--PolyWorld-- Low Poly Toolkits and More!

Did some testing today. I'm going to stick with my component script for SurfaceNoise with some modifications. In PW:Ancient East, there will be modular planes of water you can copy and paste around the world. Those planes will have the same normals and vertex count. As an optimization, I can animate and recalculate one of those planes then just apply the new normals and vertices to all the others. The cpu cost went down nicely after I did this. To do fake cloth, vertex alpha will also be used to decrease the influence the noise has.

These enhancements will be new in Ancient East and included in an update to Woodland at the same time.

 

Can you add a feature so that when you convert a gameObject in your scene that you can check a box or something and it will replace the original non faceted scene object, with the faceted one you just converted at the exact same position rotation scale? This would be really convenient. Manually putting the faceted version in the level at the same place the original one was in. In a large scene can be time consuming when it need not be.

 

Or maybe a function to CONVERT all on the Scene? That would be awesome

 

I know developers hate hearing this - and you may have already answered - but do you have an ETA on these updates?

 

I do. The estimated time of arrival for Ancient East is early November. I haven't been updating the thread here lately because I'm crunching at my day job. Work is still progressing though.

 

Thanks for the estimate - I just had no idea if I'd be waiting for weeks or months. Keep up the good work!

 

In the shader, could you add an option for adding a wireframe around the poly's? It would make them stand out a little better especially in the area's that get smoothed.

 

That's a bit tricky. You could experiment with GL.wireframe, but you have to do quite some work to get the result you're looking for.

Another approach for drawing a wireframe on top of the existing mesh is to store barycentric coordinates in the vertex colors, and use that information to draw the lines at a certain width around the edge. Unfortunately Polyworld already uses the vertex color information - for the actual vertex colors.

Polyworld doesn't use textures, so if you don't need lightmapping either, you might be able to use both uv and uv2 to store the three barycentric coordinate values. And I believe that in Unity 5 you can store more than just 2 sets of texture coordinates, which would also make it easier to add this effect.

I'm not quite sure what you mean with this bit. Which smoothed areas?

 

Update:

Here is a demo video of what to expect with the new and improved SurfaceNoise script coming in PolyWorld: Ancient East:

• AE will have modular water planes you can copy and paste in the scene. You don't need to create a terrain. This will make it easy to create small waterways in your villages, but also to keep performance in check.
• Loads of options in the new SurfaceNoise, including the ability to use vertex alpha to attenuate the effect. This is great for simple flags and cloth.

Also as a side note, AE will have alot more geometric detail. No screenshots yet, but LODs will be added so it runs nice on mobile too.

 

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Looks great! Did you happen to make this shader with Shader Forge?

 

Nope. It's not a shader. It's a component script. There are a bunch of reasons I went this route and it all seems to be working out nicely.

 

And now, behold the tedium of LODs, all by hand.

I build everything in Max in a modular way, then combine them and optimize them further. Doing LODs for these pieces is an intermediate step to the larger roof pieces. Only 4 are shown here, but I have probably 20 or so that I can use to make eastern-style rooflines of any footprint.





These are some of the modular facade pieces with their LODs under each. A door variant is on the far right.



I'm doing LODs for everything because I want a higher triangle count for Ancient East. Once I get some shots up I think you will agree it's a good idea The fidelity between this and Woodland is night and day, but it will still run fast if not faster than Woodland.

 

Cool features in the new SurfaceNoise allow some cloth to be made. Here are some variations of new and old tapestries. Flags of different sizes and shapes will also be included.

 

Merchant props will be in Ancient East; textiles, grain bags, food stands, pots, vases, etc.. I also made a variety of cloth overhangs that sway in the breeze similar to the tapestries in the previous post.

 

Wow, that Ancient East stuff looks amazing. Got Polyworld today and suddenly I realized I have a few Quantum Theory assets in my project already. Can't wait to add this AE asset and the coloring script and surfacenoise. You do some great work.

 

Thank you kindly! It helps to hear such positive feedback!

One more pic for today:



Woof!

 

Really Awesome stuff you're cooking up.
Very nice.

 

I keep running into this error when trying to use the mesh converter:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
QT_ConvertMesh.RenderSimpleProp (UnityEngine.MeshFilter MF, UnityEngine.MeshRenderer MR, UnityEngine.GameObject currentGO) (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:553)
QT_ConvertMesh.ConvertMesh (UnityEngine.GameObject WorkingGO, UnityEngine.GameObject[] MeshGOs, UnityEngine.MeshFilter[] MFs, UnityEngine.MeshRenderer[] MRs, UnityEngine.SkinnedMeshRenderer[] SMRs) (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:393)
QT_ConvertMesh.OnGUI () (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:143)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)

 

Ah yea. Your texture doesn't have mip maps. Make sure they're setup to calculate by selecting the texture in your project and turning on "Create Mip Maps." More info here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-TextureImporter.html

 

rarr!

 

Yeah, I was messing with that already; this is what my texture importer settings are set to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9rg26q0uaho9dj/Screen Shot 2014-11-11 at 2.21.55 PM.png?dl=0

 

You're using Unity 5 Beta which is not tested with PolyWorld. You are setup correctly so I assume this is an issue with Unity5.

 

Ah, yeah, doing the conversion in 4.5 worked fine. Apologies.

 

3 LODs of a roof object:

Higher detail for desktops/consoles, lower detail for mobile, lowest detail for performance

 

So I have all these props from blender and I have no problem importing them and remeshing them to Polyworld, but there is just one mesh that gives me problems and I don´t know why

I keep getting this error...

"NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
QT_ConvertMesh.RenderSimpleProp (UnityEngine.MeshFilter MF, UnityEngine.MeshRenderer MR, UnityEngine.GameObject currentGO) (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:398)
QT_ConvertMesh.ConvertMesh (UnityEngine.GameObject WorkingGO, UnityEngine.GameObject[] MeshGOs, UnityEngine.MeshFilter[] MFs, UnityEngine.MeshRenderer[] MRs, UnityEngine.SkinnedMeshRenderer[] SMRs) (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:294)
QT_ConvertMesh.OnGUI () (at Assets/Quantum Theory/Polyworld/Editor/QT_ConvertMesh.cs:100)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)"

 

If that's a skinnedmesh, make sure there are actually weights assigned to the vertices in blender.

 

Oh, that worked! Thanks a lot man
And I have another problem, I´ve managed to avoid it until now, when I create a mesh from a terrain and choose to "split into chunks" it destroys my previous mesh, leaving holes everywhere, up until now there were a few faces that broke, but now half the terrain disappears...

Here is a pic of the intact mesh/terrain and down the splitted version

 

Couple things:

1. How tall is that terrain?
2. Are you certain it is a perfect square? Non-square terrains are not supported.
3. Can you send me just that terrain? Email support@qt-ent.com

Thanks!

 

Ok, I'm on the phone so I can only answer the first questions, the terrain is 1600x1600x300 (though the tallest mountain only goes for 80)
Anyways thanks a lot, your work is awesome!

EDIT: Terrain sent

 

This asset looks beautiful, especially the color variation with the facets. And accordingly i have a question: Would you mind telling me, how you achieved such an effect?
Anyways great work.

 

Can't say enough great things about Polyworld (and can't wait to get my hands on the Ancient East one - so hurry it up!). Been using it for a few days and can do a terrain in World Builder, bring it into Unity and paint splat textures with Terrain Composer and generate some extra little noise in the map to get some nice Polyworld polygons in a few minutes and use the Polyworld terrain mesh tool to turn it into a mesh, paint the vertex colors, and cut it up into a bunch of small meshes. I literally only have an hour a day to work on my game (haha, I'm a noob and probably will never finish it), but can do a 512 x 512 terrain per day and the style is beautiful. Got 6 terrains done already and going for 2048 x 2048 total map size, so 4 x 4 terrains (16).

Of course there's that ton of work filling these terrains later on with rocks, trees, roads, towns, and some kind of gameplay, but this asset is gold and is going to get a workout converting all those models. I kinda don't want anyone knowing about Polyworld because there is just going to be an explosion of games that have this art style. And this is more fun playing with than actually playing some games.

Read somewhere yesterday (maybe reddit?) that someone made the demo scene for Polyworld work on the Oculus Rift and people are raving over the art style and some even said it was one of the best Oculus Rift demos.

 

That's some great feedback! Thank you very much for that. I'm glad the pack is working great for you. If you haven't already, please consider adding this to the review page of the asset store. I'd greatly appreciate it!

 

PolyWorld Woodland 1.72 is out

- Minor bugfix with terrain mesh chunk function. High terrains are now cut properly.
- Removed the annoying "layer" debug console warning.

 

I've bought an embarrassing number of assets on the store. This one just got my first review. Enough gushing - get back to work on that Ancient East! That's the only asset I'm looking forward to now.

 

AE is taking a bit longer but for good reason. ModifyColor had a special mask-based approach for converted meshes. You can see it in the video. Long story short, it sucked and you guys would've been unhappy with it. It just didn't allow for a targeted color change for most meshes. So I rewrote it.



This is an early shot of it. Basically, you have 6 colors to apply to the mesh. Technically I can let you do as many as you want but that would get nuts. The coolest thing about this is that when you hit the "Sample Color on Mesh" button, you can then click on a triangle on that mesh and, based on the hue and brightness ranges, switch anything on that mesh that resembles that color within those ranges. I'll post a video soon, but I'm really happy how this turned out.

PolyWorld meshes that are included in the packs will be already pre-masked so you can jump in and iterate quickly. Imagine different colored chests, villages, props, all done through this script in the inspector. I'm also including the ability to save and load color palettes which can be handy when you need to recolor an entire set of props or buildings to make a unique village.

 

Three Votes added from us.

 

I am literally drooling over the AE pack. sigh.

 

By any chance, can you add support for terrain grass and tress? I would LOVE to be able to use the terrain tools for grass and tress.

Or do you suggest quick brush?

Cause i really wanted to keep the wind effect on the grass still

 

@AlanGreyjoy
I would look here: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2012/03/23/shadowgun-optimizing-for-mobile-sample-level/ specifically in the free to use Shaders section. Extract from level and experiment with: MADFINGER/Enviroment/LightMapAndWind. might not be a total solution but meh, worth a play.

Has an xyz wind param and a couple of flutter factors.
It's not vertex mesh bending or anything but helpful.

 

Cheeky realtime shadows there. Fancy.

Take my money.

 

Quick Brush looks really good though I have not tried it. 15$ seems like a steal.

 

Just tested PolyWorld in Unity 5b14. Works just fine after the automatic API conversion! I recommend reducing the ambient intensity of the PolyWorld materials to 0 and rely on the ambient colors driven by the internal skybox system. I'll have to make Unity 5 shaders.

 

Very excited about the ModifyColor options with the upcoming release!

I'm certain you're VERY busy with getting this out - and taking tons of advice along the way, haha - but if it would be simple enough to add an option to define and colorize the perimeter of each polygon as well, it could provide for a radical change in scenery, paving the way for all sorts of retrofuture/cyberpunk/wireframe motifs. Again NO idea how difficult it would be to implement, but I'm sure it would make for an even more robust creative tool.

This may already be doable, with some combination of the wireframe mesh created by the converter... but I haven't been able to figure it out yet.

Some visual examples:

 

Very cool shots.

That data can't be done via conversion as colors aren't store "per edge," so to speak. It would have to be done as a post effect or some sort of shader.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/18794 might be close to what you're looking for.

 

Update:

Screenshot of the same building prefab with 3 other color variations. The red one is the default color, but the other 3 palettes are from simple text file palettes that are loaded into ModifyColor. A bunch of palettes will be included in the pack.



You'll also be happy to know that production is starting to wrap up! With the exception of a few items, all the asset development and code work is done. All I have to do now are nice mobile and desktop demo scenes, marketing art and videos, and submit to the store!

 

I, and I am sure others, would LOVE for a fast.. 10 min video on how to model in maya or 3ds in this style. I have tried, but, as simple as this is... it's not xD

Those walkways for the new package coming out are nice!

 

Showed this to this kid I work with. First thing they said "How do we go inside".
Sigh. Kids.

Time to break out Buildr and some creative teleporting...

 

Extracted from mangled Forum post and rebuilt to useful semblance.

Spoiler

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Shader "Custom/CustomWireframe" {
3. Properties { _LineColor ("Line Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
4.             _GridColor ("Grid Color", Color) = (0,0,0,0)
5.             _LineWidth ("Line Width", float) = 0.1
6.             }
7.            
8. SubShader {
9. Pass {
10. CGPROGRAM
11. #pragma vertex vert
12. #pragma fragment frag
13.  
14. uniform float4 _LineColor;
15. uniform float4 _GridColor;
16. uniform float _LineWidth;
17.  
18. // vertex input: position, uv1, uv2 struct appdata { float4 vertex : POSITION; float4 texcoord1 : TEXCOORD1; float4 color : COLOR; };
19.  
20.       struct appdata
21.       {
22.         float4 vertex : POSITION;
23.         float4 texcoord1 : TEXCOORD0;
24.         float4 color : COLOR;
25.       };
26.  
27.       struct v2f
28.       {
29.         float4 pos : POSITION;
30.         float4 texcoord1 : TEXCOORD0;
31.         float4 color : COLOR;
32.       };
33.  
34. v2f vert (appdata v)
35.       {
36.         v2f o;
37.         o.pos = mul( UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
38.         o.texcoord1 = v.texcoord1;
39.         o.color = v.color;
40.         return o;
41.       }
42.      
43. fixed4 frag(v2f i) : COLOR
44. {
45.  
46. fixed4 answer;
47.  
48. if (i.texcoord1.x < _LineWidth || i.texcoord1.y < _LineWidth) { answer = _LineColor; }
49.  
50. else if ((i.texcoord1.x - i.texcoord1.y) < _LineWidth && (i.texcoord1.y - i.texcoord1.x) < _LineWidth) { answer = _LineColor; }
51.  
52. else { answer = _GridColor; }
53. return answer;
54. }
55. ENDCG
56. }
57. }
58. Fallback "Vertex Colored",1
59. }
60.  
61.  

That appears to allow for the encoding of a subset of "lines" in UV2 over a larger 0->1 tile.
(and shove a big line over 0-1 and it's diagonal presently)
Pretty sure that's what it does
Which sounds a lot like what was being discussed.
Anyways, it's there. hope it helps. HiJack over.

 

I thought you would like to see your asset in Sandbox/MMORPG

www.cubewarriorsonline.com

And QuickBrush works great!

But.. if there were a way for you to hide everything BUT grass on unity terrain.. then I could make a poly art style vector for the grass blades. THAT would be freaking awesome. Already have grass made. I tried to use ProBuilder, texture a block with transparent shader and use QuickBrush to paint the grass on the terrain... but it just isn't right. Swaying poly grass would be amazing.

**EDIT
I am going to play with the editors. I did increase the poly count for the converter, works out fine.

 

@AlanGreyjoy did you try that shader I mentioned... I used it effectively on trees with little effort the other day, it's not the same but it does provide some nice wiggling edge effects. with no vertex painting.

seems to have value for the context and is very optimised.


Another HiJack (almost) ends. (sorry)
Also, tiny, almost pedantic and moot point, but you show Frustrum culling, not Occlusion culling in the video. I hate myself for saying it but meh. Which is still a nice optimisation and Occlusion culling would work, you just don't show it. There. now I hate myself. Also I read how incredibly experienced you are and your customer services manifesto so don't think I am trying to teach granny how to suck eggs, nor tell you how to do your job.