The bot builder has been in the works for quite some time now and it's finally in its last stage of development and a beta is available now!
For those who don't know, a bot builder was announced last year and has been in development since. It's definitely been a ton of work and I will share a bit about the goal of this new bot builder and how it works.
To build bots in Battle RC an external tool is required, such as a CAD or any 3D modeling software. You design your bot there and then import it to the game for configuration. This frustrated a few players who wanted to see an in-game bot builder. Now, that is no longer a requirement and you will be fully able to design your bots in the game! That said, this is not a traditional bot builder in the sense of using parts and components to slowly build your bot. Instead, the bot builder is exclusively used to design your bot how you would do in any other CAD or 3D modeling software.
This is not any CAD however. It is designed with bot builders in mind, offering a substantial amount of features targeted towards the creation of bots and the ease of use in every aspect of this amazing editor.
You have a great set of parametric shapes that can be combined with one another in all ways imaginable. This allows for an infinite number of possibilities when building out your bots. It's all made with ease of use in mind so nothing should be too complex to understand and use.
Boolean operations such as union, difference, and intersection are fully supported for all shapes. This facilitates the creation of many shapes by combining multiple shapes together in many different ways.
There are numerous different parametric shapes including a sketch tool that lets you draw any shapes you want in layers. You can curve lines, make intersections, and all sorts of things.
Some shapes also include dynamic placing methods like this belt. Instead of adjusting the parameters to wrap around two cylinders you can simply select them first and the belt will wrap perfectly.
Another feature I really love is this convex hull tool, which as the name suggests generates a convex hull of all selected objects. Really useful when making rounded parts for example, but it works will all shapes.
You can visualize the center of mass, add reference images, import SVG, create 3D text from any font, import and export many formats, and so much more.
How to access the beta?
A beta for this bot builder has been released and is available through the Discord server, so if you want to try it out now be sure to join!