Procedural 3D scene creator | Sceelix

sceelix · Dec 2015

Sceelix is a software that allows you to create complete and unique 3D scenes, with terrains, vegetation, cities and other elements, in an efficient and manageable way. Through a powerful procedural engine and an intuitive visual node-based editor, all and any kind of scene elements, from 3D models and textures to game physics and behaviors, can be automatically generated using visual creation rules.

Behold, Procedural Generation for the Masses!

Sceelix brings the power of procedural technologies to everyone. With these, it is possible to create everything (models, textures, sounds, game objects, etc.) automatically, rather than manually. All you have to do is define creation rules and parameters in our visual node-based language to create anything you set your mind to.

Main features include:

All-Purpose Generation: Many procedural tools focus uniquely on the creation of a specific type of scene element, like terrain or vegetation. Sceelix, on the other hand, can be used to produce all and any kind of designs, from terrains, to roads and buildings, trees, vehicles, furniture and so on.
Complete Game Scene Generation: Sceelix is also not limited to the generation of 3D Models, but is also capable of generating textures, voxels, lighting, or even game objects, along with their specific physics properties, animations and behaviors!
All-in-one Visual Language: Instead of using complicated, text-based script to define the rules, Sceelix provides a visual, node-based language that makes the understanding, control and management of rules much simpler and intuitive. All types of content can be manipulated using this same language and in a single pipeline, for a more seamless integration.
Concise and easy-to-use Operations: In Sceelix’s visual language, nodes are operations that create or handle content data in some way. A large set of operations are already available to handle 3D models, textures, voxels, lights, game objects and more are being developed every day!
Create and Share new nodes: The connected visual nodes form structures called graphs, which, in turn, can be referred to within other graphs. Doing so is called encapsulation and basically means turning a more complex set of operations into a single node, which can then be reused or shared with other people.
Powerful Designer: To create and edit graphs, Sceelix provides a designer tool equipped with many viewing, debugging and profiling features that will make the creation of rules even easier!
Import/Integrate: It is Sceelix‘s goal to integrate into your way of doing things and your favorite tools. Therefore, Sceelix accepts popular file formats.
Game Engine Integration: Sceelix lets you integrate directly into your game engine on the fly. For instance, our Unity plugin allows 3D models to be generated and send directly to the Unity Editor, along with materials and behaviors!
SDK/API: Through a simple and carefully-designed C# API, anyone can develop and share new features in Sceelix: add more rules and algorithms and data types; define new import and export formats, build UI extensions and much more! We would like to make Sceelix a testing and sharing ground for all procedural generation techniques and designs.

Why procedural?

Some advantages of procedural generation, among others, include:

Speed: You can create large and complex scenes much faster and in a much less tiresome way;
Consistency: By following the same rules, coherency in style and proportion of the results is maintained;
Flexibility: As each rule is guided by parameters, the result can be easily tuned and modified by changing simple values;
Scalability: The rules that are defined to create a small area can be used to create very large ones, without further effort;
Variety: Using randomness, you can let the computer introduce interesting variations and combinations easily. This can be used to obtain completely new levels every time a game is played. And still, a certain result can be systematically reproduced if the same base parameter values are used.
Compression: Rule sets are like plant seeds: small in size, but can create infinitely large results. This can prove essential to organize and deliver certain scenes.