Asset Store In-Depth: #1

Published: Aug 6, 2012

Product Spotlight: Mega-Fiers

By Chris West, creator of Mega-Fiers

Ever wish you had 3D deformation tools in Unity? Maybe you'd like to bend a tree for a better fit, squash a character to simulate g-forces, or simply inflate a button? Check out Mega-Fiers, with over forty deformers you can apply to meshes individually or in combination to achieve complex deformation effects. Mega-Fiers is already in use at major studios & schools, with applications ranging from the alien worlds in Breeders Game to enhancing interactive visualizations such as MonoFlow.

Constantly updated with new features like multi-core support, point cache animation, morphing & physics modifiers, like the new Rubber system-- Mega-Fiers is perfect for adding secondary motion. Add a Rubber modifier to a mesh with vertex weights & that's it! As your object moves or stops, tummies or ears wobble, sag and drop or bounce around, all without coding (Video). You’ll also find page flip, path deform, FFD, melt, stretch, twist, bulge, & ripple modifiers. The Morphing system supports an arbitrary number of channels with progressive targets per channel. Combined with Unity’s bone animation, you have the most flexible animation system you could possibly want.

Want to make a magic carpet? Just add a Modify Object component to a flat mesh, then add a bend modifier, tweak the parameters and presto! Your mesh carpet rolls convincingly into a tube (Video). Want to make a real time scrolling parchment? You can use the same technique-- check out this video to learn how. Check the forums for updates, as new features are added all the time! The next release brings a vertex paint modifier & vertex selection for precise control of your deformations. To see Mega-Fiers in action & learn more, visit our YouTube channel & Facebook page.

Publisher Profile - Dexsoft

Dexsoft has been in the game industry for more than seven years, starting out as indie game developers and publishers. Today, they are a prolific provider of AAA quality art assets, offering fantastic sci-fi and fantasy textures & a wide range of versatile game-ready, low-poly 3D models for videogames & real-time presentations. Their philosophy is simple: They enjoy what they are doing & they listen to their customers.

We asked Frank Geppert of Dexsoft about his views on indie game design, Unity & the Asset Store.

“As I started to make games I abandoned a lot of ideas just because I could not find fitting art. I was a pure programmer at that time and started to make models only because the market was missing what I needed. That’s how I started painting, modeling and animation. Indie games are a big deal today... The face of the industry already has changed, and tools like Unity helped a lot to come to this point. ”

“To me Unity has always been impressive. It’s like a dream came true with access to so many platforms. What I also like very much is the open mind of the Unity team. The Asset Store, just like the Union project are examples of how well the Unity team is networked with the entire industry. This is the right way. This helps everyone involved to be successful.”