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[OLD-FORUM-THREAD] Ultimate Terrains 1.0

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Amandin-E, Feb 28, 2015.

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  1. Veizour

    Veizour

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    Thanks for a great product, and staying active with the community! I just purchased and look forward to designing with it. Thanks for your support and patience. Please keep up the great work!
     
    Amandin-E likes this.
  2. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    Thanks for the kind words! It's really motivating :)
    I'm working hard these days to finish the next version asap.
     
    Veizour likes this.
  3. cjhmdm

    cjhmdm

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    Just bought this plugin, loaded it up, read through the docs and followed the getting started video.

    Upon clicking play, I can see the terrain being generated, but as soon as it completes, the terrain completely disappears from both the scene view as well as the game view. I followed the getting started video to a T, including all sizes, numbers and names that you set in order to get a feel for how things work, so I don't know what happened or what's causing the issue.

    Could you shed some light?

    For what it's worth, I'm using Unity Pro 5.1.1p4 (64-bit)
    Project saved, scene saved.
    Assets:
    uTerrain
    RTPv3
    Standard "Characters"
    Big Environment Pack
    Instant Good Day

    There's still clearly something going on because Unity is consuming around 1.3GB of ram, and when scrolling in and out in scene view I get some lag, but moments after the initial terrain is shown after generation completes (approx 14 seconds), the entire terrain disappears.

    I hope you can help with this as this is quite an expensive asset as compared to some other similar ones, but as of now I am unable to do anything with it, even when following your getting started video to the letter.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2015
  4. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    Thanks for buying uTerrains!
    This is a really weird issue. Does it happen if you import uTerrains in a blank project and play with the included scenes?
     
  5. cjhmdm

    cjhmdm

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    I found the cause, it's when attaching the uterrain to the first person camera; because the terrain is generated at run time, the character has nothing to fall onto, so it, as well as the terrain then fall into endless space, hence the terrain "disappearing". I just find it odd that this happens because one of the very first steps says to "Drag & drop your player object (this can be the camera) into the player field. Click OK."; and as I understand it, it's better to have the terrain set to the FPC, otherwise I'll run into problems...
     
  6. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    All right that's a good news you solved your problem :)
     
  7. Demonith88

    Demonith88

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    How to make a pickup dirt from the terrain when is removed ? can it be done ?
     
  8. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    You mean something like particles that would appear when you remove a small piece of terrain?
     
  9. Demonith88

    Demonith88

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    Yeah something like cube dirt when dirt is removed like minecraft
     
  10. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    There is no such thing included, but it's quite easy to make this by yourself. You can use a particle system and play it where the player digs.
    You could also use GetVoxelAt to get some information on the voxel being dug and though detect when it's removed, and then play some particle system too.
     
  11. Demonith88

    Demonith88

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    I use plygame will be grate to have support for it :) can i use the dig script and apply to my other character how to use that ?
     
  12. SoapboxSauron

    SoapboxSauron

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    I'm wondering about the suitability of this asset to my project. I'm guessing it's not too hard to make it work with a top down camera? i.e. no actual player avatar just an rts style camera?

    The other important feature for me is to be able to change the z-level. This would have the following effects:
    - a z-height is selected
    - voxels above that height are hidden
    - voxels at that height or below that are normally visible would remain so (possibly showing some of their interior if they are at the top z-level)
    - voxels at that height or below that would normally be hidden but are now revealed at the top z-level would be represented by some kind of default texture on the now flat top (i.e. the player does not know what they are) rather than their actual texture.

    How achievable is this? I'm not expecting out of the box functionality and I don't mind if I have to do some work to create my own modules or whatever to achieve it but is the code going to let me do this?

    For an example of the kind of effect see Gnomoria (although it is isometric rather than 3d and it is all blocks and fixed angles).
     
  13. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    I've never used plygame so it's hard for me to help you on this. Maybe you should ask for help on the plygame thread.

    Sounds totally achievable to me. I don't see any issue concerning the use of a top-down camera (you'll probably have to adjust the LOD distances to suit your needs but that's doable from the inspector). About showing/hiding voxels above/below a given level, you'll have to modify the shader so it displays voxels between certain distances only.
     
  14. SoapboxSauron

    SoapboxSauron

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    Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I explained my requirement for hiding & displaying voxels very well. When higher voxels are hidden it would need to reveal the layer beneath. Not sure how this could be achieved in the shader as I would assume those voxels are not included in the mesh until they are revealed at the surface but maybe I haven't properly understood how it works.
     
  15. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    I see. Well, I think this is gonna be very hard to achieve because it would oblige uTerrains to either compute the whole revealed layer (which would take too much time) or compute all layers before displaying it (which is not possible an would take too much time anyway). To be honest, I'm afraid uTerrains won't suit your needs :(
     
  16. Mithras

    Mithras

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    @AmandineEntertainment I've seen you demos and must say that my mind was blown. :D Greatest voxel solution that I've been able to find! :) Amazing work, keep it up! :)
    I have few questions though, before buying it:
    1. Will you enable users to set their own limit as to how far terrain will be visible? I suppose (I might be wrong) your solution is written in flexible manner and that 8196 unit limit is just a constant that can be easily replaced (editing via code would be great). If you could also provide information if this value must be POT or not? :)
    2. Is it possible to force uTerrain to keep all generated data in memory at all times? I'd like to have terrain of ~20480 x 20480 adjustable. I know it's memory hungry, but that's acceptable for me. (for my case, terrain doesn't have to be visible for more than 3-4k, but it should be editable and readable at all times due to nature of my project).
    3. Is it possible to forbid uTerrain from generating new chunks after desired size has been reached? Let's say I'd like to generate 20k x 20k terrain and nothing bigger - would that be possible? (I suppose I can do that in generator modules - and live with it ;) - to return "air" voxels if no other solution will be introduced, as mask it somehow).
    4. Any trial licence?
    5. Is it possible to have non-square terrain?
     
  17. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    Thanks! :) And future versions are coming ;)

    You can adjust the size directly from the inspector. It must be a POT, from 256 to 8192.

    Keeping all data for ~20480 x 20480 (and let's say a height of 2048 so that would actually be 20480x2048x20480), you would need 20480x2048x20480x(~20B) = 17179GB of RAM :)
    I won't learn you anything by telling you this is not possible. But uTerrains has the solution. You can perform operations on parts of terrain even if they aren't computed. Operation will be kept in memory and applied on the fly when this part of terrain will be generated. You can always read voxel data at any point (limited by max & min integer values - ie. -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647) using GetVoxelAt method. If the voxel is not in memory, it will be generated on the fly (still taking operations into account) and it will be returned to you.
    The next version will come with a brand new operation system which will be faster but will require to save some data at runtime on the disk (uTerrains will handle that for you).

    You can return 'air' voxels from the module, but in that case the best is to set a terrain limit which is doable from the inspector (you can set limits on X/Y/Z axis independently).

    No, sorry :)

    Like what? The visible part will be always contained into a cube, but considering the nature of a voxel terrain, you can create any shape such as a planet for example.
     
  18. Popcony

    Popcony

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    This was probably asked already, but with a block-like voxel generation, a la minecraft, how are textures and materials used on the individual blocks in this context?

    I don't know what method is used in uTerrain...

    Method 1. The texture or materials are applied onto a cube and indexed in the procedural generation algorithm.

    Method 2. The cubes are created first, then the indexed textures are applied in runtime.
     
  19. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    I don't know if i'm missing something because i'm not too educated on this but i tried to lower the voxel size and kept getting large spikes being produced when the terrain was generated with voxel sizes less than 1, it looks like this



    Can you offer any assistance?

    Also i don't really want to nag, so i'm not really but it would be a little bit of help if you were able to provide a ballpark estimate (weeks, months) for the update to pop up, cheers
     
  20. Astraion

    Astraion

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    Need more tutorial on this.I also would like to know can i make my old terrain to uterrain by adding all the script that uterrain has and can i use hight map in u terrain
     
  21. Engrupo

    Engrupo

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    hi! just i have a question, it's posible that for unity 5.1.2f1 don't work correctly? because uterrain generate the terrain but i can't see on my window of Scene then i can't modify correctly. malo.png

    this happen with a new proyect, example scene, mode editor, changing all the shaded options, anyone know what i did wrong?
     
  22. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    Voxel types are retrieved during generation and are used to set a specific vertex color to each vertex. Then the shader uses this information for displaying a particular texture at a particular place.

    Sounds like a bug, probably introduced by an update. I will look into this and include a fix in the next release.
    Providing the new operations system has been harder than expected. In order to deal with memory footprint, uTerrains has to save/load some data at runtime. As I want uTerrains to work with webplayer too, I has to provide an interface to write/read data that anyone can implement to suit its needs, especially for the webplayer. For example, one might one to sync player actions with the server and then implement the write method so it does nothing (as you can't write file in webplayer mode).
    Anyway, this should be released in September.

    Yes you can use heightmaps with uTerrains but no you can't just add uTerrains scripts to your terrain. This a nothing to do with Unity terrains.

    Weird. I'm using Unity 5.1.1 and I don't have this issue. What shading options have you changed?
     
  23. ijoaum

    ijoaum

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    Hey, I'm looking at the demo of uTerrains and it actually seems a little weird compared to other engines.
    I'm totally noob at game dev so it can be just a misunderstanding.

    What I'm talking is about digging the terrain basically. When I dig a cube or a sphere it actually takes almost the same effect and the more I keep digging, more weird terrain becomes, with so many edges e too many spikes.

    So, this engine can be more smooth or it is the way it is?

    Thanks.
     
  24. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    Thanks for your reply. It's worth noting that the webplayer is to be deprecated soon as Chrome no longer allows for plugins, and I think the replacement is the webgl implementation (ogles 2 basically with experimental support for webgl 2 (ogles 3) in unity 5.2)
     
  25. JasonBricco

    JasonBricco

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    Hi there,

    It's been a while now and I'm wondering if plans are still strong for future updates or not. I've been using this off and on, but mostly waiting for the update which I hope will make it more usable for me.

    The fact that source code isn't released is a bit concerning though if the plans for future support are shaky. I hope that if you do eventually decide to discontinue support, that you'll offer a way to get the source code.
     
  26. thoughtstem

    thoughtstem

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    I'm having trouble building for WebGL. Is that strange or expected? If it should theoretically work, please let me know, and I'll post the errors. If it's expected to fail, though, I'd love to know if WebGL support is on the roadmap (and if there's anything I can do to help take us there faster).

    :)
     
  27. alecie

    alecie

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    Is the project still alive? Can you render planets with this?
     
  28. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    It is a bit more blocky than other voxel terrains because it uses DC. But if you increase resolution (or increase the size of digging sphere) you'll see it's smooth.

    You're right. Maybe I should not worry too much about that for now...

    Next update is still in active development. It's a lot bigger update than the previous one that's why it takes time. Don't worry uTerrains is still in development and if someday I stop maintaining it, I will definitely publish the source code as an update.

    Haven't tested WebGL yet. I'd be interesting in having your feedback. Could you send PM?

    Yes and yes :)
     
    JasonBricco likes this.
  29. alecie

    alecie

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    Cool, how big can planets be? Can it make planet of any size and display whole surface of it from space? (very big LOD) If I want to use placement of trees and foliage will it place it properly on a planet? Do you have small demo that would do some of what I want?

    Just making sure I'll get what I want before making an investment ;)

    ---

    More questions...

    Do you provide only triplanar mapping shader? Is it possibile for each voxel to have its own material and therefore generate voxels such as minerals undeground? If not how many textures triplanar mapping supports? Is it possibile to have different textures for different biomes?
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2015
  30. B-Collins

    B-Collins

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    Just recently purchased. I am also interested in planet generation.

    Would it be possible to get a small demo/snippet to render a planet/asteroid/planetoid?
     
  31. OfficialHermie

    OfficialHermie

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    I have a reallllllly newbie question, please: What is the advantage of uTerrain vs. the standard Unity terrain?
    Does it support PBR material, or is it faster or easier to design?
    Thank you.
     
  32. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    You won't be able to display the whole planet from space AND land on it and display it with a high level of detail. This would ask too many LODs. Tree system can only plant trees vertically. You'll have to make your own tree system to achieve that, which can be quite difficult.

    I only provide triplanar shader but you can use any materials you want and it does support multiple materials.

    Thanks for buying uTerrains :)
    Adding more examples is on the road map but it's hard to tell when it will be available (in a future update)

    It depends on what you want to do. Uterrains has more features but costs more in terms of performance. What you can do with uTerrains and cannot do with standard terrains:
    • make caverns, tunnels, overhangs...
    • dig/build like in minecraft (both cubical and smooth)
    • handle infinite terrains out of the box
    • higher distance of view

    .
     
  33. Silvers

    Silvers

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    Hey quick question, is the bug with disappearing detail objects going to be fixed in this next build, or is that being saved for when you redo the detail system?

    Thanks and looking forward to seeing whats next! :)
     
  34. Amandin-E

    Amandin-E

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    Unfortunately it won't be in the next release which already involves a lot of work as you can guess (I expected to release it sooner, but it's not as easy). So yes it will be fixed in the next-next-release with the new detail system.
     
  35. HBoelke

    HBoelke

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    Hey,
    is there a roadmap to see what your currently working on?
    Im currently working on a multiplayergame with auth movement ( not working because the terrain dont render around multiple players ) and i need to edit the details ( trees, stones , .. ) with the option to save the changes.
    And can you tell more about the new detail system and maybe when it is finished (maybe this year? )?

    But so far, amazing engine :)
     
  36. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    Hey i suppose id like to echo the above as ive been waiting on the update for a while rather than looking for an alternative which is a bit of a spanner in the works in some ways i suppose. A rough idea for a release or perhaps an opportunity to test what you have if its in suitable shape would be appreciated.
     
  37. florilu

    florilu

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    Hey,

    I'm thinking about to buy this thing.
    But for me there is a huge lack of documentation. For example, the thing with the Above and Down selector thing, and the selector which is just returning zero.

    There are no examples of generating more than 2 biomes for some reason, also no documentation how the thing with the textures is done. I'm really not sure if I could handle such a complex thing without explanations about how the whole system works.
     
  38. UltraTM

    UltraTM

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    Hi,

    first great work this Asset!

    My Question the terrain is generated ingame or?
    Cause for us we would need a solution to maybe build some environment towns and stuff maybe in the editor.
    Or how is this do able?
    We want to integrate some stuff into the terrain then if possible.
     
  39. Vanblam

    Vanblam

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    There is a problem with the Infinite Materials suggestion that you state.

    Using a default import of uterrains, using the single biome example scene, and changing NO SETTINGS.

    Duplicate default material.

    For every 50 materials used, there is an additional 4GB of memory in use? Keep in mind, the materials are not assigned to ANYTHING, they are just present in the materials array, and should do nothing, only the first material, #0 is assigned to the single voxel type defined.

    Even changing every texture to a 32x32 size image, there is still 4gb for every 50 materials used.
    Use 200 Materials? Expect just under 20GB of memory to be allocated.

    To use the 64k materials as you suggest, you would need a computer with 5,120GB of ram.

    Please see image of chunk, why would a scene with a single voxel type defined stating that only a single material should be used for that voxel type, along with a scene with only 1 biome defined, why are all those materials being assigned to the chunks?

    There is a major malfunction going on here. How can this be resolved?
     

    Attached Files:

  40. Lelon

    Lelon

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    Anyone managed to get a pathfinding solution working? that will support the infinite procedural generation?
    EDIT: nvm I managed to integrate it by myself.
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2015
  41. Lelon

    Lelon

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    @AmandineEntertainment Whats the override function to know when the " Done. Total loading time:" is called?
    In other words, how can I know when the terrain is done loading? is there a way to check this?
     
  42. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    Lelon, it's good you integrated itself but just to add, the A* Pathfinding asset by Aron Grandberg does a sterling job of navmesh generation on dynamic terrain with it's recast graph type, worth a thought
     
  43. Revolution3D

    Revolution3D

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    @Lelon About progress loading and finished loading uTerrain notification - just check script PlayerBuilder.cs from uTerrains.
     
  44. Revolution3D

    Revolution3D

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    I have bought this plugin and it's awsome. I would like to use details system for trees etc, but for now it isn't usable for my needs. When do you plan to release new version with more configurable details system like Biomes? And will it be provided with functions for removal of particular details objects from scene?
     
  45. Silvers

    Silvers

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    I see that Amandine hasnt logged in since september 15th. Hope everything is ok :(.
     
  46. pushingpandas

    pushingpandas

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    hello, i want to purchase but have a question. Can I create cube worlds like Trove or Cubeworld with your voxel engine? Are there some examples regarding that? thank you
     
  47. XPAction

    XPAction

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    sorry, but look in demo, screenshoots and the first post you can see cubes.. yes I have bought it
     
  48. tycho911

    tycho911

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    Just bought uterrains...Does anyone know how to get heightmaps working?...I try to use the heightmap generator module and it never seems to actually read the heightmap when creating the terrain. Yes my heightmap tex is set to enable read/write.
     
  49. DataError

    DataError

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    so... i'm the first to say this...he got bought out by the big big guys?
     
  50. JasonBricco

    JasonBricco

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    Seems to be dead as far as I can tell. If I could get my money back, I would.
     
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