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WorldComposer a tool to create real World AAA quality terrain

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by eagle555, Dec 6, 2013.

  1. Philkrom

    Philkrom

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    Thanks for the answer Nathaniel, but you didn't answer to my question which was :
    We already have a database for our map (on this link) and it would be very interesting to add points of interest from this database. Many tools allow to do this, and I would like to know if someone has already connected maps to databases ? Example, tutorial, extension ? Any idea welcome :)

    And another one : I am trying - without succes - to grab a very large terrain with WC, I mean 1284x1284 square kilometers. But with an image zoom of 10 and an heightmap of 7. Which should make a 12288x12288 pixels image size. But it doesn't work, I don't know why. A limitation in WC ? In Unity ? Any way to make this working ? Reduce the "scale" somewhere ?
     
  2. protopop

    protopop

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    Can World Composer export the heightmap as a PNG or other bitmap file instead of RAW?
     
  3. Tony-Lovell

    Tony-Lovell

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    Is there any plans to develop something to offset the lack of hydrographic data in Bing?

    For instance, it would be nice if I could

    A. select the water surface in a manner such as one selects a like-colored contiguous region in a paint app (where your app would have not only color but also the uniform level of the flat water surface to help it select the water)

    B. Tell the app to extrapolate the slope of the terrain bordering the coast to have the slope continue, with noise, into the shallows

    C. The auto generation of submerged land contours could be continue until (say) it gets to some uniform depth the user specified.

    This is a key deficiency for me, as my game is a naval simulation. Land is only interesting in that it borders the ocean for me.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2016
    Seneral likes this.
  4. RustyOneTwo

    RustyOneTwo

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    On the subject of copyright for the use of aerial photography in world composer for commercial purposes, it's my understanding that copyright for a photograph is shared between the photographer and the subject, and if a violation is brought up a fair use defense can be mounted if the defendant can show that the derivative work is sufficiently modified from the original to be unrecognizable. So, use of Terrain Composer and the Relief Terrain Pack after World Composer should be able to adequately distance even iconic and highly recognizable terrain from the original photographs, and because the photographs are of real permanent objects of which there are multiple sources, and the SUBJECT is public domain, an effective suit is unlikely. Even if someone sues you for using their photograph, your defense should only have to state that you did not use THEIR photograph.
     
  5. Hodgson_SDAS

    Hodgson_SDAS

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    Is there a way to utilize my own GIS data?
     
  6. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Like I said you need to do some scripting to make it working. If you are able to read the data from the database, then you could get the position with feeding in latitude and longitude in the LatLong script methods from WC. But it all depends on how you make your project. So with the right position, you can instantiate a new GameObject put it's position and then you would need to make an in game GUI for it.

    A big area with 12k pixels shouldn't be an issue. Can you show a screenshot of the area in WC?

    I didn't build in this functionality. I used a raw because it gives 16 bit precision. Doing a terrain with only 256 height samples wouldn't be good. But if you have TerrainComposer you can easily convert it to an image by making generating the heightmap and make a colormap where you put filter input to height (it's default).

    That's a good idea. An better option would be to have a source that has hydrographic data. At the moment I'm working on TC2 though (eventually something like this would be possible with TC2), later I have some time to upgrade WC a bit with adding more sources.

    WorldComposer has one import option for ascii heightmaps, GIS is not supported.

    Nathaniel
     
  7. Tony-Lovell

    Tony-Lovell

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    I would really value this, if you can find such a source.

    For now, I simply take the World Composer terrain and lower it in Y by about 12 meters.

    tone
     
  8. cmonroy

    cmonroy

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    How to get the correct scale?

    I'd noticed that after you get the terrain into Unity, the terrain is smaller than real life -which makes it hard to build things, like roads, trees or buildings- that match. You could play with the scale of your character controller until it "looks" just about the right size, of course, but that will mess up the physics engine. So, basically: what would be the settings for having a map terrain where 1 square meter equals 1 square meter in Unity?
     
  9. eagle555

    eagle555

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    The scale is correct 1 meter is 1 unity meter. I posted about it here:
    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wo...aa-quality-terrain.215485/page-8#post-1890891

    WC works with map-ity to put streets and buildings and the scale matches perfectly.
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/11779

    Nathaniel
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2016
  10. nik3sp33d

    nik3sp33d

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    Hello! I was wondering if is a way to export the terrain to an .Obj or a multi-format.
    I plan to put the terrain in Autodesk Maya and render with Vray.
     
  11. eagle555

    eagle555

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    With TerrainComposer it's possible or you can use this script from Wiki:
    http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=TerrainObjExporter

    Nathaniel
     
  12. aScarselli

    aScarselli

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    World Composer is a great Asset that I've been playing around with it for a few years now.. I am sure others have mentioned this as well, but are there any up-to-date tutorials out there that explain how to set up RTP to work w Bing Map data on WC?
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2016
  13. eagle555

    eagle555

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    WC automatically detects RTP and does a basic setup on it. It assigns RTP script automatically to each terrain and assigns the satellite images as a global colormap in RTP for each terrain. For making splat texturing you can use TerrainComposer or RTP also has simple splatmapping build in. So you get a basic setup out of the box, for the rest it is just learning RTP how to use it on Unity terrains, as TC/WC/RTP all work with standard Unity terrains. While WC/TC create the Unity terrain, RTP renders the Unity terrain.

    You can check RTP's tutorial video and there's many more on Toms youtube channel:


    Nathaniel
     
  14. tapticc

    tapticc

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    Hi sorry if this has been asked before, if the images extracted are all white with a camera image repeated, is this because I have done something wrong or the area in question is not allowable for images?
     
  15. eagle555

    eagle555

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    It means that there's no imagery for the zoom level. You would need to zoom out, you can check it out by manually zooming in the TC map to the zoom level you want to export. You can see the TC map zoom level in the 'Map Parameters' tab.

    Nathaniel
     
    tapticc likes this.
  16. tapticc

    tapticc

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    Thanks
     
  17. danny87

    danny87

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    hi,

    i am looking to purchase this, but want to make sure whether both height maps and satellite imagery is available worldwide(i am from India) and of what minimum resolution if available. I am having Unity 5 Personal edition
    thanks,
    danny
     
  18. Tinjaw

    Tinjaw

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    @danny87

    The data is gathered from Bing Maps. So just use Bing Maps and look at the areas you are interested in.
     
  19. Davide1104

    Davide1104

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    Hi ,
    I followed your video tutorial but in Runtime it give me this effect
    Can you give me some advice ?
    Thanks
    Screenshot Apr 07 11.53.36.png
     
  20. eagle555

    eagle555

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    I have a fix for this. Today I will submit a new version with the fix to the Asset Store.

    Nathaniel
     

    Attached Files:

  21. Bartolomeus755

    Bartolomeus755

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    Hi,

    I'm using WC and TC with RTP to make a naval sim. And I'm relatively new to Unity.
    I created a terrain of the Dover / Calis area. Is there an easy solution to lower the
    water area or cut off this region?

    I tried Tony's method to lower the terrain in Y, but it doesn't work for me.

    Here is the aera I'm trying to import.




    Thanks
    Marko
     
  22. PeNunes

    PeNunes

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    Hi, Nathaniel!!

    I have a problem when playing a scene. Take a look:

    WC_Error_01.png
    WC_Error_02.png
    WC_Error_03.png
    What's this?!

    Tks!
     
  23. docsavage

    docsavage

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  24. PeNunes

    PeNunes

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    Hi, docsavage! Yep, i know! But don't worked for me. :(
     
  25. docsavage

    docsavage

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    Hi Penunes,

    Worth a go. Sorry can't help more.
     
  26. PeNunes

    PeNunes

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    docsavage and All,

    About my problem with World Composer. Solution: after importing the fix, you need to create the terrain again from World Composer. (By Nathaniel). Ok! It worked!
     
    docsavage and hopeful like this.
  27. webtron44

    webtron44

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    I've got terrain coming in stacked. 4 tiles, the first tile is located separately and textured, while the other 3 are stacked at 500 ,0, 500. I saw a post here that mentioned it might be the RTP_LODmanager
    "This might be due to that RTP Lod manager is not setup correctly. It says that the height map textures are out of range, meaning that there are no 4 textures slots available in RTP. Is First Pass in RTP Lod manager enabled?"
    I do see the rtp lod manager in my Hierarchy, but as far as set up correctly?? I have no idea.
    Is that the issue or is there another issue I need to fix?

    To sum up, only 1 of 4 terrain tiles come incorrect. The other 3 come in with no texture and stacked on themselves.
    Thanks for any help
     

    Attached Files:

  28. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Did you download and install the fix I posted above? For the fix the terrains need to be created again. I've submitted the fix to the Asset Store.

    Nathaniel
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2016
  29. webtron44

    webtron44

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    Outstanding,
    that fix did the trick. the terrain tiles now come in expected.
    However, only one tile is shaded correctly. Any ideas on that?
    I saw a post that remarked other terrain shaders in the project may interfere?
    The current project I'm using is a testbed. I have several packages imported. Would
    that cause terrain composer to act in such a way?
    Should I try a new clean project?
     

    Attached Files:

  30. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Think that has to do with RTP, you can check RTP terrain script on each terrain in the Hierarchy. If you go to Global Maps in the menu and see if the Colormap (the satellite image) is assigned on each. It might help if you go to RTP script menu -> Main -> click 'Refresh All'.

    Nathaniel
     
  31. webtron44

    webtron44

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    If create a terrain in World Composer and export to Terrain Composer (directly) I get the RTP lod manager added to the scene. If I instead create the terrain straight from Terrain Composer OR simple use World Composer to export a heightmap and use that map in terrain composer I do not get the RTP lod manager. How do I keep this from happening?
     

    Attached Files:

    • rtp.jpg
      rtp.jpg
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  32. danny87

    danny87

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    hii,
    i am new to unity. Just purchased world composer few days back. One problem i am facing while downloading the height map and images is the size of the terrain. It automatically selects huge sizes say 13Kms or 30Kms(with single square) which is too big for my old laptop to handle. How do i import terrain size as small as 1-2Kms. Or is it location specific based on availability of satellite data ??
     
  33. Seneral

    Seneral

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    I don't know exactly what you mean with size (heightmap size, colormap size or terrain size in Unity).
    Terrrain size in unity shouldn't affect performance, only texture sizes do. The terrain size in Unity is the size your selected area has in real life (1m = 1UnityUnit).
    You can control both heightmap- and colormap size in WC in the respective panel, this is probably the value you want to decrease. As you noted, this data is of course dependant on the satellite data avaiable, but you can always set it to a lower size:)
    Hope that helps you running it on the laptop, big terrains are always a pain to do on slow/small devices, it even becomes finicky sometimes on my big PC :/
     
  34. danny87

    danny87

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    hii,
    Thanks a lot for your reply. What i was mentioning is the length of one side of a square in real world (kilometres) while we pick an area to import height map and satellite images(I think its terrain size). I want to import data for a small area , say 1km X 1km. Right now i cannot set this length and i am forced to import bigger areas.
     
  35. Seneral

    Seneral

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    So I just checked, you are able to select very small areas! The only thing that might restrict it is the resolution. If you set it to say 4k, then your area size will be limited by the minimum size that allows you to have that resolution. This depends also on the image zoom, so also on the region you try on.
    Basically, you have both the resolution and the image size variable. If the image size is the same as resolution, you can't make the area size smaller. If you want to go smaller, you would either have to increase image zoom or decrease the resolution.
    I suppose the same applies to some degree to the heightmap size, too, though I'm not sure.
    Hope that helps!

    Edit: Example, in a region with image zoom of 19 (Mt Rainer). Because you can't set the resolution below 512, with an image zoom of 19 the minimum size you can set is 104m. tbh that should be totally ok;)
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2016
  36. danny87

    danny87

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    Thanks a ton Seneral. Thanks for sparing some time for me. Understood your logic and that solves my problem :)
     
    hopeful likes this.
  37. danny87

    danny87

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    hii,

    sorry but i have one more query. Is it possible for me to drape any aerial image/tiff maps over the height map generated by world composer(instead of the satellite image). And is it possible to have multiple layers of images(satellite, aerial and tiff map) over the same height map with options to display one at a time ??
     
  38. Tinjaw

    Tinjaw

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    The answer to your question is that, yes, you can do all those things, but they do not involve World Composer. WC only helps to create your "initial" terrain. Once the terrain is built, it is a "normal" Unity terrain object. You would use the inherent capabilities of Unity to do the things you asked about doing.
     
  39. eagle555

    eagle555

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    If you create terrain from TerrainComposer you need to manually activate RTP by going to TC terrain list -> Splat Texture tab -> shift click <RTP> button.

    Nathaniel
     
  40. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Hello everyone,

    Recently Microsoft Bing maps has made some changes, and you need to create a new Bing key for WorldComposer with application set to 'Public Windows App' or 'Public Windows Phone App'. These 2 have the 50.000 transaction within 24 hours, like it always used to be (so the transactions reset after 24 hours). With the other chooses there's only 125.000 transactions within a year and the key will expire if exceeding it.

    I will update the WorldComposer manual with this information and submit it to the Asset Store.

    Nathaniel
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2016
    hopeful, Seneral and Tinjaw like this.
  41. virtual_sandtable

    virtual_sandtable

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    Is there a way to get information about height of buildings/trees using world composer (or any other tool) for a region like India where satellite imagery is not so good?
     
  42. eagle555

    eagle555

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    There is not information about those in the heightmap, it wouldn't look good up close if it had. You can check the height with Google maps, Google has buildings and trees included in the heightmap.

    Nathaniel
     
  43. GenOli

    GenOli

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    @eagle555

    When I export a 2x2 tile I get 4 images but only 1 heightmap, is it possible to get an individual height map for each tile to go with each image?

    (I am going to make individual terrains for each set).
     
  44. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Exporting to more heightmap tiles is not possible from within WorldComposer. But WorldComposer can automatically create terrain tiles from the 1 heightmap. What you can do then in Unity terrain is export the heightmap for each tile.

    Nathaniel
     
    GenOli likes this.
  45. GenOli

    GenOli

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    Thanks.

    Also I noticed some discolored parts on some maps (typically rectangular), is there a way to stop this?
     
  46. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Some maps indeed have this and its embedded in the source. After releasing TC2 I will add more sources to WC, so if one source has it then you can switch to another. It happens because the images are taken at a different times with other weather conditions, then these are all stitched together by hand to 1 big image. The high resolution imagery is actually taken from a plane with special camera's.

    Nathaniel
     
  47. GenOli

    GenOli

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    Ah I see, thanks for explanation.
     
  48. Seneral

    Seneral

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    I think I did propose an idea to fix this some time ago, but anyway, how hard would it be for you to add an interface to let us specify these miscoloured rectangles and provide us with recolouring options so we can fix this manually instead of having to wait for more sources (which doesn't necessarily fixes this)? Of course after TC2;)
     
  49. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Yes its a good idea, although you can do this in photoshop though. In WC you can combine all image tiles to 1 big image, then you can do any corrections in photoshop.

    Nathaniel
     
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  50. unitybeijingchina

    unitybeijingchina

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    Capture the Google map texture is not clear, can far, but near almost no details. How to solve this problem?I'm doing a helicopter game, can be in low position is very clear that the real textures, rather than looking only at high altitude.