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[70% OFF!] UniStorm 5.2 - AAA Volumetric Clouds, URP Support, Weather, Sky, Atmospheric Fog, & More!

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by BHS, Jan 27, 2012.

  1. BHS

    BHS

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    I can assure you it's not the UniStorm System script causing your performance issue. You can below that UniStorm virtually uses nothing.

    You most likely have a dense scene with a lot of object. The traditional Unity camera has a draw distance of 1,000 UniStorm draws at 15,000. For most games this isn't an issue, but if you have a lot of distant object than you should use our other camera option.

    This is covered in the documentation under 2nd Camera. Using a second camera has Camera 1 render what's in front of the player within a far clipping plane of 1,000 like a traditional Unity camera. Camera 2 renders just UniStorm with a far clipping plane of 15,000 and a near clipping plane of about 13,000. This allows Camera 1 to only render items within the 1,000 far clipping plane limit greatly increasing performance in your case, also lowing draw calls, tris counts, ect.

    I hope this helps you out. Please let us know if you have any more questions or need any help.

    $UniStormPerformance.png
     
  2. BackwoodsGaming

    BackwoodsGaming

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    What are you using to come up with your image you attached? Is that from an asset available on the asset store? Looks like an awesome tool to use against each asset we use to gauge performance.. Would love more info on it! :)

    And now that you mention it, I think I remember you mentioning the 2nd camera thing before. Will take a look at it once I purchase and start integrating unistorm into my game.. Thanks for the info!
     
  3. Hikiko66

    Hikiko66

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    It's the unity profiler. Comes with pro. It really ought to be available in free.
     
  4. Bigmamajama

    Bigmamajama

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    I'm sure this would of solved my problem with all the trees. I just didn't get far enough through the documentation to see that option. Thank you for pointing it out. I would love to add a few of my trees back...:)
     
  5. Draxy

    Draxy

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    This thread is huge =]

    So after searching I couldn't find something small that I need to get a particular result.

    I'm not a very good programmer and thought I'd just ask here.

    I have static weather 'Thunderstorm' by default and in a script I'm working on I want to trigger the 'Clear 2' weather type at a particular point in the script.

    I tried:

    Which is completely wrong. So can anyone tell me how to manually change the weather type with a script command please =]

    After looking in to the latest release I see weather zones might accomplish this a little easier, but any help with a non-weatherzone solution would be much appreciated.

    Update: In the mean time I have achieved the same effect having a weather zone that I activate via the script at that point. So I have essentially got the result I wanted, if not the correct way.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2014
  6. fredr92

    fredr92

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    Hi any plans when the snow building will be back and when .active will be change to new code that will work in the future ? Im very excited for the snow .Thanks
     
  7. GameTech

    GameTech

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    How do I make it so the rain and rain drop splashes are not visible outside any lights? My player uses a flashlight and everything outside of it other than stars and moon should be dark. I managed to make everything dark except the rain and rain drop splashes.
     
  8. Bigmamajama

    Bigmamajama

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    I believe its a particle effect, I saw it as a class under I think rain systems or something. You could look at the options for it there or poke around in the class script itself to see if anything pops out that has to do with ambient light or illumination.

    I think its a cool effect actually since at night the splashes of real rain drops capture ambient night light reflections making them visible. Even splashes outside of a direct light source would logically pick up any light at night, moon, flashlight etc.
     
  9. wwg

    wwg

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    Ok, I'll try the 2 camera approach. My cameras already have a Far Clipping Plane of 50,000. When I have Unistorm enabled, the FPS goes to around 8 and gets very jerky. When Unistorm is disabled the FPS hovers around 26 and is totally smooth. I have a big terrain with a lot of trees, rocks, etc...but it does fine with Unistorm disabled.
     
  10. BHS

    BHS

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    Snow, as in any object with a material, will be coming back as of version 1.7.1. However, terrain snow might be delayed due to Unity's restriction with accessing the Unity terrain. It caused some issues with some of our customers in the past. What we will probably do is make a tutorial in the documentation for people who want to add terrain snow.


    50,000? That is most likely your issue. You have to remember that UniStorm also has a light source so you're also disabling light for the far clipping plane of 50,000.

    You also could be missing an object in the UniStorm Editor that would give you reduced fps because it's looking for a missing reference. UniStorm can't run properly if it's missing any component.

    The profile above shows that UniStorm doesn't use very much performance. There must be some other factor.

    Double check to make sure there are no errors. Also make sure you properly setup UniStorm's second camera. We have had several people with scenes like yours who had significant fps increase after switching to 2 cameras.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
  11. Draxy

    Draxy

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    So I'm using Static time with Weather Zones, and when the player enters a zone I change from thunderstorm to Mostly Cloudy. The clouds blend slowly and perfectly between them, but the Sunlight switches way too fast, almost snapping to full strength. Is there a way to slow this transition down, to about the rate of the cloud transition?

    Update: I was able to solve the issue by editing the Unistorm Engine script. By changing the Sun Intensity based on DeltaTime scaled exposed variable, as opposed to the Magic Number that was there. This allowed me to update all the weather transitions and worked perfectly. Perhaps this could be an exposed value in future updates of Unistorm?
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
  12. Bigmamajama

    Bigmamajama

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    Hi BHS,

    Have a question on setting up Camera2 the documentation says "Create a layer called Camera2 and assign all of the clouds and UniStorm objects to the Camera2 layer." Specifically do you mean everything listed below:

    From Hierarchy UniStormPrefab_C:

    CloudParent (and everything under it)
    WeatherSystems (and everything under it)

    All the effects on Camera1 I assume stay there, butterflies, Lighting Position, MistCloud, RainSystem, Snow Dust, Snow System, WindyLeaves.

    Should anything else be on Camera2 layer besides CloudParent and WeatherSystems (and everything under them)?
     
  13. BHS

    BHS

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    Thanks, we'll fix this.


    Yes, everything you're doing sounds correct. Nothing else needs to be included other than what you've stated above.
     
    DesertRaven likes this.
  14. Bigmamajama

    Bigmamajama

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    Everything worked perfect with the second camera and I did indeed get a huge performance boost.
     
    DesertRaven likes this.
  15. wwg

    wwg

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    I don't see any errors. I tried the second camera technique, but didn't see any difference...still getting around 8 FPS. I'm probably not doing something right. I'll give it another try to make sure I'm getting the clipping planes and layers set correctly.

    Since I'm using such large far clipping plane value, should I set the far clipping plane on camera 1 to something much lower (e.g. 1000) and then set camera 2 to near of 1000 and far of 50,000?
     
  16. Bigmamajama

    Bigmamajama

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    Just out of curiosity can I ask why your clipping plane is set to 50k is this a flight sim or something?
     
  17. wwg

    wwg

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    Yeah, it's a flight game.
     
  18. BHS

    BHS

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    We're working on a new playable UniStorm Demo that will demonstrate AI using UniStorm's weather, Time of Day, and Temperature. AI will react to certain weather types and do certain tasks at certain hours. This demo will also demonstrate plantable plants that will grow every UniStorm hour.

    All of this will be included for free to UniStorm customers in the examples with the new 1.7.1 update.

    The next small update, version 1.7.0.2 to fix some minor issues, should be submitted sometime next week.
     
  19. Montreseur

    Montreseur

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    What character controller do you use in those demo videos?
     
  20. BHS

    BHS

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    The Ultimate FPS Camera.

    It's a great a great character controller.
     
  21. wwg

    wwg

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    I've finally had a chance to investigate the performance issues some more. I tried a second camera (per the documentation) and it didn't make a difference for me. I also dialed the far clipping planes back from 50k to 1k with no improvement. So, I started disabling various objects (both Unistorm and others). When I disabled the Unistorm folder "WorldAxle" my FPS jumped from the 8s back up into the high 20s and into the 40s. Things still look good with the folder disabled. Apparently I won't get the sun and moon, but the game is now playable and looks great.

    Any thoughts on how to enable the folder and not degrade performance, etc.?
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2014
  22. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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  23. BHS

    BHS

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    This is because you're disabling your light sources. You will see an increase in fps because you're rendering far less tris and draw calls due to not having a light source. I tried doing what you did and saw no increase in performance other than a decrease in draw calls and tris due to not having a light source. I'm not sure what's causing your issue but we're unable to recreate it.

    If you could supply us with an example project we can figure out what's causing your issue. We have tested everything with the Unity Profiler and found nothing causing a performance decrease using UniStorm.


    Cool, we'll take a look at it.
     
  24. wwg

    wwg

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    Ok, that sounds reasonable. Although, I don't notice any visual difference in light levels when I enable/disable the WorldAxle folder (because the Sun_Moon folder is still active and it contains the directional light). As a test, I re-enabled the directional light I was using before Unistorm and the FPS didn't drop and plenty of light in the scene. I dug a little deeper and it appears to be the Mesh Collider on the Sun Glow object. Specifically, when I disable that collider, FPS jumps back up and I don't notice any difference in visual appearance. At any rate, the game is working much better with that collider disabled, so I'm happy. :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2014
  25. BHS

    BHS

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    Good to hear you found a fix. We'll be sure to add this to the quick update.
     
  26. Rico21745

    Rico21745

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    How customizable is Unistorm?

    I'm looking at making my world extremely foggy and cloudy, dark, almost like what you'd see after a nuclear apocalypse. Can Unistorm handle this? Do I get to control how much fog, cloud density, cloud color, sky color, etc? Day/night cycle duration?

    I'm looking at making this look very oppressive and over the top but all the videos show milder weather than I'd like even during a thunderstorm (A clear day = thunderstorm in Unistorm for me, in terms of the kinds of visuals I want)

    Looking at weather system addons before I decide what to get/write my own.
     
  27. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes to everything you've asked.

    UniStorm allows you to adjust the color for each time of day, Fog color and density, cloud color, gradient sky color, ambient color, sun color, sky color, day and night duration, and much much more. UniStorm allows you to a just every component imaginable. This is what makes UniStorm so versatile. You can see various screenshots of the editor in the asset store pictures of UniStorm.

    If you have anymore questions just ask.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2014
  28. GameTech

    GameTech

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    Is volumetric fog ever going to be added? I think the current fog only changes object's colors at a certain distance, but I want to see visible fog cloudy mist instead.
     
  29. nomax5

    nomax5

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    How to set up lightening

    I've never actually managed to get the lightening set up properly and I was thinking when they fix that minor issue with the install it will get sorted out.

    Last time I just guessed what was missing and it didn't work that well the lightinging looked like a tiny little squiggle horizontal.

    But I've just started a new project downloaded the latest Unistorm from the asset store and I've got the pink (as in missing) lightening.

    Could you please tell me how and what I have to put where in order to fix it.

    Thanks Roy
     
  30. BHS

    BHS

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    If you have pro, the Global Fog Image Effect is implemented in the UniStorm System. If you have just free I suggest using Unity's Linear Fog. It gives a much better fog effect and you can edit it within the UniStorm Editor.


    This was an issue due to the Asset Store Tools while submitting. For some reason the material is missing. We have 2 other lightning bolt perfabs that you can add to the lightning bolt slot of the UniStorm Editor. They are LightningBolt1 and LightningBolt2.
     
  31. nomax5

    nomax5

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    Ahhha thats what the lightening is supposed to look like, its really good thanks BHS

    PS. your forum sig needs updating .. we're on version 1.7 now ;-)
     
  32. Robsy128

    Robsy128

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    Hey guys,

    I'm having a bit of an issue with UniStorm at the moment. Admittedly, I've only just copied and pasted the prefab from the demo scene into my own project scene. I've played around with a couple of the settings, although nothing I do is resolving the issues I have.

    First of all, my trees and objects seem to have some kind of fog on them, although this doesn't affect the terrain in the slightest. Do I need to do something with the terrain or change a unistorm setting? Image is below.

    $Fog Issue - Unistorm.JPG

    Secondly, I have another issue where the lighting is a bit pale/white in comparison to my normal lighting I was using before importing unistorm. I've looked at the lighting settings and tried to change a couple of things, but I honestly have no idea. Perhaps someone could help me with this as well?

    Lighting with UniStorm:

    $Bland Houses - Unistorm.JPG

    Lighting without UniStorm:

    $Normal Light - Without Unistorm.JPG
     
  33. jaijai76

    jaijai76

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    I have the same problems as Robsy128 . The only difference from i have permanent fog, changing to the fog weather dosent even make much of a difference because there's always a fog close to me. I think its the same in the demo. Can you tell me how to change it. I also have the problem of it taking a bit of the color from my scene.
     
  34. Ascensi

    Ascensi

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    Is Unistorm compatible with any stereoscopic (side by side) assets? I use FOV2GO and it seems Unistorm freezes when trying to use Stereoscopic modes.
     
  35. jaijai76

    jaijai76

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    I also see that the shadow and sun shafts are really out of place. when i put the sun on an angle of 1 the sun shafts are on an angle of 1 because they come from the sun but the shadow looks completely out of place. It looks more like its on an angle of 0

    How can this be fixed?
     
  36. Yog0

    Yog0

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    I've run into this as well, Rosby. The only way I've figured out how to work around this is to disable fog in the render settings, then quote out the RenderSettings.fog = true line in the UnistormWeatherSystem_JS script.

    Additionally, I've had problems with working scripts referencing the player controller in 1.6 not working in 1.7. Did you make any changes that would affect using a GetComponent on either the CharacterMotor or the camera's MouseLook? If I use the Player from the prefab I can't access the camera's MouseLook, and if I use a Unity first person character controller I can't access the CharacterMotor.

    I've had to roll back to Unistorm 1.6 for this reason. I'd be grateful for any help.

    Cheers.
     
  37. BHS

    BHS

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    That's very strange we will definitely look into it. Is there a specific thing you did so we can recreate it? We are unable to have to have the same issue.

    We will find out what's causing the issue and be sure to fix the problem.

    @Yog0 That's strange about the CharacterMotor because it has been removed from the system. There should be no references to it. We will also look into this.


    They are perfectly aligned according to the sun position in our build that's in the Asset Store. Have you moved the sun gameobject at all? Also, have you changed the position object of the Sun Shafts image effect?
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2014
  38. Robsy128

    Robsy128

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    Yeah, disabling the fog in the render settings (go to edit - render settings - untick the fog in the inspector pane) gets rid of the weird fog issue with the trees. That said, whenever I press play to test it out, the fog does return which is really annoying. I'll try out Yogo's suggestion, where he edited out the render settings in the JS script.

    The thing to take note is that I had a scene set-up with my own lighting (directional light with chosen colour) and fog, etc. I'm using Unity free. So my suggestion to everyone who's starting out with this is to disable both of those things and then add in Unistorm. Maybe just untick the box that makes them active in the inspector view, but keep them in the hierarchy just in-case you want to play about with the Unistorm settings to get the exact match you had previously :)

    As for the colour issue, with the wood looking quite pale - change the day and ambient colours in the Unistorm editor. I wrote down the exact colour I had set-up for my directional light before adding Unistorm and then just changed the day and ambient colours to that colour (by entering in the numbers). Everything looked much better after making that change.

    It might be worth adding the 'disable fog sunlight if you had it previously' into the documentation just so people starting out with this don't run into the same issue in the future :)

    Finally, is there some kind of fog setting so I can add some clouds at the bottom of a mountain range or something? Just so it looks a little more natural when looking across a scene :) And speaking of fog, I quite liked the fog effect when playing the game with the fog ticked in the render settings - the only issue was that it didn't effect the terrain. It might look awesome if it effects the terrain a bit more - especially when looking over the distance. Any help with this would be appreciated. I can add screenshots in my next post if you need me to!
     
  39. GameTech

    GameTech

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    I have a weird band in my sky when using two cameras. When I have a single camera with 0.1 and 15000 clipping range the sky is normal, but when I have two cameras, I see this.
     
  40. Wesllem812

    Wesllem812

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    I already tried to add flares in the "Sun_Moon" and "Sun" but don't work.
    I'm trying to put pro flares in the unistorm sun if anyone can help me I would be grateful.

    Also,when a rain happens I do not see the effect or rather the particles only the audio.
     
  41. derkoi

    derkoi

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    Hi,

    Do we have to use sun shafts? Is there a way to disable it without commenting out lots of code? Thanks
     
  42. jaijai76

    jaijai76

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    Im using unity pro, the fog works fine. apart from like in the demo there's is always fog, at a distance of about 500 there is always fog even on clear sky just like in the demo. I just want to. know how to change the distance

    you said
    "They are perfectly aligned according to the sun position in our build that's in the Asset Store. Have you moved the sun gameobject at all? Also, have you changed the position object of the Sun Shafts image effect?"

    i haven't moved them. Its the same in the demo. The sun shafts should align with the shadows the sun casts but it looks 1 or 2 degrees out.

    1 more thing i cant figure out. How do i change the lighting of the moon. I want the intensity to be more like 0.1 or less not what it is by default. Yes the nights are going to be very dark, the default is way too bright for me

    ok iv noticed that at midday the shadows and sun-shafts are almost perfectly aligned, just slightly out. But as it gets closer to dawn or dusk the shadows and rays become more out of place until it looks a few degrees out. Dont know what causes this, perhaps its the position of the whole uni storm prefab in my game?
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2014
  43. Yog0

    Yog0

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    Go to the camera and tick off the sunshaft components to disable them.
     
  44. tredpro

    tredpro

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    how do i fix this

    UnassignedReferenceException: The variable butterflies of 'UniStormWeatherSystem_C' has not been assigned.
    You probably need to assign the butterflies variable of the UniStormWeatherSystem_C script in the inspector.
    UniStormWeatherSystem_C.WeatherForecaster () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_C.cs:2576)
    UniStormWeatherSystem_C.Update () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_C.cs:620)


    i am using my own 3rd person controller and i can't figure it out. problem is with all of those variables like lightning and snow
     
  45. nomax5

    nomax5

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    This is odd I've only just noticed this warning ... perhaps I had warnings turned off or something.. is it fixed is there an easy way to get rid of it?

    Code (csharp):
    1. Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStorm Systems/UniStormWeatherSystem_C.cs(4970,28): warning CS0618: `UnityEngine.GameObject.active' is obsolete: `GameObject.active is obsolete. Use GameObject.SetActive(), GameObject.activeSelf or GameObject.activeInHierarchy.'
    Not urgent only a warning.
     
  46. BHS

    BHS

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    I think the fog issue is due to us adjusting it to compensate for the new gradient shader. We will fix it with the new version.

    The other fog could be the Global Fog if you have Unity Pro.


    You have to make sure that your close camera isn't rendering UniStorm. Only your distant camera should render UniStorm. This is also done by layers. Be sure to follow the documentation because there shouldn't be any issues.


    We will take a look at the sun's position.

    The moon intensity can be found on the MoonLight game object within the UniStorm children objects. We will be adding an option to adjust the intensity with the next version.


    You have to get the particles from the demo player that comes with UniStorm and drag them onto your 3rd person player. A tutorial is covered in the documentation.


    It's a newer Unity issue. We will also fix this with the new version.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2014
  47. tredpro

    tredpro

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    Thanks for the reply. that is what i was doing, but it wasn't working. i fixed that problem though.

    now I am having these problems:

    The Lightning Bolt is missing, make sure there is one attached to the UniStorm UniStorm Editor

    The Lightning Light GameObject is missing, make sure it is assigned to the Lightning Light GameObject slot of the UniStorm Editor.

    The Lightning Light GameObject is missing, make sure it is assigned to the Lightning Light GameObject slot of the UniStorm Editor.

    The Lightning Light GameObject is missing, make sure it is assigned to the Lightning Light GameObject slot of the UniStorm Editor.

    The Lightning Light GameObject is missing, make sure it is assigned to the Lightning Light GameObject slot of the UniStorm Editor.
     
  48. BHS

    BHS

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    It tells you right here:
    Assign the Lightning Bolt gameobject to the UniStorm Editor. It's under the label Lightning Settings and it's called LightningBolt1.
     
  49. tredpro

    tredpro

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    yes i have did that but it keeps unattaching it once i start the scene
     
  50. tredpro

    tredpro

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    nevermind. i fixed that one too