TENKOKU - Dynamic Sky

Awesome support, thank you! Look forward to the update.

Its called the mwituni-effect

Performance+ ... just LOVE the sound of that!
Perhaps you can just redo all using your own lighting?!!! ... mwituni-effect ^2

Thinking about it ... is there any way to reduce the tri's by merging tiny-sized tri's on concave surfaces? - like merge while concave and a certain size has not been met .. as I imagine (most) of the tri's are tiny (fragmented) ones. Maybe something like this can be used on a 'Lite' setting to hack the tri-count right back, even at the cost of a little 'sharpness', although I can't see it would look that different (no pun intended).

Awesome ... proud to have had a hand in simplifying that !

 

So... there is actually a name to this evil???

This would have to be done on the object level with specific algorithms to reduce the triangles. I'm sure it's not impossible but I don't know if it's doable on a global-scene scale without a lot of customization. In any case waaaaay outside Tenkoku's realm of influence

Also for those who have been getting annoyed at Tenkoku's scene-view lighting issues (inconsistent lighting angles, sky white-out errors etc.) these should all be fixed for the next update as well.

 

Hello All,

I'm happy to announce that Tenkoku version 1.0.5 is now ready for download...

Download Here: http://www.tanukidigital.com/download

Some of the major improvements in this version include consistent lighting in scene-view mode during setup, and a simplified lighting system that should both fix some issues with lighting across multiple game layers and also improve performance in complex scenes. There have also been a number of other small edits and tweaks in this update that should add up to a more stable overall experience.

Install Note: the installation process has been simplified and you no longer neeed to add or manage "sky" or "moon" layers. In fact these layers can be removed if you have no use for them in the rest of your project. Please take a look at the revised install instructions in the included readme, or in the documentation pdf available here: http://www.tanukidigital.com/tenkoku/documentation

Upgrade Note: In general I recommend completely removing the previous version of Tenkoku (including camera image effects) and then saving and restarting Unity before installing a new version. This should help minimize any potential issues in upgrading between versions.

As always, let me know if you have problems/questions/feedback etc, either by email or on the forums!

-----------------------------------------
RELEASE NOTES - Version 1.0.5
-----------------------------------------
WHAT'S NEW
- Consistent lighting in Scene-View mode (now matches lighting during play).
- Improved overcast weather coloring and light falloff.
- Separate "Sync to System Time" and "Sync to System Date" options.
- Added "Enable Sound FX" button to quickly enable or disable sound effects system.
- You can now edit scene light culling layers directly in the Configuration tab.
- You can now adjust the built-in reflection probe FPS timing directly in Configuration tab.

CHANGES
- Moon Shader rewritten to be lit by custom direction data rather than lighting data.
- All public variables on the Tenkoku Calculations component have been hidden to save UI space.
- Removed LIGHT_Moon, LIGHT_MoonFace, and LIGHT_MoonWorld objects as they are no longer necessary.
- Removed LIGHT_Sun lighting component as it is no longer necessary.
- Removed "sky" and "moon" layer settings as they are no longer necessary.
- Tenkoku reflection probe set to only render skybox by default (for performance reasons).
- Removed Lighting Sphere object. Sky gradient now drawn directly into skybox.
- Lower default value for sun lens flare.
- Lowered default camera depth value on SkyFog object.

BUG FIXES
- Accessing weather_cloudaltoStratusamt variable from SetData function (C#) is fixed.
- Removed ambient light contribution from cloud rendering.
- Edited Ambient color for improved lighting during dawn/dusk hours.
- Fixed "phantom light" error from erroneously lighting objects placed on non-default game layers.

 

Hey, the company I work for just bought Tenkoku, and I am finding it difficult to get working results, for instance, if I set up the proper lat and long coordinates in the script and set the time of day to be noon, I get very odd results that do not look like noonday sun. Does this script not account for timezones? If not, then could you add in a simple drop down option to pick the timezone?

 

Hi Haagndaaz,

The first thing that comes to mind is that (at least currently) the time variables are calculated at GM0 time... and thus the time isn't recalculated based on longitude. I recommend setting longitude to 0, and then setting your time as needed. Unless you actually need to travel distances where your longitude would shift you probably only need to worry about the proper latitude.

Let me know if this helps, and if you detail any longitude specific requirements you have in your project I can consider making changes in the a future update.

If it still looks strange, then please post your lat/lon settings and a screenshot and I can troubleshoot better from there.

 

Also there's a new update (ver. 1.0.5) that isn't yet on the asset store. You can register and download the latest version from my site, or wait until the update is approved for the store. I'm not sure when that will be exactly, they've already been reviewing it for a week so I assume it will be approved and posted soon.

 

I do a lot of work for distributed server systems and the words 'simple' and 'time zone' do not generally occur together very often which is why there are whole libraries to handle them. Depending on the date the zones can change, and depending on the zone the time may/may not change. You would be better server to get the time zone data for the period you are trying to recreate and then create a time offset from the GMT that is being used in Suimono or vice versa. Our projects cover time periods from the 1600's through 1900's and some of the time zone info is nuts to try to keep track of.

 

Thanks for the lightning fast response! I'll give those a try on Thursday, as I am about to leave the office

 

Okay, so I found why it was so difficult to setup, when I hit Play, the lighting looks exactly as I would expect it, but then I leave play mode and and the lighting changes even though the settings are all still the same

 

Yes, this has been fixed in version 1.0.5... it still isn't approved on the store yet (maybe they all left for the long weekend already?? It's been almost a week and a half now ). Head over to my website and you can register and access the download section... http://www.tanukidigital.com/tenkoku/index.php?register=1

 

Awesome! And it's okay, I am not in a huge rush, I was just evaluating it for a future project, so I can at least rest easy knowing it is taken care of Thanks for your awesome support!

 

Thats pretty much what I requested on Suimono thread - both Suimono and Tenkoko need this. At the most basic setting the graphics quality should not be all that good (which is probably similar to some other products out there) - otherwise it needs another more basic setting. The main thing is they can easily be totally "detuned" to be extremely light for use in heavy scenes, and tuned up in scenes where they are needed to be more artistic.

The new 1.05 has improved a bit re performance, but its really minimal. But good its going in the right direction. I really think something like this is needed to make the huge differences needed.

 

Any idea where the lower effect is coming from in the SunShafts? They take a nice effect and make it look like we stuck a low grade particle on it. It appears to actually be a blur problem with how it is working with Suimono, however. It is blurring away from the center of the light source and is ends up smearing the water effect badly with other effects in place. The other issue is it makes a really weird flicker effect occur as well. The other issue is once that effect goes below the horizon it still shows underwater, and even with a simple plane to cut off the light it is showing up for a few degrees below the horizon.

 

I just bought Tenkoku (after watching the forums and your site for a long time - and after getting a little bonus pay).

I was SO looking forward to what this could do for my large landscape game.

And I'm deliriously pleased with Tenkoku. It has added SO MUCH to the feel of my game. Tenkoku has exceeded my expectations.

I know it's not the most popular sky and weather system on the asset store, but I think it's the best . I do hope it's successful enough for you to allow continued development.

All the best to you, Chingwa and thanks for making this!

...

Erm, also, when the sun sets in my game, it sets in front of the mountains. It kind of goes down halfway between the foothills and the mountains. I'm using Unity terrain. Any ideas?

-- Anthony

 

Version 1.0.5 is finally available on the asset store!
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/34435

@CaptainMurphy - It's a little unclear what's happening in your image with the sun shafts. Does lowering the "Sun Ray Intensity" setting under the atmospherics tab have any improvement on this?

@amasinton - Thanks for your kind words, I'm glad to hear Tenkoku is working well for you Tenkoku is still relatively new, which may be why it doesn't have the same number of ratings on the asset store as other systems. If you care to leave a review/rating, I'd be eternally grateful

Not sure why it would be rendering in front of your mountains... are the mountains are part of your same terrain, just like the foothills?

 

Maybe the mountains are >93 million miles away

I was also having some sunshaft problems ... i sent you in pm a while back - in my case showing through meshes. Also on some water scenes I noticed some light in distance penetrating Suimono underwater making the underwater terrain show. Haven't tried with 1.0.5 yet.

 

They are pretty far away, maybe not beyond-the-sun-far, though...

Attached area couple of screenshots.

The first shows the sun setting in front of the distant mountains (they're about 9-10km away from the camera - the camera has a 10km far clip). This screenshot also shows the fog over the mountains also rendering over a tree object that is only a few meters from the camera. The tree is a mesh (not a Unity tree) but is using Unity's tree leaf shader (if I use the standard shader the clouds as well as the fog render on top of the tree...)

The second shows the same scene at the same moment (as the sun is setting) in editor in top-down with the sun circled in red. The transform widget is the position of the camera.

Any ideas anyone?

-- Anthony

 

nice pic ... tenkoko is dramatic.

Its beyond me, I also get some funnies I can't explain - with shafts ... but r you sure you go the hills mesh / terrain on correct layer and checked thats correct in the tenkoko sun culling options? Its strange as the sun light seems to be correctly behind the mountain.

It looks a bit like a big tunnel ! Except it moves !

I'm wondering if its that far away if something distance based is not 'cutting it off' so to speak from being considered (like for optimization), almost like occlusion except that its still getting painted. Can't think that there would be a limited distance objects need to be within in order for tenkoko to work, so probably not.

Have you tried moving camera closer to see at what point it begins happening?

 

Yes this is all very strange. The lighting looks correct, it's just the sun object that is rendering in the wrong order. I wonder, are you using a custom terrain shader? The sun should be rendering in the background render queue which should be automatically placing it behind everything, unless the terrain is being set to render before. The same happens with the cloud shader but I see that they are rendering properly.

The tree issue is because the shader you're using does not write to scene depth, therefore the fog in effect doesn't even know the tree is there. You'll either have to use a different shader(such as speedTree) that uses zwrite, or edit your current shader so that it does. In most cases for transparent geometry you'll need to set zwrite on, as well as using a clip function for the alpha, since normal unity alphas don't write to the scene depth either.

 

Okay! I used the SpeedTree shader for my tree and that makes it draw in front of the fog. Fixed!

The sun in front of the mountains thing is still off. I tried changing the Subshader Tags on lns 21 and 94 of the Tenkoku_sun shader to "Background" and also to "Background +1" (it's originally "Background +1604") but that made no difference.

I am using RTP 3.2 for the terrain shading. I'll ask about where the terrain is rendered in that forum too.

We're getting closer, I can feel it!

Thanks again.

-- Anthony

 

I moved the camera closer to the mountains and let the sun go down. The sun sets behind the mountains and does not show through.

From my top-down view I posted above (where I've circled the sun object in red) it looks like the sun position is somehow related to the camera position - and that that distance from the camera is perhaps only a few thousand units? That's why the sun sets in front of the mountains but behind the foothills when my camera is several thousand units from the mountains? So, the sun's lighting and the sky and clouds and everything are correct because they render to the background, but the geometry of the sun itself is rendering with the other geometry, which means that, when its transform is in front of other geometry, it will render (correctly) in front of that geometry?

So, I imagine the sun position has to be relative to the camera position to make the sun object appear the right size in the sky (this also happens with the moon). Is this, then, an issue with the sun's geometry rendering in the geometry portion of the render queue - and, if so, can we move that back to background?

-- Anthony

 

I just want to make sure... you do have your main scene camera set in the Tenkoku Configuration section correct?

 

Yep.

Here are the main settings, if that's any help at all.

As an additional thing to think about - my camera position is pretty far from 0,0,0 - it's -32000, 475, -150 (I've noticed some jitters in physics and movement at this position). That wouldn't be contributing to it? I've moved the camera to 0,0,0 to see what happens. There's no mountains at that point (lots of plains), and the sun sets behind the terrain fine there...

-- Anthony

 

I am not sure on your setup but maybe you could try using multiple cameras? Use one for the terrain and another for the sky that renders later. I haven't tried it with Tenkoku yet but it used to work ok for other sky setups I have used in the past.

 

EDIT: No, it sets in front of more distant parts of the terrain there too - it was just hard to see as there weren't so many hills.

@CaptainMurphy
That sounds like a good idea. Everything in Tenkoku seems to be on the Default Layer. I'll make a layer just for Tenkoku and set a camera to render just that, and set its depth lower than the main camera.

-- Anthony

 

Hey! That did it. I put just the Sun and the Moon in their own layer and created a camera as a child of my main camera that was lower in depth. I set its culling mask to only the layer I put the sun and moon on. I left everything else the same. Now the sun sets behind the mountains!

-- Anthony

 

@amasinton Glad it's all worked out! Still not sure why this was happening as in all my tests (even in large scenes) everything renders in the appropriate order. Does your scene camera have a really large far clip setting?

 

If you use RTP, things tend to get.... funny... at times. I have spent many a night scratching my head over an incompatibility with another system.

 

The camera far clip is 10000. Probably too high. My game involves driving across the plains of southeastern Colorado and I need those looong views. I'll probably have to scale this back a bit in the end...

@CaptainMurphy
Yes, RTP, like Tenkoku, makes this game, but sometimes not all of these systems play nicely straight out of the box. But I eventually find a solution.

Many thanks to both of you for your help!

-- Anthony

 

It's possible it's RTP but I don't have enough direct experience with it to do anything but speculate. The 10000 far camera should be ok, generally. I've done tests here up to 15000 without seeing this sun issue. I'll do some more specific testing this weekend to see if I can reproduce it.

 

I'm seriously thinking of getting this and Suimono for my project. I question though. My world has 2 moons. How difficult would it be to incorporate the extra moon?

 

@Tovrin Tenkoku doesn't include extra "slots" for additional suns or moons. It calculates the sun moon positions off of real-world calculations... That being said you could add an additional moon by parenting them to the existing moon object (or duplicating the moon sphere) and then giving them an offset rotation. This way in fact you could add as many moons as you wish... theoretically. However if you want them to move differently then just being an offset of the first moon you would need to code how their rotations work yourself.

 

Superb sky system but it doesn't appear to play so nice with linear/deferred and HDR on camera... any tips I should look out for?

 

@hippocoder No? It all seems to work in line/def/hdr here! What kind of problems are you seeing?

 

Hi @chingwa i'm having some little problem that i could'nt find a way to resolve:
I have a multiple camera setup in my scene, and change between then with scripting (gameObject.SetActive). When i do this, i also change the reference of the mainCamera at tenkoku module too. But for some reason, sometimes the cloud layer and weather effects looks like they keep a reference to another camera, causing the new active camera to be above the cloud layer and the rain effects being localized only at a small spot.
Any idea how to fix this, and why?

 

@Uli_Okm does it throw any errors in your console when you switch cameras? It should be working as long as you update the camera reference on the Module... but It's possible there's a bug. :/

 

I just deleted tenkoku from my project and reimported a clean one. Everything works as expected now.
My fps just dropped a little, but i think that can be some settings i didn't do.
Thanks

 

On the culling mask of the main scene light that Tenkoku has control over (LIGHT_WORLD), I need the sky layer checked. However, no matter what I do, something in Tenkoku is manually un-checking it once you enter the game.

It's nothing on my end with regards to scripts. Can you tell me what's causing this and how to stop it?

Thanks.

 

You should change this on the main Tenkoku object under "Scene Light Layers" (under Configuration). I had many requests to expose the layermask here rather than force people to drill down to the Light_World object.

 

There is no such thing in the version of Tenkoku I have to use because it was the last one available before you abandoned U4 for U5.; Version 1.0.0

So how do you "drill down" and fix it there.

Thanks.

 

I love your passive-aggressive communication style dude!

In version 1.0.0 it automatically removes the layer specified as "sky" (in the config section) from the LIGHT_World object. To stop it from doing this you can open the TenkokuModule.js file, and comment out the following around line 606...

Code (CSharp):

1. lightObjectWorld.cullingMask = (lightObjectWorld.cullingMask &  ~((1 << skyLayer) | (1 << moonLayer)));

It sets the same layers for the night light object so depending on what you're trying to do you may want to comment out the "lightObjectNight" line right below it as well.


For the record, I didn't "abandon" unity 4 for unity 5. Tenkoku was released from the beginning for Unity 5. I gave you a preview license (for free I might add, in case you forgot) during development before Unity 5 or Tenkoku were released... but let's get real here... circumstances sometimes change. In this case Tenkoku went to Unity 5. It did so for very valid reasons, it wasn't to personally annoy you.

 

I apologize about my mood by the way.

It's a better idea for you to only work with one version, the latest version of Unity, from the perspective of someone trying to make a living off of Unity products. I do understand. I'd probably be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed, but my role is that of "the minority that are unable to move to U5" unfortunately.

My attitude, when I can't fight it back, is usually a result of me being fully-invested in something that overnight became deprecated, and it isn't just one or two products that ditched it, it's like 9. Everything that I relied on before, Tenkoku, Suimono, RTP, AFS, tons of scripts and effects products like all Sonic Ether's work, Filmic, tons and tons of stuff that i basically cannot update now, period.

Anyhoo, thanks for the update. I'll give that a shot immediately.

P.S. Just because, here's a screenshot of "old crappy U4" using "old Tenkoku 1.0.0" that shows the reason why I wanted to make that change; I find that, compared to other day/night cycles, Tenkoku has a pretty bland horizon. However with that minor modification I mentioned, and bringing down the sky light slightly to compensate for it, you get a much smoother result at great distances. The camera range in this image, and in the game currently, is 8km and believe it or not, with an atmospheric scattering of 0 (zero) and distance fog of just 2.

 

Hello All,

I'm happy to announce that Tenkoku version 1.0.6 is now ready for download...

Download Here: http://www.tanukidigital.com/download

Please note, that Tenkoku no longer requires Unity Standard Assets to be included in your project. There is a new Tenkoku-specific Sun shaft effect that ships with version 1.0.6. Please see the updated install instructions in the documentation pdf available here: http://www.tanukidigital.com/tenkoku/documentation For this update I recommend deleting the Tenkoku prefab in your scene, as well as the tenkoku effects on your camera and reinstalling based on the revised instructions.

There have been a number of improvements and bug fixes in this release. Notably, there has been improvements made in fog/blending effects, better consistency between different Unity rendering modes (gamma vs linear... forward vs deferred etc.). There is also a completely new Aurora rendering system, which should give better performance and more realistic rendering. This update also includes a basic example scene showing Tenkoku in a scene with terrain, and a demo UI that accesses some of the most used functions.

In addition to the above I've gone through and fixed a large number of bugs that many have brought to my attention by other users. There were a LOT and I did my best to address everything that was brought up to me. If any reported bugs slipped through then please let me know.

As always, let me know if you have problems/questions/feedback etc, either by email or on the forums!

---------------------------------------------
RELEASE NOTES - Version 1.0.6
---------------------------------------------
WHAT'S NEW
- Tenkoku now includes basic demonstration scene. (located in _DEMO folder).
- Tenkoku is now bundled with it's own Light Shaft effects, and no longer requires Unity Standard Assets (see updated install instructions!)
- New Aurora rendering system for better visuals and performance.
- New Time Transition function available from code, set start/end time, duration etc. See documentation page 13 for more info.
- Moon now has sky scattering applied, similar to the sun.
- Improved horizon fog blending (on by default, can be turned off on Tenkoku Sky Fog effect).
- Tenkoku explicitly turns off antialiasing when Unity is set to Forward rendering mode. (using AA in Forward causes camera render errors!)

CHANGES
- Brightened default sky rendering settings.
- Improved color consistency between Gamma and Linear modes.
- Brightened AltoStratus cloud coverage.
- Brightened cumulus cloud coverage.
- Improved cumulus cloud highlighting.
- Softened cumulus cloud edges.
- Skyfog now uses dedicated texture (rather than generating on play)
- Removed old particle aurora system and relevant files.
- Tweaked default relative cloud speed values.
- Turned off code manipulation of sun flare (default sun flare is turned off for now, will eventually add a better flare).
- Tenkoku Sun position now defined explicitly in sky shader, and ignores scene Lighting settings.
- changed default reflection probe slice settings to render all faces at once.
- Tenkoku no longer overrides Unity fog settings. Both can be used simultaneously.
- Temporarily removed Moon Ray intensity settings (light rays currently only calculated on sun object).

BUG FIXES
- Fixed error where sun/star/moon objects where rendering on top of distant scene objects.
- Fixed lores banding artifacts in fog and atmospheric scattering.
- Removed experimental behind-the-scenes texture generation loop introduced in last version.
- Ground Color now tints skybox and fog properly, rather than simply replacing them, resulting in better distance coloring.
- Default Ground Color now changed to a bright off grey (instead of black).
- Fixed overall sky color from interfering with Atmospheric Density rendering.
- TenkokuModule now automatically disconnects from prefab. This fixes saving certain settings, such as audio file selection.
- Suppressed Unity null reference error when "Main camera" is not defined. Now gives a more clear Tenkoku error w/ instructions.
- Fixed night sky lighting error which was causing a shift in lighting positions depending on scene camera angle.
- Fixed LIGHT_NightSky lighting to automatically inherit set scene lighting layers.
- Fixed night sky horizon rendering and "Sky Amount(Night)" setting.
- Wind attribute now adjusts all WindZone settings (turbulence, magnitude, etc.)
- Error checking introduced for reflection probe, allowing you to disable or delete it without error spamming.
- Fixed erroneous light scattering effects due to Unity Lighting tab settings.
- Fixed bug where low light levels would cause some scene objects to disappear.
- TenkokuSkyFog effect now properly tints the atmosphere according to tint color rgb and alpha.
- Reflection probe FPS now correctly respects settings and no longer defaults to 1 during play.
- Tenkoku now automatically uses "MainCamera object" when it isn't explicitly defined.

 

Tenkoku 1.6 rocks!
So many improvements and lot of bugs fixed, thank you for your hard work!
It just looks great and feels more comfortable to use!

Just one question, can you give some advice how to improve the visual impression of tenkoku while working in the editor? I adjust most settings in playmode and copy them over afterwards (copy component > paste values), although the scene lighting and atmosphere in the editor looks poor in comparison to how tenkoku looks after hitting play!

 

I had some problems with the 1.0.6 update.
Something in the particle effetcs shader changed? Because now i'm having some problems with the particles clearing other transparent effects that are below them

 

@Uli_Okm I don't think the particle shader changed at all (you mean the rain/snow etc?). Can you post a screenshot of what you're seeing on your end?

@MS80 I just realised that the time settings no longer have any effect in editor mode... meaning changing the time doesn't actually move the scene lighting until you play the scene. Is this what you're seeing as well? I had this working at one point and am not sure why this stopped working in 1.0.6... will have to investigate. Otherwise, the Tenkoku fog effect doesn't work in editor mode, and I'm not sure there's a reliable way to force it to work at least not without plugins. I'll have to investigate this a bit as well.

 

For those interested, I've posted a webplayer and a downloadable demo of the scene that comes with Tenkoku. Try it out here: http://www.tanukidigital.com/tenkoku/demo/

 

Hello there chingwa

Just sharing here a presentation Guerrila Games made at SIGGRAPH on how they made their sky and clouds systems, and it's incredible impressive.
Might be helpful to you and give you a few ideas
http://www.slideshare.net/guerrillagames/the-realtime-volumetric-cloudscapes-of-horizon-zero-dawn

They show a gif of it in real-time here : https://twitter.com/Guerrilla/status/636107731586412544

 

Thanks Eskovas! I actually was given a preview copy of that pdf and have been reviewing it for a few days already I agree it's really impressive, and I would love to build a similar system for Tenkoku.

 

Great to hear that
Looking forward to any results you can come up with for Tenkoku!