Graphics Azure[Sky] - Dynamic Skybox

Can I ask how much keywords used by Azure? It seems lots of keywords is placed into this asset! as eveyone know Unity has this damn 128 big limitation.

Can you make this sky to use less keywords? because it makes asset useless for me with this Unity keywords limitation.

 

So you plan to add ability to use Unity's fog in next version?

 

Azure uses only one keyword to "turn on" and "turn off" the HDR effect, because of this limitation of Unity I already had in mind to remove the use of keyword in Azure.

I plan to release a beta in the coming days and if possible I will fix this in the next release. Thank you for alerting me to this problem, I'd forgotten about this issue.

Yep!




PS: The azure[Sky] price will be adjusted to $45 when it released the Beta!

 

_7stars

I purchased your package and I love it. The cloud animation is a bit jittery, but other than that I have no complaints. When you update your package will previous customers get the update for free, at a discount, or at standard price?

Do you plan on adding weather functionality, as in cloud coverage and darkness? If so, how far along are you?

Great work!

 

Hi!

The new price will be only for new customers who purchase after the next release. Anyone who has bought or will buy before the update will not need to pay anything extra for it!

I plan to release a beta version until next week. It remains to do the documentation, sample scenes and add some properties in the Inspector who are still missing!

The Beta version will come with a prototype of the new cloud system. This prototype contains so far only a layer of wispy clouds, but it is possible to control the cloud cover.

After I release the Beta, I plan to add other layers of dense clouds, but this kind of cloud is very hard to do and takes a long development time, many users are waiting for the curve system that is already implemented and I want to give an update as soon as possible. Therefore the Beta version will only come with a cloud layer of wispy type.

I will create a demo scene and post here later!

 

[WIP]
First azure[Sky] disclosure scenes!


I created the scenes demo that I will use to publicize "azure[Sky]v3 Beta" in Asset Store and I will provide here for early testing!

* This is the first attempt I made with procedural clouds. For this reason I just did a layer of wispy clouds that are easier to do and also to release an quickly update. With the curves system will be possible to control the coverage and the colors of the clouds at any time of day in the seven days of week!

* I made some bug fixes in the fog and now the fog makes the perfect transition between the horizon and the sky!

* I intend to make azure[Sky] compatible with the largest possible number of assets. >>Scion<< and >>Horizon[ON]<< work seamlessly with azure[Sky]. >>PlayWay<< will also work seamlessly with Azure in DX9, in DX11 seems that the water sprays interfere strangely in depth buffer when the "violent storm" preset is enabled. I'm waiting for the next PlayWay update to see if the problem has been fixed.​

​

Web Player Demos:​

azure[Sky] + Horizon[ON] + Scion: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...re_Horizon[ON]_Scion/azure[Sky]_v3_Demos.html

azure[Sky] + PlayWay + Scion: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u.../Azure_PlayWay_Scion/azure[Sky]_v3_Demos.html

azure[Sky]GI_Test + Scion: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u... Demos/GI_with_Scion/azure[Sky]_v3_Demos.html


After releasing the beta version, I plan to:
* Add the option to control the rain, snow, fog closed, ect ...
* Create additional layers of different clouds.
* Real system time and date for the solar and lunar position. The moon already reacts automatically with the sun independent of their position, but the positioning of the moon in the sky is not automatic, currently to simulate the phases of the moon you need to rotate the moon manually.​

 

I see my intdoors really dark, has this been updated in the latest update? how do I increase the min/max sliders?

 

You need to edit the values min/max of the sliders in the script that is in the "Editor" folder. This script controls the Inspector interface of your target script. Each version has its own ScriptEditor, then you need to edit the script of the version you are using.

At the end of ScriptEditor are the sliders that controls the ambient. Is need change the values of the slider in each "case" of the function "switch(Target.ambientSourceIndex)".



Now I am using the Unity5.3.4 and intend to release an update this week, missing only do the documentation. Instead of sliders, the customization will be done by curves and you will be able to control the ambient setting at any time of day. The color and intensity of directional lights of the sun and moon will also be customizable, which in the the current version this is done automatically making the customization a bit limited.

I believe the next version will take a big leap in quality and organization compared to the current version.

 

Looks amazing!!! Is there a release date already?

 

I greatly appreciate it

 

I just need to do the documentation and some adjustments. I hope to release an update later this week.

 

sorry i dont see the line of code. I have 2.0.1 which seems to be the latest version.

 

never i found it. but changing it to 8 didnt do squat. what value do I change it to?
i guess ill wait til you come out with the update as the intensity of the light is a bit muted right now and indoors it seems really dark for some reason.

 

Check your box of private messages, I sent you the edited scripts!

 

I purchased Azure Sky and ran into a problem with the default scenes. There is a strange band across the sky. Looks a bit like Niven's Ringworld.

It appears on the horizon at 12 noon. I'm using Unity 5.3.4. The picture attached is from Animated Cloud v2 scene, without any modifications. Please advise.

 

Hi!

I'm sorry for the problem!
This is very strange, I also use the Unity5.3.4 and could not reproduce this error here. I created a new project, imported the package and even redid the download to see if it was a problem in the hosted package in the Asset Store, but it works fine here.

I can not say what it is because I have never seen something like that happen and none of the users have reported something like it.

Analizing his image seems that only the cloud is affected by the dark band, which is even stranger because the cloud shader is very simple.

I'm already an hour or more here trying to reproduce the same problem. If I can reproduce here, so I can come up with the solution!

 

Are the clouds just an overlay of the skybox or seperate? Looks great

just a few things that I would like based on previous versions (not sure if its up to date):
Sky color can it be an rgb picker rather than lightwave stuff, it would be a lot easier than tweaking randomly without knowing what results I get.
Also unclamp the sun strength since having a value of 5 doesn't let me get the nice HDR bloom and lens flares

 

Thank you for investigating. Additional info: I'm using a Mac (OS X 10.11.4) ATI Radeon graphics.

Steps I used to reproduce:
1. Create new unity project
2. Downloaded assets again from asset store
3. Opened Animated Clouds scene
4. Ran

See new screen capture below.

If you can't reproduce the problem, it is fine to wait until someone else reports a similar issue. I can ignore the band for now.

 

I apologize for the delay to release the new update. I've been the last few days working intensively to release the update as soon as possible. Today I finished doing the documentation and sent the update that is already in pending review waiting for the approval of the Asset Store team.​

The price will go back to the original value that was $45. The current price of $25 was to be only a promotion that should last until the release of the new version, but that lasted for a long period because of problems that made me delay the release date.

So this will be the last chance to buy Azure[Sky] for only $25.
​

 

Glad to hear it's submitted! I've been holding off on really customizing my days and nights and such until this update comes out. Nice looking teaser.

 

Azure[Sky] v3.0.0 is now available in the Asset Store.
​

For downloading Azure[Sky] version 3.0.0 you need to use Unity 5.3.4 or higher, if you use an older version of Unity, you will get Azure[Sky] version 2.0.1.​

 

Looks totally awesome. Can't wait till tomorrow to download and see how new update looks like.

 

Wow, you added a LOT of curve settings to 3.0. I thought you were just talking about a few, but this is pretty impressive. I like the cloud system too.

I really like having multiple days in one object, although just adding a "pick random day preset every day" feature on there too would be even cooler I think. I'll try to make something to do that in my own projects.

Also... testing the "color" setting under the Sun Directional Light... it doesn't seem to do anything? I tried a gradient and a straight color it's still just using the unity light's starting color?

 

You can change the value of the variable "DAY_OF_WEEK" whenever you want. To change randomly you can create a simple method and use "Random.Range" to pick a day at random. Then just call this method whenever you need.

It really is not changing the color of directional lights, I took a quick look at the code and I noticed that this was not done. I'll submit a fix as quickly as possible.



One thing I forgot to mention in the tutorial about the directional lights is that when defining the intensity value to zero, the light component is automatically disabled to increase performance. So it's important to set the intensity of sunlight to zero at night and then set the intensity of moonlight to zero at daytime.

 

Hi,

Really a nice asset for a quick background setup. I have my camera rotated in a top down view 40 degrees. This view is not showing sky. Are there any settings to make sky rotated the same.

Thank you,
DJ

 

Links to documentation are not working. Throwing a Dropbox over bandwidth limit error.

 

Yes! I think this can be done with small changes in the shader. I will try to add this feature to you and if I can do I will send you the edited shaders.

Thank you for letting me know about it! From what I can ascertain all the links of my account on Dropbox are temporarily inactive. I've hosted the documentation and demo scenes elsewhere. I will release today an update to fix some bugs and fix the links.

The new documentation link is this.
http://sevenstarsgames.x10host.com/Azure[Sky]v3/Documentation/Documentation_v3.0.0.pdf

 

Thanks for your reply. Good to know you have a solution. Looking forward the Shaders. I would really appreciate it if you could send the shaders and any notes on how to update the shaders.

Thank you,
DJ

 

I fix some errors and already sent the update 3.0.1 to the Asset Store. Is in pending review and in some days will be available.

I have already sent you the edited shaders. Check your message box.

 

Version 3 works great. Thank you for all the work. Question: I'm working on a sky for Mars. Given the asset is named "azure sky" and not "amber sky", is it possible to modify the sky from blue to dusty orange?

 

Azure better simulates the Earth's atmosphere, but it is possible to give an orange tone to the sky modifying some properties to make something like Mars. I've seen some images of Mars made by NASA that the sky was blue.

I modified only following properties for achieving the result of the images below.

Scattering Tab:
Rayleight
Kr
Km
Sky Coefficient

Sky Settings Tab:
Sunset Color
Close Ground Color
Far Ground Color

Fog Settings Tab:
Global Color
Simple Fog Color
Dense Fog Color
Dense Fog Intensity
Dense Fog Altitude

Original

Sunset
Noon
​

To get this result I should have taken five minutes. I believe that if you spend a little more time will get much better results.

 

Hi,

I am doing a build to IOS. My scene view (screen shot) looks very nice with clouds staying low but on the build (Img_4564) clouds don't look same as on the scene view. I have added azure shaders to Graphics Settings - Always included shaders. Is this required? Anything else i have to change in Unity? Please advise.

Camera Rotation: Vector 3(45,0,0) Position: (0,1,-10)
Shaders Sky Rotate Angle: (-60)

Thank you,
DJ

 

Unless I'm missing something, the pre-rendered clouds aren't working. I noticed, the example scene is referencing a script from v2 which won't load. Maybe that is a problem?

Otherwise, the updates look great! Thanks

EDIT: Nevermind, I imported v3 into a fresh/new project and it works fine! (Must have been conflicting with something imported from previous version.)

 

Looks stunning! Great work!

 

I have no experience with mobile platforms and all my tests are done on a Windows PC. Azure has many calculations in the fragment shader and is not recommended for mobile platforms actually think any dynamic sky system of Asset Store is not designed for mobile platforms. When I edited the informations of new version in the Asset Store I forgot to advise about it.

If you select the sky material depending of the cloud type chosen will show in the inspector a slider to set the cloud altitude. Ideal is to keep the value at 50.

By your images it seems that the settings is all right and I think that the property receives zero after compiled, but I do not know if the problem is when the Unity compiles the project or if it is a error in the shader.

In an old version had a problem that the stars were not shown in the sky and this happened only in systems using OpenGL. The reason was just the syntax of a function that was needed to write all the elements of a vector without abbreviating. The code of the shader seems to be ok, but I changed the code and made the calculation of the cloud altitude in a different way.

If the problem is in the shader code, the changes will solve the problem. Otherwise I would not know what else might be setting the property value to zero.

I will send you the shader by private message.

Yes! This is because the old version has a script with the same name. You can delete or rename the script of the old version and import the new script. To use pre rendered clouds you can simply copy the sky controller object from the demo scene where it is already configured and paste in your new scene.

Thanks!

 

edit: resolved

 

I like the way how professional you work. amazed me again. I just found a bug on ambient intensity! I can't change ambient intensity when it is on color or gradient! intensity only works for skybox ambient when you are in color mode it doesn't work.

 

It's working fine here!

Azure just change the values of "Lighting" window based on what you defined in the curves and gradient colors. To find out if Azure is not working, check whether the intensity value is changing in the "Lighting" window. If the intensity value is changing according to the curve, but are not applying the changes in the scene may be that is missing some configuration on the scene.

 

Hey. I have problem with transparent shaders.



Shader works fine with fog turned off, but if i use scattering and fog on camera - i get this issue

 

As the fog is an image effect, the only way to find out the position or distance that the objects are from the camera is picking up the depth buffer information.

The smoke is not drawing to the depth buffer, and the reason for the fog "seems" being applied on the bottom region of the smoke is because the fog is grabbing the terrain position that is drawing to the depth buffer and are behind of the smoke.

There are three ways to work around this problem.

* Edit the smoke shader to make it draw to the depth buffer or use another shader that draw to the depth buffer.

* Open AzureFog script and uncomment the line of code "[ImageEffectOpaque]". This makes the image effect to be applied to the scene before of the objects that are in the "Transparent" queue are rendered and thus the fog will ignore and not affect these objects. I do not recommend that this be done, because the objects that are in the "Transparent" render queue will not be affected by the fog even if it is drawing to the depth buffer that is the case of the vegetations and PlayWay Water System.


* Use multiple cameras.
Use a camera to display the scene and apply the fog effect on this camera.
Use a camera to display only the objects that you do not want to be affected by the fog and not attach the fog effect on this camera.
Here is an excellent article that explains how to use multiple cameras.
http://blog.theknightsofunity.com/using-multiple-unity-cameras-why-this-may-be-important/



PS: I noticed a jagged at the edges of mountains caused by the fog. To fix this you can disable the use of Anti Aliasing in the Quality settings. If you use anti aliasing through image effect, be sure to attach the AntiAliasin after the fog effect.

 

Great, thanks!
i'll work with smoke shader.
also, AA was turned off in quality settings, but on camera the AA script was before Fog script so i get this white edges. Moving AA down after Fog script solve the problem.

Much thanks again, u're doing great job,
Anton

 

Will you expand the fog to use other skyboxes that are not directly from azure sky? I really like the fog but sometimes I need to use a custom skybox for rendering but the lack of proper fog is quite an immersion breaker.

 

A while ago I mentioned about a feature that does exactly that, but I left the development aside and concentrated all the work in the new version. Post #93

I'm working on correcting some errors for release 3.0.2. I think this will be very simple to add to the package together with the next release.

 

Yes something like that would be perfect in the next update

 

Great pictures. I was wondering would it be possible to have more than one sun or moon visible and is anything planned to be added ? Mostly thinking about alien- or fantasyworlds having serveral moons or maybe even suns. Same for colors. Would be cool to be able to have something like a red sun or moon for example.

 

Any estimate time for the custom skybox fog?
Thanks

 

Azure has many customization options that can change the appearance of the sky in different ways. But for now I do not intend to add multiple suns, because the performance would come down. Multiple moons or planets would be more feasible to add, but for now has other features that are most needed.

I already have the shader ready and running, I just need to make some skybox textures and better organize the package before releasing the update.


Some sample images.

 

What's the method exactly to using a custom skybox for the fog? Is it just supplying the cube map to the shader and it will do the work for you?
Looks great!

 

Yes! It is very simple to use.

The fog is an image effect that you need to attach to the camera.


All the customization will be made by the Inspector of the fog material. You only need to provide to the shader the skybox texture. In this case the texture will need to be in panoramic view and not cube. I will try to add support for the Cubemap format as well.


I just used this texture to create the effect on the image above. For the Skybox I created a custom shader that uses the same panoramic texture, but you can also use the Skybox in format of "cubemap" or "6 sides" without problems.


I'm creating the panoramic textures with Vue and I'm using Panorama to Cubemap asset to convert the texture format to "cubemap" and "6 sides".

The textures I'm creating I will provide in the panoramic format and 6 sides with materials already setted.

The only problem so far is that the image effect need the texture in panoramic format, there are programs out there that convert Cubemap to panorama, but most of them are paid.

[EDITED]
I thought it was not possible to use a Cubemap in an image effect because the image effect is in 2D coordinate, but it was simpler than I imagined.

So you need only supply the fog shader with a panoramic texture or a Cubemap that will work both ways.