TerraVol: volumetric/voxel terrain system. Dig holes caves in your terrains!

Wow, TerraVol is on sale in the Asset store for less than the price of a Steam game on sale, lol. Even though we use Terrain Engine for our game, I am curious about your technology - I think we will pick this up today just to try out something different! Thanks!

 

Has this been tested on Mobile yet? I looked through the first 10 pages of this thread, and couldn't find an answer. I'd like to know what kind of performance it gets.

Thanks!
Jacob

 

I bought this to see if I can create something more interesting than the heightmap terrains allow (and without additional 3d modeling).

How would we ensure that we are including all chunks, since some may be cached out of memory at the time we run a mesh combiner tool? An example of how to accomplish this would be great, especially since this question has come up multiple times in this thread. Seems a lot of people (including me) are interested in baking terrains into static geometry.

 

i think i have the same issue. when i look at the chuck. the renderer is unchecked. however, on the sample scenes, i can see grasses and the renderer checked. any thoughts? EDIT: Solved this by changing the shader for the grass

how do i load all the chunks when i use heightmap?

i noticed that unity created trees can only be used?

how can I make mesh colliders work with the terrain? i do not have a problem if i set it to box or sphere.

if i have an object with rigidbody attached, when i build (raise the terrain), that object falls off the terrain. any thought how can this be addressed?

there seems to be a bug where the chunks dont (or stops) get(ting) drawn when the player reached the end of the heightmap.

 

I've been thinking of getting either this or Voxel Terrain Editor(http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/185343-Voxel-Terrain-Editor). What are the cons and pros of TerraVol compared with Voxel Terrain Editor?

One thing I've nocited playing the demo is that it's hard to dig/build terrain where you really want even when the reticles are on. I'm not sure if the same goes for Voxel Terrain Editor as they don't have a demo.

 

Hello

I'm probably going to buy this tool for my game, but first I need some informations.
(I hope they weren't already answered, because I haven't read the whole thread...)

1. Is the terrain suitable for a open world of the size of 2000x1300 meters?
2. Can you adjust the view distance?
3. Does it come with an terrain lod system (like the Unity terrain)?
4. Is it possible to adjust the resoultion (To add more details)?

I hope, that you can answer all questions with yes, because I would love to use a voxel terrain in my game and your's looks very good!

Greetings
Chillersanim

 

I have an idea for 2 features which should be in package, but i might be able to code them on the go, not sure about it though:

1. Stacked height maps.
At this point TerraVol can only load top ground heightmap. What about give ability to load cave system as well. Flat'ish one but none the less.
Here's what i mean:
In an old game called Hellbender were multiple ground levels inter-connected by portals.
It used 3 heightmaps for the level - top ground, reversed ceiling of the cave and ground of the cave, loading cave from it on the go:

To example let user set heights of cutting like:
Top level height 6 and above
Cave system floor height 2-4
Cave system ceiling height 3-5 (overlapping to make walls).

2. Reading splat maps.
Now i know that i can set the block to only specific vertex color. But still - when generating terrain out of heightmap it would be quiet useful to also set all surface blocks by splat map.

 

I am trying to change the height where a sand is painted, but when i change them, it causes the terrain not being generated.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. //TerraVolEnhance.cs
3.  
4.     public Block OnBlockGenerateBeforeInThread (Vector3i position)
5.     {
6.         #if TERRAVOL_2_BIOMES
7.        
8.         if (position.x > 10) {
9.             return winterDefaultBlock; // WinterDefault block will be used
10.        
11.         } else if (position.x > 8) {
12.             return winterTransitionBlock; // Transition block will be used
13.            
14.         } else if (position.x > 6) {
15.             return transitionBlock; // Transition block will be used
16.        
17.         }
18.         return null; // Default block will be used
19.        
20.         #else
21.        
22.         if (sandBlock != null  position.y < 8) //used to be -2  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
23.             return sandBlock;
24.         return null;
25.        
26.         #endif
27.     }

any thoughts?

also how can i stop the grass from generating on certain levels? though i have not looked into biomes yet

 

Hi Amfu,
Thank you for this brilliant terrain system!
I have a question, you've provided an example in the package where terrain is generated infinitely. How exactly does that feature work?
If I create a terrain using the in-editor builder it is always limited to the size x/y at start.
Also how do I increase the draw distance during terrain generation?

 

DO you have a changelog listed anywhere. curious to track and see changes in the updates.

 

FYI Planning to use TerraVol for LudumDare this weekend -- theme "Beneath the surface" (quelle surprise, huh!) Anyone else?

Got several ideas with my current favourite being a cancer simulation! (fun, huh!) Hoping to randomly generate an expanse of tissue (perhaps with some internal structures to simulate organs, etc) using TerraVol. The goal will be something like needing to eradicate the cancer while damaging as little healthy tissue as possible. (of course, if it's too ambitious, I'll be backing off to something much simpler!)

Not used TV previously so diving into the docs first! If you're interested, my notes are in a live Google Doc here and I'm blogging on the LD site, starting here.

All thoughts, advice, jokes, encouragement welcome

Thanks!

 

Hi there,

Great work with TerraVol! I'm also using this for Ludum Dare this weekend

I've encountered a problem though, I'm not sure whether you're already aware.
Using

Code (csharp):

1. PathFinder.FindPath(map, start, end, true);

works a treat!

But setting the aboveGroundOnly flag to false

Code (csharp):

1. PathFinder.FindPath(map, start, end, false);

caused the Unity editor to freeze and increase memory usage to around 2GB. Something like a memory leak?

 

Hi,
Loving TerraVol but probably missing something obvious: (1) how can one dig to reveal what lies beneath?

I have a pre-built world with custom BlockTypes (per my previous post, this is an endoscope inside a body so I have Flesh and Disease!). I wish to cut away Disease until I reach Flesh. However Dig action requires supplying a blockType which immediately replaces the existing type. What am I missing? (Lacking a solution, I’m currently modifying ActionData.DoDigBuild() etc to allow supplying null blockType to leave it alone!)

After that, (2) I need to find a way to determine what blocks are being removed so I can score your performance. (remove disease += points; remove flesh -= points + risk patient death!) Best solution I’ve seen so far is to use code from ActionData.DoDigBuild() (map.GetChunkDataInstance().GetBlock()) before modifying. Of course, this might provide an answer to (1) -- do that then supply into Dig. Still feels rather kludgy! Again, feel like I’m missing something.

Lastly, if I get this working with time to spare, (3) I had hoped to implement a ‘pushing through flesh’ mechanic whereby a sphere around the endoscope tip is temporarily disabled and re-enabled once passed. I expect this will require a new ActionDataType or two “Disable” and “Enable” (or “SetEnabled” with a bool but it doesn’t seem setup for this extension).

Any suggestions on approach or whatever ultra welcome!
I’m still doing Ludum Dare so need to finish this within the next 7 hours (before 02:00 BST) but I understand you guys have lives of your own ;-)
Thanks, Rupert.

 

It has been tested by some users and apparently performance is still an issue on mobile devices.

You're right, you would actually need to combine the mesh dynamically while the terrain is built/unbuilt. Maybe something I'll add in future versions, but if you can't wait you can do it yourself: I think the best approach would be to have a HashSet<Vector3i>, containing position of chunks that you've already combined (so you don't combine the same chunk twice). Then you'll want to call your "combine" method at the end of PostBuild in Chunk.cs.

@daeuk: I answered to you by email Apparently your issue was due to a bad integration of TerraVol package.

Actually I think that the imprecision of editing you find in the demo of TerraVol comes from the resolution of the terrain. If you put a higher resolution you will have a smaller terrain (like in Voxel Terrain Editor) but editing will be more precise.

Yes as it is suitable for infinite terrains
Yes again, but be very careful with performance!
Not currently.
Yes but the higher the resolution is, the smaller will be your terrain.

@smoketh:
Reading stacked heightmaps is a good idea, but I'm not sure it will be very usable. And I think a very few people use this.
Reading splat maps is an excellent idea. And this would be used by a lot of people!

This feature works out of the box. While the player moves over the terrain, it is built around him dynamically.
In the editor, place the cursor in the scene view and press 'B' to build the terrain around.
You can increase the draw distance by increasing the "build distance" on the TerraMap component.

No more than the one on the Asset Store when you click on the version number.

@ketch: I have to check it at home. It used to work well so there is no reason it can't work anymore.

@Arkade: thanks for sharing your with us! It's nice to see how TerraVol can be used for a lot of different and original purposes!
Best luck for your project.
I'm really sorry I'm too late for Ludum Dare :/

You're 100% right, I need to make it possible to pass null value to let the current block.

It is quite kludgy but there isn't any other way to know which block you are digging. You must get it this way.

Not sure to understand what you want to do, but couldn't you just perform an action and then undo it? It would be quite easy to do: as actions are put in a map, you just have to remove the last one and recompute the affected chunks.

 

I would like to know the answer to this also...

When I use grass and trees it ends up on sand parts and stuff..

Also I would like to know how I can get water to work with the unlimited terrain ...once the grass and trees stop growing on the beach ^^

 

So I've tried to wrap my head around saving/loading with heightmaps, and i cant get it to work: Maybe i have the concepts wrong behind the procedural generation or something. What i want to happen, is to load a heightmap as a base, edit it, save it, and load it later for more editing/playing. I just cant bring back the same mesh i was working with.

Here is an imgur album of what i was doing, please tell me if i was doing something wrong.

http://imgur.com/a/RLEbC

 

Still would be nice to have stacked height-maps - will give people ability to design cave system easily - and if pointed out - people will actually start using it. You see - it's far easier to design cave level with an editor like photoshop rather than manually put it pixel by pixel within the interface - so if you'll point this feature up - people will pick it up and use right after you point them to it Kinda the point of voxel terrains - why not make them more usable on design with this

Also - it will be possible to design them within 3dsmax - i usually do it like that anyway - first i create mesh then draw on it within pushing/pulling vertices, then apply a side b/w gradient, render it with otnographic projection and i have my heightmap. I am sure designing cave systems like that will be a happy breeze and shorten up development cycle tremendously.

 

hi!

i bought terravol v2. if i open it on my macbook (2.5 years old) in unity (or if i exported it as an app), it looks just fine. but if i open the same project or app on my older mac pro, most of the terrain will be generated black (as in the picture). i had the same problem on an older macbook. it seems as if it works on newer macs, but doesn't on older. why is that and how could i change it? i need to be able to work on older macs with terravol v2 as well!

thanks!

wolga

 

how can we use lux shaders on the terrain? is it possible?

splat/color maps are great additions

 

I am interested in TerraVol, but this demo really concerns me (http://terravol.com/demo_v2/).

First of all, I have a 4.8ghz 8-core cpu, with 16gb ram, and a Radeon R9 gpu. Somehow this beast of a machine still lags up to a second every time the terrain chunks load. And frankly, the range isn't very far. I also noticed the smaller radius tunneling doesn't work well.

Even if these problems are fixable without reducing quality (*cough*), $80 is a rough sell.

So I just want to get your feedback on why this tool costs almost as much as an Ouya gaming console...

 

I have these specs:

AMD FX-8150(3.6ghz 8-core)
16gigs of ram
HD7870 GHZ edition

The map I made with this asset is unlimited ...with grass and trees..

I made a developer version of my map to test it ... I get around 120FPS at 4800x900 ..highest quality settings ... there is a little bit of glitching when stuff loads but its not that bad..

My only real issues with it is the grass growing in the wrong spots(haven't figured out how to get it to grow in specific areas ...and/or water to work with the unlimited terrain..etc) ...and that the terrain loads too close to the camera..

The way this terrain works though if you make it load the terrain too far away from the camera it will drop in FPS badly ..so there isn't much you can do about that if you want performance you will see the terrain loading as you walk..

I guess adding some sort of distance fog would make it less noticeable..

I have decided to use this voxel terrain with a heightmap along with standard procedural terrain for "areas" to dig or build stuff..instead of making a never ending terrain map with it.. should reduce the overall load on the system..

 

TL;DR This next section is mostly waffle

No worries. I got some good feedback and am now wondering whether to take the project further -- perhaps even submit it to Indiecade (although I worry I won't be able to attend so maybe pointless).

Out of interest, I tried running it on mobile! Tegra 3 was 14 FPS with no optimizations but on the (admittedly super-meaty) Samsung Galaxy S5, I get 45 FPS which is eminently satisfactory for demonstration purposes. I'm idly wondering how to redefine the load/unload volume since my game constrains movement (so a exagerated frustrum would suffice). That said, I also tried integrating OpenDive gyro tracking as a feasibility for a VR version and that worked quite nicely! Obviously the VR version wouldn't be /as/ constrained so it's all up in the air at the moment.

I have a provisional version that seems to work (at least for Sphere digging). Would you be interested in a patch? Obviously it's jam-time hacking so it could well miss something important!

Another idea occurred (to the hacker happy to attack others' code)! I'm investigating tweaking ActionData to record Blocks affected so it can be read afterwards. This ought to answer my need without requiring duplicating calls. Rather than return the List<Block> from Do(), I'm wondering about sticking it in a property to be read later. My only concern is the GC impact of this? (I'm getting the impression that all ActionData are stored permanently! Is this right?) I'm not serializing but all the same, it'd mean lots of extraneous references :-\

Interesting. I can't use the existing WorldRecorder.UndoLastAction() since the player is allowed to edit while in this mode (which would push edits onto the list). However I /guess/ one could either fiddle to keep the ActionData-I-wish-to-undo at the end of the list or allow removing arbitrary items from the list, right? Other options? If not, which better?

Other matters:

Another need is how to get statistics about whole 'known' map? (I.e. how many Disease blocks exist at load?)
I'll probably look at WorldRecorder to see if I can interject some callback system during Load(). Any tips?
Obviously this differs if I generate. Not investigated what complications this brings. (Although I preferred this idea originally, I'm no longer sure whether generating will give good (game-viable) results.) Thoughts on all welcome.

WebPlayer loading gave me endless Protobuf pain. Is this known to work? (I burned several LD hours unsuccessfully so had to only offer desktop builds.)
As part of this, I modified loading to spot path including "resources", fix the path and load from (Resources.Load() as TextAsset).bytes. Would this be a useful patch?

Well, that's enough from me. Back to fiddling with your library B-)
Rupert.

 

Nice! Good to know. Thanks for posting this. The Tegra 3 is a specific chip though, used in many devices, right? What is the specific device you used? I'm guessing my Galaxy Note 3 would get close to the performance you got on the S5...

Thanks!
Jacob

 

The Tegra 3 I tried it on was my Ouya and, as noted, it had desktop settings and no optimizations (bar having 'My First Triplanar Shader' disabled ;-) ). I suspect 30 FPS is probably achievable without crazy work (but probably not 60 at this time = IMHO).

 

Oh, also note that these FPS values don't include jank issues from GC (or whatever). Obviously these tend to be felt worse on mobile. I'll report on this if I do more mobile stuff with TV but, for now, I'm just getting the basic LD Jam game to feel more like a game (e.g. Scoring!)
HTH

 

Hi Amfu

What is required to get the latest versions of RTP3 and Terravol to work together correctly? I have followed the instructions and had it working previously, but it seems like some things have changed and i'm getting the grass and rocks textures mixed up. Changing vertex colors don't have any effect at all.

Many thanks

 

is there a big jump in quality when using rtp with terravol? i already have terravol but i wanted to make sure before i buy rtp3

 

Interesting. I will get a look. Have you asked Tom about this?

Honestly yes, because you will be able to have parallax mapping working together with triplanar mapping, but it depends on your needs of course.

 

Hi, @Amfu

Update on my last big message -- I've got most of it working, would a patch be welcome? (nice not to have to maintain my own branch!) This includes:

1. digging to reveal what exists (only on the sphere branch in ActionData.DoDigBuild() but easy enough to port to other branches *or*, better still, refactoring that method to remove the duplication? Would that be acceptable?)

2. Digging informing what was affected (currently returned by an extra member in ActionData populated in DoDigBuild()).

3. Digging that destroys causing the Block type to be switched to a TerraMap-defined Block type. (i.e. a "Gold" Block type will be set to "Destroyed" Block type such that you can spot them in (2) so you can score.)

4. Known-World Block statistics (what Blocks have been populated into the world at time of query). Obviously it doesn't report on un-generated/loaded columns. I might extend this to providing some sort of callback (but not yet).

Things I haven't looked at yet:

5. My temporarily removal need that ended in these questions (thoughts still welcome):

6. My WebPlayer ProtoBuf loading problems that led to these questions (responses still sought):

Thanks, Rupert.

 

Hey Amfu,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for this amazing asset you've put together, absolutely brilliant.

However, I'm a bit stumped here. I am trying to put together a simple "raycast to dig" script, where the ray is cast from the middle of the screen forward and a radius 10 * Vector3.one chunk would be dug out.

It seems that the digging occurs relatively in the right spot on the X and Z axis, but on the Y-axis, its very much too deep in the ground. Here is a screenshot with the issue pictured on the top view:



(Fullsize picture, click here)

And here is the code I am using to call for the digging:

Have I missed something obvious or am I doing something wrong?

 

No, i wasn't quite sure who i should ask. But maybe you both should take a look at this together because it seems that the documentation needs to be updated and perhaps it can be made easier to setup (correct vertex colors, automatic detection of rtp3/terravol so there's no need to uncomment defines). Many thanks.

 

Is it me or does the new TerraVol grass Destroy frame rate.

 

Could I get the uncompiled Shader for the Terrain?

Thanks!

 

How can I paint prefabs (trees/grass/etc) on the terrain? Is it possible?

If not, would it be possible to include them on the next version? And would allow saving them as well and load later?

 

This got fixed by moving the Map object back to 0,0,0 coordinates.

 

It costs nothing to ask. Esp. it's hard for me to follow all posts on all products that can work with RTP. In your case newest version of RTP has this standalone shader configured to get coverage from world/local normals (so for example you'll always have one layer on the top no matter your vertex colors). It can be adjusted in RTP shader. It's desribed in my docs, but if you'd like more guidance I can provide on my forum, too.

ATB, Tom

 

ok @tomaszek, I'll dig into it some more and get back to you if i need help. Many thanks.

 

getting the following errors when setting five or more trees

Scene::raycastClosestShape: The maximum distance must be greater than zero!
UnityEngine.Physics:Raycast(Vector3, Vector3, RaycastHit&, Single)
TerraVolEnhance:CreateVegetation(Chunk) (at Assets/TerraVolPack/TerraVol/Scripts_to_customize/TerraVolEnhance.cs:147)
ChunkostBuild() (at Assets/TerraVolPack/TerraVol/Scripts/Map/Chunk.cs:261)
Chunk:Update() (at Assets/TerraVolPack/TerraVol/Scripts/Map/Chunk.cs:179)

 

Is it possible to use a vertex-colored shader to create a visual like this one bellow?

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/18572

Does it uses Voronoi graphs in any way? What is the underlying data structure?

 

Hi, I am really interested with terravol, but I am comparing it to moleengine that's also in the asset store. The one thing with moleengine that's important to me I s the free floating rock as seen on their store. Can terravol do that same thing? Basically I want to create a large asteroid with an interior.

Thanks

 

is there a way to have a finite terrain but have it loop when you get to the edge so you can run forever but end up where you started? thank you in advance for any help / advice

 

@daeuk
I'll look at this. Seems weird!

@Rod Galvao
You can use any shader you want on the terrain as if it standard meshes.
TerraVol doesn't use Voronoi graphs. The data structure is regular grids (ie. arrays).

@Cdngater
You can definitely create a floating rock like moleengine does. You'll just have to customize TerrainGenerator.cs so it generates an asteroid. The easiest way to achieve this is to increase the isovalue of blocks which are far from the center of your rock so it will create empty space around it.

@Blessedone
This seems possible (it IS possible) but no so easy to do. I will have to think about that..

 

Amfu thank you for your reply i will continue looking into this i really appreciate any advice you can give in this area

 

as well as my previous question i have another now too...
i have a npcs that start out at dynamic locations however every time i start them out gravity kicks in while there is no map tile under them and they just fall forever...
how should this be handled?
i don't want then to always spawn in the same place.

even though its not what i wanted to accomplish
i tried just attaching them to the chunk but that didn't work either they just disappear at run-time

i looked through the documentation and i didn't see any advice in the area of scenery or npcs or collectible items

lets say i want to put a building spanning a few chunks with some npcs that spawn randomly near the building
it would also be nice if i could have certain AI persist while I'm far away while others would not persist


like maybe instead of tracking the camera for terrain generation maybe i an track anything with a certain tag? or component?

 

Does anyone have any information on the A* portion of TerraVol? I saw there is a demo where there is the visible pathing yellow dots created, but it doesn't look like its included with the asset's scenes? Everything I can find on implementing A* requires a set terrain and building a grid around that, so I am rather stuck as to how it would be implemented in a situation like Terravol where land is generated around the player. I turned off random seed so my multiplayer characters all load the same terrain (as a temporary workaround). I also picked up the pro version of A* thinking that had something to do with it, so if anyone has any ideas at all, I would greatly appreciate any input or even links. Thanks a ton!

 

Hello!

How easily can you make islands with this? Could each island have individual properties?

Could we spawn villages, NPCs, etc... with this?

Thanks!

 

I cannot edit the terrain if I instantiate the map object from a script. I keep getting null reference exceptions pertaining to the blockset but there is a blockset component assigned to the map.

Fix: Oddly enough, the order in which the objects were instantiated mattered.

 

Hi, couple questions.

When I run the webplayer demo and move around it seems like loading new terrain causes very frequent and noticeable stuttering, maybe a quarter to half second pause every 5-10 seconds or so. I'm not sure if that is normal or not, but if so, is that just because its in webplayer? Does it run smoothly when published to desktop?
Infinite terrain is nice but not entirely necessary, I could use a heightmapped area if that helps, though it would need to be large (the area, not the heightmap). Also, does anyone have any anecdotal info on how far draw distance can be pushed for PC? For example would a 2km*2km area with 2km draw distance be unreasonable from a performance standpoint? (assuming no new voxels are created, only maybe occasional destruction/digging on a mostly flat area without much depth/height).

Assuming again no infinite terrain, and just a preset map with draw distance = size, off screen objects (and AI) would no longer be at risk of falling through the world right?

 

2.5D Scene Question/Bug:

I load up the provided scene. On the map object, I deactivate TerraMapGenerator and add the In-Editor Builder script.

When I attempt to dig, there are pieces of the wall that are left and no matter where I click I cannot remove them. If I turn the camera around and face the map in the negative Z/forward direction then those walls don't show up.



Please let me know if anyone else has this issue or knows of a fix? Workaround might be to reprogram my game with inverted controls...

 

hi All,
I have question,
are any of you use Terravol with tool to make roads, like EasyRoads or Road Architect?

or that tools not support Terravol?