Snowscape: Realtime snow environment pack.

Introducing Snowscape 1.0 to The Asset Store.

http://u3d.as/content/ashnfara/snowscape/224

Play The Snowscape Demo - Click Here.​

Features included:

• Snow Accumulation Shader (SM2.0).
• Optimized Snow-Mound Deformation Plowing.
• Surface-Normal Accurate Footprints.
• Central Effects' Control Script.
• Fully Configured Demo Scene.
• For Windows and OS X.
• For Indie and Pro.
• Simple Modular Design, Easily Imported.
• Commented Code Detailed Instructions.

Available on The Unity Asset Store. Please don't hesitate to ask any questions. The Snow Accumulation Shader and Deformer do not work with Unity's built-in Terrain, they only work with meshes. Please be patient with the Demo Scene, it takes a couple of minutes for the snow to really accumulate, and a couple more minutes for its depth to increase.
The speed, and occurrence of all effects are easily controlled with 2 or 3 static variables.

​

 

That is looking great and i can see my foot steps too

 

Thanks Stolley! I need to add a couple of finishing touches before I submit this. Namely, the footprints need to fade away, instead of just abruptly de-rezing, and there will be sound effects as well, like snow crunching under foot, and shuffling through deep piles of snow.
Hopefully you lot won't find too many problems with the webplayer, but I am looking forward to fixing anything.

 

How was the performance M_Stolley?

 

On my 2006 iMac it was fluid in the browser.

 

Very nice! Can well on my 4 gig pc.

 

Cool shader interpolation One thing you may want to try is a blurring step on the snow layer, to fuzz the edges.

 

Looks very impressive. Nice work.

 

Thanks guys. Xenoargh, thats a good idea, i have no idea how to blur efficiently, though I'll investigate it. The very reason that this type of alpha masking effect works is because it makes hard edges from color levels. Blurring the textures would just make less level range, thus choppier ans splotchier "accumulation". Is there a shader function to blur cut-outs?

Edit:Edge Blurring, in Unity Pro can achieve that softening effect. Snowscape is intended to work on both indie and pro equally, so I'll keep looking.

 

nice one ! i like it but i get low frame rates on a imac i7 , and the particle effects when walking in deep snow could look a bit smoother but overall great work ..will get this when its ready for sure

 

thanks for the comments, I will work on the particles you mentioned. The performance hog is the mesh deformer, and there isn't much more I can do with that, save performing all the deformation in a shader, on the GPU. The demo scene is deforming about 70K triangles, lower complexity scenes run alot faster. I'm surprised that its slow on your i7 though, Stolley's older imac plays it smoothly.
Oh, a general note of caution- don't use fraps with snowscape. Fraps will grind the fps down, by half or more, I don't now why but maybe its because I'm using the fixed timestamp for deformation performance.

 

Very impressive, great work.

I'd like to integrate this into Unisky when I get a chance, see how it goes, Same for your Rainscape script also.

 

Yeah, that would be awesome iMup! I plan to make one or 2 more environment effects, I'll be keeping Rainscape and Snowscape updated, and you will be able to integrate all 3 or 4 of them together to create detailed weather cycles.

 

This looks great. Love the footsteps. Will the snow settle on the tree?


+1 to working with UniSky.

 

Yep, it will...

 

It would be good idea to put there some framerate counter.

 

wow looks Good.i love the Snow Shader.

 

good idea.

 

Will it be possible to initialize the accumulation level before a scene is loaded, and prevent the delay while the snow falls?

Also, will we be able to stop the accumulation at a certain point if we only want half-snowy areas?

 

Yes and yes. The snow level is based on the alpha value in the shader, set it to what ever you like per material, in the inspector .

 

Very impressive, but I found some glitches:
-footprints appeared mid-jump, and only one foot appeared during landing(as if it were skipping rather than jumping)
-footprint appeared on the rock when there was not snow on it(which also led to floating footprints)
-you can fall out of the map
also it may need sound effects, maybe the footprints should fade away and when you stand still, it should make two footprints, because when I look down, it looks like I'm standing on one leg.
Very nice though and great job!

 

dsdwdf

fixed...

i have the solution, and it will be fixed before release.

i'm not very concerned with the map edges, because this is just a demo scene, for how to set up the various components. If you were making an FPS you could even put a fence around the terrain, and make it an installation of some sort. I'm working on the sound effects,
and you are absolutely right about the one leg thing, i was going for a "Karate Kid" finale-style walk animation. I'll fix everything you mentioned before I submit this to the store. Thanks for your comments!

I plan to submit snowscape 1.0 tomorrow.

 

What about melting? Is it possible?

 

sleglik- Yes, everything is controlled from one variable, multiplied by a time scale variable. The function that handles accumulation of snow, runs in reverse when it is not snowing. Melting occurs as soon as it stops snowing, and you can control the speed at which it melts.

 

So is the accumulation entirely based upon alpha, or does it factor in world normal direction as well?

 

yes, world direction normal is used in the shader to blend surfaces based on their angel towards the sky.

 

Wait until the snow stops, and the scene will melt.
I also reduced the webplayer size significantly, and add some last minute touches. Comments are always appreciated.

Webplayer

 

Sweet! 60 fps all the way... very cool !

 

Very glad to hear that kerters!

 

this submitted yet?

 

I submitted it 2 days ago.

 

Snowscape is Live http://u3d.as/content/ashnfara/snowscape/224

 

Congratulations!

 

Thanks!

 

61 FPS all the time (i know this is limit of webplayer). i7 2600k, geforce 470.

 

Thanks Demostenes!

 

New video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-BQN0bEBH0

 

i am interested in mobile performance of your product

 

I haven't tested it on mobile, but I can tell you right now that the plowing feature will not work on mobile devices. I also know that particle emitters can be a performance drain on mobiles. The shader however should work fine. I will be getting an android lisence soon to develop mobile versions of both snowscape and rainscape. The mobile versions will be included with the current releases.

 

Any way you could bundle a snow shader in that contains the diffuse in it as well underneath the snow? I know it wouldn't really work with your mesh deformation system, but sometimes I get z-sorting issues on complex geometry, and would rather not duplicate meshes in every case. This way it won't interfere with occlusion and light mapping as much too. Great work though.

 

I've been working on that Aron, I'm half way done, so to answer your question... yes I will include a shader which includes the snow-less diffuse texture. In the mean time, I suggest you offset the y position of your snow geometry by a couple hundredths of a fraction.

 

Updated Snowscape to 1.03, now includes a 'single-mesh accumulation shader' in SM2 and SM3 flavors, as requested by Aron Chavez.

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

Hmm, for some reason it displays as having the new shaders in the asset store, but when I import the updated package (and even redownload), there are no new shaders?

 

That's not good, I assure you I uploaded it. Ill figure out what happened, please wait until Sunday and I will personally email you tthe new shader. I'm out of town until Sunday, sorry.

 

I will definitely be buying this!

 

Updated snowscape, again, with the new shaders. Please PM me Aron, with your email address so that I can send you the shader asap.

 

please add a review and or stars if you've purchased Snowscape!

 

I'm considering creating a second demo scene to show off the versatility of Snowscape. You can after all make more than snowy mountain vistas. Any suggestions on what type of scene you all would like to see buried in snow?

 

Well as you know, I sure would like to do a ski hill.
I also gave this a positive review on the asset store, you have been a great help to people who have bought this.