Pipe Builder lets you quickly add pipes into any scene. You can define how many sides you wish to have on the pipes and you can also refine exactly where the pipes are in the scene. All within Unity3D no need to swap back to a 3D editor.

Download


Pipe builder is ideal for placing pipes around other objects, with tools like Insert/ Delete and Extract, it makes it easy to add, remove modify later.

Available at the Unity Asset Store

Overview


Options allow you to set the size of the corners and with or without Flanges


Adjustable number of the side for the pipes, Flanges have customizable intervals, length, and size.

Allowing for a large range of custom looks for your pipes



Here is an full overview video.


Creating your first Pipe


To start creating pipes add the main prefab 'PipeBase_pf' into the map.
With this prefab selected click on the 'Add Pipe' button. This will create a simple straight pipe.
Now you can start to position your pipe
If you need more nodes just click on the 'Extend Pipe' button and this will create another node in the direction of the pipe.
After you have positioned all your nodes just press Generate pipe Mesh
You can see a basic pipe creation in this video


Inspector Details

Main Details
Sides: Number of sides of the pipe
Radius: The size of the pipe
UV Modifier: Scale the UVs
Auto Build: Rebuild the mesh each time you move a node
Inside Pipe: Flips the normals, So you are inside the pipe


Flange Details
Flange: Whether to add flanges
Length: The length of the flanges
Interval: How often to add flanges
Size: The size of the flanges. Can me negative if needed


Corners Details
We will cover the corners below.

Bake Lighting Details
We will cover the bake lighting below.



You can see some of the different pipe details In this video.


Corner Pipes

We have 3 options that define the pipe corners: Size, Steps and Larger


Size defines the overall size of the corner


Steps define how many polygons you want. A high number will make it smoother


Larger sets whether you want the corner to be large or not



Auto Build and Inside Pipes


Having Auto Build set will create the pipes each time you move a node.
Inside Pipe will create the pipe inside out so you can place the player inside the pipe.


Materials


You will get a default set of high-resolution materials included in the package, you will need to drop the resolution if you don't need it.

And you can easily add your own materials if you need.

One other material in the package is Bricks this is best used as the inside of the pipes.

Create Pipes from Scripts


If you need to create Pipes from your own scripts take a look at the example scene CreatePipesFromScript

Run this scene and you will see 3 buttons

The button Create basic pipesrun this code

Pipe.AddPipes(); create a new pipe and returns it
pipeNode.ExtendPipe(); Extends the current pipe node - creating the two nodes needed for the first pipe
Pipe.BuildPipes(); forced the pipes to build the mesh


The button Create basic pipesrun this code

This is doing the same as the above script but just looping through a list of vectors.
Note: It still needs to call 'AddPipe' before having any nodes to extend.

Version 2


Version 2 Adds

Fittings like Wheel Gate, Leaver gates and others

More materials

Bake Lighting Options

Fixed some bugs:
Update on the UV mapping to keep it more balanced.
Update name of buttons in the inspectors
Some button now work when selecting more than one GameObject.

Fittings (version 2)


Fitting type are Box, Flange, Value Wheel, Value Leaver.
Added in Version 2



To add a fitting to a pipe, just select a pipe node and click 'Add Fittings'
If you select two nodes it will add the fitting at the mid point between the two nodes

Any fitting can be moved in 3d space - but it will always link to the closest point along the pipe.
And when you release it - it will jump to that location.


Fitting Options

Direction: The Direction of the fitting*
Extra Radius: How far out from the pipe
Fitting Type: The type of fitting
Length: Length of the fitting along the pipe
Object Scale Modifier: Wheels and Leavers scale adjuster*
Stem Length: The length of the stem*
Stem Radius: The radius of the stem*
* Only on selected types

Click 'Build mesh' to create the mesh
Click 'Duplicate Fitting' to Duplicate Fitting the current fitting.

Wheel Gates - 4 Directions

leaver Gates - 4 Directions



New Materials (version 2)

New Materials added in Version 2
Dented Copper
Old Paint Blue
Old Paint Green
Old Paint Yellow
Plastic Black
Plastic Yellow



Bake Lighting (version 2)


Should you want to use Bake lights in your scenes, you can turn this on at the base pipe object.

You also have the option set if you need the pipe to cast shadows and receive shadow


After you have update the lighting options just rebuild the mesh by clicking Generate pipe Mesh

Just remember to bake the scene after any changes.
We have added a Generate bake Lighting Option on the base Pipe build to make it easy to find

Version 2.1


Version 2.1

Fixes a release build problem.


Version 2.2


Version 2.2

Optimised the Components used.

If No Collection was selected, then all MeshCollider Components are removed.

And if an object hasn't got any mesh it will remove the MeshFilter and MeshRenderer Components.

Support


If you need any more help please email us at Contact@electricWolf.co.uk