selection editing mode, select the top face of the Cube (

Now we are going to extrude the face of this object with the Extrude Faces tool. We can do this by pressing the 

 button, or we can use the shortcut hotkeys 

. In the following instructions, we’ll use the shortcut. Also, we’ll want to leave the Extrude Faces settings set to default (

 tool, make your cube as tall as the highrises in the Scene (

 tool, uniformly scale the face of the Cube inwards using the white box in the center of the tool (

 tool, uniformly scale the face outward (

 tool, extend the height of the new platform (

 tool, uniformly scale the face inward about 90%. (

 tool, uniformly scale the face inward 95%. Use the 

 tool to extend the face upward to make a point at the top of the building (

Congratulations! You’ve modelled a space needle, albeit roughly, but you’ve gained the fundamental skills you need to create more refined objects with a little practice and patience.  

 Duplicate the shape and place both in the Scene relative to the sketch (

Our skyline should now look something like this (

Building More Complex Shapes

Prefabs are a unique type of GameObject that can be shared and referenced between Scenes, or even other projects, without having to be reconfigured. A major benefit of Prefabs is that any changes made or applied to the original Prefab will extend to all other instances. This makes fixing errors and creating alterations fast and efficient.

Prefabs are created automatically when an object is dragged from the Hierarchy into the Project window. 

Let's create a Prefab of the SpaceNeedle object we just created:

 Next, drag and drop it into the Prefabs folder in the Project window.

 Delete the SpaceNeedle shape on the right side of the city and replace it with the Prefab we just created by dragging the SpaceNeedle prefab from the Project window into the Scene view.

Prefabs are differentiated in the Project window via the *.prefab file extension and are labeled with a blue font in the Hierarchy (

We can open the Prefab Editor by double-clicking the Prefab in the Project window. Here we can see the Prefab we just created in an isolated view and also edit its individual components (

We can enter ProBuilder's editing modes to make additional changes to this Prefab. The changes would be reflected in all instances of the Prefab in the Scene. Let's make a minor adjustment to the SpaceNeedle object to demonstrate this.

 Return to the Scene view by pressing the SpaceNeedle back button that’s under the Hierarchy (

Now, when we return to the Scene view, we will see that the changes have been applied to both instances of the SpaceNeedle Prefab (

If you want to revert back to the taller version of your Space Needle, just use Ctrl/Cmd + Z.  If we wanted to, we could create Prefabs of our other shapes and further refine them in the Prefab Editor.   

Creating Prefab Objects from ProBuilder Shapes

ProBuilder offers an expansive suite of tools to modify and refine primitive objects. With practice, you can model complex geometry from primitives in Unity. In the next lesson, we will learn how to apply basic Materials to these objects.  

Unity Version 2019.4