Snow Mesh Trail Renderer - Feedback/Support

GET SNOW MESH TRAIL RENDERER FROM UNITY ASSET STORE

Does anyone need a Snow Mesh Trail Renderer? Anyone working on a snowboard/ski title? Take a look at the screenshots below and check out the demo and documentation if you are interested.






Use the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer to draw a 3d mesh trail in your winter environment. Exclude obstacles (e.g. a slide box in a snow park) that need no trail by using a layer mask or by rendering the trail on terrain only. Additionally, the trail will be drawn only on the ground, it will stop drawing while in air. You can also use this asset in other environments than snow, replace the textures and draw your trail in the desert!

Features:
- get started with diverse trail prefabs
- demo scene showing different setups
- 3d mesh trail
- diverse snow shaders
- draws trail only on the ground (off in air)
- layer masking objects
- let it draw on terrain only
- mesh normals for lighted shaders
- mesh UVs for textured shaders

Any feedback is appreciated! The same is true for feature requests!
Also, please ask your support questions here.

 

hello~.i bought this nice package right now. Then i noticed that it seems to only draw on unity terrain...How to make it draw on something that is not unity terrain...Help, Plz...

 

You simply need to comment out this line:
"ZWrite Off"
from the "Custom/SnowTrailShader" in "MT_SnowTrailShader.shader".
Without this line the snow trail will be also rendered on top of any geometry.

By the way you can also use any other Unity built-in shader instead of my shader to draw the snow trail.
Please, contact me again if this doesn't resolve your problem!

 

Thanks for reply~
With out "ZWrite Off" this line, the snow trail can be drawn on my geometry,
but it seems to happen something wrong in rendering like this......

 

I have written a little shader for you. This is how it looks now:


Tell me if you will get problems with this shader.

p.s.: For those who care about licenses. I allow everybody who finds this shader file to use it for private and commercial stuff...

 

You are a good guy, and thanks for your patience~
With this new shader, i found there is something little problems like the trail sometime would flashing, and trail mesh doesn't smooth enough compare to the shader before....

 

Looks great Could the same technique easily be used to create footprints in snow for humanoid characters?

 

It could be done with the same shader, but the meshes of the footprints need to be different.

I will check on this

 

@roclau0102: I have updated the shader in my post above. Now it has a z-buffer offset. By default it is set 0.02, but you can change the value in the material inspector.

If this is still not what you need, then you have to describe your game a little more. Do you want to have the trail over all surfaces? Or can you use custom shaders on the surfaces that should receive the trail?

 

With the new shader, now the trail looks great~
Year, i would like to tell you about my game. My game is a ski game that the player can ski on the snow. But now the problem is that the trail can't match the ski board's size when the character do turning action. The trail is always slim...
I thought the problem is because my character's ski borads have no collider...Is that right??

 

Have you used the MT_SnowMeshTrailUpdater script? It should handle this for you. It has nothing to do with colliders.

Try to copy paste the setup of the sledge in the example scene to your skier (TrailScalerBottom). The only changes that you will need to make is to rearrange the transform positions of the trails. The most important part of the scaling is the scale of the trails parent transform TrailScalerBottom you will find that the scale is (1, 1, 10).

[EDIT:] once you got that running, it would be super awesome if you could rate the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer on the Asset Store

 

Awesomeeeee!!!
Now, it looks very great. Thank you very much~
And i will go to rate it.

 

will this run on mobile?

 

Yes, it will. Try Mad Snowboarding to see how well it performs: http://www.freebord-game.com/index.php/ms

 

I'm on holiday for the next two weeks. I will not be able to give you support during this time. Post your questions I will answer them later. I'm sorry for any inconvenience...

 

Hi!
I'm working on a game, that takes place on a snow planet.
The planet was modeled in blender and is in one single mesh.
I bought your package and used the modified shader you posted earlier, and it works on some parts of the planet now.
But not in others. Any ideas how I could fix this?
Also, I have a building on the planet inside of which I would like there not to be any snow trail.
Maybe that's a dumb question, but how do I avoid that?

Thanks a bunch!

 

Can you please post a screenshot? Have you tried to increase the z-buffer offset of the shader/material?

The MT_SnowMeshTrailUpdater script has an IsDrawing property, simply set it to false as soon as the player enters a building and set it back to true once the player is outside again.

 

Thank you for your previous reply.
So, everything within the top area works as intended, but below the first red line, the trail moves away from the center of the ball, until completely beside it and then vanishes abruptly once you pass the second red line.
it is a defined line apparently, as you can see in the picture on the right.
The planet is an fbx, modeled in Blender.

Thank you for your help!

 

I was able to reproduce the same behaviour. I have fixed the problem in the next version. Please send me an e-mail, then I will send you the beta version of the next Snow Mesh Trail Renderer release.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I sent you a mail to the address on your website.

 

I have sent you the beta version. It would be great if you could write a short review for the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer
Here are the new features and changes of the Beta, just that everybody knows what to expect:
- Added the Clear method to the MT_MeshTrailRenderer class
- Added UV generation feature to the MT_MeshTrailRenderer class
- Added a shader that can be used to draw a trail on top of geometry
- Added a clear trail button to the example scene
- Added a planet trail example
- Added a setter for IsDrawing

 

That's what happens when a tool is based on the global Y axis, instead of the local Y axis of the GameObject.
I have this problem with many of tools from the Store : Not designed to operate with a spherical environment. Everything is fine at the 'North Pole', but fail at the others locations.

 

Thank you for sending me an update so quickly.
It's great to see the sled working on a planet in the new beta, but I need to get it to work with the ball.

The ball does create a trail all around the planet now, so that's great. But the orientation is of the trail is all messed-up, because the ball rotates, I suppose.

 

I have sent you the next version. I have added a CUSTOM_AXIS raycast mode. The raycast axis is set in the MT_ExamplePlanetGravity script. The custom axis points to the gravity direction of the planet.

 

Thanks again for another very quick update!
Looks and works great in your example scene!
Will try to get it to work in my own project now.

 

YOu say on your web site 'The snow trail shader and script provided in this package draw the snow trail only on the Unity Terrain'.
But this works on a spherical world/mesh to. No?.
I'm working on a Sand Planet project. This why i 'investigate' your tool.

 

I hope it all worked for you!?

As you can see in the screens on the top the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer works on a mesh planet with a shader that draws the trail not only on the terrain, but also on geometry. But, this functionality was not yet released to the asset store. If you buy my asset, then I can send you the beta version of the next release. The main reason for not having it yet on the asset store is that I first need to update the documentation and to finalize another feature (trails with texture and UV).

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Snow Mesh Trail Renderer v2.0 is now out on the Unity Asset Store! Check the changelog below or take a look in the Unity Store!
Release v2.0:
- added trail prefabs
- added geometry shaders (draw on terrain and geometry)
- added textured shaders
- added UV generation feature for textured shaders
- added IsDrawing property to MT_SnowMeshTrailUpdater class
- added Clear method to MT_MeshTrailRenderer class
- improved raycasting flexibility (CUSTOM_AXIS property), even mesh planet scenarios are possible now
- improved demo scene for Unity 5 physics
- included Unity 5.1 and 5.4 packages

 

Is it compatible with custom terrain shaders like Distingo?

 

I have not tested with Distingo, but it should work when used with geometry shaders. Feel free to test it, if it doesn't work, then you can get a refund within two weeks through the office Unity Asset Store refund mechanism, just drop me a mail within 10 days after purchasing.
Keep in mind to try the "geometry" shaders in your tests if the default shaders don't work.

 

Just started to work on the animal/human trails.
ANY FEEDBACK IS APPRICIATED!

 

Does it work with a wheel ? .. In my case I have wheel collider, so no physyc material

 

The screenshot below is made with the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer. This is a modified version. I plan to add a wheel demo prefab soon. If you purchase and send me the order number, then I will send you the modified version from the screenshot.

 

Only 5 days left to grab the trail of your next snowy game while it is ON SALE!!!

 

I made a snowball which is getting bigger by rolling, and set it as a parent of Colored_Round_Trail_For_Balls like the example. But since the snowball’s sale reaches 2, it doesn’t leave the trail. I just made a standard sphere. How should I fix it?

 

Thanks for purchasing the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer!
You need to scale the MT_SnowMeshTrailUpdater.MAX_DISTANCE_TO_SNOW property with your snowball. If your snowball is never in the air, then set it to 9999. This way the trail will always render.
Don't hesitate to ask again for further assistance! Also, keep in mind that a review in the Asset Store would help a lot.

 

It worked! Thanks.

 

We have a character that stands still at the origin, and a world that moves continuously (infinite runner game style). What do we need to change, to make this script work as intended?

 

Do you need to switch on/off the trail and stick it to the ground?
Is you ground bumpy or flat?
You could move the created "MT_MeshTrailRenderer Mesh" GameObject (the actual trail mesh) along with the world.
In the same time you would move the GameObject with the MT_MeshTrailRenderer script attached in the world space (simulating the player movement). In this case the MT_SnowMeshTrailUpdater script would not work, since it would not know where to raycast the ground.

 

Ok thanks for the reply. That's exactly what we tried before, it has a few disadvantages unfortunately, like:
- the objects move away from the origin. The point of moving the world and not the player is to avoid too high numbers and thus errors.
- as you said: it doesnt work for the trailUpdater script, as it moves out of the gameplay area.
I guess I have to hack into your script

Another question: you show this amazing animal trails on YouTube. We also bought it for that effect and are a bit disappointed we can't find them. Any news regarding that? Do you plan on releasing that soon or is it extra?

 

Please keep me posted on your progress and don't hesitate to ask questions regarding my code. It should be possible to modify the scripts as you need them.

Please send me your email address with your order number and I will send you the current beta package.
Here are some changes that you might really like:
- added transparent trail shader and texture with faded edges
- added deep animal trail
- added random offset feature
- fix for trails edges with only 2 vertieces

 

I'm considering buying this pack, but I have a question. Do the trails have any physical properties or is it for display only? If I have a large ball roll around and create tracks, could a small ball roll into those tracks, or is there always a fixed depth?

 

Thanks for your interest in the Snow Mesh Trail Renderer package. Unfortunately, the trail does not affect any physical properties.

 

Firstly, thanks for a great asset. I'm trying to implement this in a desert environment, I tried many textures but the trail that i'm getting is full solid colour (even if the texture has alpha, I don't think alpha is supported?) and no where close to a tire print on the sand. I'm planning to get a similar effect that you did with the wheel demo that you posted above, but on sand and I want the trail to be very subtle since it's on heaps of sand in the desert. Any help would be appreciated.
My order number is 18966664561631.

 

I will send you the current beta package. It supports alpha textures. See PM.

 

Hey man, awesome asset. But say, can this also create lumps in the terrain or other objects?

 

In the current beta you can make rough trails like in the video:

 

Is there a way to make the trails automatically despawn after a specific time?