[NEW PATCH] uNature - GPU, Interactable Grass. Interactable Trees, MultiThreading and more!

Oh no no, dont get me wrong!!

You can still use ALL of the features of the system with any of the systems out there, its just that TC2 already implements a nice set of tools to generate that certain thing ( i dont want to expose that yet, but Shawn, just because you are in the testing group i will message you privately the details )

 

Thanks for explanation. Just hate seeing a great tool become terrain system dependent. Glad to see that isn't the case.

 

I agree all tools should do this, but not to pick a fight...I have seen that with other peoples tools as well... Which has always annoyed me. But in Elroy's defense he stated why.. I see others stating it only works with this or that, or adding Logo's to other tools... So its up to a developer what they want to support isn't it? Out of the box it should work for any terrain tool just about... But its up a a developer who they want to add on there name to support ..

My point is, we need to look at competition as a good thing. /cheers..

By the way Android users, you will have grass! Testing is going well so far for Phones and Tablets..

 

I never said anywhere in my post that he shouldn't support other terrain tools. But TMS/uNature already has a lot of users which use different tools. If he were to introduce features that were specific to a certain tool, it is kind of a slap in the face to users who have been supporting and promoting him. I understand now that this isn't the case, just that TC2 does some things internally which can also be done manually or by other means for those of us not using it. But as Elroy is a developer who is developing a service tool for terrains, I totally understand and don't fault him for wanting to support as many of the terrain generation tools as possible since the combination of the users of all of those tools are his ideal customer base.

 

I didn't say you did Shawn. I was just making a general statement, since I see this kind of thing all over the Asset Store on how certain tools support there buddy's . and yes I always told him he should support as many terrian tool as possible but at the end f the day it is his choice just like its yours, or anyone other developer to name a certain tool that maybe, it may work best with or that he may support more. but I can't expose the reason it is a beta thing. .. But anyone who has used it already knows it work for I believe all terrain tools, or most.. It has worked for most tools from what he has said in public..

But my point to the story, I seen other Assets , do this very thing... I dislike double standards is all... I actually support, Gaia, TC, and I never used any other tool in Unity so I can't comment , before Unity I was a World Machine, and other terrain tools for over 10-15 years.. So again competition is good.... UNature for me has changed Android, and how much grass in Unity that developers can use.


Anyways, welcome to take this private. I would be happy to discuss my opinion further if it is needed. For the record, I tend to support many developers and have for over 8 years or more on Unity's site. We are all in this together at the end of the day.

Keep up the amazing work Elroy, !!

 

No need... I didn't intend to talk about it this much. Anyone who knows me knows that I am all for a collaborative spirit between asset developers. But this isn't the right place for that discussion. Sorry your thread went off topic because of my earlier comments Elroy.

Ditto

 

Yep guys, no worries

There wont be any features that are unique only to a certain terrain asset, will try to support them all

 

if you want interactable trees can they be terrain trees or do they have to be placed like normal objects?

 

That's the trick, they can be terrain trees and still be interactable

 

Hey I must say that you doing some amazing work here by looking at your screens ! I know it's still not finished but I was wondering if you tested the grass on "high speed ".
With the standard Unity grass if you move to fast thru heavy batches you always get fps spikes. Even if you change detail resolution or patch size.
Anyway I can't wait to test it out in my project , keep the good work up!

 

Oh definitely, one of the main reasons of which i started making the new grass system is because of the fps spikes,
currently i am optimizing it to be super fast and it will also be multi-threaded so even if you move super fast you wont get any actual spikes on the main thread .

 

Awesome !!! This is just to good to be true )

 

Hi, a few quick questions:
1. Does your asset works on geometry meshes too. I mean not the standard unity terrain, but terrain made from geometry/polys?
1. If I buy "TreesManagerSystem" I get the upgrade/update for free?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

1. No, at the moment at least, there is architecture set for that, but its only planned for V1.1/V1.2.
2. Yes you do

 

Looks like a great asset coming! I just bought TMS but will hold off installing and wait for uNature release.

 

Thank you for your support!

 

Wow, this looks just what I've been looking for for a very long time. I will purchase Trees Manager System and await uNature upgrade. Are Trees Manager users able to get in a uNature beta or is that closed?

 

Hey, thanks for your interest!

At the moment the group is full (30 members :/) but i plan to release it very seen, the beta is going pretty well, i can say that there are many cool stuff coming including some unique AAA features that you can see in some games like The Witcher 3 for instance (If you know what i am talking about, and thats only one of them!)

When i release the asset i will also open-up the trello page which is now private for the beta testers, for everyone, so you guys can see the future plans.

 

I purchased Trees Manager System in anticipation of uNature. Also, sent you a PM @ElroyUnity.

 

So guys some more exciting news, working on huge refactoring at the moment, fixing bugs etc, and i am now working on global-painting support so you can paint foilage on any object on your scene. (Similar to how UE4 does it).

I dont want to spoil anything at the moment, but the UI is going to be amazing, thats all i can say .

Do you guys have any features you would like to see?!, if so, please let me know privately and maybe if its good and not planned yet, maybe you can join the beta and test it when its implemented .

Also some vegetation features are coming from UE4

But again, going to try to spoil as less as possible!

That being said,
Exciting times ahead!

 

From my standpoint, this may be boring but what I want most are three things:

1. Reliable code that does what it says on the tin, performs well in production, and never crashes.
2. Excellent documentation.
3. Responsive support.

And, yeah, whiz-bang features are a nice afterthought.

Seriously, although it's too late to get into the code beta (and I'm not asking), I will offer that as part of my job I am a professional technical editor, so if you would like a "beta tester" for the documentation please keep me in mind.

 

Feature-wise, I'd like the system to work well with Terrain Composer 2. I haven't upgraded yet to TC2, but I know the author has a really nice streaming terrain details feature so that details stream in and out around the camera to help with performance. I think that coupled with your system could boost performance even more. Short of having TC2 integration I'd like to see a similar feature in uNature.

 

Thank you for your reply!

Well at the moment cant guarantee 1 and 2 although yday i fixed alot of the stability issues so it most likely wont crash .

I can guarantee 3 tho, my support is pretty good honestly, takes me about ~3 mins on averege to respond to your msg (unless i am asleep lol).

And yes that's definitely something i need, didnt yet work on the documentation, but i will keep you updated, once i get to that i will definitely contact you and get you in the beta to check stuff out

That's definitely something i will be doing, Nath seems to have an interest in uNature and he helped me with the shaders so i will definitely get that integrated before release, with some of the other terrain tools hopefully, such as : Map Magic, GAIA, LB and more.

 

Elroy's support is FABULOUS! I think he even answers in his sleep.

 

Haha thanks

 

1. Check
2. Check
3. Check

 

It does work with TC2.. out of the box so far.. I been a huge supporter for TC1 for years, and years, and now TC2, I also tested TC2. .. Unature is working well with it so far. It uses Unity terrain so it should anyways.

GAIA, uses Unity terrain it works as well, I tested that as well.. Magic Map I can't say as I do not own it.

 

Another update guys :

Remade the UI completely, getting closer to the release and working hard on polishing and on finishing the last remaining features.

Will be getting you guys a teaser soon, and will open the trello page for everyone soon enough as well.

A lot of you have also asked - Is there mesh support, the answer is YES, i've worked on it 3 days ago, took me less than a day to completely implement it and it works perfectly.

Will be giving you all some more updates about the asset soon, but at the moment i am finishing some features that i only want to show you guys on the release to not spoil the suprise .

 

Great news!!
I can't wait to try it out on my project.
Any idea when there may be a release? no pressure of course ;-)

 

Currently its going super well, very happy with the results so far!.

I am now polishing it super hard and getting the last features done, i got all the design and stuff for the asset store already prepared so launch should be the easy task .

I hope to release somewhere near the end of this month or early next month

 

Some new news :

According to some people in the group and myself, i can confirm that uNature is compatible with mobile and VR .


Been asked that a lot, so wanted to answer it more officially

 

Color maps support for grass is implemented!

Are you guys interested in a little demonstration ?

 

You are KILLING me! What you waiting for, christmas?!?

 

Haha, thanks for the kind words

 

Hello Elroy,
will uNature work with MapMagic (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/56762)?
And is there any ETA on the release?

Keep up the good work and godspeed, your asset looks very promessing.

 

At the moment i didnt look into an integration between them but the testers use a huge variety of terrain tools whether its TC2, GAIA, LB, and a lot more.

An official integration to basically all of them will come before i release the asset .


ETA is more or less 2-3 weeks, cant guarantee, trying to take it slow and make it as stable and fast as possible

 

I'd definitely be interested in seeing a demo~

 

Sorry for late response, seen this message yday through the phone and forgot to reply.

I will definitely put out a demo before release so you guys can check it out before its up on the store

 

Hi ElroyUnity - few quick questions regarding uNature:

1. I know a lot of the focus has been improving the frame rate when grass is high density, but what kind of fps improvements can we expect (if any) for a large number of trees?
2. I see that you switched to a custom grass solution, does this open up the possibility of grass interactivity with players (grass moves when player moves through it for instance)?
3. Speaking of this custom grass solution, is this a "transparent" feature? What I mean is do we work with grass in the classic manner and your new solution works behind the scenes to do its thing?

Thanks!

 

Hey!

1) At the moment i cant promise a lot of performance increase with trees, it will definitely remove physics overload and give you the ability to interact with it, but not a lot more. (uNature trees, which is a custom solution that will increase performance by a lot is planned, but not anytime soon)

2) Absolutely! definitely one of my main prioritites at the moment, going to also give out some basic interactions like grass flattening from the witcher 3 and more .

3) Well, you can copy foilage from the terrain, and apply grass when generating it from tc2/ gaia/ or smth like that
but you can not use unity's brush, instead you will have to use the uNature brush, some stuff are being done to allow the use of unity brush but at the moment cant guarantee.

 

Elroy

will it be possible with uNature to have different visibility distances for different grass assets?

 

Good idea, will be added !

 

I've just purchased your TMS and cannot wait to use the update uNature. I"m working on a large openworld game and the amount of trees and grass can and does hurt performance. looking forward to seeing what the new update brings. I know you've said it'll be soon, and by all means no rush, just very excited to try this out. Any chance it could be out before the end of this month? Again no rush, happy you're taking your time with this. Looks to be an amazing asset. Thanks you for the hard work.

 

Hey !

Thank you for your support !

I really hope to release by the end of this month, which will most likely happen but cannot guarantee because school just started

Will keep you all updated though

 

Great!! That will be very useful for things like wheat which should be visible from further away than grass and weeds etc .

 

Definitely !

I will also have dynamic lod levels for each prototype

 

Well this is a nice surpise Elroy. I remember troubleshooting TMS with you back in January and getting it all optimised via Skype and yet I had no idea you had this planned!

I look forward to when TMS turns into uNature! I own every asset you have released (TMS and uConstruct). For anyone thinking about following the development of this asset, you should. Elroy, his assets and his support is fantastic.

 

Thank you very much for your kind words!

Was just about to go to sleep and then saw your reply on the notifications .

 

Any news ?

 

Still working on the system, the progress has increased and will try to get you some functionality videos soon once i get it to work perfectly.


Sorry for such a long wait, but the project isn't dead by any means