Environment Gator

IMPORTANT !!
The Environment Gator is no longer available on the Asset Store since i´m working on a brand new asset that will replace it !!

!! This version of the Environment Gator (v6.0) and the Audio Gator(v1.0) asset are going to be release for FREE soon !!

Not sure if using the Asset Store or if I'll put them as a direct download on my website.




Environment Gator v6 for Unity Personal & Pro Edition.

Details and Support @
Environment Gator Website
SixTeenLeft.com​

What is that ?
The Environment Gator( EG) is a fully programmable environment manager and generator. Create, program, sync, all the environmental aspects of a Unity's scene according to current Time and Weather conditions.



Integrates all the major Unity 5 features

Enhanced Day-Night cycle system and Time generation

Enhanced Weather System

Program and handle 6 Sky-Box modes

• Solid Color
  
• Procedural
  
• 1xCubeMap
  
• 2xCubeMaps
  
• 3xCubeMaps
  
• Experimental
  • Simple
    
  • Advanced

Rendering options
Linear / Gamma Color Space, Deferred / Forward rendering , HDR , probes interaction.

Static and Dynamic Scenes
Chances of having dynamic scenes, static or a mix of the two.

Powerful Ambience Audio Manager ( Audio Gator )
Use all the power of the new audio API with the new internal audio manager.

Events Manager
Programmable Internal Events system according to Time and Weather.

Particle Systems manager

Presets System

Super easy via scripts interaction

Post-Processing stack and Legacy Image FX integration

Powerful custom Editor

Originals, dedicated assets

Support & frequent updates

& more...

Notes:
Since I always forget to update the open topic every time,
please follow the Dev-Log on the website or in subsequent topics.

Best Regards,

 

Hi Stefano

Very nice , looks promising
do you use textures for your Clouds ?
or do you generate dynamic clouds.

Thanks

Norby

 

Hi Norby,
thank you!

In this very first release, all the clouds are ' just '... textures. ( Also the PerlinClouds are based on textures* ). Three different types of clouds ( flat, volumetric, perlin ) are handled by the EG at runtime. Even if this system produces nice skies (imo), i'm working at the new clouds system. I'd love to have a texture-free system, or at least a 50% - 50% one, in future releases.

Best Regards,
Stefano.

*
New textures for the perlinClouds are coming soon. ( i know, the current ones are...let's say not so fascinating ! )
Users could even make their own textures and use them in the system.

 

This looks awesome! I've been thinking about buying a new weather/time plugin to replace Unistorm, which is nice but not flexible enough for what I'm trying to do. Yours looks like it is much more flexible and easier to extend. I suggest getting a web demo up! I'm close to throwing my money at you but would like to actually see it in action in a web player first.

 

Hi,

thanks!! I totally agree with you about the webdemo, and i'm already working on it. The problem is that there are a lot of assets involved in the component but i want to keep the demo size suitable for the web player. Anyway, if I fail, we will still have a web-demo, just huge.

Regards,
Stefano.

 

Looks very interesting, reminds me a bit of GTA 5 skies, since they also use real skies unlike other solutions in the asset store.
Like makeshiftwings said, i also want to see it in real time with a web player.

Can you say the performance hit this system makes?

 

Are future upgrades/updates free if I purchase this asset now? I would like to purchase and test current version but also have future updates.

 

Hi,

Uao,thank you, maybe it's a bit too much,i mean GTA, but thank you!
The web demo will be a priority during next period.
As for the performances, the system is very flexible, and although it is desktop oriented, disabling some features, and reducing the number of clouds inside an ACF, we will be able to achieve very good results in terms of draw calls and fps.

There's a brief talk about performances inside the UserDoc.

Sure, you will buy it once . Future updates , till the end of the 2.0 devCycle are included.
Soon i' ll post a public semi-official roadMap for updates.

Regards,
Stefano.

 

Looks good, in there a realistic starmap implemented.
Would love to have stars showing in correct postions depending on time and date.
Would allow for navigation via celestial methods in game.

EDIT: Purchased, look forward to where this product goes.

 

Hi Stefano,

your work seem really interesting.
I hope to see soon a video or a web demo.

Keep up the good work!
Stefano

 

yeap interested, but waiting for webplayer demo

 

I bought the asset and I really like the looks of the atmosphere but I'm taking a huge hit on FPS. Can you elaborate on the necessary settings to achieve a minimal performance hit while maintaining scene fidelity?

 

Hi to all,

and thanks, i really appreciate.

The demoScene was optimized to run on a mid-range modern machine. In fact it includes a very simple sky ( few clouds ) and an overall mid-quality. Let's say an I5 with a GT520m runs it at 60+Fps.

-Wrong Layers configuration could cause a frames drop. Please, be sure to perform it before enter Play mode.
-Have you noticed if the fps drop occurs when the weather is overcast?
In case, please try to reduce the amount of particles emitted by the EGCVol ( volumetric clouds that you found inside the ACF_SW_Final prefab ). It sounds complicated but is not. I' ll glad to help you in the process if u need.
-Please try to disable the terrain and look if the fps drop occurs.

Edit: @Kerry ( check your PM ): Also the position of the terrain could cause the issue, due to the fact that the EG needs to be spawned at 0,0,0. ( currently tracking this issue )

Edit:

The demo is coming soon. I know, i'll try to hurry.

I'll be back soon with some important infos and next release ( 1.25 ) features.

Best Regards,
Stefano.

 

Hi,
first of all i want to thank you guys for the amazing and inspiring support !!
Very interesting ideas and suggestions are coming from the users, that's great!
This way will be easier for me to keep on with the development of the component in the right direction. thx!!

Now a Brief Update.
I'm currently working at the vers#1.24 ( minor update ), it's all about tracking issues and assets refinement ( i.e. Perlin Clouds Textures ).
Tracking
Editor Labels width 'on resize' issue. That's annoying, i think i've found a workaround but it will take some time, because i need to rework all the editor. For the moment, please report "strange" Editor's behaviours here.
Tmp workarounds:
- Try to dock the inspector on full Right, resize it ( to the right ) using the divider between the inspector and the game/scene view, till it shows up properly.
- Undock the Inspector
Next Release
The next release should be 1.25, but if the 1.24 will grow as a major update, it will be released first. I'll have a release date after the demo release.
Demo Release Live Documentation
I'm really focused on the demo release, i hope to have it ready for this week.
This is also why the live documentation will be not updated in the next 3/4 days.( sry )
I'm also working at a new support page on my website to have a much more organic and organized documentation with new examples, tutorials, and "How To?" section.

 

Good work !

Seems to be a nice asset

 

Thank you Napster!!

The Demo is almost ready, i think i'll be able to release it a bit earlier. It will not be so exhaustive in this early version, i don't want to spend too much time on it, i think it will be enough for a demonstration. I'm building a rough menu right now, some final tests, tomorrow, and it should be ready.

 

Hi,

the webPlayer demo is online!!

EG1.24f_WebDemo

Edit:
If your browser looks stucked with a black screen, minimize ( aKa refresh ) his window. I've noticed this only on Chrome, sometimes.

Regards,

 

Nice demo! I like it. I did have some questions:

In the demo, the sky seems to be brighter and more orange on the left and right edges of the screen, but when you turn to look at it, it becomes darker and more blue. So no matter where you're looking, it's always darker and blue in the center of the screen and brighter and orange on the edges. Is that intentional? It looks weird in my opinion, like there's something wrong with my character's eyes.

Are the sound effects in the demo included with the kit?

Is it possible to modify the atmospheric scattering to get very exaggerated red/orange/purple sunrises and sunsets but a normal blue sky during the rest of the day?

 

Hi,

i'm glad you like it.

Yep, nice catch!!
What you've noticed is not an intentional effect, is actually a mistake i made, setting the fog in the demo scene !! shame on me!
I will fix it in the next demo, thanks!

The Atmospheric Scattering system is pretty flexible and includes HDR Exposure,Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering.
You can also set his parameters as dynamics according to current Weather condition.


For more extreme ( aKa not realistic ) effects, you could try with the atmospheric scattering and if it's not enough you can use the EGSky mode that is not so precise and realistic like the AS but it worth a try, trust me!
You will have much more control on the sky colors with that solution.Take a look in the userDoc, i've tried to briefly explain differences between the twos.

The sounds are included. They belong to the first sound package that comes for free with the vers#1.23.
I' ll release several asset's packages ( textures,audio,particles sys) to use with the EG. Depending on their complexity some will be included in next releases for free, others will ship as separate products.

Regards,

 

please change demo to allow us to pick the weather we would like and then play it...

thanks in advance!

clear
light snow
heavy snow
light rain
heavy rain
light wind
heavy wind
partly cloudy
thundering/lightening
etc

 

Hi,

actually is already implemented, i mean,even if it is randomize for demo purposes, you can choose different weather at start. The "question" is that, since the Seasons are static in this version of the demo ( it's Winter time ), it will be hard ( but not impossible ) to have a rainy day ( depending on Temperatures ). In the next demo i'll add more features and interactions but i'm sure you will understand that i'd like to focus on the component development and support first.
I think that the next demo will be released soon after the next update ( 1.25 ).

If i'll get spare time i'll put the Seasons option before the 1.25 release, but i can't promise.

Regards,

 

Hi to all,

the provider of my website has registered an explosion in the amount of traffic, maybe due to people that are downloading the demo ( thx!!), so my website is struggling , at the moment. I've already used the magic words : " How much more i have to pay to remove the traffic limit ? ", so things should be better in the next 24 hours.

Sorry about that.

Best Regards,

 

Hi to all,

After one week since release, the development of the next update (1.25) is going on well, also thanks to you guys.
Here it is a brief look at what's going on.
There's a new cool (imho) feature for ambience sounds : Zones. Now the EGSoundsManager can handle different audio clips for different zones in our scene/level/environment .

DevLog :

1.24 - Added New PerlinClouds Texture
1.24 - Fixed: GDome smoothly resized at start.
1.24f - WebPlayer Demo Released.
1.24f - Updating Documentation and support page.
1.24v - Enhanced EGSoundsManager : Added EGAudioZones
Now it's possible to set audio zones in our scene/level/environment in order to have different ambience sounds according to our scene/level/environment ' s design. We can choose between 4 different audio clips for Day time and 4 different audio clips for Night time. Everything will be handled at runtime by the EG as usual. No limit on audio zones number. Since we are now able to have more sounds, we need more sounds!
1.24v - Enanched EGAudioForestPack#1 : New sound clips for a total of 11 Ambience sounds, 4 Thunder sounds.(HiQ *.wav files )
1.24v - Tracking: Editor Labels Width on resize issue

-- end DevLog -- Updating...


Keep an eye on this topic or on my website to receive news (aKa ETA) on the next release.

EGAudioZones​

Best Regards,

 

I am interested in using gator. I have sent you a private message about this. I have noticed you had a competition running. Is this still the case?

I do have a rather exciting project that is going to be making use of AAA quality kits like relief terrain pack and terrain composer.

 

I am preparing a better example than that, its just a start....

 

great stuff. Can work with mobile device?

 

Hi, i've answered you via-email so that we can keep this topic as clean as possible for change-logs and support only.
Thank you.

thx!!
The component is oriented to desktop applications for the moment. Actually i have not really tested it on mobile. What i can tell you is that, reducing a bit the quality and the number of the objects on screen, we could reach low draw Calls's number at runtime and smooth performances also on very low-end machines.

Regards,

 

When i select light rain in the web demo, i get snowfall, is this supposed to happen?
What about the seasons, do you have "fixed" named seasons or can they be dynamic using as an example a yearly temperature curve that decides if its going to rain or snow?

 

Hi,

yes it is supposed to happen, due to the web-demo limit, that has been set on Winter time. The EG can handle seasonal temps, we can choose a range and the current weather and forecast weather will adjust accordingly. The EG will also adjusts Temps with slight changes according to Forecast- Temps, so that every day could be slight different. Could also happen that the Rain becomes Snow during the the Day-Night cycle and viceversa.




Regards,

 

Hmm, i suspected you had fixed seasons implemented as most other systems.
One idea could be to instead of having fixed seasons you could specify a curve that would specify how your year will look like. This way its very easy to customize the seasons the way you want and the temperature will drive the seasons as irl instead of the opposite : )

Looks like a very good system, thinking about buying it, but i have some special season/temperature needs for my project : p

 

Just put your demo on google drive link to it, works great for my website demos traffic gets high.

Anyway I bought this for my fishing simulation. Looks good, just setting it up.

I've dragged the EGReal prefab in to my scene after setting up the layers. When I hit play or hit check set I receive this error:

 

Hi Virror,
your idea about using a curve for seasonal's temps is very interesting. I put it on the planned features list.


@ Derkoi.
Hi, i'm sorry about that. Actually i'm not able to reproduce the error, but i've noticed some strangeness inside the EGReal prefab right now.
This prefab was build to demonstrate how to set a huge world using the EGSky mode ( a flat world without Atmospheric scattering ), and it should not be picked until the ( upcoming ) crash course on how to set up a big scene. Anyway, i'll investigate the issue, what is important now is to check if you get errors also with the EGBlank or the EGDemoFinal prefabs!? Please, let me know.

The update 1.25 is almost ready, i just need to refine the new sounds's loops and some final tests. I'm already struggling with the editor labels issue, is going on well but i need to rework the editor, i mean, also the design of it. What makes me crazy at the moment is the behaviour of EditorGUILayout and GUILayout classes, sometimes they act as if they were "broken" and sometimes they work like expected. I'll figure it out!

Regards,

 

So I'm thinking about purchasing this asset (although I can't get the web demo to work consistently).

Can you answer a few questions:

First, how does this compare to UniStorm? Are you aware of that? It seems to be your only competing product.

Second, how taxing is this on your FPS? I'm very interested in the full weather / day-night management, but curious as to what kind of performance issues I'll be facing.

Third, does this handle things like wind gusts and lightning?

Thank you in advance.

 

I don't like to talk about other similar packages, what i know is that there are a lot of good packages on the store and that i must keep the level high, if i want to compete.

The impact the system have on FPS is low ( talking about desktop oriented development ) . The component is scalable in its features and quality of the assets so that a good compromise could be found. There's a brief talk about performances inside the userDoc.

For the Wind i'm trying differents methods, since WindZones in Unity are not so flexibles. I'm currently working on it.

The system has his own Thunders/Lightning system with dynamic sounds based on the distance at which the T/L occurs. We could also decide their spawn frequency. For the moment the gameObject that spawns thunders is made using a line render but i'm not happy with the visual result and performances, so i'm working on a new shader to generate much more eye candy T/Ls at the cost of 1 or 2 drawCalls.



Regards,

 

Hi,
the first update of the component (1.25) has been released!!!

ChangeLog:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from-->1.23
1.24 Perlin Clouds Assets Rework&Refinement
1.24 Minor fixes. GDome smoothly resize at start.
1.24 Childrens follow EG. Now all the Childrens will spawn with the EnvGat transform as reference.
1.24 EGSoundsManager: Now handles EGAudioZones.
1.24 Reworked StarsGator particle system settings.
1.24 Removed: EGReal prefab
1.24 Start time at 18 now works properly.
--------
1.25 EGAudioPack#1 Enhanced
1.25 CrashCourseOne updated with the new audio features section.
1.25 Minor fixes. ( performance related )
1.25 Updated Documentation Support Page
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please, if you have already started a project with the EG, make a backUp copy or use some sort of safe-mode approach, before the update. Nothing should break during the update , but you know, a bit of paranoia sometimes helps, just a bit!

Now i will speed up with documentation and tutorials.
The 1.26 dev will begin in about a week.

Best Regards,

 

Hi,

I've got good news about the CustomEditor's labels and fields issue.

The GUIUtility and EditorGUIUtility classes has been helpful.

I'll include the new editor in 1.26 but if someone wants to get the fix first, send me an email, i'll send you back the Link to download the new Editor's scripts. To fix it, just import the package inside any projects that includes the EG.

I'm working at the new Thunders/Lightning system.


the 1.26 should be ready sooner than thought.

Regards,

 

Looks great. I haven't bought this yet but i'm definitely considering. I'm just making an informed decision first.

I have some questions about the rain, i know i could make it myself but yours look really nice.
What are you using to make that rain? Shuriken particles?
How about collisions with colliders? These kind of collisions with alot of particles can cause many performance issues.
If the player/camera is moving fast, will we continue to see the rain? (some rain particle systems function with a spawn area above the player and if the player moves fast, then it's possible the rain will not appear in front of the camera).

Could you make a small video showing the light rain and heavy rain?

Sorry for all the questions xD, just want to see this part in action since the webplayer only produces snow.

 

Hi,
thank you.

Precipitations, assets and features, are one of the 'big reworks planned'. Yes, rain and snow come from Shuriken and collisions are made via a sub-emitter and are adjusted inside the particle system so that they will be not frames's killers.

Right now you can see the rain/snow, if you don't move way too fast, even if the effect sometimes is more like a WarpDrive than a "i'm running through water" fx, it's not so bad. I'm already dealing with this, experimenting different solutions.

I'll make a quick video asap !


Regards,

 

Heres the first screen shot of my world. I am hoping to use Gator with this project. More to come........

View attachment 85623

 

I just downloaded this and I'm very impressed! I did have a question: is there a way to get the sun's directional light's intensity higher during the day? I set the "Intensity Max" on the satellite component to 1, and it looks like it fades linearly from like 0.2 at sunrise to 1 at noon and then back down to 0.2 at sunset. It looks weird; I would prefer if the brightness was at almost max and mostly stable from around an hour after sunrise to an hour before sunset. Once the sun is up, brightness doesn't change that drastically in real life, it stays fairly constant. Is there a way to set a curve or something to make it brighter for more of the day?

 

Hi,
thx!!

There is something you could do, let's say a temporary workaround. Inside the EnvironmentGator.cs script there's a variable that is not exposed (not even as property) for the moment. Actually the one you could tweak is not a var, it's a parameter passed to the AdjustLighting ( bool brighten,float smoothModifier) method. This is a modifier that regulates the speed of the light intensity according to the TimeOfDay, it's a bit complicated to explain all the code here, but what you can do is to speed up or slow down the light intensity changes. i.e. If you speed up the LightInt during morning time, it should reach his maxLvL sooner and "should" stay stable till noon time.

That's the portion of code to have a look at:



Since that the higher the modifier the slower the Light-Intensity, try to find a lower percentage for the modifier.

smoothModifier = FindPercentage (smoothMod, *//a lower number here");

I told you, it is more a workaround, since i'm experimenting with curves in many aspects of the component, soon we should have even more surgical controls.

Let me know if you need any help, or if you find a better "temporary" solution.

Have a nice day.


Regards,

 

Hi,
i'm happy to announce that the 1.26 version of the EG is almost ready.

Let's see what has changed.

As already announced, the EG's custom editor will resize properly in every situation.


A brand new ThunderLightning system has been introduced. The thunders/lightnings ( TL ) will be generated according to current weather, distance from the player and also according to some settings that we can enter in the EGTLSystem’s inspector. We can choose to spawn the EGTL_ONE (the new lightning gameObject ) or our own favourite lightning prefab.



Clouds assets are always under development, i'm always trying new techniques for textures, especially the Perlin clouds's textures, as well as for the next shader which i'm working on. This time I made ​​some exciting changes and I think that, with this update, we will have/see significant improvements.(imho)



Sore point: the documentation.
Guys, i'm so hard working at it. I've already started to adjust the current doc, i'm working at a more readable one.
The problem is that the EG does so many things!
The Video-Tutorials will be a good way to go quick, but again they take time to be recorded and adjusted and..
Please be patient for a while and feel free to ask me everything about the component.
I hope to be able to submit the #1.26 during the week ( weekend most probably ).


P.S.
for the guy that was happy to help me with documentation.
My email is here around, everywhere. thx!


Best Regards,

 

Sounds pretty exciting. Nothing can add to a dramatic scene like good old thunder, lightning and heavy rain.

 

Looking forward to the update, it's looking great.
I purchased Environment Gator yesterday but haven't implemented it in my game yet, i'll post some screenshots when i implement it

PS: That rain and thunder look phenomenal.

 

Great looking asset - definetely gonna buy this next pay day
Pardon my noobness but I tried to browse documentation but couldnt find
how to hook up time of day to custom script. In example if I want to my AI to be in certain places according time of day.
Also how temperature is handled, is it public variable I can easily call from my custom script so I can use temperature to affect my player character condition

 

Ifind myself on pins waiting for this updated version. It looks truly awesome

 

Hey,
thank you all!!

Virtually all of the important variables are exposed through properties or are static or public (not for long). Have a look at the script EnvG_GUI.cs to see some examples of how to access to them.

EnvironmentGator.cs
AtmosGator.cs

Regards,

 

Out of interest, can time of day, temperature, weather type etc be set from another script? I am making an mmo you see and would ideally like the weather to be synced

 

I've been looking at this asset for a few weeks now, and I'm liking it more and more. I especially like the fact that the developer seems very responsive. Kudos. My question is, does this package do realistic lighting... most specifically, does it do GodRays? (volumetric lighting), and lens flares with the sun element?

Also, does it handle fog?

Thanks in advance. I'm on the verge of buying this over another similar asset, and am having a difficult time deciding.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi, I gave that a try and it sort of works but causes a new problem. If I lower the smooth modifier in the first if clause, I can indeed get the intensity to go up to max much faster after sunrise, but then right after noon, the intensity drops back down to half just as quickly, which means the whole second half of the day is pretty dark. I tried increasing the values in the else clauses since I assumed those represented afternoon and evening but it didn't seem to have an effect. I think what would look best is if you only change the intensity during the Sunrise and Sunset stages. Once the sunrise is over and the sky is blue, the intensity should stay at max until dusk when the sky starts turning dark. And the intensity should never be too low during sunrise or sunset, because that causes you to have no shadows, and the long shadows during a sunrise and sunset are part of what make them look so dramatic.