• Joel Walden

  7 months ago

  I'd like to give a comprehensive review of this under-rated product. I'm just a customer of Hira's, I'm not paid to do this or anything. I just think the product deserves a fair shake as I think it's really a quite excellent value for the money.

  Basics:
  The Hira Building Generator system is not an addon, it uses Geometry Nodes. These node trees that make up the system come within a Blend file. You make a new scene and append the main Hira Building Generator (HBG) node tree and some starter building assets to that scene like wall parts, parts of staircases, roof parts, etc. I usually place all of these into a collection and hide it from view.

  You apply this node tree to a simple volume like a box which you model into the general shape of your building. The HBG system, once set up properly, assigns chunks of architecture assets into it, making your finished building.

  Bottom line:
  There are simpler systems that procedurally make buildings. Those are neat, but you're not going to have as much fine control over where assets get placed with those systems. Most have no ability to use custom assets and have fewer settings. Hira Building Generator is a much more robust system with lots of custom settings. It requires more technical skills and has a learning curve because it is a more powerful tool. It allows for excellent and quick iteration on a building design while maintaining very good control over the end result.

  If you have minimal Blender skills and don't plan on making any custom building props at all, and you just need a few quick buildings in the background of a simple video or whatever, there are probably more straightforward tools than this one out there. But if you want to iterate on a building design and maintain control over where stuff gets placed, this is a really excellent system. I especially recommend it if you plan on using your own custom modular building assets.

  Regarding some criticisms HBG has received:
  The PDF manual is lengthy and requires you go through step-by-step to learn what each panel, checkbox, and slider does in the interface. And there are a lot of settings in the tool. The developer does have a few videos out there that are very detailed explaining how to model some of the assets and set them up. But a few more comprehensive videos going into the fine details of every setting in the tool would be a huge help. Even so, I'm making my way through the manual just fine. It just requires patience and perseverance. It's actually pretty well-written considering English is not the author's native language.

  Yes, the assets that come with it are lower resolution and are not cinema-quality modeling and texturing. But it's a $24 tool. How fantastic could you expect the default modeling and texture assets to be? The value is in the robust features of the geometry nodes system. In the hands of an experienced 3d artist using his or her own custom models and materials, it could result in something truly amazing. I see the building assets that come with the product as placeholders to give me an idea how the system works and what I can do with it. If you want superb starter assets, you'll likely have to spend more money or a system with a prettier set of models but with far fewer customizable features.

  Features I would request are a simpler system for making a roof, specifically. I'd like to see a much easier way to set up a roof and the ability to fill up a roof panel with roof tiles automatically placed from a collection of individual tiles. I haven't found a way to do that in the system yet.

  Great work overall, I hope the developer keeps updating it!

• gabriel1999

  over 1 year ago

  I've been using it for a couple of days and I can say it's one of the best Building generators out there. I'll give it 4 stars because it is not real-time it takes a while to load after you exit edit mode in complex buildings and the way the generator manages assets is a bit more complicated. But overall, once you get the hang of it, mainly thanks to the very detailed documentation, it gives pretty solid results in most use cases, from really basic buildings to extremely complex ones. Two things I would like to see in a future update, Easier Asset management, and maybe the option to not use edge objects so I don't have to put placeholders and performance improvements. this might be achievable by separating the node staircase generator and the interior generator from the main building generator. congrats to the author this generator is really good!

• Tim Whiteman

  over 1 year ago

  I regret this expensive purchase. It should be noted before you purchase this product that the "detailed instruction guide" is a 143 page pdf manual and the process is not really very simple, nor intuitive. I am fairly experienced with Blender and Geometry Nodes, but I found this building generator to be a little over-complicated and confusing. Also, despite the product renders, the models are low-res and disappointing, not suitable for close up shots of the buildings. The seller should also consider updates to these products, instead of releasing new features as separate products. I respectfully would not recommend this generator. I have added one star because the seller is helpful and communicative.

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