Terrain Composer2 a next generation GPU powered terrain tool.

I have the fix and it corrected the issues with generating splats. However, my masks are messed up now and no longer work. Wherever I have a mask, the ground is darker as if the mask is showing through. I am attempting to fix this and hopefully will figure it out. They were fine before the fix so not sure if it has something to do with the normalizing.

 

Thanks Nathaniel, but instead for the problem of the trees on the mountain?? I know that exists a function that her name is Slope for put the trees where I want and not on the mountain... how do you do with TC?? you know what I mean?

 

I did fix my masks. Took me a while though and not sure why the broke in the first place. Thanks for the update! It helped with bright spots on my terrain when I mixed splats. My terrain looks better than ever!

 

I am glad you got those pesky serialization warning's out of the way...I really didn't like seeing them in my projects in which I am using TC.

I am going to report that there is something wrong with the "Measure" Tool/Utility - It slows down my editor way down...Now i think that is new, I don't recall that being an issue before. (I am using version 1.47 of TC).

I have a question regarding using a number of different splat maps and at a certain point in the terrain - when using the measuring tool it will inform me that the "Splat Total" is bigger than 1. Is this something I have to worry about? Does it have any negative implications?

Nim

 

When would TC 2 be released and would it be silly to buy TC as it is now if it is going to change much?
Regards
Pete

 

You can use masks for this. So in your tree layer there's a filter, that is for selecting which tree you want to place then you can use masks if the tree is placed or not. So in the mask you can set input to height/steepness/distribution map/splatmap, etc to make your rules for placement. You can add/subtract/min/max rules of multiple masks together.
Slope is Steepness in TerrainComposer...

Nathaniel

 

I didn't change anything in the measure tool code. Is it not that you have a lot of trees and grass placed? As for Unity terrains that can lag the editor. You can disable to draw them in the Editor in TC terrain list -> Settings (Editor) -> Draw. Or you can reset trees and grass and generate them when testing the build.
A splat total bigger then 1 is not something to worry about, but with the Unity terrain default shader it will give overbrightness. If you use RTP as the terrain shader it has no influence.
Nathaniel

 

Hello Pete,

I have no release date for TerrainComposer2 yet. As I'm working on many projects. Me and Peter are going to release a tool we made, more about it later and I'm also making a MeshCombining tool that I'm going to release which is almost ready. This meshcombining will make rendering static objects placed on the terrains or any static object even if you don't use terrains drastically faster, it can be used on non-terrain based games as well...I have like 10fps without my special combine technique, compared to >500fps with my special combine technique on some test Scenes.

TerrainComposer2 will have the same concept but will be more graphically node kind based. Although it has a little bit easier and faster approach then nodes have. TerrainComposer2 will be for free for anyone that bought TerrainComposer 1.

Nathaniel

 

Thanks for your reply... but my problem persist... I have set into my project in the mask in the tab TREE, in mode: Strength, in Input Steepness and in output min but the tree continuous to appear in the mountain... where mistake?? exist a tutorial of the Steepness??
I'm going crazy...

Thanks again

 

Yes sure there are tutorials for it, you need to adjust the curve (invert and drag the right curve point to the left), all tutorials are here:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/tutorials
Help Video Placing Trees...

Nathaniel

 

Eagle how do you feel like helping me out with a blank scene, basic terrain and helping me or showing me how to set that infinite terrain, once I grasp the basics then I can do the same for a much larger terrain.

Also can we change the code at all to increase 10x10 to a much larger number for the computers that can handle the crunching?

Cheers

 

Yes sure I can help. I do give skype screenshares, my account is Nathaniel.Doldersum

Nathaniel

 

Thanks again Nathaniel, but now I have another problem with the trees, now the first tree that I have insert into the project I don't the see in the mountain but if I insert another tree I see this in the mountain, now, the my problem is, the parameters that I insert into the first tree or I need to create another rules?? If Yes, how can I?

Thanks
Gianluca

 

Hello Gianluca,

Can you show a screenshot of your issue?

Nathaniel

 

Hi i bought this package this week and been going through the very basic videos. On the video in creating heightmaps i get to the part when you have to click the button generate heightmap but nothing happens. on the video it creates little mountains but mine is completely blank its just staying as a plane. Ive been through the video half a dozen times and there is still no change. The first use i used a demo scene then the ground textures never showed up so i decided to try out a very clean scene with only the standard package then it did work now i decided to try my own terrain and it hasn't worked now this time i haven't started a clean project but i will try that i just hope i don't have to do that all the time otherwise i will have to ask the store for money back.


P.S. I tried a new scene but it still won't work for me. Just can't generate heightmaps


P.S. I found it now and yet there really should be a video on what to do when this happens

Still having trouble with this how can i import a heightmap. I did the tutorial but there is no mountains at all generating. This is so not working for me maybe the tutorials is in need of updating aswell.

 

Hello,

You can find that in the first trouble shoot on my site:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/troubleshooting/

Let me know if you can get it to work...I also put that text above the video where I create the heightmap...

Nathaniel

 

Random tree placement, how do I actually do this? I have 9 trees that I am randomly placing using an image to control placement area. However, I do not get random distribution. The last tree is placed 1000 times while the others are placed between 5-20 times. So my forests have the same tree over and over again with a few variations. I have random strength all the way to the top. I have tried a variety of settings and curves but nothing seems to change. It is always the last tree that is placed the most.

 

Na there is nothing there for importing heightmaps they only have the trobleshooting with the heightmap layer and figured that one out but i just can't import raw heightmaps.

 

The trees are chosen in the filter, which then input should be on random and strength on 1....Not 4 as it will choose the last tree more...You want a random number between 0 and 1...

Nathaniel

 

Ah ok, you were talking about generating heightmaps so I thought you wanted to create them from a perlin noise. To import heightmaps you need 16 bit raw grey scale files.

I have made a tutorial video for this:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/tutorials/
Help Video Importing Heightmaps.

It can be that you are in web player mode, and I recommend it to try in standalone first...

If you can't get it to work, we can do a screenshare on skype, my account is Nathaniel.Doldersum

Nathaniel

 

Thank you. That worked.

 

Just updated and now getting this error

Code (CSharp):

1. ArgumentException: Getting control 10's position in a group with only 10 controls when doing Repaint
2. Aborting
3. UnityEngine.GUILayoutGroup.GetNext () (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/GUILayoutUtility.cs:512)
4. UnityEngine.GUILayoutUtility.DoGetRect (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/GUILayoutUtility.cs:275)
5. UnityEngine.GUILayoutUtility.GetRect (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/GUILayoutUtility.cs:258)
6. UnityEngine.GUILayout.DoButton (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/GUILayout.cs:43)
7. UnityEngine.GUILayout.Button (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/GUILayout.cs:38)
8. TerrainComposer.OnGUI () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:799)
9. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
10.  

 

Hello,

You can read it in the third question on the Troubleshooting page:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/troubleshooting/

* This is not serious and happens for one frame, because the TerrainComposer window is changed while it is repainted by Unity.

Nathaniel

 

Hi Nathaniel, got some feedback and questions for you

First of all, a big thanks for this fine, quality product. This is truly a powerful tool. I bought both the Terrain Composer and World Composer a few days ago and I've been giddy as a little child testing them out. It indeed takes some time to get the hang of the UI but like you've said, it's powerful and enables you to do great many things with only a few clicks. The World Composer works seamlessly together with the Terrain Composer and it also is pretty awesome. I also own the Real World Terrain by Infinity Code (bought it about 8 months ago) that I fiddled with before and I must say that when I compare these two products, the RWT doesn't even come close. Sure, you may be able to generate buildings with it but it is slow, single threaded and offers little on top of applying a height map and adding a splat texture on top. The World Composer UI is pretty awesome, the map interface is damn good. Both of these products are worth paying for - they'll save you an immense amount of time.

Now some questions/feedback:

1. In the World Composer UI you can drag and select the area you want to extract. Now assuming that you actually want a rather large area that you won't be using all at once, you'd rather extract it in smaller pieces. I'm looking at large terrains (flight simulator large) that won't all be loaded/visible at once but need to be generated. Tools for this kind of work seem to be missing; what I'm looking for is selecting the whole area first (say 1000km x 1000km), then dividing it to sub pieces to keep the terrain resolution from getting insanely pixelated. Then exporting all the heightmaps and colormaps. Right now I'd have to manually define all the smaller areas inside the larger area, instead of just having one large area and just clicking "divide to smaller areas" and enter a number X * Y and that would then create the smaller areas. I hope you understand what I mean.

2. Having collaborated with the Unity Flight Simulator project, do you see any obvious obstacles for extracting an area as large as 1000km x 1000km? Obviously I'd have to create a tile manager to choose what tiles to instantiate and when, that's a given, but anything else? I'd also love to integrate RTPv3 into this.

3. Regarding RTP, the documentation is a bit lacking on this subject. I've tried adding RTP to my terrain and have succeeded in varying degrees. Right now my problem is that the terrain seems to be heavily tinted by the first splat texture. See these two images: http://i.imgur.com/H1RwxQx.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/xYpOuBm.jpg - if I put a grayish texture as the first one, the result seems satisfactory though. Which brings me to the actual question: How is RTP using these splats? What is it doing with them? How does this integration work?

4. Vegetation and batching. Perhaps a less 'on topic' question but I'll ask it anyway - with large terrains and forests there's bound to be an abundance of trees and bushes. The sample project shows an immense number of draw calls so it's no wonder the frame rate is suffering. Do you have any tips on how to tackle this problem?

I've also thought about trying to utilize Open Street Maps data to help out with forest and building creation. Haven't found the proper way to do that yet, even manually - I do know there's pretty good vegetation data available, especially in Europe and having that available would be so nice, you could then pretty easily create forest/building masks for terrain tiles but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a tile renderer available that would let you choose exactly what layers you want rendered, might even have to experiment setting up my own tile renderer to see what's possible. I think it's definitely worth looking into.

Thanks for the great tool Nathaniel! It takes some time to master it but it's definitely worth that time spent

 

Replying to my own post

I guess I figured out the problem with the terrain tinting, which was that I hadn't get myself acquainted with RTPv3 well enough. In Relief Terrain > Global maps I found the near/mid/far blends which put me on the right road. I then realized that it of course mixes the satellite image to the base splat maps, which is actually the same everywhere since I haven't painted the terrain with any splats...

 

Hello Jusas,

About the questions:
1). You can export a big area at once and not use it all at the same time. WorldComposer exports the heightmap to one big file and each satellite image seperate. You can stream from the heightmap file then by doing some coding...
2). For big area's you have to think about the amount of storage space it takes, I can quickly run into many GB's. There's a key transfer limitation that you have to keep in mind. RTPv3 work with runtime instantiation. But I recommend to use a polling system, that you move terrain that is in the back of the camera to the front of the camera.
4). Unity terrain would need to be upgraded by Unity to be more efficient. I'm corrently working on a mesh combiner for objects, but trees and grass would need to be a seperate shader. Tom is working on a volume grass solution, which is almost ready.

You can use image colors for placing vegetation. I made a tutorial video for this:

As for buildings this is possible with Map-ity, which works together with WorldComposer:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/11779

Nathaniel

 

Does anyone know if this asset has ever been on sale?. Same for the WC. I know its worth the 90 bucks, but I need to watch what I spend, with all the programs I have had to buy, from Maya, Photoshop, Unity, etc, So I normally try and wait for sales to buy what I need. I'm an independent developer like some of you.

I want this one and WC.. I already have RTP.


Thanks.

PS: I know its random what they add on sale,but this is one that I have never seen on sale, unless I missed it some how, I normally check almost every day, for the past about 6 months or so.

 

Whats the best approach to making an open world map? as far as tile size? looking for like a fallout new vegas size game? thanks for great asset!

 

Greetings Nathaniel,

I recently purchased both Terrain and World Composer and have spent many hours watching tutorials and playing around with both tools and am progressing in my understanding of both.

Are there any tutorials that specifically address these comments from the initial post about instances and houses ?

"Another feature is that it has the ability to create instances whitin instances to many levels. For example if you want to place houses in your level. You can use an image as your map (top view), and specify were you want the houses to be placed. You can select more spots, and Terrain Composer can choose randomly from those spots, or whatever condition you prefer. Once a house is placed you can run another area setup which you make for that house. It can be an image (map) from the garden for placement of trees and bushes around the house, a shed, a road to the front door, etc. It will be even possible to randomly place furniture in the house. And then you can even take it futher, for example a table is placed (you let Terrain Composer choose a table from a list of tables) inside the house. And then you can run an image(map) for placement of chairs around the table, things on the table, like a plant, diner plate, laptop, etc, etc. In this way you can create a whole Scene at once, but with the variation and quality you need."


I have successfully created trees and grass using the image tool / masking. It sounds like objects/buildings are created similarly, however I'm lost when it comes to creation of instances within instances.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks

-David

 

Hello,

TerrainComposer has been on sale in 2013 in December and WorldComposer this year januari, after that I resubmitted them for a sale twice, but the Unity staff have not choosen them again, this is due to the high demand, there's so many Assets out there, that if each would have a sale, it would take years to get through all them...What you can do is ask the Asset Store staff if they want to pick TC and WC again for a sale...

Nathaniel

 

Can't wait to start fiddling with actual demo levels in TC.

Having done my research, I've found there are a handful of really powerful things for Unity:

Terrain Composer
Marmoset Skyshop
Character System (for Mecanim)
AI Behavior (or) Playmaker
Shader Forge
Particle Playground
Autodesk Scaleform

Hopefully I'll soon be able to afford these things so I can get a big project under way.

 

Hi there!

Quick question about the beginning state of TC. I followed the tutorial here (

) with the newest version of TC (1.47) and I can't seem to get similar starting terrain (flat surface with peaks randomly placed seen at 1:20 movie time).

When I create 2x2 terrain tiles and then Generate, I get a completely flat 2x2 terrain (I had to manually set Perlin filter). The only way I can start getting terrain to appear is to adjust the Position of the filter. But this never results in terrain being pulled up from a flat surface like shown in the tutorial. I imagine these are caused by the tutorial being created with an older version, but I'd really like to retain that flat surface (Seen in the video at 1:20).

Can anyone explain how to make that happen?

Thanks!
-Mark

 

Hello Mark,

On my site I wrote above the video what to do:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/videos/

Also wrote this in the troubleshooting tab...

Nathaniel

 

What causes the texture to look checkered with light and dark squared?
http://i.imgur.com/tzPtgN0.jpg

 

That is a terrain shader issue. I see you have ats terrain shader in there. You either need to set it up or delete the terrain shader from it...

Nathaniel

 

Duh! Thanks

 

Duh thanks man! I feel dumb now...

While asking dumb questions, I was hoping you might be able to point me in the direction of where I might find techniques to simulate erosion. The mountains I create in TC are all too... new? (in geologic time). I'd love to be able to exaggerate the erosion to be more realistic. I'm thinking more micro-scale erosion where subtle dips on the sides of mountains become increasingly deeper. I have a feeling I need to add a filter based on slope - but for the life of me I can't figure out exactly how to do it. If you are familiar with Bryce 7 (or prior versions) it has a nice erosion simulation for its terrain models. Do you have any suggestions (or a location where you've mentioned this before?) Or is this something that's better left to manual touch-ups?

Thanks again!
-Mark

 

I have been following this thread for quite a while now... and I think there is a problem with TC and RTP: They work together so nicely, but all the tutorials are about either one or the other.

I think it would be a very good idea to provide basic workflow tutorials, that describe how to use RTP and TC in the most common and most efficient ways.

Base settings (deferred vs. forward, DX11 vs. OpenGL), color settings (linear vs. gamma), how to save RTP and TC setups properly.
How to setup a project with skyshop
How to setup a project with substances
etc...

I think quite some potential customers scroll through this thread and the TC thread and think: Wow, we can do a lot of things, but where to start?

I have been using TC and RTP quite a bit now, and I am still confused, when it comes to the basics.

Nathaniel and Tom, most of your customers use both of your tools!

I have posted this in the RTP thread as well.

Michael

 

Hello Mark,

TerrainComposer has the perlin noise buildin, but if you want very realistic erosion I recommened to use WorldMachine for that. You can import everything from WorldMachine with TerrainComposer into Unity.

Nathaniel

 

Hello Michael,

What are you confused about? TerrainComposer generates Unity terrains. How would you make a terrain with the Unity terrain paint tools? First a heightmap, then splat textures, then placing trees and then grass. Same for TerrainComposer...TC project can be saved and loaded with Menu -> File -> Load/Save. As for the base settings, that is all in the Unity documentation as it is not directly related to Unity terrains, but the way you render your Scene depending on your target hardware.

Nathaniel

 

Can I create larger than 10x10?

 

Yes you can, you can change the max terrain tiles in TC Menu -> Options -> Max Terrain Settings...

Nathaniel

 

Which one of those options is it to change?

 

Max Terrain Tiles ...

Nathaniel

 

As a complete Novice in this , I watched many of your videos and with the help from some friends was able to start creating terrains in Unity. I can see an enormous amount of work here, to make something like this and to provide the support you do for it.

I bought TC tonight one because I want to enjoy many hours using the product , but also as a thanks for all those fantastic easy to follow videos you have produced and the awesome support you provide to others.

Thanks Nathaniel.

 

So I was getting an error message from TC when I set up my splat textures and hit the set all button, TC was saying it couldn't set because RTP requires heightmaps to be the same size and readable, check the file import settings. This message was incorrect. What it really wanted to say was that no splats were assigned to the terrain tile's unity terrain script. When I did this, I could set all in TC successfully. HOWEVER (and this is probably the root of the problem) as soon as I went into play mode all splats get removed from the terrain script. I tried everything I could think of, every setting in the RTP manager, nothing changed this behavior - which completely prevents me from having any texture on my terrain. I also updated RTP from (I think) v3.0 to v3.1, which cut my FPS in half (using skyshop material on 16 terrain tiles, I know it says not to do this, but before I updated performance was fine - and yes I did try removing the skyshop material it did not solve my problem with splats). Ultimately it seems I will have to give up on either TC or RTP, which is a shame. The new RTP was giving me other rendering problems, for example no matter what I set the basemap distance to (both in TC editor/runtime options, and/or unity script) once I hit play the basemap distance is changed to 25 meters! Also when I was following the tutorials for TC, when you finish your settings and hit generate ... there is no generate button! Instead it was save a splatmap or something like that, which just exported all red/ all black images, rather than painting textures onto my terrain (once I got rid of RTP this button changed back to generate, but what part of all the hundreds of settings in RTP causes this I was not able to figure out). There are a lot little things like this that have made my last week or two very frustrating - I have rage quit TC at least 3 times, but keep coming back (I'm also using WC, that's working well at least, haha) - if only because unity terrain's performance is terrible compared to TC's (15-25 fps on 4 square km vs 60-80 fps on 36 square km).

Maybe TC v 2.0 will fix a lot of this, but PLEASE make sure you have good documentation. Something like RTPs pdf where every setting is explained in detail. Videos are great for explaining basic use in an optimal scenario where everything works and the user thinks like the developer, but in non-optimal scenario, when things don't work for non-obvious reasons they are pretty useless.

Also having some recommended presets for new users in the filters and masks would be very good. For example, it is probable that most people don't want trees/grass on steep slopes, and at normalized elevation >0.X why not just have a selectable/loadable preset for this so new users can see how it is done properly and experiment with the variables.

 

Several TC customers reported this tool is hard to learn and pretty unintuitive due to complex and confusing UI and docs. Is it solved?

Thanks

 

Hi Nathaniel,

I still think it would be a good idea to provide 3 or 4 basic workflows for the most common settings. Not explaining every button, but simply letting people know, which things are important under certain preconditions.

I will pick up my TC/RTP project in early August (it´s the crater, I have showed you in a skype session), then I will be able to make my point clearer.

all the best, michael

 

The tool it self is complex due to its many features, you'll have to learn how to use it but you can get started and get a basic understanding within an hour and can use it in real production scenarios within a day. however like any powerfull tool it need some time and thoughts to master it, in return it will give you full control, so if you have a plan and know what you want to achieve you can do so. Mayn users got awesome results on the first day and most of those can produce stunning and very complex terrains/ detailplacements within minutes. just dont expect to find a "make it beautiful" button in the UI . But there a 5 examples included which create a beautiful terrain with a click of a button, and they can be easily modified with a click of a button to fit your needs...

Nathaniel

 

I'm glad you like it .

Nathaniel