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[70% OFF!] UniStorm 5.2 - AAA Volumetric Clouds, URP Support, Weather, Sky, Atmospheric Fog, & More!

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by BHS, Jan 27, 2012.

  1. kenlem

    kenlem

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    Any update on mobile?
     
  2. Legacy

    Legacy

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    Hey Black,

    I did figure out what the issue was, in your demo scene you have a prefab using the 1.5 version of the rain system but the default unistorm 1.5 prefab has the 1.4 rain system, to fix it just go into the demo scene click on the unistorm parent object and click apply at the top that way you can now just drag it into the scene without having to mess around with anything.
     
  3. BHS

    BHS

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    Got it, my mistake. Thanks for figuring this out, it was bugging me that we couldn't find a fix.

    Great question, I was just about to post the status on this.


    UniStorm Mobile is being developed now and will be released as soon as possible. I'm just working on optimizing everything so it can be as efficient as possible. For a release, I would say 2 weeks at the most.
     
  4. MizoreRainy

    MizoreRainy

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    Did UniStorm able to split the weather effect into half in one landscape?
     
  5. BHS

    BHS

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    What do you mean by half? Do you mean split the weather effects into separate parts on the terrain, like sunny on one side and rainy on the other?
     
  6. MizoreRainy

    MizoreRainy

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    Yes. Sorry for bad English. I have a terrain that are snowy on one side and rainy on the other side. So I really looking forward to UniStorm 1.6 a lot :D
     
  7. BHS

    BHS

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    If you wanted to do separate effects on different sides of the terrain I'm sure it could be done with a little tweaking. I think others have in the past. Glad your looking forward to UniStorm 1.6 I'm hard at work with releasing it.
     
  8. BHS

    BHS

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    Just a quick update with UniStorm Mobile.

    UniStorm Mobile will be released within 1 to 2 weeks. I have almost finished optimizing it and achieved a blazing max 60 fps both stormy and not stormy. To read more you can go to the UniStorm Mobile thread here: UniStorm Mobile Thread

    Hope you guys are as excited as I am. This test was on a low to mid range droid tablet 2.2 so other devices should do fine.

    UniStorm Mobile Day/Night Cycles, 60 fps!


    UniStorm Mobile Rain Storm, 60 fps!
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2012
  9. virror

    virror

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    Looking very nice : )
    Will 1.6 be able to take advantage off some of the optimizations from the mobile version?
    Really looking forward to 1.6 and the snow, will make a perfect fit into my game : D
     
  10. shwa

    shwa

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    looking forward to the mobile version.

    any idea of price on this?
     
  11. markfrancombe

    markfrancombe

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    Hi guys,

    Im just thinking of purchasing this system and at this new price, I think I have to very soon! It looks fantastic!

    Im of course using Unity free... (dreaming of Pro, but right now is out of the question) so Im glad to see that you are developing this for Indie...

    Before I hit BUY, I have just 2 short questions:

    I am of course using lightmapping for my shadows and and adding realism, how does the system look when my shadows are static (and obviously still there when your system cycles to a night scene? Realistically, its not gonna be correct, but how bad/good is it? My games looks so infinitely better lightmapped, that I cant envision NOT lightmapping, but is you system gonna look weird?

    Secondly, you casually mention that you have customers that have used this for MMO, and network play. Currently I have no Unity developer on my project (Im a designer) as Im making a (pretty awesome) demo, that should LOOK AAA, even though functionality-wise its not working. (therefore I want UniStorm!) However I am currently running a pretty simple Photon solution for having Multi-user play, which I want to remain in the demo. So obviously my question is...
    How simple is it really to make the system work in Photon, and do you have any step by step NEWB instructions as to how to set it up?

    Looking forward to positive news!

    Mark
     
  12. virror

    virror

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    Best solution to question number 2 is to contact the persons in this thread that said they were going to adapt it for network play and ask them how they did it i think.
     
  13. Fennris

    Fennris

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    This looks very nice I must say!

    But I have some questions, it might already be stated somewhere but I couldn't find any information about it.

    Can I call the status of the weather from another script? Like: Sunny, Overcast, Raining, Thunderstorm.
    Can the script initiate another script on weather change? (I guess this could be done with some tweaking anyways)
    And what about calling time and date?

    Im rather new to Unity so sorry if my questions sounds stupid.
     
  14. BHS

    BHS

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    I’m not a exactly sure on the price, but most likely it will be around the same cost as the desktop version. Just because it runs on mobile and looks more simple doesn’t mean the price will be lower. It took quite some work to make everything run and work smoothly. I think a price around $60 is well worth it.


    Hi,

    Glad you're interested in UnStorm. The price you see isn't the new price, it's only a discount for a limited time.

    For the lightmapping question, I'm not sure how it would look because I have never tested it myself. I think it would still look good as long as the shadows weren't excessively dark. Oblivion didn't have realtime shadows and they had a day/night system.

    Yes, people have used UniStorm with MMOs and networks. I'm not much of a network programmer, but from how the customers explained it I think you have to have a little experience with networks. The directions on how to set it up are included in the documentation, but if you have no experience with networking then it might a little more difficult. There are not step by step instructions.

    As Virror said, you could ask the customers who got UniStorm working with networks; they may be able to explain it better.


    There are no stupid questions on the UniStorm thread I will always answer them.

    Yes, I have made it easy to call all weather types and you can certainly do this from another script. You do this with numbers just like most AAA game company’s systems do such as, Oblivion and Skyrim. Lets say if you wanted to initiate a thunder storm, you would simply do: weatherType = 2; and that’s it. I have supplied the list of all weather types in the documentation.

    As for the time, do you mean calling time and dates for events? Like at 9 pm on January 8th do this...? Yes, this is possible I have already implemented this technique with version 1.6 for creating seasons. You can call evens on any hour, day, month, or year.

    It would be something like:

    Code (csharp):
    1. if (hourCounter == 21  dayCounter == 8  monthCounter == 1)
    2. {
    3.        //Start event
    4. }
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2012
  15. BHS

    BHS

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  16. Djiel

    Djiel

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    This stuff looks amazing. Definitely interested in this, though not right now (weather is of later concern for my project).
    Some questions:

    I read on some post a few pages back, someone asking if the onscreen splatter would return. Assuming then that this was removed. If that is correct, why? And will this come back? Definitely something I'd like to have.

    And finally, perhaps a silly question, but is it possible to have the weather static? I read a lot of 'dynamic' throughout here, but I'm really looking for a static solution :D
    1 scene should have a specific weather, throughout the whole time you are there.
    To clarify this a bit further, I'm working on a racing game and I want a track to have the option with or without rain. Both would be different scenes (though same content otherwise) with 1 having sun and 1 rain.
    As you can probably understand, dynamic is not something I want in this case, hence the question about having static weather.

    Thank you :)

    (Nice to see it's sometimes on sale.. hope it will be again when the time comes where I need it :D )
     
  17. BHS

    BHS

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    I'm working on the rain on screen effect, but since the 3.5 update there have been some issues. I will try to get this working by 1.6.

    As for static weather, yes, UniStorm supports it. You can set whatever weather type or time of day you want. You will just set the day length to a high number which will make it static. I have explained this more in the start of the thread, thanks for reminding me I totally forgot to add this to the feature list.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2012
  18. Djiel

    Djiel

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    Great, thanks a lot. Looking forward to seeing 1.6 update :)
     
  19. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    I have a question in regards to custom sky textures with this... I usually do my skies in Vue, would I be able to use my custom sky textures with this?
     
  20. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes, as long as it's a texture and it has an alpha channel you can use it, the shader will take of everything else. I never heard of this program does it make good cloud textures? Maybe I can use this to add new cloud textures to UniStorm.
     
  21. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    Hell yes... the skies look REAL...

    I usually bake six sides for a cube map...what is the alpha channel for exactly?

    Here is a sample:

     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2012
  22. BHS

    BHS

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    Sounds great.

    An alpha channel is what allows the texture have transparency in the background. Something like a tree leaf texture, how it has just the tree leaf without the background. Can VUE have this on the cloud textures? Also how much is the VUE software?
     
  23. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    So basically the cloud textures need an alpha? and vue has many paackages... i have the 399 versions
     
  24. BHS

    BHS

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    I think it's the background that needs to be alpha channeled.

    I found a link to a little tutorial on how to do so if you want to know how. I'd be interested in using this if you can get the clouds with an alpha background. It looks like a great program.

    VUE Alpha Clouds
     
  25. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    I'll whip one up
     
  26. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    Also will UniStorm work with Beast?
     
  27. BHS

    BHS

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    Does Beast work with directional lights? Even if it doesn't, UniStorm also uses ambient lighting as well as Unity's fog. This means that your light mapped scene can still recieve the lighting for the time of day. Something like Oblivion if you're familiar with the game.
     
  28. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    I'm a skyrim guy :)... I am baking you a sky texture now...do u want all six sides?
     
  29. BHS

    BHS

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    Awesome, I will test it out with UniStorm and take a screenshot of what it looks like. Oh well Oblivion used lightmapping with ambient shading and it looked great so, it's the same technique that UniStorm would use with having a scene lightmapped.

    For the six sides I would probably only need one. I'm not familiar with the program, it would also need to be tileable (like just make sure there are no clouds touching the side of any corners of the texture) a single cloud texture or a couple in a group would also work.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2012
  30. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    That is going to be tough...I will have to go back and rerender it...
     
  31. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    Are your clouds a texture? Because the clouds in Vue are procedural...
     
  32. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes they are just textures. All I'd need is a image of a cloud texture and I could add it as a material, but the background would have to be transparent. I'm not sure how VUE works though so I don't know if that's difficult or not. Do you jut take screenshots or do you export it as a certain image type? If you had just a blank background with the cloud on it and the background was all one solid color I could probably make the background transparent myself.
     
  33. KRGraphics

    KRGraphics

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    I am still trying to figure this out... when I render skies, I render out six sides because of the cube mapping... still trying to figure out how to get the masks...
     
  34. proso

    proso

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    I've got two questions. 1 - Is the sun's angle the max angle (at 12:00 noon)?
    2 - What do I have to change when I want to keep the clouds moving while the sun movement is stopped (by changing the default value 1440 to 1440000000000000)? Thanks
     
  35. digiross

    digiross

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    I'm new to Unity 3D and I purchased UniStorm for my project and I love it! Within just a short time I had it implemented and it really helps the scene feel alive.

    One question I had was, when i create my scene and add buildings, how do i prevent the rain from going through the roof. I imported my models with the physics collider implemented (i think it was called), but then again i'm new and maybe there was a different setting.
     
  36. Legacy

    Legacy

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    Hey black i did notice something,

    Unistorm does not work with lightmapping =/. Well it sort of does as long as your using dual lightmaps and deffered rendering pipeline but when i gets dark for a storm or night time the objects are still lit up like they are in the day time haha so it looks really odd.
     
  37. kenlem

    kenlem

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    That sort of makes sense. Lightmapping if for static lighting while Unistorm is a dynamic system.
     
  38. thesaint1987

    thesaint1987

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    Maybe it is hidden somewhere in here but I don't have time... Does your storm animation (the moving trees and grass) require the use of Unity terrain, or does it work with plain Tree-Builder trees in the scene?! Does the storm also exert forces on other objects? And if not, how hard would it be to get that effect without rolling on a storm simulation on my own?

    Yeah that is why lightmapping is 20 century technology and why Unity should get voxel cone tracing rather soon than late...
     
  39. Legacy

    Legacy

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    Yes it is, however there is a nice tool out there that allows you to change the brightness of the lightmap etc at runtime and it is a free tool maybe there could be some sort of plugin added to unistorm to allow us to use this tool or a similar solution to control lightmaps at runtime :). Only reason i do not integrate it myself right now is because i do not want to have to go back every release and remember what i changed etc. Just a hint to another feature i guess ;).
     
  40. BHS

    BHS

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    The clouds and sun both move according to the day speed, you cannot have one move while the other is static. You can however by altering the code slightly. If you’d like to know how I can tell you.


    Rain collisions should be on which should prevent this, but the rain version of the prefab was mistakenly made the 1.4 version. Simply copy the 1.5 version from the demo and replace it in your scene, this should fix the problem.


    Interesting, maybe I will implement this tool into UnoStorm. It depends on how complicated it is to do. You have to also remember that adding a plugin to UniStorm would require it to be used in order for UniStorm to function properly. This could create problems for people how don’t want to use lightmapped scenes; which would most likely be most of the customers. I will see what I can do though.
     
  41. BHS

    BHS

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    After studying Skryim and Oblivion for quite some time I've come up with a better technique for clouds, shading, and atmospheric scattering. UniStorm 1.6 will have low clouds as well as high distant clouds, this adds more realism to UniStorm.

    Fog also won't wash out the cloud's colors and shading anymore, as I have rewritten the cloud shader. Clouds are still affected by the fog color, but they won't all be one plain color. The clouds loss detail and color because the fog being too dense. You will also be able to have the fog in your scene be as dense as you'd like because the shader will only allow a certain amount of fog to affect the clouds using it.

    You can see from the screenshots that clouds now have dark spots just like real clouds. This allows the atmospheric scattering to take advantage of the extra colors and dark spots allowing for more realistic shading, colors, and light scattering. Higher clouds also move slower so the sky will always look different.

    Feedback would be appreciated.

    $NewClouds1.png
    $NewClouds2.png
    $NewClouds3.5.png
    $NewClouds4.png
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2012
  42. tripknotix

    tripknotix

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    this sounds like an issue with having long large releases, instead of smaller releases like browsers. where they can correct previous problems fairly quickly.
     
  43. Legacy

    Legacy

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    you could just use a setting to allow the use of lightmapping or not depending on the setting. Lightmapping is nice because it makes the scene look that much more polished and in deferred rendering mode you can use dual lightmaps that fade from dynamic lighting in the imediate area to lightmapped further out making the scene look amazing at long distances.
     
  44. EarthLaunch

    EarthLaunch

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    Those are gorgeous. It does look a bit like 2 layers of clouds, though. It reminds me of the way alpha blended textures look, where it's a little disconcerting because your brain can tell it's two things blurred together.
     
  45. BHS

    BHS

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    It’s hard to just release small updates because usually I’m multitasking with multiple projects. Right now I’m programming for 3 separate projects that I plan on releasing with in the next month or so; UniStorm Mobile being one of them.

    Usually I work on multiple features when I’m programming so it’d be a pain for me to just post the little update on the Asset Store then have to continue working. Not to mention many people would have to get this update for 1 or 2 features. They would most likely just wait.

    Releasing big updates also allows to me to thoroughly check things to make sure all new features work and are properly added. Things can get missed releasing many small updates.


    Yes, I will try. I would really like to have lightmapped scenes supported.

    Thank you, I will work on further tweaking everything as I better my technique. All this requires days of adjusting every component of UniStorm and trying different techniques to get the best possible results. It also allows me to better understand the system so I can help the customers who buy it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2012
  46. proso

    proso

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    Thanks, we've decided to continu our project with Unisky, since they have the option to set longtitude and latitude. I hope you guys will implement it one day, there are a lot of people who needs it and Unistorm has the best looks!
     
  47. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Since importing the Unistorm scripts into my project I get this error:
    "Assets/Standard Assets/Image Effects (Pro Only)/DepthOfFieldHdr.js(52,30): BCE0023:
    No appropriate version of 'PostEffectsBase.CheckSupport' for the argument list '(boolean, boolean)' was found."
    Reimporting the Pro Image Effects folder changes nothing.
    Removed the scripts no change, reimported the scripts, no change.
    Cannot go into Game Mode until the compiler errors have been fixed.
     
  48. tripknotix

    tripknotix

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    releasing many small updates, also helps you combat piracy, so it has a monetary incentive, the benefits, out weigh the negatives. by a lot.
     
  49. BHS

    BHS

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    Hi Don,

    Sorry for the errors.

    This is more of a Unity glitch usually having to do with updating from a previous version of Unity. Usually a couple of image effects go missing, but re-importing the image effects should fix the problem. Did you try re-importing the image effects from the new version of Unity?
     
  50. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Yes, I reimported the Pro Image Effects (as mentioned above), but it still gave the error.
    I deleted the whole project and loaded a backup of the project without the UniStorm scripts,
    so it is running again.