Quick Start Guide

Quickly set your project up and run with EGB Pro Quick Start Guide

Overview

Easy Grid Builder Pro (EGB Pro) is currently in v1.0.5 and a few features are currently in the beta stage. You can use this guide to quickly start using EGB Pro. Also, all the features in EGB Pro components are carefully tool-tipped.

Import Settings

EGB Pro requires two unity package manager dependencies (Cinemachine & Input System). When you import EGB Pro from unity package manager it should ask to install or upgrade packages, allow this and unity will automatically install Cinemachine & Input System packages to your project.

If you want to add the decencies manually open the package manager and find “Cinemachine” package under Unity Registry packages and then install it.

Then find the “Input System” package under the same package category and install it. Then the unity editor requires a restart.

After that make sure “Active Input Handling” is set to "Both" in Edit > Project Settings > Player. This will clear all the console errors.

NOTE: If you get a message to import TextMesh Pro Essentials to the project, Make sure to import them.

The next step is to set up Physics Manager and Tag Manager. To do that select any object in your currently opened scene and click on "Tag" and select "Add Tag". Then again select the preset icon from the top right corner in the opened window and select "EGB Pro TagManager" preset.

NOTE: If you don't want to override your layer & tag settings using the preset, you can set it manually. Simply add a new tag "Grid" and a new layer "Grid Surface". This layer should be in the "User Layer 31" slot.

Then go to Edit > Project Settings and select "Physics" then click the preset icon on the top left and then select "EGB Pro PhysicsManager" preset from the popup window.

NOTE: If you don't want to override physics settings using the preset, you can set it manually. Simply set the layer collision matrix in Physics similar to the image below (Remove grid surface layer collisions from all other layers).

Setting Up a Scene

Create a new scene or open one of your existing scenes then drag and drop EGB Pro prefab located in the Easy Grid Builder Pro > Prefabs, to your scene. Then right-click on prefab and select Prefab > Unpack Completely.

Note: If not unpacked some functionalities may not work properly.

As now you can see there are two EGB Pro Grid systems in the Hierarchy (XZ & XY). You can simply delete the "EGB Pro Grid XY" object from the scene. And for this quick start guide, we are only going to use the XZ grid which is more suitable for 3D games.

Then select EGB Pro Grid XZ and make sure its Tag is set to “Grid” and Layer set to “Grid Surface”. Then enable one or more editor Visual options to display your grid in the editor window (1st image below). Default Canvas grid visual is enabled. If you are using the "Debug grid visuals" option make sure to enable gizmos in the editor and play mode.

Now we need to add a few Buildable Objects to the grid system. Drag and drop all 5 pre-defined Buildable Grid Object Type SO assets located in Easy Grid Builder Pro > Scriptable Objects > Buildable Grid Object Type SO > 3D Grid Buildings (Grid XZ), to "Buildable Grid Object Type SO List" in the currently selected grid system.

Optional: For a proper camera perspective and controller, drag and drop the WASDCameraHolder located in Easy Grid Builder Pro > Prefabs > Tutorial Prefabs to the scene and delete the existing camera from your scene.

Finally, we can drag and drop the EGB Pro UI system to the scene. This is not required. Go to Easy Grid Builder Pro > Prefabs then drag and drop "EGB Pro UI" & "EGB Pro UI Tooltip prefabs" to your hierarchy and unpack them. Then select "EGB Pro UI object" and under Buildable Object Type Category SO select “Buildings Buildable Object Type Category SO” or drag and drop it from Easy Grid Builder Pro > Scriptable Objects > Buildable Category SO.

And that’s it! Simply hit play and now you have a fully functional build system.

You can use UI to enable grid modes and the whole UI has a ToolTip system. You can also press the “Z” & “X” keys on your keyboard to rotate objects.

If you are using "SimpleWASDCameraHolder" you can use WASD keys to pan your camera view and the “Q” & “E” keys to rotate the camera.

You can also use the Keyboard and Mouse to trigger all these functionalities. All these input keys are defined in "Scriptable Object" which is located in Easy Grid Builder Pro > Scriptable Objects > Easy Grid Builder Pro Inputs SO. You can change these inputs or add new key binds.

Demo scenes

You can open Easy Grid Builder Pro Demo Scenes located in the EasyGridBuilder Pro > Demo Scenes folder. Open the “Demo 3D All In One” scene and press play to quickly test all the functionalities in the current version of the EGB Pro provides. Press the “Backspace” key on your keyboard to switch camera views in play mode (Top Down to Third or First Person).

You can see how all the components and objects are set in the demo scene to get a better idea. And everything in the Easy Grid Builder Pro components are tool tipped carefully so you can get a proper idea of what each option does and does not.