Hey folks,

If you followed the development of GameDraw over the last year you will notice the amount of work done into it, the amount of code written and the vision we have for it, simply we have created a true modeler inside of Unity, we started with a beta that wasn’t stable enough to reach a complete and stable modeler thanks to the community who stood behind us and supported us, now GameDraw is helping thousands of users worldwide and from the work done with it I can say that we are going in the right path! BUT this is not enough for us, we want to be the tool that is affordable, easy, reliable, extendable and unique so we went with our guts to build tools that no one else have but before going into the details I will leave you with a screenshot showing some of the work done with GameDraw.

So going back to the track

We are working on a lot of things in our labs, things we mentioned before like the city generator, the character customizer and the API are being spiced and as we decided to delay them from the original release date back in 2012 to version 1 because we didn’t felt that they are on the level they should be and since we are almost there ( I mean version 1)  we also pushed the limit to work on other small experiments that hopefully will became features once we reach version 1:

Auto Bone generation

We have been working on creating an auto bone generator as part of GameDraw’s animation system, the system will detect and generate bones based on your mesh structure which will mean a 1 click bone generation, skinning and rigging then you can use Unity’s animation system to create your animated meshes but note that this is still experimental and no promises on it yet!

One Image to full featured 3D model

So when we started working on GameDraw we introduced some tools for extracting 3D models from 2D textures but beside inst3D which takes 3 images to generate a complete 3D model the other tools in GameDraw only takes one image to general a flat or extruded surfaces, no much details on the z axis are being extracted so we decided to push the limits a bit further and work on the craziest experiement of all, extracting a feature complete 3D model from a single image so you can get the early result you need then use any of GameDraw’s features like sculpting to refine it! this is still in its early stages and needs a lot of work to reach production quality but here are some early results

So this is what we are working on and as I said before this is still experimental so please wait on us and let us know what you think!

Disclaimer: All images used with the 3D model extraction feature are from the web and are copyrighted to it’s respectful owners. If you own rights to any of the images, and do not wish them to appear here, please contact us and they will be promptly removed.

As we have launched our free version of GameDraw yesterday on Unity’s asset store we have got a lot of questions from the community of GameDraw on the value of GameDraw for whom who purchased it while there is a free version and the following are the reasons that makes the Pro version better and why GameDraw free a great thing for the users of GameDraw Pro:

More Features

There is a lot of Features in GameDraw Pro that does not exist in the Free version that makes it much better than GameDraw Free so if you are saying that GameDraw Free is great then GameDraw Pro is greater

Features Coming Soon

We have been working hard on enhancing GameDraw,cleaning it and stabilizing it for the release of version 1 but we also worked on some great features that we have delayed it’s release due to the priority of making GameDraw ready and stable as it is today! so expect a lot of new features to come out to the Pro version that you will surely love.

The Warehouse

We continually add assets to the warehouse that is not available in the Free version which adds more value to GameDraw Pro.

Extendability

We have designed GameDraw to be extendable by developers and soon designers as I will be writing some blog posts with an example of how to extend it with your own plugins on top of it and how to share them through the asset warehouse but this will be once we update the website with the Editor API and some examples, this means that GameDraw Pro users will eventually have more tools created from the community on top of GameDraw, one advantage for them as that when we release the runtime API with the Pro version (“Pro Only”) there will be a Utility player that will be able to execute any of these extensions unleashing massive editing power for your games and apps.

Bigger Community

The community of GameDraw will grow and this will be great also for the growth of GameDraw itself as we will have more feedback and input from the community and we will be able to find better solutions to serve your needs.

Connecting

Currently there is around a 1000 users of GameDraw all around the world but hopefully we can get this number much  higher with the birth of GameDraw Free and your help (spread the word ) then we will be able to do gatherings, sessions and events as the community grow, I believe that the greatest power is in the hand of the community and Unity did a great job of putting game development power in the hand of the community when it was only available for the ones with 5-6 figures and we are trying to complete this cycle as all of us need assets to create games  but to do this we need something to create it with, this was the challenge we took at the beginning and we continue to conquer over time but this cannot be done without you and your support.

We have two offices now, thanks folks , one in San Francisco and one in Amman,Jordan and your welcome anytime to visit us and we would love to hang out with you folks, so call us or drop by.

Today marks a very important vocal point in the life of GameDraw as we have introduced the Free version of GameDraw and hopefully this version will help a lot of our fellow Unity3D gurus build their game assets and create amazing things as they always do

In the last period of time, we have been working heavily on making the capabilities of GameDraw’s UV Editor high enough to meet the high demands, we believe that soon enough we might reach a point were we will be able to let you create games and non-games assets from Unity which was the initial challenge we took on and continue beating.

In the last period of time we also worked on a huge set of showcases and tutorials that you will start seeing on our GamedDaw youtube channel on a weekly basis, in below are some screenshots from these showcases and tutorials all of which completely create with GameDraw from within Unity so don’t hesitate to check them out.

So this is my first post and I’m so excited to share with you the roadmap of GameDraw and how we see it coming together by the end of 2013 but first let me take the chance to speak about our journey “since this is the first post ” , the challenges and finally the reasons we’ve built GameDraw and what we want it to be.

The beginnings

So, first of all my name is Bahaa Abu Nojaim and I’m a co-founder in Mixed Dimensions. My journey started as a freelancer trying to cut his way toward building something REALLY big, I am an entrepreneur in my blood where, for me, traditional “ 9am to 5pm employment” is one of my biggest nightmares.

During my journey I worked in almost every aspect of the IT industry from web to ERP thinking out ideas and trying to implement them and I ended in this amazing part of it “gaming.”  Surprisingly I wasn’t that far from it as I used to do 3D models when I was 12 years old, and I have actually read the documentation and manuals of 3ds max back then but when I was 16. Back then, my family went through tough times and I had to work in order to make living for my family and myself. I hardly managed to afford the expenses of a University and never thought I would be able to continue my studies, but surprisingly things got better and I afforded to join University where I made the choice of studying software engineering at that time. During my university days and afterwards I tried to develop new things, always challenging the norms and always learning something new in every step of the way. Finally, after a few years trying to figure out the best way to move forward and the best thing to build, I was very lucky to meet my partner “Muhannad Taslaq” who shared with me the same vision and together we completed the picture which eventually led us to starting Mixed Dimensions with the belief that we can do something innovative and disruptive in this industry, and that we can create something that will definitely help indies grow fast as we are indies ourselves and help pro’s lower their costs and reach higher targets…. so we decided to stop talking and to get into action!

Needless to say, the first year was extremely difficult and we hardly made it through but we defied all challenges and pushed ourselves to keep going. I sometimes used to walk 10 kms to reach the office because I couldn’t afford to pay for a taxi or a bus. We tried to develop a lot of different things until we eventually thought of GameDraw, a 3D modeling extension for Unity that can be used by anyone to create 3D models for anything not just only games created with Unity (which is possible with the free version of Unity). We wanted to create something that gives you all the basics you need to build 3D models and something you can add your own extensions to, and expand it and grow it while still being very cheap compared to other 3D modeling software out there.

With that thinking in mind, we started the development of GameDraw, hearing from others in the industry, getting feedback and even expanding our talented team where the company now has 7 full time employees and is backed by top angel investors and the best VC ever “IV holdings” (now known as Badia Impact under the Silicon Badia family).

 We’ve learned a lot during this journey and we have even bigger ideas for it that I will share it with you now

The vision for GameDraw

We see GameDraw as the asset creation tool for everyone, that is available currently inside of Unity (Free or Pro) and will be available on the web, iOS, Andriod, Mac, Linux and Windows.We are trying to build all the needed features for asset creation whether it is 3D or 2D or anything else through 3D modeling, sculpting, painting, optimization and every essential function you might need to create your asset.

So is it only the basic functions?

Actually No. You typically create assets because you don’t have those assets at the beginning and at least you don’t have something similar that you can modify. For that we have something called the warehouse that is a repository of content were you will find hundreds and even thousands of assets for Free that you can import and modify for your needs all built professionally to be high quality and optimized.

We are trying to add our own flavor and creativity to it as well where we are adding a very powerful customizer that allows you to generate hundreds of variations from only 2 referenced models that you can create with GameDraw or any other software. When deployed the size will be the sum of the 2 references not the hundreds of assets generated, hence making your game smaller in size.

We also have tools to converts 2D images into meshes “3D models” that you can extrude and modify using GameDraw or any other software. We even added the ability to paint directly into your scene and GameDraw will handle the rest by converting your paints into a 3D object with collision data that you can modify as well.

We are focusing also on procedural content with semantics and parameters for that we are adding a really powerful city generator and other procedural content that will make your lives easier and your workflow much faster.

What about the web version of GameDraw?

The web version of GameDraw will be accessed for Free and anyone can create models, share them or modify other models shared by other users using the web version. In fact we might in the future expose an interface to this community so you can access and use the models in your applications or virtual worlds

So what about Extend-ability?

Both GameDraw and GameDraw Online (web) will be extendable, so you can add functionality using our API to expand the capabilities of GameDraw and since we have done the essential work from building a multi-threaded data structure, all the basic functions and even the functions to convert a 2D image into a mesh will be exposed giving you massive power to create the things you need, we have made it even as simple as creating a class with variables and the GUI will be automatically generated or you can write your own GUI instead, imagine what you will be able to create with it and we are always happy to help out if you have ideas you want to implement, just ping me or anyone from the team

Do you have a runtime API that I can use to create my own 3D modeling app or any app with such functionality?

Yes we do and we are looking forward to seeing apps being created with our runtime API, we haven’t decided on a strategy for it yet but you can always contact us and we will be more than happy to work with you

The RoadMap for GameDraw 2012-2013 (Q1)

The following are the things we think should take part of GameDraw during the this year and the next year, your input is always welcome so please let us know what you think:

 Unity Extension:

• 2012(Q4): procedural city generator (5 building types, 2 map types)
• 2012(Q4): Cut & slice
• 2012(Q4): Better UV editing
• 2012(Q4): UV editing using Gizmos
• 2012(Q4): Texture painting
• 2012(Q4): Better selection tools
• 2012(Q4): Cap function
• 2012(Q4): Adding 100 new asset to the warehouse
• 2013(Q1): Character pack for the customizer ( for character customization)
• 2013(Q1): Project(x)
• 2013(Q1):Rigging and animation
• 2013(Q1): Modifying meshes using a node based editor
• 2013(Q1): Enhanced sculpting with more tools and brushes
• 2013(Q1): Poly reduction using a brush
• 2013(Q1): GameDraw API for Unity Editor
• 2013(Q1): spline generated from textures, meshes generated from splines
• 2013(Q1): Adding 500 new asset to the warehouse

Web:

• 2013(Q1): Launching of the web app with the essential tools
• 2013(Q1): GameDraw API for the web
• 2013(Q1): Extensions repository where you can add extensions for others to use or you can use other’s extensions
• 2013(Q1): 3D printing
• 2013(Q1): Sharing community
• 2013(Q1): Adding more features

These are the main ideas and plans we have for GameDraw for the next 5 months and we would love get your feedback and suggestions in order to make it better.