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[RELEASED] Ruaumoko: iso-surface, voxel mesh generation and terrain engine

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by bens1984, Apr 29, 2013.

  1. LoganPark

    LoganPark

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    Aug 30, 2013
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    Hi, Eli,

    You're going to need more than just the Ruaumoko scripts and indeed more than mine to generate a procedural town. Ruaumoko handles the terrain and modifying it, and my tiny contributions were intended just as little utility scripts. But, it can be done! ...Just not with my part-time little efforts alone. :)

    So, for random towns bolted onto the terrain, pick a location, clear out terrain (or drop the town prefabs down onto it), and populate the town with behaviors and other content. You want to be looking at spawning scripts and pooling for that. Ruaumoko will just give you a canvas upon which to paint all that.

    LP
     
  2. jason-fisher

    jason-fisher

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    iddqd likes this.
  3. Plexus1

    Plexus1

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    Mar 9, 2014
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    Hi,

    Is the developer of this asset still actively updating this fantastic package as I am extremely interested in buying it. If not is he still giving support to problems in implementing/editing the code?

    Thanks.
     
  4. Braintoilet

    Braintoilet

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    Oct 9, 2014
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    I tried to email the developer trough the email supllied on the Publisher Website linked in the Asset-Store. Got and Delivery Status: Failed Notification back. I hope he's still on it, the asset store says the last update was Version: 1.11 (Sep 03, 2014)

    A Statement would be nice.

    Thanks
     
    Plexus1 likes this.
  5. unsubstantiation

    unsubstantiation

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    Nov 21, 2014
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    I tried searching the forum but could not find a definitive answer. Does this system allow for importing heightmaps or textures? For me at least heightmaps would be quite important. could somebody who knows for sure please tell me. I don't mind if it takes some work, or if it changes them a little.
     
  6. Ufonautas

    Ufonautas

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    Dec 4, 2014
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    It's really slow...
     
  7. siblingrivalry

    siblingrivalry

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    Nov 25, 2014
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    Hi, does anyone know if Ben is continuing development on this?

    Will be a huge shame if not
     
  8. DSebJ

    DSebJ

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    Mar 30, 2013
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    101
    Hi,

    I'm interested in purchasing Ruaumoko, just have a few questions.
    Does it work with Unity 4.6.x & Unity 5?
    Are colliders automatically generated for the surface?
    & I'll be using it for a space game, similar to the planet example - whats the largest planet that it supports? Could more than one object using this script exist in the same scene?

    I emailed Benjamin but got a "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently"

    Cheers.
     
  9. Shynx

    Shynx

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    Jan 10, 2015
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    i messaged the author since the mail he provided is out of comission. lets hope he responds
     
  10. DSebJ

    DSebJ

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    Thanks, hope he does :)
     
  11. Shynx

    Shynx

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    Jan 10, 2015
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    no response as of yet. i would advise anybody interested to hold off on purchasing, since big parts of the engines are not working correctly (lod, dual contouring, ambient occlusion, perlin noise)! it also leaks memory and crashes. ill wait until the end of the week before i put a warning review up on the store page.

    also, i've contacted support and asked them to mark the project as unmaintained.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2015
  12. Shynx

    Shynx

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  13. bens1984

    bens1984

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    All--just wanted to stand up and say I'm still developing this, but it's very slow these days (my time is mostly committed to a full time job). If you have questions please send me a private message through the forums, I'll get it and get back to you as I can!
     
  14. Wiegriaf21

    Wiegriaf21

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2015
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    7
    I'm trying to create ruaumoko terrain with a smooth and natural look but I want to be able to click to place blocky structures like you do in minecraft and build blocky buildings over smooth terrains, is this possible? I'm looking around and playing with demos scenes to make it work but I can't achieve this goal, plus I got a bug that makes me fall down sometimes when I click to build near me. I've noticed that with larger impact radius you can place cubic blocks but when you reduce it to the lower values you can't build anymore good shaped cubes, you will get diamond shape blocks or even nothing... I need to build small blocky cubes on a smooth terrain, if it's possible teach me how please.
    Thank you.
     
  15. bens1984

    bens1984

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    Wiegriaf -
    It is possible... But to get really small ones you need to increase the density of voxels (by default it's currently one voxel per world unit). A block smaller than 1x1x1 isn't possible in the demo scenes because it would be inside the voxel resolution. Increasing the detail would work, but be hard on the processor/memory. A really good solution would be an octree system---which is in the works! (I believe I posted a demo on this thread a little bit ago)

    If you want axis-aligned blocks (like minecraft, they all face north) you should use a separate script which works on top of the Ruaumoko terrain (there's a nice tutorial on one of the Unity support sites). Straight blocks are far simpler and less CPU intensive.

    Building right under the avatar causes fall-throughs because the collider updates and can cause the Unity FPS script to think it's no longer standing up. That script is very generic and should be customized if you want to allow the user to cut out under their feet (i.e. have the FPS script freeze the player for a second, or write a new script to make the player jump a bit if they edit under their feet).

    Hope that helps!
     
  16. gracks

    gracks

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    Aug 4, 2014
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    bens1984, when might we expect a Unity5-compatible release of Ruaumoko?
     
  17. bens1984

    bens1984

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    Realistically: the week of March 15th. I'd like to have it out sooner but work probably won't leave me time to have it done before then!
     
  18. radjudy

    radjudy

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    Oct 23, 2013
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    how did you fix this? i'm having the same problem.
    Thanks:)
     
  19. Predominant

    Predominant

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    Jul 11, 2012
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    @bens1984 Hey, I was just wondering if a Unity 5 version was available - Thinking about buying this.
     
  20. bens1984

    bens1984

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    Predominant–not currently. I've started working on the update but I need to put some more time in before I can release it. I'd love to have it done soon...
     
  21. bens1984

    bens1984

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    Unity 5!!!!! The compatible updated version is on the asset store!!!!! If you need it, go grab it!
     
  22. bens1984

    bens1984

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    A new update is in the works, with a long list of optimizations and new features. I'm very excited to get this one out! The two main things are a working Octree scene manager to handle LOD mesh generation at run time. The other is LOD mesh "curtains" to help cover any seams between levels. This may seem like a small thing but it's taken some time to iron it all out, and the prevention of holes in the terrain is (of course) critical. Here are some screen shots of the current beta code.

    Under the terrain, the curtains between blocks:
    Screen Shot 2016-03-24 at 12.27.10 PM.png

    From the surface, zoomed in on a seam between LODs where the terrain would have a small gap otherwise:
    Screen Shot 2016-03-24 at 12.28.39 PM.png
    In play mode, this is what the player sees. If you look closely you can still spot one small gap between levels, but it blends with the rock (gap is in the upper left of the image):
    Screen Shot 2016-03-24 at 12.29.33 PM.png
     
  23. nosyrbllewe

    nosyrbllewe

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    That's cool. Though, I can't really see any gaps in the play mode screenshot.
     
  24. LoganPark

    LoganPark

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    Really great to see new life in this asset! I have wanted to use it for ecosystem simulation for a very long time.
     
  25. radiantboy

    radiantboy

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    Bought this, pretty damn cool, one thing I am wondering is whats the easiest way to increase performance, seems to stutter even on my good pc.
     
  26. radiantboy

    radiantboy

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    Demo I am working on using this, real time terrain generation is causing jerks, I will attempt to generate first :)
     
  27. bens1984

    bens1984

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    All: I just discovered some bugs with the paging terrain. If it saves, unloads, and reloads a block they sometimes come in transparent. When it loads voxel data from an asset file in play mode the blocks appear offset for one frame, then pop in to place. I'll have an update with these fixes ASAP.

    @radiantboy: I sent you a pm with some ideas but want to post them here because I'm thinking others can benefit too!

    Ruaumoko tries to be everything for everyone but it can't, in reality. It needs to be tweaked for what you want it to do! So here are some things to try:

    1) Set the multi-thread thread pool size to fit your machine and needs. It's on the Loom script on the Loom game object (Ruaumoko creates it the first time you run the scene). 32 works great on my quad-core, but lower may be necessary on laptops. The smaller the pool the fewer the things that will run simultaneously, but also the fewer updates for Unity to deal with in the scene. This could greatly reduce frame rate issues.
    2) if you don't need tangents for your materials (you need them for parallax shaders) then turn off "Generate Tangents"
    3) if you don't need normals (as is in radiantboy's textures), or if lower quality is ok, then set the "Gutter Size" lower. The gutter around each world block ensures smooth texture matching and lighting between blocks. Set it lower to improve performance.
    4) Set the terrain resolution to match your game. If you want higher rez (more subdivisions per cell) decrease the Scale of your terrain object. If you can handle lower rez (fewer subdivisions) increase the scale (say 3x3x3 for example). Also the "Block Size" can improve frame rates–8 is good for real-time sculpting, but 16 could be better for big worlds.
     
    radiantboy likes this.
  28. radiantboy

    radiantboy

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    It has been quite a while, I remember there were jerks back in the day and you said maybe you could convince unity to do something that would allow it to be smoother. Just wondering if any of this happened? I am back to using this awesome asset :)
     
  29. radiantboy

    radiantboy

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    Thanks for the tips, I will try them out!!..