3DForge Exteriors

Cobus,

I really like that HD screenshot. Your support for the products you provide is second to none.

Just a question as well. Since the village exteriors came out the Cave adventure kit just doesn't look as right to me. I mean when used together. I am no expert so feel welcome to educate me. It's just the cave adventure kit I have doesn't seem to me to fit as well now. I tried placing some buildings and stone and wooden bridges into the cave demo scene 1 as a test. Is there any way to modify it or change some visual settings so it feels like an extension of the exteriors kit?

Have not felt the same problem exists with the TAD Sewers kit. It's just the Cave kit.

Thanks

 

@docsavage
I will test this out myself sometime.
Are you using it for Top Down of FPS, just want to know so that when I get time to test, I can get as close to your usage scenario as possible to try pick up what you are referring to.

The Cave Adventure kit comes with normals as well, so there should be a visual similarity rather

Cheers
Cobus

 

On late shift bottle feeding my youngest so just had a further play about with trying to match the exteriors and cave adventure kits. I think the main things that I am not sure about are the stalactites and stalacmites. Also the terrain on the exteriors kit seems better to the cave kit and I think this is making a difference. Although I wouldn't take my word for it though as it may be just me. Either way they are all things that are easy workarounds. So I wouldn't worry you with it.

Thanks anyway

 

@docsavage
Cool, that is awesome, I have two sons, 9 & 13, was Father's Day here in South Africa today, went trout fishing.
Was a great day spending some quality time with family and bottle feeding is where it all starts

I checked quickly
Cave Adventure Kit terrain textures 512 x 512
Village Exteriors Kit terrain Textures 1024 x 1024

So I think that is where you maybe noticing a difference
Don't mix the different resolution textures or play around with scale setting on them to try get them closer.

Cheers
Cobus

 

This is what I've been talking about when I mention the Cave Adventure Kit, Cobus. Really, in order to have a complete game and to keep up the look and feel, it is going to be difficult not to include props from the kits in the same scene. So if the region is dwarven, bridges within the cave would be similar to bridges outside the cave within their village.

Totally agree with @docsavage on the stalagmites and stalactites. I'm wondering if it is the 512x512 textures that is giving a cartoony feel? Is that the main difference with the interiors pack, converting from 512x512 to 1024x1024? If so, I would love to see what that would do with the Cave Adventure System models.

 

Fathers day here as well

Sounds like you had a great day. Being a parent is a lot of work but wouldn't swap it for anything. They are my massive little blessings.

Will take your advice.

Now enjoy the rest of your day (isn't it really late there now?) and don't worry about us lot

 

@Shawn67 agreed, will revisit that at a later stage

The current list of tasks is the HD for the Village Interiors Kit,
Then onto the FREE Updates on the Village Exteriors Kit roadmap

Cheers
Cobus

 

Heheh... We have to keep your list growing.. Need to add some more village kits in that roadmap to sell too.. We all love the free updates, but understand that ya gotta be able to eat and feed the fam too..

 

@Shawn67

Oh I love all the request and package suggestions, but trust me, there are some very fun non-exteriors package in the pipeline with no shortage of ideas. If I could clone 10 of me I would be able to keep all 10 VERY busy

And you are spot on there. 3DForge has proven it's commitment on Updating and improving it's packages.
That will always happen, but there will always be a balance between new stuff and FREE Updates.
Just doing FREE does not pay the bills.

Cheers
Cobus

 

@S4G4N I am using your Interiors Kit extensively at the moment, I have made my own prefabs and scenes with them. I'm excited by these updates but also cautious, will I be able to update the kit (when it is done) and just replace materials on the interiors with new and it will work fine or do you foresee problems? Will the HD asset materials/textures be interchangeable with what I have currently got?

 

Hi @kittik

Welcome to the thread, there is nothing to worry about.
I am not deleting or removing any current data at all.

I am adding diffuse maps and normal maps that are double the size,
so all those floor textures for instance are 512x512, I am adding 1024x01024 diffuse & normals
Same with most of the textures in the package.

When I upload the update I will have the materials setup with Diffuse/Bumped with all the higher quality textures applied, but it will really take only a few minutes to change it to the current texture size.

The new materials will have the same names + _hd & _n at the end added, so in the texture list it will be right next to the current ones.

I am sure you will find this in order, I tell you, it does make a very nice difference with the few that has been done and tested.

Cheers
Cobus

 

Hi @kittik

Please take not, just something silly, but they will be double in dimensions, meaning 4X the file size of current files
The current tile-able floor textures are +- 600kb, they will then be +- 2.4mb so the memory footprint is a good bit larger.
Maybe if you working for mobile you will still keep using the current, otherwise if for Deskptop the HD double size ones

Cheers
Cobus

 

@S4G4N thank you for both replies. I am making a game for PC and am really pleased with the changes to the textures. When I have something more exciting to reveal about my project I'll be sure to inform you.

 

@kittik

Even for users that are right now working on their projects that are mobile,
this will be a great UPGRADE for future usage of the interiors and so much more extend the life and value of the $'s spent on the Village Interiors Kit.
Same with the Village Exteriors Kit, even as is, but further when you have a couple of FREE Updates, the package is going to explode with contents.

btw, I really like your signature, extremely simple but also very complex in may ways

 

Hi,

First bunch of 2X textures done

All floor textures:
- fi_village_floor_stone01_hd.png
- fi_village_floor_stone02_hd.png
- fi_village_floor_stone03_hd.png
- fi_village_floor_stone04_hd.png
- fi_village_floor_stone05_hd.png
- fi_village_floor_wood01_hd
- fi_village_floor_wood02_hd
- fi_village_floor_wood03_hd
- fi_village_floor_wood04_hd

Main Walls:
- fi_village_walls_hd

Cheers
Cobus

 

Then it's on to adding the extra meshes to work with the exteriors kit, and then something else, and so on

*cracks whip behind Cobus in a futile attempt to get him to work faster*

 

@smada luap , you are right, all the compatibility items

 

Is this what you are referring to? I made some adjustments to the 1024 textures in the Cave Moss kit for this picture. When I upscaled to 2k I could not get the resolution to look correctly without a lot of layer fidgeting. Here is what I came up with for the 1024 stuff. Definitely much less 'cartoony' and looks creepy in low light. I started on the black one and the gem ore with pretty good results.

Changed Shader to Standard Specular (Unity 5)
1) Reduced HSL Saturation for a more rocky mossy look.
2) Added AO with a desaturated texture then some brightness and contrast adjustments.
3) Made a new Normal Map that is more adjustable and detail.
4) Specular set to 15,15,15

 

Hi Olander,

Thanks for your time working on the cave kit look.

I will try using the method you describe to see if it helps. It's not urgent for my current project but may be an issue in one of my other projects I have planned although at the rate everything's taking me Cobus and his great great grandchildren will be doing a 4K not HD texture update on all his packs

 

HAHA, both my sons love what I do, so no problem, I have long term plans hehehe

 

Just wanted to take a moment to post a screen I posted on Twitter a few days ago.



The goal here is to create some sort of canal/dock area. It's going to take a lot more work than I had hoped, but I think the early results are pretty good. Gonna spend some time with this over the next couple of days and I'll see about posting some results over the weekend.

 

@EDarkness thanks for showing your work here,
I am hard at work with the Village Interiors Kit HD texture update.
Then when that is done, I am onto the first FREE Update for this.

Can not wait, will have to see what gets done, but harbor type prefabs, new textures and all tat will most certainly be coming your way

 

Hi everyone,

This is regarding the Village Interiors Kit HD update that is in progress

Just thought I quickly show the difference from current to 2 X the resolution
The AFTER one, makes the before look very much out of focus.
So the Improvement is big and very noticable

Please note: This is diffuse only, so the Normals and ao maps that also get added is going to make it even look way better.

BEFORE


AFTER


Cheers
Cobus

 

*insert draw dropping smiley here*

 

Are we there yet ?

 

I think this is a great addition to be interiors as you can use occlusion culling that will help o my draw the objects the camera sees. Thank goodness unity gave that to the free devs in version 5.

 

Trying to build an outside cathedral / temple and can't do it yet. I did notice the windows will probably have to be tweaked the stain glass is really bright outside in all lighting conditions.

 

@S4G4N : Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere in the thread, but... are there any plans to address the issue of the "mismatch" between types & colors of walls available in interiors package vs types of walls available in exteriors package?

@smada luap : Had a look at your InsideOutside Switcher package, and though I have not tested it yet, it seems like it would be subject to the same problems I encountered with a similar setup a while back... namely that a player that stops immediately after/on top of the point where OnTriggerEnter is triggered, can go back outside without ever triggering OnTriggerExit... meaning, the roof/floors above player can get hidden even though player remains outside the building. Ever experienced this?

 

@TommyT
The very much anticipated Castles & Cathedrals FREE Update will be filling that gap.
The glass would be a separate material so the users can add and do their own designs and then use these or the supplied ones and play around with whatever custom shader they might want like self-emissive or translucency ...

@Xoduz
That is the reason for the current HD Update that I am completing before I am onto the FREE Update roadmap for the Village Exteriors Kit

The Village Interiors Kit textures are half the resolution size of the Exteriors and they will match what is on the Exteriors.

That is the reason no Village Interiors Kit BLUEPRINTS has been done yet.
The moment the HD Update is done, I will do and release Blueprints for the Village Interiors Kit as well as BLUEPRINTS for the Village Interiors + Village Exteriors Kit, so nice completed Houses, Shops, Inns .... as completed buildings

The results are looking very good so far

 

@Xoduz yup. It does have that problem at the moment and if I can figure out a solution I'll post an updated version

 

I tried building it with single roof pieces but it's 6 wide so we'll need some kind of new roofs as the peak gets really steep. Plus it's hard to align all the pieces even with snapping on. I suspect we'll get some cool roof shapes for it. We also could use a 1 x 1 and maybe a 2 x 2 square roof pieces.

 

@TommyT
I am on one of the first updates expanding on some of the less used roof parts, but will keep en eye out for what kind of parts users are asking for.
So the Updates will be theme specific but then also address the non themed parts.

So even though the Update might be a "City Walls Kit" addition, I will add and flesh out all the other sections with extras

 

The building trigger must have a heartbeat on it. A 5 second HB would be fine. Could be a Pseudo HB (one that runs when someone has entered the trigger) or simply use the delta time and subtract 5.000 when it is >= to 5.000 then do the checks. If a player object is not in the trigger clear the cache and enable the render. fairly straight forward.

 

This is assuming the building trigger covers the entire floor of the building, yeah? How would you check if the player object is still in the trigger or not, once the HB occurs?

I currently do have a working setup for this myself, but using a slightly different (and possibly more hackish) method that does not rely on any timers or heartbeats. Each building has multiple trigger zones, where each zone covers the current floor plus any floors above it (and optionally having multiple zones per floor).

Basically the zones are "cumulative" and entering floor 1, 2 and then 3 of a building means the player is actually inside trigger zones for all three floors at the same time, only leaving each zone when going down from one floor to the next below, finally leaving the first floor zone only when exiting the building itself.

I control which floors (and objects on each floor) the player can see through layermasks set upon OnTriggerEnter and OnTriggerExit, and keep track of which floor the player is on at any given time through a variable in a script attached to the player, which is updated whenever the player enters or leaves a trigger zone.

Ah, this is turning into a thread derail. Sorry, @S4G4N !

 

@Xoduz NP, it is related in it's own way, soon I will have more to show myself

 

The first world's landscape is just about set, now I just need to build the settlements Time for some experimenting with the kit

 

Right. Not meaning to derail the thread but it is related since many will do Top Down with this stuff.

@Xoduz My code for this is really large to do a lot of other things....so no posting, sorry. You seem to be on the right track but just need a Building Controller to handle all the data. To help out please do the following.....

To set this up properly you need an Empty game object (_BuildingController). This will hold all your information on that Building 'Network'. Now each Floor Level will need to 'Talk' or gather information from the Parent Game Object (the Empty _BuildingController). Now if any of those triggers (Building Parts) are entered they Update their Status and the Object that Entered them to the Parent Empty. The Parent Empty will then update each Child Building Part to be Rendered or not. The code is not difficult and caching the Empty in each of the Children is simple to establish good communication between all building objects.....the Player will be considered a Building Object while inside a building.

OnTriggerEnter, OnTriggerStay, OnTriggerExit are all what you need.

For a 3DForge Interior and Exterior it simply needs to have a Property (Variable) to set that level to which level it is in a HB script. The Empty Parent controls which levels need to be rendered based upon Reverse Order. The current prefabs can be updated with this feature (I still believe any prefabs already placed would need to be manually updated...not entirely certain on this with new Unity updates).

 

@smada luap Great Look. well done on the landscaping.

 

Thanks.

Will probably spend around 10x the amount of time populating this with all the houses, etc. that I did putting this landscape together

Should be fun though. Then it'll be on to the next world as this one's only a 1000x1000 unity terrain

 

@smada luap What water are you using?

 

That's unity's water4 with most of the mesh displacement options tuned down in the shader

 

I didn't realize it had shoreline foam. I could never get it to look like that. I guess I'll mess around with it some more.

 

Let me jump into Unity and try and get a snapshot of the shader settings

 

Here's the snapshot. As far as I can remember the only values I've changed are in the dotted area

 

Thanks. I have been playing around with it all morning. Might have something that works. Water is just soooo difficult to get looking right. Heh, heh.

 

I hope he's really good at holding his breath whilst examining the bridge supports

Probably not usually the angle you'll see the modular bridges from this pack. It certainly won't be for me

 

Cobus has already seen this one (from a private chat) but his idea to create a blueprints section certainly helps to plan out a layout for a village rather quickly. These were literally placed within about a minute to give a small community feel (although I do think the two on the left aren't dirty enough so they may get swapped out )

 

Hey everyone,

Some test screens, no post processing, just standard drop textures in and check how they look
And man o man, how do they look

Current as is


NEW TXTURES



Cheers
Cobus

 

Wow! That is a massive improvement in quality. Can't wait for the update.

 

The difference is quite amazing. Those are still the old meshes as well. Look at the detail in the third pic. As well as look at the way the light naturally plays with the textures and ambiance. And the stone/wood looks real.