Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3 on AssetStore

Hey,
I updated recently to RTP 3.3 d, Im on Unity 5.4 b, and I have a very weird problem at far distance with my layers.
At close distance it shows correctly, but when it reaches the mid/far distance, the layers start acting weird and its all mixed and messed up, I dont know why its happening now, I have a tiled terrain with "biomes", tiling terrains grouping with different configurations, but its happening in both of them and in all Terrains, I will put some screenshots marking in red the weirdest things, but its quite simple to see the problems.

At close distance the layers are displayed correctly (desired values).

1º very far all messed up.


2 - 3 right layers configuration start displaying, vey weird artifacts.




4 close distance right values start showing correctly :




my terrain is generated procedurally in runtime, this only an example, not final terrain, the rock layer texture is steepness related, so it has higher values with higher slopes.

this is happening in the "coast" (very low slope).



Pls, Can you help me through this to find the problem?

I can give you any information you may think you need to look for the problem.

I have 2 different configuration of 4 layers, LOD is PM.

Thanks in Advance.

 

I cant attach more images, those 2 are the coast at closest distance

 

Generally RTP uses dynamic tessellation factors like in the article above to tessellate mesh more upclose. You need also to solve the problem of normals - heightmap is not enough to have realistic lighting at displaced snow sidewalls.

Possibly recompilation in LOD manager should fix it.

RTP component has to be attached to game object with either terrain component or mesh renderer. You might add it somewhere in hierarchy where's no mesh renderer nor terrain (like terrains transform anchor).

If this is terrain and you use 4 layers looks like something strange happens to control splatmap sampling. Coverage of grass/sand/rocks is taken from RGBA texture which you can see inspecting terrain object in project or in RTP/Combined texture/coverage. Are therse texture fine (RGBA 32 bit uncompressed, with MIPs ?)

Tom

 

No lightmaps option is enabled already, i don't know what's wrong i'm losing my mind with that problem.

 

Its a terrain not a mesh.

Im not sure but I think you are talking about this, its in Coverage/Control Map, there is no combined texture/coverage:



this is the texture in inspector (its different by default from the preview) :



But if I adjust the slider its the same :




One thing about this, Im not sure if its important (because it was working fine before the updated rtp) but Im reusing a existing terrain object. (its like world streamer, I load at runtime a scene with the terrain object, attach reliefTerrain script, configure it and refresh).

This is how I configure the ReliefTerrainGlobalSettingsHolder, maybe Im missing something important:

Code (CSharp):

1.             if(SettingsHolder != null)
2.             {
3.                 //Global
4.                 SettingsHolder.distance_start = DistanceStart;
5.                 SettingsHolder.distance_transition = FadeLength;
6.                 SettingsHolder.RTP_MIP_BIAS = MipLevelBias;
7.                 SettingsHolder.MasterLayerBrightness = LayerDetailBrightness;
8.                 SettingsHolder.MasterLayerSaturation = LayerDetailSaturation;
9.                 SettingsHolder._occlusionStrength = ApproximatedOcclusion;
10.                 SettingsHolder.ExtrudeHeight = 0.005f;
11.                 SettingsHolder.Bump01 = CombinedNormal01;
12.                 SettingsHolder.Bump23 = CombinedNormal23;
13.                 SettingsHolder.HeightMap = CombinedHeightMap;
14.                 SettingsHolder.ReliefTransform.x = SplatTileSize.x;
15.                 SettingsHolder.ReliefTransform.y = SplatTileSize.y;
16.  
17.                 //Layers
18.                 int nLayers = getNumberOfSplats();
19.                 SettingsHolder.MixScale[0] = BaseBlendScale;
20.                 SettingsHolder.MixScale[1] = SteepBlendScale;
21.                 SettingsHolder.MixScale[2] = AdditionalBlendScale;
22.                 SettingsHolder.MixScale[3] = SuplementaryBlendScale;
23.  
24.                 SettingsHolder.MixReplace[0] = BaseBlendFarReplace;
25.                 SettingsHolder.MixReplace[1] = SteepBlendFarReplace;
26.                 SettingsHolder.MixReplace[2] = AdditionalBlendFarReplace;
27.                 SettingsHolder.MixReplace[3] = SuplementaryBlendFarReplace;
28.  
29.                 SettingsHolder.MIPmult[0] = BaseFarFiltering;
30.                 SettingsHolder.MIPmult[1] = SteepFarFiltering;
31.                 SettingsHolder.MIPmult[2] = AdditionalFarFiltering;
32.                 SettingsHolder.MIPmult[3] = SuplementaryFarFiltering;
33.  
34.                 SettingsHolder.PER_LAYER_HEIGHT_MODIFIER[0] = BaseExtrudeReduction;
35.                 SettingsHolder.PER_LAYER_HEIGHT_MODIFIER[1] = SteepExtrudeReduction;
36.                 SettingsHolder.PER_LAYER_HEIGHT_MODIFIER[2] = AdditionalExtrudeReduction;
37.                 SettingsHolder.PER_LAYER_HEIGHT_MODIFIER[3] = SuplementaryExtrudeReduction;
38.  
39.                 SettingsHolder.RTP_glossMax[0] = 0.5f;
40.                 SettingsHolder.RTP_glossMax[1] = 0.5f;
41.                 SettingsHolder.RTP_glossMax[2] = 0.5f;
42.                 SettingsHolder.RTP_glossMax[3] = 0.5f;
43.  
44.                 SettingsHolder.splats[0] = BaseSplatTexture;
45.                 SettingsHolder.splats[1] = SteepSplatTexture;
46.                 SettingsHolder.Bumps[0] = BaseSplatNormalTexture;
47.                 SettingsHolder.Bumps[1] = SteepSplatNormalTexture;
48.                 SettingsHolder.Heights[0] = BaseSplatHeightTexture;
49.                 SettingsHolder.Heights[1] = SteepSplatHeightTexture;
50.                 if (nLayers > 2)
51.                 {
52.                     SettingsHolder.splats[2] = AdditionalSplatTexture;
53.                     SettingsHolder.Bumps[2] = AdditionalSplatNormalTexture;
54.                     SettingsHolder.Heights[2] = AdditionalSplatHeightTexture;
55.                     if (nLayers > 3)
56.                     {
57.                         SettingsHolder.splats[3] = SuplementarySplatTexture;
58.                         SettingsHolder.Bumps[3] = SuplementarySplatNormalTexture;
59.                         SettingsHolder.Heights[3] = SuplementarySplatHeightTexture;
60.                     }
61.                 }
62.                 //Water
63.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_GlobalWetness = 0f;
64.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_RainIntensity = 0f;
65.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WetDropletsStrength = 1f;
66.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterColor[0] = new Color(0.9f, 0.9f, 1, 0.15f);
67.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterColor[1] = new Color(0.9f, 0.9f, 1, 0.15f);
68.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterColor[2] = new Color(0.9f, 0.9f, 1, 0.15f);
69.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterColor[3] = new Color(0.9f, 0.9f, 1, 0.15f);
70.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterLevel[0] = BaseWaterLevel;
71.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterLevel[1] = SteepWaterLevel;
72.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterLevel[2] = AdditionalWaterLevel;
73.                 SettingsHolder.TERRAIN_WaterLevel[3] = SuplementaryWaterLevel;
74.                 SettingsHolder.RefreshAll();
75.             }

Thanks in Advance !

 

having multiple scenes in a project with different terrains each with a different rtp manager - changing settings an recompiling the shader forces all terrains to recompile and use those settings - right? or is it possible to handle them seperated?

i do use substances the normal map from "get textures" does not seem to be correct at least it looks different from normal map image files?!

edt: read about grouping terrains in documentation guess i will try that.

 

If you've got disable lightmaps (nolightmps in LOD manager and shaders got recompiled) and the problem is only in addpass I'm wondering why it works in editor then. You might try to cut one of features in addpass (for example vertical texturing, glittering for snow, snow itself, etc.), recompile and check again. The message you see is that when doing a build Unity prepares all potential variants of shader (even if this variant is not currently used runtime it might be used if we switch some lighting conditions - for example light cookies, etc). That's why it works in edtior and not in build. Potentially Unity can use a lot of textures internally (shadowmaps, light cookies, lightmaps) and the limit for everything is 16. Together with RTP resources needed it can be exceeded causing this error. Another option is if you know that you use only deferred lighting you could manually remove forward variants from shader suing exclude_path:forward in shader (add this at the end of every #pragma surface line then save and recompile shaders). It might be applied to addpass, faronly and internal base (in internal subfoler) shaders.

As the Uni5.4 is right on the way (they released release candidate 2 recently so it's close to be ready) I'm doing research on rebuilding the whole concept of textures and samplers in RTP. RTP4 will use texture arrays whereeverything will be done automatically and for platforms that handle texture arrays (DX10, GLES3 and up) no pinkies should happen anymore. You need to give me some time to have anythign to show though. I'm burried with work on our game in samll team. I will announce here every news about RTP that come.

Tom

 

When MIP0 level looks quite different comparing to MIP1 level of texture (what I see MIP1 looks somehow strange) it must be related to Unity or software that creates this texture. The problem is not realted to RTP then. If you now change terrain shader to Unity defaul one you'd experience the same stragne behaviour when controlmap texture is incorrect.

It's possible but not straightforward. Simply compile one set of shaders in LOD manager (first, add, far). open compiled code (for given platform) and save it. Change internal names of shaders (compiled copies) and dependencies at the end of first pass shader code. Use firstpass shader in terrain material. For another scene you can compile another set of shaders. Watch that LOD manager is not only for compiling shaders but it also sync/store current shaders features. LOD manager looks at what is used in RTP_Base.cginc and RT_AddBase.cginc file (#define keywords) and adjusts RTP component behaviour and its inspector UI to it.

Tom

 

Well I was kind of mad about this, I updated to unity 5.4f2 and the problem was solved, the mip levels of the splat texture are now generated correctly, but this "bug" its not in the release notes about the new version.

But now its solved, thanks anyway for your time and interest!!!

 

thanks for the reply. what about using substances directly i cant get the correct normal map it looks different from what the substance itself generates in the layer view and the normals are broken. what else i have to adjust besides putting it in RAW mode?

 

By now you need to live with RAW texture save right from substance I'm affraid. I'm looking into possibility of dealing with substances dynamically though. For this to be ready we need to wait for a while though.

Tom

 

i would live with that i dont need it dynamically. i use the raw texture but the NORMAL MAP from get textures is wrong it gives wrong results. is there any tutorial how to use substances as it is now?

 

If you save substance to texture and impot it as normalmap you use it as regular teexture set on detail normal slot in RTP layer.

Tom

 

i tought this is what the get texture (on rtp side) button is doing when i put it in raw mode

 

Here are a couple of screenshots from our ship simulator system. We use RTP to get the most out of the terrain. This scene has a 80km x 80km terrain (4 tiles), which goes from fjords to coastline and into open ocean.

 

Now that 5.4 has left the Beta state....

Any estimate on a new version of RTP? Will Standard shader / real PBR layer material support come with the next version? Or, even better, do we get a similar Shader as the ones in your UBER shader package?

 

i guess 5.4 update is on the way!? i get a max keywords in shader exceeded (>128)

 

RTP3.3 has package version submited from U5.4b22 and it works as far as I tested. For new shader solution on terrain it will be separate product - that's what I plan. Keywords problems are related to unity more than RTP. It uses only 4 keywords at max while Unity introduces more and more keywords with instancing, lighting, speedtrees etc.etc. In the end I will probably make keyword free solutions (users will be configuring/prearing/compiling set of shaders that will bring certain features, then we could switch shaders runtime for different LOD levels)

Tom

 

so how do i fix it for now? i started in beta (and yes it works here) but i want to switch do rc now.

 

It is submitted, and will appear in asset store when Unity staff gives the green light

 

RTP on AssetStore should work with current U5.4rc2. For keywords - you need to reduce those used in your project. RTP is not good candidate to do it as it doesn't use more than 4. There a re a lot of 3rd party packages that uses much more and there it's where you should start to make savings. I discussed it before on UBER thread.

Keywordless solution will be probably RTP4.

Tom

 

i will have a look into that but i do not know how to reduce them. arent those keywords a necessary code thing?! and why is the beta not alarming me since this is the exact same project. did they reduce the max amount? sorry to bother you ...

 

I've been using RTP just fine in one scene, but I went to use it another scene and upon activating RTP my terrain turned into a pink mesh and I got a plethora of errors. So I can't add any splats to the terrain now unless I remove RTP from the scene altogether. No idea what is causing this because it's working fine in my other scenes.

 

look here:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/uber-standard-shader-ultra.335493/page-13#post-2479803

Unity introduces new internal keywords while limit is still the same (128). In shader code you can hardcode keyword using #define AKEYWORD 1. instead of using #pragma shader_feature AKEYWORD1 AKEYWORD2 or #pragma multi_compile AKEYWORD1 AKEYWORD2

After that you need to make sure your materials don't have set keywords (look at them in debug mode in inspector then you can remove unused ones).

Tom

 

Looks loike something went wrong with including cginc files into shader. Are they in the right locations in regards to shaders ? If you're sure they are you can try to reimport shaders (right click +reimport).

Tom

 

Sounds good... what ETA-range can we expect that new product to appear in? This year? Next?
Will it be RTP 4, or a completly different product developed in parallel to RTP? Or just an upgrade for RTP?

 

Doing some research currently in parallel to other projects I've got, so it's hard to tell ETA. When it will be available, I'm sure I will give current RTP users good option to upgrade.

Tom

 

Hi,
I've been having problems on one machine with RTP. On the other PC's it is working fine, however on this one the entire terrain is pink.
The GPU is a GeForce GTX 260. Unity is running in DX11 on DX10 GPU. I have tried everything I could in the editor, and again, it's working on other PC's. Is there anything I can do to make it work on this machine?

Edit:
From very close up the terrain is a flat green with no texture. But from any further distance it is pink.

 

Unity should give errors from shader compiler in console. Could you give it to me ? Also - does the problem exist on example scene imported from fresh RTP installation (default settings). What's your LOD manager setup ?

Tom

 

hopefully you will continue to work on rtp 3.xx dont get me wrong i´m satisfied with what rtp is giving me so far.
anyway i stumbled across this.

especially the snow effect and how it "builds up" is really nice and i´m wondering if you could achieve something similar?

 

Tom, the talk about a new version of RTP / a parallel product brought an idea into my head.

How about integrating a procedural / DX11+ Grass shader into that new Product? You have your own product in the asset store, there is now some competition in the Asset Store that also looks promising, and then I stumbled upon this: http://outerra.blogspot.ch/2012/05/procedural-grass-rendering.html

If you could integrate an easy to use, powerful grass shader into the terrain shader system that would place grass on designated areas (the areas where the splatmaps assign textures marked as "grass" for example), with the same bells and whistles as outterra has done for their Grass shaders, and that plays nice with the tesselated RTP terrain, your new product would have another instant reason to buy it.


Maybe leverage part of the tech for the 3D snow effect that @nbac is talking about? Maybe there could be more uses for spicing up the Terrain with 3D details (Rubble and Dirt? Sand?)? Oh, and one thing I was really pondering the other day, though I am not sure it fits your new product so well: Generating meshes for whitewater mountain rivers that really follow the stones and rocks it flows over.


Anyway, just wanted to place the suggestions.

 

Of course guys you don't need to ask "a dreamer" (which I am) for thinking about new cool features. Something similar to Unreal snow coverage we've introduced in our upcoming game (I mean snow build with snow "puffs" placed randomly and has some "real depth"). I've got something like this in the back of my head.

Grass - this is another story which I have in back of my head.

Simply I can't break thru all technical implementation achievements in a day. Currently I'm testing possibilities of unleashing terrain texturing with any number of layers and still have it working slick and fast. I got stucked a bit here with special encoding rules but I believe what I envision is doable.

Tom

 

RTP and perlin normal

Hi
I am having a lot of problems using a perlin normal. The issue is that it looks ok in the editor but as soon as I go into play mode the perlin noise disappears. When I go out of play mode I see in the editor that the perlin noise is no longer applied. But if I click in the terrain the perlin noise reappears. The use of perlin noise makes a huge difference to the look of the terrain from a distance. I am using Unity 5.4 b24 and RTP3.3d.

Thanks for any help

Ronan

 

Looks like special combined texture reference is lost as soon as you enter play mode. After you click terrain with RTP component and you visit perlin normals tab - special combined texture is made (RG channels - look at texture in combined textures tab/special). You might try to save this texture or simply reuse the one I already prepared, saved and use in my example terrain scene.

Give me your LOD manager setup maybe it has something to do with specific feature.

Tom

 

Actually it got worse now after i played around with it. Now the terrain goes completely black after i save. It goes normal again if i select the terrain. I have no idea what is happening
Here are some screen shoots including the LOD setup

Normal scene (after selecting terrain)


Scene after going into play and out again



Scene after saving


My LOD settings (I have 4 splat layers)

 

You might check if it happens in example scene after you install RTP in fresh project on this Unity version.
Your LOD manager setup differs from default. I assume you recompiled shaders. How many layers your terrain has ? Take care atlas for first pass (layers 1-4) is also saved - look into combined textures/atlasing.

EDIT: do you by any chance put terrain into prefab or something like that ?

Tom

 

Yes I recompiled the shaders and recalculated the combined textures. I am using 4 terrain layers. I will check the example scene in a fresh project. If that fails I could try going back to unity 5.3

 

I have some more clarity on the problem now. I tested the example scene in a fresh project and it seems to be largely ok. Through still some issues. When I save the scene the snow disappears and only reappears when I click on and off the terrain.

Back in my own project I deleted RTP and reinstalled it and retested. I am now reproduce the error reliably. When anything except the terrain is selected and I go into play mode, the perlin noise disappears. It will only reappear when I select the terrain. If I have teh terrain selected when I go into play mode, there is no issue. The perlin noise remains. Very strange. At least I have a solution but it is a bit disturbing to have to do this each time.

Any ideas what it may be?

Ronan

 

One of my users had problems with U5.4.0f1 in regards to terrain. He upgraded to U5.4.0f2 and problem got solved. If you're on b24 - upgrade to newest Unity 5.4 (f3) and try again. Disappearing snow is only refreshing issue that's harmless - in your game it won't happen (it's only when we save scene).

I'm wondering why on my example scene perlin does not diesappear after play (and when terrain is not selected) while on your scene it does. Uncheck atlasing for first pass maybe and check again.

Tom

 

me again - i got some strange behaviour. the grass i placed with infinigrass and even ethan is hovering above the rtp ground. cant find out how to fix it. everthing is pretty std here

 

Might be effect of tessellation (and terrain surface doesn't match exactly terrain heightmap which is used by infini grass) - you could use matching button in RTP tessellation section (look at my video). Together with higher res heightmap it should fit OK.

Also - if you use POM - your grass will visually hover because RTP doesn't write into depth buffer like UBER can. Hover effect is noticeable with PM shading.

Tom

 

(look at my video) sounds like you only have one video ... come on at least the title of the video would be interesting. you have a good documentation describing the different features and stuff but i dont understand why there is not one video showing start to finish terrain creation. its really hard to get it to work somehow. i am not a super noob i guess. than you state in an interview that terraincomposer and your tool coexist and are crucial to work together. not one video is showing that. sorry maybe i am kind of frustrated working with all those different packages - its difficult. maybe ue4 is the better choice i dont know...

 

TC vs RTP integration is not on my side because RTP can work with just a Unity terrain, it does not depend on TC. As far as I know Nathaniel have video about RTP vs TC integration, but it's on TC side - you have there a feature to push all textures automatically to RTP rather than assigning them manually in RTP. That's the whole integration.

This is tessellation video:

When you tessellate terrain, and especially when you use bicubic smoothing terrain surface produced by RTP might not match exactly the surface that's linearily interpolated by Unity terrain engine. That means grass might be placed a bit out of place in vertical direction. Using higher resolution heightmaps and fitting them to tessellated terrain surface. Use "Reapply height texture to terrain data" to put back heights from texture to terrain heightmap data.

Without tessellation you might also see a bit of floating when you have stronger parallax occlusion mapping applied (POM). With dark detail heightmaps terrain will be visually pushed down more and grass over it might seem to float. I'd recommend to place grass and details on terrain lauyers that are not that much extruded (for example grass or soil layers where your detail heightmaps are almost white and not "pushed down" by POM).

Tom

P.S.

"maybe ue4 is the better choice i dont know..." - this wasn't necessary I believe (like saying "your RTP is bad and if you don't start behave I will take my toys and go for Unreal to punish you..."). Of course Unreal is better ... in some aspects, but as they improve their engine Unity also does and I will follow as well.

 

hey tom this is not what i meant but i guess what it sounded like - you do a really good job here. but as a matter of fact you have to tinker/ handcraft a lot in unity compared to ue4. there is almost none complete solid feature and you have to rely on assets as yours. the asset/marketplace concept is really good dont get me wrong here but since you get your assets from totally different developers with totally different focuses its almost impossibles without a lot of troubleshooting. as i said your documentation is pretty good as for terraincomposer and infini grass etc but me as a usere who is using all those packages and more its .... i was frustrated yesterday sorry for that. anyway you are doing a lot of helpful youtube stuff but i am missing a straight forward start to finish tutotrial with all the rtp aspects.

 

No problem. I believe in time we will catch the rabbit (I mean Unreal quality and features). It's matter of patience only .

Tom

 

i think you can achive the same quality at this very moment. but nothing is out of the box here. you need those high quality assets as yours. as for a hobbyist its not only that you have to spend a lot of money, like i said it is the fact that you have to handcraft almost everything. those dozents of assets in all its versions and diversity dont allways work well together. those topseller assets try to support each other i know but at least for me its hard to keep track and troubleshoot everything. enough off topic thanks again

 

We're having a very strange problem with RTP. We're using it in a project that's stuck on Unity 4.7, due to U5's lack of mixed-mode lighting. We set it up last fall and the game's been out since November, with periodic updates. Last month, we released another update -- and somehow the LOD switching stopped working at some point before that. Just realized it -- eek!

We use PM generally, but if the player selects Fastest quality level, then we switch to Classic for better performance. The LOD switch//refresh worked great until recently. We have not updated RTP since October. We have kept current with Unity 4.6->4.7 updates, but those have been so minor, seems odd that it would break this. There are no errors or anything in the console when we switch/refresh LOD, but it's very obvious that the LOD remains PM even though the pulldown in the RTP_LODManager says Classic.

We don't even know how to investigate this, but we have to fix it as it has a real performance impact on older computers. Any ideas?

 

I always relayed on shader LOD using Shader.maximumLOD (and global version of this functionality). It it doesn't work anymore - something changed in Unity in regards to this mechanism. The only solution I see for you is to make 2 materials with 2 RTP shader sets (one regular and one with stripped PM code, leaving only Classc one) and manually change materials on terrain as we discussed on skype today.

Tom

 

Thanks!

(And FYI ya'll, Tom helped me via Skype (in the middle of the night for him!) with step-by-step directions on what to do, since I'm leery of editing shader code without someone holding my hand. Fantastic support!)

 

On terrain you try to use it on a mesh ? Check if there is droplets texture assigned in water setion (RTP/Settings/Water)