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Terrain Composer2 a next generation GPU powered terrain tool.

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by eagle555, Sep 16, 2012.

  1. PlayMagicLtd

    PlayMagicLtd

    Joined:
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    Hi,
    We are new customers of Terrain composer and World Composer. We are prototyping and creating a work pipeline for our next PC and Console project.

    We extracted the Data of an Island in the Mediterranean sea that will be used as the base for the Game World.

    Because of memory limitations and continuous crashes we where not able to get the heightmaps at maximum resolutions (2048 was the highest). We use Unity 5.

    So, we gave up on trying get the maximum resolution from world composer hoping that Terrain composer was going to help us increasing the details of the terrains so we can model them to fix the resolution errors.

    The problem is that within the terrain composer tool as soon as we try to Increase Heightmap resolution or Basemap resolution the Terrains becames FLAT!

    So my question is: how can I increase the details and the resolution of the terrains I got from World Composer at maximum so we can model them as we need?
     
  2. Hexaedre

    Hexaedre

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    Hi Nathaniel,

    I did a multi resolution terrain with WC (following your tutorial) and I want to have all the terrains in TC in order to put the splatmaps, trees and details on all terrains, probably with different settings for each area.
    When I created the terrain in WC, I checked the option for exporting to TC but only one area seems to be in TC.
    Is there a way to have multiple areas in TC ?

    Cheers,
    Jonathan
     
  3. Freddy888

    Freddy888

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    Has anyone had any luck with TC in WebGL yet I was wondering ?

    I loaded up the tutorial last night and built it for WebGL. I had to take out one reference to RTP so it would build. But in Chrome I get loads of javascript errors.

    I won't list the errors because I don't have time to work on it right now. Just wondering if anyone had got it working.

    Cheers :)
     
  4. Bidds

    Bidds

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    Hi Nathaniel,

    Thanks for all the support you've given to this, I've often waded through your replies here to get to the solution to some issue or other that I've had, so I just wanted to say that it's appreciated. :)

    Anyway, I was having an issue in Unity 5 where the splatmap material wasn't being set on all terrains. I've got a 10x10 terrain set up that I'm testing at the moment, so didn't want to go through and set each material individually. What it came down to was that the terrains were defaulting to Unity5's new Built In Standard type of material, and therefore the material wasn't being changed at all. If I changed a terrain's material type to Custom, then the changes that I was making in the Terrain Composer window would stick.

    I did a bit of digging, and came up with a workaround. In the script set_terrain_material in terraincomposer_save.js, I stuck this line just before the one setting the materialTemplate:

    Code (JavaScript):
    1. terrains[count_terrain].terrain.materialType = Terrain.MaterialType.Custom;
    That allowed the materials to propagate to all of my terrains correctly.

    Not sure if you have a fix in hand or if you were aware of this. If not, I hoped this helped.

    Bidds
     
  5. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    Just FYI - I fixed this; it turns out it is a Unity bug and not related to TC, and it did affect prefabs from another asset later on. Apparently during the "reserializing assets" stage after import, prefab string values can turn into random strings of numbers.
     
    twobob likes this.
  6. snacktime

    snacktime

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    Thought I link this here as it might be useful for TC users.

    So unity handles large numbers of trees with colliders rather badly. It enables/disable them based on what's rendered instead of what is in range, which is what causes the stutters in fps when you just pan around an area with even a moderate number of trees.

    So I threw together a system to dynamically load/unload colliders from trees and objects as you move around the map. It basically fixed all my fps stutters. It's based on a spatial grid.

    This is the thread I started on the subject in the physics forum, it has two gist links to the code.

    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/terrain-culling-and-colliders-is-hosed.310594

    In conjunction with the above code I also load/unload terrains as I move the player around, and for objects I just keep the objects from the terrain the player is on active. I didn't post that code but it's very simple, I just do a distance check to all terrains every 20 seconds or so, and keep the ones in range active. I special case objects and only set the objects active on the terrain the player is on.
     
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  7. Smileysmiles

    Smileysmiles

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    It seems that UFPS does not play well with terrain composer.

    Any idea what I can change to make this work?
     
  8. Abzzolum

    Abzzolum

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    Sep 5, 2013
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    Hey guys, is there any way to keep both TC and WC running in the background? once you focus on another window they stop, Unity has the "work in the background" but does not affect TC and WC, is there any quick fix? im running a ton of terrain export tests from worldcomposer and its a bummer having to have the window in focus for it to work.
    Great Tools eagle555!
     
  9. Smileysmiles

    Smileysmiles

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    It seems an issue when the rendering path is set as deferred.

    I'm seriously out of my depth now been a noob. Any help would be grateful.

    ;)
     
  10. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Hello,

    Your screenshot looks really nice. Making erosion like WorldMachine is kind of a secret technology, there's no information about it how its made and involves some very clever algorithm. You can use TerrainComposer to import everything from WM into Unity. If you want an erosion brush you can also look into erosion brush asset:
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/27389

    Nathaniel
     
  11. MarcusWatson

    MarcusWatson

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    You might be better posting to the AFS topic - TerrainComposer generates Unity Terrains, but it's AFS that does all the special foliage/tree rendering. I'm not sure whether AFS is ready for Unity5 either, so that might be worth checking. :)
     
  12. twobob

    twobob

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    yes I have seen that before!!!
    and its not to do with this asset...

    reserializing assets
    just dont
     
  13. eagle555

    eagle555

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    What I can add to this is that you won't need to split heightmaps from WM in photoshop if you use the $99 version. You can export 1 big heightmap from WM and TerrainComposer can spread it over multiple terrain tiles. All you need to do is set 'Stretch Mode' to multi terrain in the filter where you import the raw file.

    Nathaniel
     
  14. twobob

    twobob

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    Since this is open source, by invite of the author, and utterly awesome... could it be subsumed into the main tranche to preclude the end-user requiring any skills to implement it in TC? *cough cos they won't otherwise mainly cough* and it would make you look good. EDIT: even better.

    Thanks to snacktime for this, officially on my sainthood list.
     
  15. eagle555

    eagle555

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    I don't see any gaps in your screenshot. Do you use multiple terrains? and is the gap at the edge of a terrain?

    Nathaniel
     
  16. eagle555

    eagle555

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    This seems to be a bug in Unity5 and it only seems to happen sometimes with projects that already have a lot of things in there. What I do to make TC compatible with the old versions of Unity is to export it from Unity 3.5.6. Unity5 should import it without issues, but there seems to go something wrong with importing the prefabs from the older Unity version. What should fix is importing TerrainComposer into an empty project in Unity5 and then export it again, and import that package in your large project.

    Nathaniel
     
    twobob likes this.
  17. twobob

    twobob

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    I looked at this screenshot too... long and hard... I think it relates to his first point about the "dark artifacts that occur through the terrain when viewed from the side (in this case) and object guts intersect the terrains verts in the z plane (effectively) and the first thing that sprang to mind was shadows. It would be nice to know the OP's platform (U5? 4.x?) to rule out just "too new" weirdness. But it did look a bit odd.
     
  18. Becoming

    Becoming

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    I think it may come from the tree billboard shader(tree in foreground is ok but the distant tree seems to have the issue) that has wrong sorting. Anyway the seethrough issue is definitely not related to TC as it makes unity terrains and does not draw them. Gaps can appear between terrain tiles, that can be fixed with the Terrain neighbours script if i recall correctly.
     
  19. Freddy888

    Freddy888

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    Been trying to build TC for WebGL, getting this error on the build. Anyone know a fix please ?

    Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/Presets/save_rtp_preset.js(100,17): BCE0018: The name 'ProceduralMaterial' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.ProxyAttribute'?
     
  20. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Can you show a screenshot of your area in WC? With 'Heightmap Export', 'Image Export' and 'Create Terrain' tab active?

    Well if you get memory crashes in Unity5, then you probably do way too much heightmap and satellite resolution. I tested Unity 5 with a 16k heightmap and it did run. But for desktop platforms I advice not to go higher then a total of 4k. Since TerrainComposer and WorldComposer are not restricted on this, you have to know about resolutions and memory/performance. Keep in mind that the resolution you select in WC is per tile, so you could have a 64k heightmap if you have 32x32 tiles. You can read more about WC heightmap resolution on WC's troubleshooting:
    http://www.terraincomposer.com/troubleshooting/

    Nathaniel
     
  21. SIV

    SIV

    Joined:
    May 7, 2014
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    Here (in the middle)
    Im using 1 terrain with 4 tiles

     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2015
  22. eagle555

    eagle555

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    I will check this tomorrow and correct the code to make it work. If you want to use TerrainComposer in runtime you would need to include it in a build. But if you just want to use the finished Unity terrains TC generated, you can move the TerrainComposer folder outside your project and then it should work fine.

    Nathaniel
     
  23. Freddy888

    Freddy888

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    Thanks Nathaniel :)

    I did actually manage to get it to build a few hours back by taking out that reference. But I did that blindly without knowing what I was removing. TC worked fine though in Firefox, looks really good. In Chrome is where I got those error messages I first mentioned, but it's probably a Chrome thing.
     
  24. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Hello Jonathan,

    In the latest TerrainComposer I added the functionality to search the childs of a parent GameObject. So you can work on each multi terrain 1 by 1 or all at once. You have to right click the 'Terrains' text (see page 8 of TC manual), and enable 'Search Hierarchy'. Then you can drag drop the GameObject you want to search in for terrains. Or you leave it empty to look for all terrains. Then shift click <Search>.

    Nathaniel
     
    twobob likes this.
  25. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Hello Bidds,

    Thanks for sharing the info, will check this out tomorrow when I have more time.

    Nathaniel
     
  26. eagle555

    eagle555

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    This changed with Unity5 what I can't do something about. Unity5 stops calling the EditorWindow methods when unfocussing the Unity window. You can ask Unity about this and if they can fix this.

    Nathaniel
     
  27. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Great work snacktime :D. I will check this out when I have more time.

    Nathaniel
     
    John-G likes this.
  28. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Ah ok, now I see it. It's probably that the heightmaps don't exactly fit on the edges. You can try the stitch tool on the lowest stitch value (slider to the left) in Quick Tools -> Stitch Tool.

    Nathaniel
     
  29. SIV

    SIV

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    Thanks will try that, also if there is some issues with terrain composer and RTP who should i contact ?
    The problem is the textures are tiled in horizental lines in very abvious way after i pressed RTP button (and made the other steps like LOD etc) on terrain composer.
     
  30. twobob

    twobob

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    picture speaks a thousand words.
     
  31. eagle555

    eagle555

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    RTP has many ways to get rid of tiling, but you have to set it up. Tom explains this in his tutorial video that is on the RTP Asset Store page:
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5664

    Nathaniel
     
  32. eagle555

    eagle555

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    John-G likes this.
  33. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    There is users saying the interface is bad, the tools is slow for bigger terrains and it is not intutive to learn and good tutorials are lacking.
    Also one part of the tool is C# , the other is JS.

    Will these points will improve ?
     
  34. Becoming

    Becoming

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    You are pretty good at finding the 3 bad reviews among the 75 great ones, 300+ 5 star ratings should tell you that TC is an awesome tool! Also in Nathaniels defense, look at this 44 pages thread. Don't you have the feeling that TC is constantly improved? I cant agree on any of your points, i only admit that the userinterface is as big as any tool that gives you full control. TC is not giving you the magic button "make succesfull AAA game" but it gives you the ability to make terrains that compete with terrains from the big AAA titles out there. The learning curve is not that hard, the first time i used it i was able to get my worldmachine terrains into unity without problems and populate them(after watching the video tutorials) and i am a happy user since then. You have full right to say that i am biased, because obviously Nathaniel and i are friends, but still that's my honest opinion.

    TC is constantly improved since its release(which is far over a year back) and a lot of effort has gone into it. The Price is currently at 45$ and there is a LOT of value you get for a few bucks. I and appearently 99% of the users are able to appreciate that.
     
    Seneral, MS80, John-G and 1 other person like this.
  35. Freddy888

    Freddy888

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    In my opinion the interface is fine, it's the results you should be worrying about and I am glad to say they are superb. Don't be put off with the learning curve, it's not too bad. I figured out a lot of stuff by experimentation and following Nathaniel's you tube videos or just asking. If you can use Unity then you can use TC.

    The support is perfect, Nathaniel answers all the questions that I have seen and promptly too.
     
  36. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    My 2cents,

    TC is being rewritten into C# as far as I know (+visual node editor for next incoming releases).

    Tom
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2015
    Seneral, OnePxl and John-G like this.
  37. John-G

    John-G

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    Mar 21, 2013
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    Hi Nathaniel,

    Would it be possible to add support for Speedtrees in the Open Trees Dialogue Box.
    Only .Prefab is seen by default unless you select show all.
    Speedtrees .Spm files works perfectly if dragged into interface OK.

     
  38. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    I just ask, because not all people can drop such price so easy depending on personnal finances. And like Steam products i take a look at bad opinions before the good ones to see if there anything that could ne stopping me.
    I already loosed for example 200$ in some Steam product , because at final it was not so great as many users was saying, because many just didn't used it as deep or for production purpose.


    Thanks.
     
  39. twobob

    twobob

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    A bad interface is easy to write in Unity, You Don't write one.
    And the inspector spews out the guts piece by piece for your confused delectation.

    This interface is one of the most "lovingly crafted" specialist pieces of interface I have seen so far..
    Visual Node editor coming soon? Jeebers.

    Yeah. Moneys worth.
    Will it have a critical bug that annoys the heck out of you? Impossible to know.
    Will it have a way of working that really you would like to change? Also not knowable.
    Will you learn a heck of a lot just by using it and nosing around in the source code. No-Brainer.

    My 2 cents.
    EDIT I forgot to mention the awesome examples...
    (and it is written mainly in Js with a few .cs utiliy scripts I think)
     
  40. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Visual nodes - I didn't say "coming soon", but saw some alpha work in prograss done by Nathaniel. I'm sure this will be well thought over (as usual) even if at first glance number of options is overhelming.

    Tom
     
  41. twobob

    twobob

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    You had me At "Coming at all".
     
  42. Becoming

    Becoming

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    Haha, posts like this make me rethink my strong believe that the marsface is a monument built by aliens :D
    I am the one to blame for this map and i know for sure, any resemblance with a face is sheer coincidence. Dang, where is my tinfoil helmet?
     
    Seneral likes this.
  43. twobob

    twobob

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  44. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Can you see the face or am i just seeing things
     
  45. Becoming

    Becoming

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    There are some other posts in the 24h demo thread as well, i remember one saw something in the clouds. This makes me want to hide stuff like that on purpose :D
     
  46. Becoming

    Becoming

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    i can see it too, but it was not planned.
     
  47. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Haha i love things like that
     
  48. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Was the easter egg ever found?
     
  49. Becoming

    Becoming

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    Yes, you can check the 24h terrain demo thread for its location, i think its on page 6 or so.
     
  50. VicToMeyeZR

    VicToMeyeZR

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    @eagle555

    Hey. The TC editor for some reason still thinks Unity 5 x64 is a 32 bit Editor? Do you know about this?