Erosion Brush - a tool to paint terrain with noise and erosion

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A brush tool for creating erosion. It generates an effect of realistic hydraulic action, weathering and sediment under your mouse cursor, setting both heights and terrain textures.

This script is targeted not to make the terrain of your dreams in one click, but to provide the artist with a handy and useful tool. It gives an artist the ability to modify terrain to make it realistically eroded in the places where it is really needed to, leaving all the others untouched. Terrain is edited in Unity without using third-party standalone toolkit; not before creating a location, but while working on it - all this gives the level artist a chance to create amazingly looking scene in a very efficient way.

Links:

• Erosion Brush on Asset Store
• Documentation
• Video tutorial
• Feedback form
  
• Terrain textures used in video (use them for test purposes only)

 

This looks completely brilliant, but assuming it's not yet present, would you e able to add the feature to create maps from elements of the edit? World machine is an amazing terrain tool but much because of its map generation along with its erosion features, being able to get sediment/erosion/flow etc maps would make it perfect for use with RTP's coverage generation

 

Wow, this looks great, nice work.

 

lazygunn, It can paint terrain's splat maps. Splats could be extracted by

Code (CSharp):

1. terrain.terrainData.GetAlphamaps(0, 0, terrain.terrainData.alphamapWidth, terrain.terrainData.alphamapHeight);

and then could be used for any purpose, including converting to textures. Implementing painting directly on textures should not be hard (it is more convenient than splats, actually) and I can do it in next version.
Spyderworxs, thanks!

 

The maps i mentioned relate directly to the contribution of each part of the erosion seperately, so you end up with a map for the sediment/deposition element, the flow element and wear elements individually, which can then be used in rtp's coverage section to drive different layers each. Maybe you could even extract further aspects of your effect to provide quite a variety of different coverage maps that are combined into splats (if you want to remove the use of any external programs, being able to output some general features of the terrain like slope, texture coverage your tool adds and so on). Would make it a pretty definitive tool for RTP use (and imo RTP provides pretty definitive shading for terrain, compared to any competition including from unity themselves). I'm assuming the getalphamaps function doesn't have this information? Unless your tool is automatically generating these maps and inserting them as seperate splats into the terrain data?

If this feature turns up in the next version, and i think it shouldn't be too hard as you are generating it already, i would think it a silly thing not to aquire if one worked with terrain in Unity

 

That's right, Erosion Brush generates erosion map (the amount of bedrock taken from terrain) and sediment map (amount of taken bedrock that is dropped down to the land land down the slope) and inserts them as a splats to terrain splatmap (alphamap).

 

ohh i see, well then! thats pretty great, ill id suggest were more maps for different aspects (ive always found the more choice the better here, my wm outputs are usually numerous) but this seems a great tool, i'll be looking out for it when i can get it

 

It would be great to see an integration with Surface Waves:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/surface-waves-dynamic-rivers-lakes-and-oceans.250330/

You should be able to take samples from the surface wave output (a texture), apply erosion brush, update surface waves height map and repeat. This asset providing a more optimized way to apply local erosion vs processing the entire world.

 

BTW, the simulation and speed look really good.

On the algorithm, it looks like maybe a gravity force could be applied to keep the peaks from 'growing' as they erode? I think that would add a slight rounding to the extra-peaky peaks?

Edit: Maybe that's what uplift is for. And I was watching the noise section and not the erosion section of the video, so you can completely disregard that I'm sure.

 

OMG. Instant buy.

 

jason.fisher, if Surface Waters behave as I think (gathers rainfall on all the terrain and sending water down the slope, equalizing dents along the way) than two plugins should work separately without any problems - firstly erosion is painted (or applied to all map), then water flows the beaten track, flowing down in the trenches caused by erosion.
gecko, thanks!
BTW I would be grateful if someone who bought plugin would write a feedback in Asset Store.

 

I've started an Erosion Brush feedback form on Idea Informer. Please feel free to post your ideas or suggestions and if other users vote for it, this will help to create feature list and determine the priorities of the features. Bug reports could be made here too.

 

Great work. A lot of potential in it.

 

thanks! such a feedbacks inspire me on further plugin improvement )

 

I am pleased to inform that the new version is available on Asset Store. It has interface minor bug fixes, warnings removed, tooltips added.

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@Wright
Hey, I asked Tom about his RTP asset with your tool and asked him if the two could play nice and his response was this:

 

That's right. It is a standard terrain. Actually, I'd like to try myself - after the weekend I'll find out for sure if RTP and EB are compatible.

 

I sure hope so, I bought EB... And I think it's a fabulous tool.

 

What about adding a simple voxel-based terrain tool that allows you to make cliffs and rocky arches? Something like EB + primitive version of Voxeland

 

Licarell, thanks!
Iguanapl, unfortunately it is not possible to create arches with standard terrain. It's not the matter of editing tool, but the limitation of terrain algorithm itself - it uses simple scalar displacement, not the vector displace. This means that you cannot move vertex aside, only up or down.
I'm going to add EB to Voxeland - actually, it is already here as it uses Voxeland's land generation algorithms, but not in a brush form.

 

I know limitations of standard Unity terrain.
What I meant was a tool-brush that allows you to build voxel-based rocks that could be a great addition to standard terrain.

 

There should be a voxel engine in such a plugin, so this goes far beyond of the scope of EB functionality... Really, voxel terrain engine could not be simple - at least the amount of addition will greatly overshadow the essence of the plugin

 

Is it possible to use another package to create stitching terrains edited by the erosion tool?

 

EB should give no errors when working with such a terrain, and it will paint erosion on one of them - but only one. It will not paint both terrains on seams, for instance.

 

Hi, how were your tests with RTP?

 

Tested the Erosion Brush on a four terrain setup in Terrain Composer, I put an instance of EB on each of two of the terrains for testing. I can paint on each of the terrains separately and stitch them. If I use the same textures and brush setting I can paint on each terrain and cover the texture seems.

 

siblingrivalry, I could paint both with height and textures on RTP v3.2 terrain example scene.

Don Gray, glad to hear that. I'll think about storing EB settings in static variables to make them shared for all script instances. Or try to find other way of sharing.

 

Great, think it will make it easier to use on multiple terrains.
A little movie I made showing seams being painted out.

 

This looks absolutely incredible!
I guess it would be possible to use this during runtime as well in some kind of level editor?

 

Looks great. Works even better

 

thanks. Painting with a brush uses editor features such as handles. But you can call generator functions and pass them arrays of heights in playmode. This will require some scripting though.

 

Cool, scripting is nothing im afraid of : p
Thanx for a quick answer!

 

Best ! First of all great job on this amazing time saving tool ! It's works very well till it randomly crashes.
Do you know anything to fix it ?

 

Thanks. I have not encountered crashes, though I know that level-designers work with it rather close. Could you please send me log after crash (info where the log is) to mail@denispahunov.ru

 

HI,
Tried this email address mail@denispahunov.ru some time ago and just tested again today,
it always comes back as undeliverable.

 

I still can get letters on that mail (including log from Marked). My skype is akaWraith.
For now I can say that EB does not work on Unity 5 - it constantly spawns an error trying to find standard unity terrain, and that can make unity crash. I'm working on Unity 5 version of the plugin now.

 

Cool, thanks!
Not sure why my mail is deliverable.

 

New ErosionBrush version which is fully compatible with Unity 5 is ready, and is on moderation now. It will be available on asset Store in a couple of days.

 

Unity 5 compatible version is now available on Asset Store (v1.10).

 

Hi. Why when i builds my project the compiler has errors:
"Error building Player because scripts had compiler errors". The Errors with the Erosion Brush.

Copy errors:
1) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(59,47): error CS0103: The name `UnityEditor' does not exist in the current context
2) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(71,25): error CS0103: The name `UnityEditorInternal' does not exist in the current context
3) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(81,73): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?
4) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(81,54): error CS1502: The best overloaded method match for `System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(System.Type)' has some invalid arguments
5) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(81,54): error CS1503: Argument `#1' cannot convert `object' expression to type `System.Type'
6) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(98,33): error CS0103: The name `UnityEditorInternal' does not exist in the current context
7) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(121,17): error CS0103: The name `UnityEditor' does not exist in the current context
8) Assets/ErosionBrush/ErosionBrush.cs(122,17): error CS0103: The name `UnityEditor' does not exist in the current context

If i delete Erosion Brush from my project - build compile normally.

With Best Regards, Leonid.

 

Thanks for your bug report, Leonid. This bug was fixed, new version is on Unity moderation now. I guess that build error is quite urgent for many users, so I'd like to publish a quick fix.

 

@Wright

Thanks for a quick reply. How i can write about bugs? Mail? or another.... tell me please Maybe report about bug in public is not good solution )))

 

Leonid, for all bugs and problems with EB (and any other of my plugins) feel free to email me at mail@denispahunov.ru. This address is stated in "About" section in EB for your convenience.

This email should work fine, I can receive letters at this email, don't be confused by a post somewhere above. But keep in mind that my spam filter does not allow Cyrillic letters in header.

 

Hi Wright,
I sent you an email today about crashes/freeze up of the editor in u5, and when i was checking the timestamp of the scripts inside the package i download from the asset store they all dated from january. Not sure why that's happening, but i'm stuck at the moment with terrain creation since your script is a big part of my workflow. Just checking if you got it or not, saw this one post where someones email didnt go through. Great product btw!

 

I've got your email and replied. My mailbox is ok, it was checked several times ) Please make sure you download EB from Unity 5.

 

When you make update? Erosion brush is not work correctly!

 

Leonid, what do you mean by saying "is not work correctly"?

If you are talking about this bug:

it was fixed in the last, Unity 5 compatible version. To get this version please make sure that you downloading it from Unity 5 Asset Store.

And if you mean that heightmap and aplhamap resolution should match to draw with textures - it is not unpredictable behavior. I'm going to get rid of this limitation in next version, but currently it's ETA is unknown. If this is critical for you please send me your order no., I will ask Unity for refund.

 

Yes, about this. I dont need to refund, i want to repair texture painter when splatmap is 2k and heightmap 4k. I don't talk about that your asset is bad. I asked about update, because i don't known when you fix this problem.

With Best Regards, Leonid.

 

Morfeuskiev, I'd like to inform that I'm working on resolution limitation removing, and work is almost done. I plan to submit new version this week, but it will take about five working days for Unity to review it.

 

New Erosion Brush version is on Asset Store. Now EB can paint terrain using any splatmap or heightmap resolution. Moreover, it got downscale feature to increase painting speed at the expense of smoothing small detail.

PS and check out the Erosion Brush facebook page, where additional information, announcements, polls and tutorials could be found. For example - a new full-scale tutorial of creating this terrain from scratch using EB:

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