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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. Vanblam

    Vanblam

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    I have an issue with a material error: Material doesn't have a texture property... I found that the shader Dynamic Light Clouds has no _Maintex. So the material is purple. Is this normal?
     
  2. NathanHale1776

    NathanHale1776

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    @BHS: was experimenting with this on a round planet. The only real issue is how might i get rid of the "ground" and make the skybox top also be on the bottom so it looks correct?
     
  3. montyfi

    montyfi

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    Something broken in build. Top picture - editor, bottom picture - win64 standalone build.
    Sky looks inverted. Unity 5.3.1p1

    terra3editor.png
    terra3.png
     
  4. montyfi

    montyfi

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    OK. Fixed it. Fog has to be enabled on Lighting tab. Unistorm enables it, but it doesn't work correctly in standalone builds. Another Unity bug perhaps, sigh.
     
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  5. BHS

    BHS

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    Strange, we've imported UniStorm with no issues. The shader shouldn't be purple.

    What version of Unity are you using?

    Try reimporting UniStorm and make sure you include both the Desktop and the Mobile folders. If you still have an issue, let us know.


    The skybox shader is calculated with world position. So you would this would need to be recalculated according to the player's rotation amount.


    Good to hear you fixed it. If you go to Edit>Project Settings>Quality>Fog Mode and set it to Manual, this also helps. For some reason if you use the default setting of Automatic, the fog won't work in build mode. I'm not sure why Unity hasn't fixed it.
     
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  6. CaptainMurphy

    CaptainMurphy

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    Took me a minute but I think you mean Edit > Project Settings > Graphics Settings > Fog Modes.

    Any idea when the next update is coming out? Our sun position is still completely whacked out, regardless of what prefab we pull from so something is really messed up. We have cleared the path and reimported and started from a clean download, made the sun position changes, and it lines up for morning but evening is way off. Honestly I am wondering why you don't just use the position of the sun/moon object as the position to build a reverse rotation from for the specular light. It might be easier and then it would always line up.
     
  7. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes, that is what I meant. Thank you.

    Most likely sometime this week. If you need it sooner, we can send you a version with the updated sun position. You can edit it with the version you are using now. Any changes you make to it won't affect the prefabs.

    If you want to edit the position you can do the following.

    Go to your "Sun" game object and adjust the position (x,y,z) to (46,-513,6.6).
     
  8. Vanblam

    Vanblam

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    I just fixed my own problem. I was using the default "Dynamic Light Cloud" Shader. Had to switch to the "Dynamic Light Cloud (Unity 5)" Shader. For I am using Unity 5 lol.
     
  9. BHS

    BHS

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    Great to hear you fixed your problem.
     
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  10. Killersan

    Killersan

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    Hello,
    Is there any way to tweak up the lighting parameters during the runtime ? I would like to change them on the fly in the editor to see how it will looks like but I can't, any suggestions ?
     
  11. BHS

    BHS

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    You can change the color of everything during runtime. If you see a color you like, you can save that color with the color adjuster then apply it to UniStorm's Editor after you stop running the scene.
     
  12. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    Hiya!

    Great add-on for Unity. I'm using this with Unity 5.3.1p1 and an Oculus Rift with SDK 0.8 . However, even with the supplied demo files, I don't see flare or halos for the sun. I see the sun itself as a small yellow circle, but no effects. I tried creating a new project without the Oculus files, with the same result.

    Does anyone know what I could check to ensure this is working? I've also noticed that the clouds don't always work in the demos either, and don't work at all in my project.

    I hope someone can help.

    All the best;

    Graeme
     
  13. Killersan

    Killersan

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    Ok, but is there any chance to set intensity of the light during the runtime ?
     
  14. BHS

    BHS

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    We had a customer explain their setup with UniStorm and Oculus Rift. This is how they said they did it. Hopefully this helps.

    Which light? The Sunlight?

    The Sunlight Intensity can be adjusted at runtime, or whenever, using the maxSunIntensity variable.
     
  15. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    That's great thank you for the reply. I've managed to get it working. It was my fault, but the sun shafts and bloom scripts were not on my camera object. I have attached them to the Oculus CenterEyeAnchor.

    However a new oddity has surfaced. I didn't notice before, but the dynamic clouds are not appearing, except for if you select the storm or heavy rain presets. If I select anything like "Mostly Cloudy" I don't see anything cloudy in the sky. Plus I don't know if it's related, but if I compile my scene and run it, the sky is black. :( If I run in the editor, apart from the clouds everything is fine.

    EDIT: I saw your message above.... "Good to hear you fixed it. If you go to Edit>Project Settings>Quality>Fog Mode and set it to Manual, this also helps. For some reason if you use the default setting of Automatic, the fog won't work in build mode. I'm not sure why Unity hasn't fixed it."
    .... I tried this, but the skybox is replaced by a featureless fog coloured haze....

    I hope you can help with this?

    Graeme
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2016
  16. BHS

    BHS

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    Good to hear.

    There is a minor Unity 5.3 bug regarding the clouds, but it's easily fixable. Unity changed the way some shaders are handled. To fix it see this guide here: http://unistorm-weather-system.wiki...ds_are_pink_or_not_showing_up_.28Unity_5.3.29
     
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  17. Rexoto-Games

    Rexoto-Games

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    Is there anyway to see what day of the week it is?
     
  18. BHS

    BHS

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    The real date is already calculated for you. However, the day of the week is not. We can add this with our next update. Until then, you can calculate the day of the week using these algorithms here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determination_of_the_day_of_the_week

    When we have more time we can post an example to the UniStorm Wiki Site.
     
    TheSeawolf likes this.
  19. gameplay4all

    gameplay4all

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    Hi there,
    I believe I have found a typo in Unistorm, but I could of course be mistaken.
    I set the time in-game with my console-window, by using this code:
    uniStormSystemScript.realStartTime = hour;
    uniStormSystemScript.LoadTime();

    But that didn't work, no matter what number between 0-24 I supplied, the hours would always be 0. So I looked and saw the function LoadTime in UnistormWeatherSystem_JS:
    public function LoadTime ()
    {
    realStartTimeMinutesFloat = realStartTimeMinutes;
    //Aded 1.8.5
    startTime = realStartTime / 24 + realStartTimeMinutesFloat / 1440;
    }

    I think it should be this:
    public function LoadTime ()
    {
    realStartTimeMinutesFloat = realStartTimeMinutes;


    realStartTimeFloat = realStartTime;

    //Aded 1.8.5
    startTime = realStartTimeFloat / 24 + realStartTimeMinutesFloat / 1440;
    }

    It fixed my problem, so I think it's something to look at. I'm using Unistorm 2.1.1.
     
  20. TheSeawolf

    TheSeawolf

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    I like this as an added display feature. Another thing I would really like to see is some sort of ground mist that could be toggled either to fade at random, or by a certain time.

    There is a skyrim morning fogs mod that does this for rivers, but it would be interesting for rivers and land.

    Is your time spent mainly on Emerald AI at the moment, and if so how is the integration coming along?
     
  21. markfrancombe

    markfrancombe

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    I realise that asking for an honest comparison of this asset with another, ON the UniStorm forum, is unlikely to give an un-biased result, and might even get me banned...
    However, Im about to purchase the Suimono Water Asset from Taniki digital, and I'm impressed by their Tenkoko sky and lighting system as well.

    Up to now I have been using UNISTORM, but my last few attempts at adding it to my recent game have been either unsuccessful or unwieldy. Possibly because this game is multiplayer, and has some other issues I have not encountered before. I haven't REALLY addressed them fully yet, but where UniStorm USED to give me excellent result by a minimum of steps, I dont seem to be getting them anymore. I guess its become a bit TOO CLEVER and TOO ADVANCED for me.
    However Im also keeping an eye on Emerald, as that my answer the next step in the development of my current game, so Im keen to keep packages together from one developer that might influence each other...

    BUT...
    I have heard that Tenkoku is simple to apply and and it seems to look very good.

    But.. Is there anyone here that has used both packages and can give an honest answer.
    Which LOOKS best?
    Which is Simplest and flawless in operation.
    Which is heaviest? in terms of Draw Calls /CPU?
    Which is mobile friendly (I already have the answer to this)
    Which would be easiest to synch over Photon?

    Of all these.. LOOKING GOOD is by far my biggest importance, all other issues can be worked with.

    Thank you, and moderators, please don't boot me... I have asked exactly the same thing on the Tenkoku Forums too, and received completely understanding answers from the developers, even admitting Photon was not yet tested, and informing me that it was not yet mobile friendly-

    MArk
     
  22. CaptainMurphy

    CaptainMurphy

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    @markfrancombe
    I can give you a pretty good assessment of both UniStorm and Tenkoku as I have tested both and used both. So far networking UniStorm has turned problematic, and we are doing it through a strictly RPC networking. We are running into problems getting the client to see EXACTLY what the server is seeing in terms of the current conditions. I think we are close to having a class that does the syncing to the exact amounts we need, but could be a bit of time off for that still. The performance is good, to the point that it rarely is seen in the profiler (though we are targeting desktop). The storm and fog control is where it shines, although the day control is not set to be realistic (which is a both a good and bad thing). If you are looking for exact world conditions like the sunset/sunrise to occur at the correct times, then UniStorm is not the package for you without a lot of extra work.

    Tenkoku looks good but has had a lot of performance issues for us. Networking it was pretty simplistic with the control of the floats managing and syncing in a single RPC from the server. The downside is the last version we did was not as flexible on the weather and we were having quite a few issues with certain clients having incompatibility with the shaders used. The storms were not as fully fleshed out as in UniStorm and we also had some issues with using it in the Rift environments for VR. Granted, the last version we tested was a couple months ago and we have not kept up with the progress since then. Since that point we have gone through a couple other sky systems such as ToD and a home rolled version too.
     
  23. BHS

    BHS

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    Since you asked some questions directly regarding UniStorm, we will answer them with an unbiased professional response.

    I'm not sure when the last time you used UniStorm was, but it is now easier than ever to use our system. We have tons of example scenes to cover most of what any developer will need from a basic demo to accessing UniStorm for player vitals.

    With 2.1 we have made setting up easier and added something called Auto Player Setup. This system automatically sets up UniStorm for you to any custom player with the click of a button. It assigns and positions all needed particle effects and components, sets the appropriate camera settings, then applies everything to UniStorm. This process is done in less than 1 second.

    We have a tutorial video on setting up a custom player:


    We also have one with setting up UniStorm in a new scene takes less than 30 seconds as demonstrated here:


    1) For visuals we have quite a few videos.
    Here's one demonstrating a weather transitions from Sunny to Stormy: (a couple versions old)

    Here's one demonstrating Rain and Snow Storms using UniStorm 2.1:


    2) It takes 30 seconds to setup. See the above video for a demonstration. Setting up a custom player takes less than a minute.
    3) UniStorm virtual uses no performance according to the Unity Profiler
    4) We also include a mobile version of UniStorm that is optimized for mobile devices.
    5) We have synced UniStorm over the network using Photon, it is relatively easy. It's an external script and requires no modifications to UniStorm. This works for weather and time though more variables can be added if needed. However, particle effects for other players are not visible. I believe this is due to our lack of knowledge of using Photon. I do know other customers have it working and are happy with the results. We have shared the code for those who request it.
     
  24. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    Thank you for the reply... I wanted to share a video with you showing my project. It's a bird flight simulator with you as a white tailed sea eagle in Scotland. I'm so impressed with the results that UniStorm has created, that I want to share it. However, the clouds are still dark. :(

    All the best;

    Graeme

     
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  25. BHS

    BHS

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    This looks amazing. Thanks for sharing.

    You are seeing dark clouds because by default Unity doesn't properly have fog enabled when building. If you go to Edit>Project Settings>Graphics>Fog Mode and set it to Manual, you will have properly colored clouds. For some reason if you use the default setting of Automatic, the fog won't work in build mode. I'm not sure why Unity hasn't fixed it.

    Feel free to share another video with after the fix above. We love seeing what our customers create using UniStorm.
     
  26. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Question. Was the issue with needing the mobile version's stuff like the moon phases ever fixed? Haven't had the chance to check the update to 2.1 yet.

    Edit: Hmm, it's better but I don't think it's totally separated out...

    I only imported the Desktop folder and I'm getting a "Weather Sound Effect" and "Lightning Bolt" Null Reference. The weather sound is thunder.

    When I go through the import process, I can look and see that animal sounds are apparently exclusive to the desktop version, both have rain and wind sounds, and the thunder sounds are exclusive to the mobile version.

    Additionally, the mobile version has a lightning bolt prefab in the prefabs folder, while the desktop version does not.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2016
  27. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    @BHS

    Thank you for the reply! I've already set the fog to Manual and recompiled, with the same result. My view distance and fog distance is pretty high around 8500. If I increase the fog density, the clouds do turn white with the fog colour. When the clouds are not in the fog, they are black. Is this an issue with the shader maybe?

    I'm really glad you like the video. If I can get it working with white clouds I'll upload another.

    All the best;

    Graeme
     
  28. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    For some reason I'm not getting the sun in my scene.

    It might be something related to the ongoing mobile/desktop issue, but I have both folders imported and it's still missing: The sky itself seems normal, you get bloom in the morning, along with the color changes and a vague sense of light moving at dawn and dusk, but at no point during the day is the sun actually visible. I recognize the area around it would be very bright and hard to see, but if you look at the attached image--
    Unity 2016-01-13 22-24-27-45.png
    --you can see those "god ray" lines (if that's what those would be) around that central mountain area. They don't move at all except during dawn and dusk.
     
  29. CaptainMurphy

    CaptainMurphy

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    How high is your draw distance? The sun mesh is a long ways out there, like 12,500 or so.
     
  30. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    My main camera's far clipping plane is the standard UniStorm 18,200. Are you referring to something else?

    The Render Path is also deferred. I tried changing it to Forward but that didn't improve anything.
     
  31. BHS

    BHS

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    To fix this, you can stop the cloud shader from using fog for its color. This will allow the clouds to only use the color that you've set using the UniStorm Cloud colors in the Editor.

    1) Open up your UniStorm Dynamic Light Clouds Desktop shader.
    2) Press Ctrl+F to open up the search tool.
    3) In the search tool put color.rgb = tempColor.rgb;
    4) Replace this line with color.rgb = _Color;


    I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to see the sun if your Far Clipping Plane is at 18,000. Importing UniStorm into a brand new project allows me to see the sun in all demo scenes.

    Do the demo scenes we supplied work?
    Have you modified or scaled the system at all?
    What version of UniStorm are you using?

    I would also try completely removing UniStorm from your project and reimporting.
     
  32. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Well hmm. I tried just adding it again and it worked fine. Don't know what the issue was. Thanks I suppose.
     
  33. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Completely different statement about the Desert climate: Deserts typically get cold at night. That might be something to add in whenever you return to working on the climates.

    Another thing I happened to notice: The weather was set to "storm" but in the morning when the sun "rose" its reflection on my water's surface was bright yellow (though the sun itself wasn't visible at all).
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2016
  34. BHS

    BHS

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    It depends on the desert. During the winter months, the deserts will have mild temperatures during the day but get very cold at night. During the summer months, the temperature at night is still relatively warm.

    This is because the sun intensity is still on according to the stormy sun intensity. This is to allow the sun to still properly light the scene while having stormy weather. You can always set the stormy sun intensity to 0. This should eliminate the sun affecting the watering during stormy weather.
     
  35. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Ah, I see. The more you know!

    Alright. I'd imagine adjusting the sun's intensity would affect other parts of the scene like the general brightness of the sky?
     
  36. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes, the reason the sun intensity is kept on during cloudy and precipitation weather types is because it looks more realistic, it allows the sun to continue to shade the scene and terrain, and cast light shadows. Not having the stormy sun intensity on would make your scenes look flat and dull when it's cloudy. This is why this feature was added quite a ways back.

    As for the specular effect on the water while it's stormy, you could have an external script that lerps the specular level off on the water shader, when switching to cloudy or precipitation weather types, then lerps back to on for the other weather types.
     
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  37. Studio_Akiba

    Studio_Akiba

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    @BHS I have a few issues/questions.

    I have just pulled this asset into my college project (you are in the credits for the system), but I have several constantly calling errors making the editor unusable.

    1. Invalid AABB Result
    2. Invalid AABB a
    3. Invalid AABB a
    4. IsFinite(outDistanceForShort)
    UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()
    5. IsFinite(outDistanceAlongView)
    UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()
    6. Invalid AABB a
    UnityEngine.Camera.Render()

    These errors (above) are calling constantly.
    I am using the latest version of UniStorm.

    I also have a question about water.
    Do you recommend any asserts to create choppy ocean around an island for use with UniStorm?
    I need something that looks realistic (or at least better then the Water4 demo), and relatively cheap, do you have anything or know of anything that might work?
     
  38. CaptainMurphy

    CaptainMurphy

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    Those sound a lot like Unity 5.3 errors. Are you on the latest patch version of 5.3?
     
  39. Studio_Akiba

    Studio_Akiba

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    5.3.1f1
     
  40. CaptainMurphy

    CaptainMurphy

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    We are using 5.3.1p2 and p3 and are not seeing those errors anymore. They generally originate from particle effects in the earlier 5.3 versions. I think they were fixed in p1.
    http://unity3d.com/unity/qa/patch-releases
     
  41. BHS

    BHS

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    Yes, those are from a Unity 5.3 bug. Downloading the last eat patch will fix he issue.

    As for water, we use Ceto Ocean System. It's not the cheapest, but it looks great and it's one of the water systems we have tested with UniStorm. I'm sure there's other water systems that will work fine with UniStorm.
     
  42. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    I can confirm I had this issue, and updating to 5.3.1p1 fixed it for me.

    Graeme
     
  43. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    Sorry it took a while... this is a video taken at sunrise. The bright white clouds are still annoying though!

    Graeme

     
  44. BHS

    BHS

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    Great to hear.


    Looks good.

    You can adjust the cloud color/brightness using the cloud color in the UniStorm editor. During the day use a light grey, during the evening use more of a dark orange, and during the night use more of a dark grey. The color of the clouds should change to what's in the UniStorm editor depending on the time of day. If they are ever too bright or dark, change the color.
     
  45. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    Cheers #bhs !

    I meant the clouds I made for the thermals. They're particles, and unity won't ambient light particles. Trying to work around that somehow...

    Graeme
     
  46. BHS

    BHS

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    Some updated screenshots using UniStorm 2.1. We achieved this simply by altering the settings within the UniStorm Editor. We used SpeedTree's Desktop Tree Pack for our trees.

    Morning.png
    Day.png
    Evening.png
    Night.png
    Rain.png
     
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  47. rpg_gamer

    rpg_gamer

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    Hi there, I am having an issue seeing the skybox when my project is built. When in the editor, unistorm and the skybox look just fine... but when I build my project and run it, I don't see a sun, at night I do not see stars or a moon (the color change works but there are no skybox details)

    any idea what may be going on?
     
  48. Licarell

    Licarell

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    @BHS - I sure hope you have been working with Gaia (Adam) on integrating UniStorm through his extensions that he is getting ready to release...
     
  49. rpg_gamer

    rpg_gamer

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    the #pragma target 4.0 fix worked.
     
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  50. RakkuAmiya

    RakkuAmiya

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    @BHS ... well in the end I read the colour from the light dynamic clouds shader and applied that to my cloud, and all is well. :) I just flew around for a whole game day and watched it do its stuff. :) No screenshots or video, just me very tired.

    Graeme