About
What a Mesh! is a ready-to-use Unity plugin that provides unique tools to easily deform and manipulate meshes during runtime.
Similar to graphical editing software, the smudge tool distorts meshes in the desired direction e.g. by dragging a point. Vertices are added while smudging to minimize stretched textures and long edges, using remesh algorithms for the recalculations.
By drawing a straight line through an object, the slice tool cuts a gameobject in two seperate ones. The faces of the inside of the cut are filled with newly generated vertices.
What a Mesh! also provides predefined user inputs for the tools, allowing the player to directly modify the objects. They can also be extended or replaced to handle the tool usage with other triggers.
The plugin also comes with an example game (last GIF on this page) that shows how it could be used in game development.
Main Roles
- Plugin + Game Programming
- Designing of Example Game
- Documentation
- Trailer + Poster Creation
Software
- Unity, C#
- Doxygen
- Illustrator, Premiere
Challenges
As creating a plugin in contrast to a game is vastly different, I faced a lot of new challenges in the process. From the beginning on, I had to keep the user in mind while conceptualizing the plugin's functionality., I reated a comprehensible and expandable API with UIs and a external documentation. During the development, I also consulted potential users about their requirements.
I have also been learning about the structure of meshes and how they function in unity. Doing this, I was able to create a mesh datastructure which allows easy modification and iteration of related vertices or triangles.
For recalculations and remeshing algorithms, an external library has been incorporated and can be used for efficient calculations. But the user always has to keep in mind that the correct parameters and an adequate level of detail is needed for fluent gameplay.
Context
This project was created in the Game Lab II, a course where students develop a plugin for a game engine over the period of one year. Frequent pitches and feedback sessions provide guidance in the agile development process.
Recieved grade: 1.0
Marbelous World - my example game to show the plugin's functionalities