ForestVision [ Artist Essentials Product ]

ohhh new version ))

 

Hi

Thanks for the new release !!

There is a problem with the new version, there is not the old tree (01 to 04) in the package. and when i use my old version with the new, trunk disapear in the old version...

Another problem is the very compression of texture, leaf are good but trunk of new trees optimized has a very bad look...

edit : i work on 2BranchSet_merged to change to 4096x4096 with your psd source... because 1024x1024 is too low

 

This update will break your current scenes.

Update is live.

I cannot stress this enough, all of the original prefabs were destroyed when I fixed the rotations on the source meshes. Inside the optimized folder you will find 2 sets of trees, the first set are the most optimized and average around 7 draw calls each. The other set, are in the MaterialsKept folder, these have been collapsed down to a single mesh, but the materials are still available to tweak. They have not been atlased.

Be sure that you back up if you want to keep the trees you currently have.

This update really should have been labeled as 2.0 because it is an overhaul, but I have a few ideas I'm going to add before i go to 2.0.

Every source mesh is ready to be painted on terrains!

Have fun with it, hope it helps everyone.

 

Yes, there are problems with the new version. At this point, you need to look at this update as including the optimized trees (which should really only be used for painting on terrains--the low 1024 textures are perfect for terrain trees) If you need higher resolution trees, then you should be using the ones inside of the MaterialsKept folder.

 

I have designs on creating an editor that will help you tweak and create new trees, but this is a hefty endeavor, and it will increase the price of FV when complete. I've already started working on it several times, and my approach hasn't been correct yet. I have a new idea which I hope works.

Still currently involved in a move so I don't really have a place to do any real work so I will do what I can to help and support everyone from here. When I get settled I will work on populating a few new prefab trees.

I forgot to mention, the new ForestVision shader that is applied to every tree has the new snow element all the way at the bottom.

In the new demo scene, "Asset Collection", select the camera and you will see a new script added to it, FV_SnowControl.

This will control the snow on all the shaders in the scene. First thing is to put a 1 in the Y axis for direction, then you can increase the amount. It's not yet applying to terrains yet so don't be surprised about that.

 

If you are interested in Forestvision, I would recommend purchasing now.

Once I get the 2.0 release out there, the price is going up to $40. There's going to be a lot in it, and it will be totally worth it, but there is going to be a lot more programming in store for me in order to get everything done I want done.

I'll do my best to keep the price under 40, but its just going to depend on how much I get done.

 

Also, in other news, BauerVision, ForestVision Substances ................

 

Hi

Ok texture in 1024 are perfect for terrain tree and your new shader with optimized tree in 4 pass only is great !

But just one small problem, if you look your atlas texture 2BranchSet_merged , the half of texture is empty and the trunk in texture has a very small resolution. In game, the trunk is very bad. I am looking for a tool for remap uvs for change the position of trunk in the atlas texture and for place a best trunk resolution in the texture 1024.

I see the asset "uvee", i will buy it. I would inform you when it will be done

 

Hii @mcbauer

That is the result, i remap the uvs with the asset 'uvee' , i change the position of trunk and i use a trunk of speedtree for example :



For the normal map, i create it without the leaf and i use unity for convert to normal map:



Atlas Texture 1024 :

 

ForestVision looks very good, thanks @mcbauer ^^

 

Hi

I have a problem with the mesh "ForestVision_Tree1_Merged_zeroed_part1", like you see, there is an uv problem in the new version, anyone can confirm the same problem ?

 

That looks like a mesh compression error from when I used SimpleLOD. I will look into it, thanks

 

Very nice! Thanks for sharing! Keep it up!

 

Hi @mcbauer, thanks, forestvision looks very good
yes mesh is too simplified, i tried to repare him yesterday but it's impossible.

thanks to you

 

Hi @mcbauer , have you had time to see for the problem with the mesh of ForestVision_Tree1 ?

Thanks

 

up

 

I have not had a chance. We just had our third baby and things have been hectic around here. I will look into it when things settle down and I start to get sleep again

 

ooohhh congratulations

ok i would be patient.

 

So I'm working on the first Substance for ForestVision and here is what I'm thinking:

First, I plan to include one Substance with ForestVision, the Trunk Substance. This is what you will be able to use to make whatever kind of trunk you desire. Simply export out the required bitmaps and setup your new materials. Or you can copy that substance and do the same thing. Either way, there will be one Master Trunk Substance included with ForestVision.

Second, I will be including the Trunk Substance in with my new product BauerVision Substances. This will be a collection of Master Substances that you can use to make everything from concrete walls, to tree trunks, to dirt roads and path, and eventually foliage.

Thoughts?

 

hum for me just if you can correct the mesh of ForestVision_Tree1 , it's good . because the actual version of forest vision is nice for me, no more need.

 

Hi @mcbauer, sorry but its possible to have the ForestVision mesh repaired ? because i will try to repair uvs myself but its impossible, trunk is too very complex :'(

 

@mcbauer Does your foliage shader include AO and SSS?
ps: The forum link on your asset https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/59910 is broken.

 

1. Hi McBauer/everybody.
   
   I am looking into tree's/foliage assets for my project and just had a few questions.
   
   I use Terrain Composer, could I use forestvision with this? I want to have the grass/foliage/tree's setup as objects rather than using built in terrain options so they can follow my procedural options for seasonal changes etc..
   
   I also want my tree's climbable so they cannot be part of the unity terrain.
   
   Thanks in advance,
   
   Andy

 

no it does not include those elements yet. Thanks for the heads up

 

I do not see any reason that you would not be able to use it. I will have to look into it when I can to be sure. I would recommend trying the Lite version and see if you have any issues.

In regards to using them as objects, that is their main use case. The Foliage shader comes with a global script that you assign to you camera, or any object, and it will control the snow amount on all FV shader objects. Only as objects can you use the FV Branch animator script which adds the natural branch motion which is way better than just vertex animation on the shader.

Making them climbable is as easy as applying the desired collision to the trees. They do not come with collision, but as you know, it's rather easy to implement.

 

Sorry this is taking so long to get around to, I have alot on my plate right now with the little one, but I will do my best to investigate the issue this week.

 

Thanks for the reply. I will try with the lite version for one prototype then upgrade once i have confirmed my use case is fine. Seems like it fits perfectly!

Hope you are enjoying the newborn, I have two under 5 so know what you experiencing.

 

haha, yes it can be challenging, but very, very worth it.

 

Is it me or has the price gone up? Has there been a new update in the last few days?

 

Price hasn't changed. No new updates yet

 

Looks great, thanks Mcbauer.

Now i'm keeping my fingers crossed that it plays well with tree manager system and I have great foliage setup.

 

Hi

Mesh of CurvyTrunk01 is break too :/ possible to have this merged mesh ? (+forestvision_tree1 ?)

EDIT:
I finally all redone it myself. THX.

 

Hi all, Is it just me or are all the prefabs huge? i'm adding flora and grass and finding them bigger than trees even at a scale of 1.

Does scaling still have a big impact on performance?

 

I haven't had time to run through all the assets and ensure they are scaled properly in relation to each other. No reason to believe it should impact performance though.

 

Usually anything that is not scaled the same cannot batch with anything else so they do effect performance (or at least they did). That's why it is good practice to have everything scaled to 1 in case you need to batch.

 

I thought I had everything scaled to 1. Now whether or not a sclae of 1 is the right ultimate size in the editor is a different story, but I'm pretty sure everything should be set to 1. Please let me know which assets you are seeing which are not.

I'm finally set back up to continue working now, after a rebuild of my pc and many long nights of not getting sleep due to my little one, I think I'm ready to get back to work now. I have a pretty huge list to work on, so now is a good time to add to it.

 

Yeah the scales are all 1 but there are sized out of proportion to the scale. Something that you could alter for next update if you get a chance in between sleepless nights .

 

So small update.

Currently working on release 2.0.

Adding in a tree editor that will allow you to create your own varieties of FV trees, and then either save it as a prefab, or bake it down into an optimized version. Not sure if I'm going to worry with creating atlas textures or not yet. I'll see how it goes.

I have big plans to include substances as well, but for now I'm going to focus on this editor.

 

Editor progress is coming along well. Trying to settle on a few design ideas, but I think this is going to make things very easy, and fun, to not only create your own trees--AND bake them down to reduce draw calls, but also to simply access all of the assets via a browser that I've added.

Definitely a significant update, and I can't wait to get it out to everyone. I think I'm going to wrap it up soon and get it out there to you and just keep working it in the background.

 

OK just finished work on 2.0.

A lot of stuff I wanted to get in, but I'm going to hold off for now and see what everyone thinks about the new editor. Only thing left to do is make some new images for the store to showcase the new features and i'll push it up....should be within the next day or so. Might try to knock out some new trees for the collection---since it's so incredible easy now .

Still don't have any great sample scenes, mainly because I use so many 3rd party plugins to get my images--atmospheric stuff for example,, that anything I would supply, with those plugins stripped out, wouldn't be too great.

I'm working on creating my own solutions, but thats going slow with everything else I'm trying to do.

I'll post up some clear guides here when I push it up so everyone will know how to use it.

 

Latest version has been uploaded.

First thing you'll want to do is go to the Main menu bar, ForestVision->Editor.

Give it a second to open as it will need to generate thumbnails for all of the FV assets. Once it's done, you'll see tabs across the top and buttons along the bottom.

Tabs show you the categories of assets. Optimized, Prefabs, Ground, Flora, Backgrounds and Specials are all categories of ready to place assets. Trunks-Basics are your building blocks for making new assets. Of course any asset can be used for any reason.

Buttons along the bottom, New Optimized, and New Prefab will take whatever your current selection is (note, it doesn't have to a ForestVision asset), and save out your new creation accordingly.



New Optimized, will bake your selection down to a single mesh, while keeping the materials intact. I will look into adding the option to build atlas's later. Upon collapsing of the mesh, it will add a new script, FV_Items, to the newly created mesh, set it's Category as "Optimized", which will then file it under said category, and then refresh the browser. If you have the browser opened to Optimized, you will see it populate immediately. Optimized mesh will be saved to: /ForestVision/08 Optimized/07 MyOptimized/ and the newly collpased mesh asset will be saved in the SourceMeshes folder of the same directory.

New Prefab will simply save the entire prefab structure you have created, place the FV_Items script and set the category as Prefab. Again, you will see it populate immediately. File will be saved to: /ForestVision/06 Specials/MyPrefabs .

Refresh Database is provided for convenience reasons in order to force a full update of the thumbnails.

High Res Screen Shot will open the Screenshot tool with simple to understand options.

Show Help will explain a few other items, like how to add your own assets to this browser.

Big thing to remember is that the FY_Items script must be assigned to any item you want in the browser, then set the category and item name.

Looking forward to seeing how everyone likes the tool!

 

Note on using the Editor to create new Trees.

If nothing in the scene is selected then whatever you click on in the Browser will be added to World center. However, if something is selected, then the newly added model will be dumped as a child of the selected object.

So a typical pipeline of building a tree would go something like this:

1) Switch to the Trunks tab in the editor, click on your chosen trunk model to add it to the scene, then select the trunk.
2) Switch to the Branches tab, and with the Trunk still selected, start adding your main branches. Now since they are going to be added to 0,0,0 of the trunk, go ahead and move them up the trunk to your desired locations.
3) Select on one of the new branches, and add another branch or 2 to this particular branch, then re-position. Now this new branch will have some branches of its own.
4) Finally, with either the main trunk, or one of the branches selected, add in a few Cards to help fluff out the tree.
5) Save your creation as a new prefab, or bake it down as an optimized version.

 

This isn't new to this update, but I never got around to talking about it, so here goes.

A part of the main ForestVision shader is the Snow control. This control is global. In order to use it, you need to apply the: FV_Snow Control script to any object in the scene. I use my camera, but feel free to use whatever you want.



You have X,Y,Z parameters that will control the position of the snow build up in the scene as a whole. Setting each parameter to 0 will effectively remove snow from everything. A value of 0,1,0 will make the snow buildup as if fallen from directly above. Playing with the X and Z values will begin to make the snow build up along the sides of the models.

You also have Snow Level which is truly the multiplier of the snow amount.

So Snow Level = 0, Snow Direction(0,1,0) will result in no snow. Pushing up either the Snow Level or any of the direction amounts will produce the white stuff in your scene. Obviously, you're just going to have to play with it.

Snow depth is the amount of vertex displacement the snow creates as the level gets high. Obviously being a tessellation aspect of the vertex shader, your models will require some polygons in order to really see the result.

NOTE: if your materials do not have a Normal map assigned, the resulting effect of snow build up will be less than dramatic. It drives off the Normal, so to best use one for optimal results.

 

As of yet, the Snow element does not work on Terrains. I included a base mesh in order to show it off in the image and in the demo scene.

 

I'm having trouble with Forest Visions tree's and wind. They don't seem to be affected by the wind zone included in the pack, instead all waving at the same speed determined by something I can't identify. I just want to slow them down/stop wind altogether, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong at this point. Suggestions?

 

If you select on the FV_WindZone and lower the Wind_Intensity to zero, all branch movement will cease.

The only movement left is the movement on the Shaders.

Select on the Foliage that is still moving which you want to stop, go to the Foliage material, scroll down to Foliage Controls and set Animation Time to zero and nothing will be moving.

 

ForestVision 2.0 is live. give it some love.

 

Hi Mcbauer,

I'm having a problem with the editor. Nothing is showing up. No trunks, branches etc. Just blank. I have tried refreshing database but nothing happens.

I have made trees just using the scene view and adding to world which works fine so all the meshes etc are there.

I was also wondering about adding specific leaves. My game requires some rainforest trees (Raffia Palm) and Garcinia monkey fruit trees. What you advise as the best way to do this?

 

I assume that you are giving it a few seconds to populate. I notice on my end, when I first run it, it can take around 20- 30 seconds to load. I'm going to include a progress meter to show percentage of load in the next update.

Are you seeing the error message in the category that nothing was found, or is it all just blank?

The editor populates based on how many objects are found with the FV_items script attached, and with the Category in the script set. Obviously all of the assets that ship with it are already setup. I would go into the folders and make sure that nothing has gotten messed up with the script assignments. If, for some reason, the prefabs lost the category assignments, you would see the error message in that category that nothing was found. If you are not seeing that error message, it's possible it's just taking a while to build the thumbnails.

In regards to custom leaves, I would recommend using the "Basics" category, those are plane meshes with straightforward UVs. There are a few meshes to pick from but you would be able to apply any texture you wanted to them and be able to begin building what you wanted.

 

Left it open for 10 minutes but nothing populated. I am using 5.5 - not sure if that is an issue. no error messages showing.