Map Magic World Generator - a node based procedural and infinite game map tool

Jesus, I highly don't recommend you using 4K resolution unless you really need it. Consider splitting your terrain in 4*4 1K chunks. It will generate faster, it will hide chunks that are out of range.
And speaking about the noise resolution dependence it is already fixed for the new version, that I'm going to submit in a couple off days.

sbabb, I do remember that when I was making that feature it was not possible to set the exact static state of an object in Unity. Possibly nowdays things have changed, I will take a look if it is so.

malkere, it's hard to say what causes this error without trying your graph. Could you please send me your scene and the exact Calculate function call?

dlevel, it's a bug that is fixed for the next version: after fresh install of MM with RTP it will require InstantUpdater script. You can get this script here - just place it anywhere inside MM folder.

 

@Wright will do, soon as I get home. Thanks.

 

Hi @Wright ,,,
in one of the comments you mentioned that the Evaluation version is updated to 1.8
But when I download it,, it shows version number as 1.7

Can you please confirm.

Thanks

 

Hey! Just bought Map Magic. Fantastic tool. However I'm having the same issue as malkere above (IndexOutOfRangeException when trying to calculate results). Interested in a fix for this or example usage besides what's on the faq - I copied and pasted that code on this but it's giving me the error as well.

I'm trying to set up a parallel terrain system to work with Map Magic to display distant terrain using a second camera. Any chance a built-in version of something like this could be a possibility for the future?

 

Hi! Just imported MapMagic 1.8.2, having been very impressed by the free demo. I'm not sure if I'm doing something funny but I can't seem to get the offset on the noise map to work - changing the x and y values seems to have no effect. I tried out the legacy noise map from 1.7, and that's not working either. Occasionally when changing the values on the legacy version, I get this exception:

Error generating chunk: MapMagic.Coord x:0 z:0: System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
at MapMagic.Matrix2`1[System.Single].get_Item (Int32 x, Int32 z) [0x00001] in /Users/Daniel/Sable/Assets/MapMagic/Main/Matrix2.cs:486

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

EDIT: It also doesn't matter which type of noise I try - none appear to work

 

edit: oops, I was wrong.

 

I guess there is no MM version number stated in Asset Store since we are talking about evaluation version. Unfortunately I cannot run it now on my tablet now, but I'm afraid that if it is displayed as 1.7 then it is 1.7 - version number is not just a text string but a static variable used in graph serialization. Anyways, I'm going to replace it with 1.8.3 soon.

shedworksdigital, the legacy noise generator had problems with the offset - that's why it became legacy, actually. But the latest noise should have this problem fixed - I will check it out if there is a regression or something. It would be great if you could report this problem on the issues page so I don't forget about it.

Southroner, I plan to implement multiple detail level in 1.9 - or at least make it beta.
Oddly enough, I've nearly duplicated the example code from Voxeland where it works fine. I will take a look if I copied it right.

 

Hello!
I'm not sure how it happened, but one of my terrain parts lost its splat map.

How/where can I reassign its splat map data, and were is it located? And if in case this isn't possible, which files should I replace in order to get my old terrain back? (I have backup folders)
Thanks

Fixed: Exported the terrain into an asset file, and used another script to replace the containing splat.

 

Can you unpin the terrain, and re-pin it? Or some other way of removing/replacing or re-generating it?

 

Hi I'm new no MM (loving so far), and got me with one doubt.

When using the infinite terrain feature, what is the best way to restrict how far the player can go?
For example, if I only want him to be able to walk a distance of 20 terrains?

My idea was to pin the last terrain and draw a mountain or a invisible wall, is this the way that you guys are working with it?

 

mountains or sea will generally do the trick.

There's a node called simple form. You can have gradients, etc, and scale/tile them. You want to scale them to the right size (maybe pin some terrains down so you can see it, but test on a simple terrain though so it doesn't take ages to gen).

I'd go with some simple gradients, then a curve mapped to something like this:

\_____/

so the world you want the player to be in sits in a bowl and have some mountains on the side.

 

I'm having another issue, this one with biomes and texture blending. I have two biomes - one just uses the background texture layer, and the other uses the background layer plus two more. The terrains that contain the blend have this problem:


I wrote a shader to show the problem. The terrain on the right shows the correct splat map for the second biome. In the middle terrain, for the second biome, all the layers have been shifted up by one (r becomes g, g becomes b and b becomes a).

Again, I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong. I'm using custom terrain shaders. If this is a bug I can report this one in the issue tracker as well.

 

I'm wondering how I can mix multiple textures for same output.

Example: I use a single cliff texture for cliffs, but I wish to use 3 different cliff textures and mix them to have a more realistic result.

I have no idea, because every map fliter have only one output connector...

Who can help me?

 

Hi @Wright. Incredible tool you've built here, I'm really impressed. I'm trying out the trial version to see how I can fit it into my workflow before purchase.

A question: I'm attempting to use custom heightmaps as masks/blends, but when I get only black output from both the Texture Input node and the Raw Input node. ie., I've tried exporting PNGs for the former, and .raw files (16 bit, PC, square, greyscale) for the latter, but both just seem to output pure black, confirmed by the Preview>In Window function. I checked the docs for clues, but couldn't find anything that helped. Am I missing a step?

 

You're talking about two different things? To mix output, just feed your outputs into a blend node or give them each a different seeded noise before the blend. To use more than one texture for output, do the same thing but on the left side of the texture output generator. Have whatever map generation you have going into your your cliff texture, but then feed it into three differently seeded noise nodes each outputting to a different texture.

More practically I would suggest you check out MegaSplat on the asset store. If you start piling on textures you're going to hurt you performance as Unity makes a complete terrain draw pass for every four textures you use. Megasplat is a terrain shader that uses 256 textures in one splat and has texture batches that are 3 textures mixed using noise before being drawn (almost exactly what you're asking for).

 

Poxican, in case your terrain is not pinned at 0,0 - it might be located too far from the place where your heightmap is applied (by default it is placed at zero). Try switching Raw Input's wrap mode to "tile" to see if it is really so - this will repeat your heightmap infinitely.

vampir26, you've got to add all of the 3 cliff textures as Texture Output layers. This way they will have 3 inputs, where you can assign the nodes to define cliff textures blend algorithms - I guess it will be noise or slope.

shedworksdigital, I suppose a biome or at least one texture channel is not used on the left terrain. MapMagic excludes unused channels to improve the performance - and so it does with the splat prototypes list (unused textures are not included in prototypes list), so the actual channels and prototypes match for each of the terrains. Otherwise, using just a 3 biomes with 5 textures will give 15 channels for each terrain - this will cause rendering terrain 4 times (to display 4 textures per pass). I guess your custom terrain material should read the actually assigned terrain textures. I can make this optimization switchable for the further versions, but I really believe that no one should disable it because of performance reasons.

jmarceno, I think that the best way to create the invisible walls is to actually place invisible walls. It should be a collider mesh that should not be associated with MM in any way, just a separate game object that limits player movement. Or it could be a character controller script that does not allow character exceed some bounds. Let MM generate the terrains on the background, and set the map bounds by other means.

 

I had a closer look at this today and realised this is what you were doing. My main problem was that I needed to be able to pass in a colour for each of the terrain layers, which I used to set manually in the material. I didn't realise it was possible to do this in Unity's built-in terrain editor until I decompiled TerrainSplatEditor this morning and discovered the specular version of the 'add texture' window. This makes my life much easier, and my custom terrain shader now blends very nicely between biomes.

 

I would like to address an issue which is not MapMagic's fault, but I need @Wright s attention on this. MapMagic is a very big asset right now and many other assets want to have integration with it. I have 2 other assets that mention the integration with MapMagic (uNature and CTS) and both of them not working with MapMagic other than some demoing scenes or not at all.

Adam which is a very respectful developer, for example, it said on his forum that he contacted you and he made the integration with CTS, which for example only works on pinned terrains, but he asks more info from the community about MapMagic functionality.

elroy, an other good developer, has the integration of MapMagic advertise again on uNature, but it works only with older versions, and only with grass, not trees.

What I'm saying is that many assets use MapMagic's name to have some sales, but they don't deliver, so even though its their fault, I would like @Wright to have a say on this, and not let them release integrations that don't work and use your asset's name until is fully supported.

Again I fully understand that this is not MapMagic's fault or Wrights in any way, but I think you might have a say to who uses your name on their product.

Thank you for your time.

edit: Adam replied that you work on the CTS instantupdate so I guess this will work soon
But I have a problem with CTS and MapMagic regarding Snow effect, I can't seem to make it work with it, even though it works fine on scenes without MapMagic, I guess the reason is because the texture is nowhere in the Nodes? any Idea?

And one more question about CTS and MapMagic, what about biomes? Will it support it? one the same profile as long as we go max 16 textures or is there an other method?

 

How can I have no trees or rocks where I have a flatten area? I tried a clean up generator but didnt work.

edit: nevermind, found this: https://gitlab.com/denispahunov/mapmagic/wikis/creating-villages-with-mapmagic

 

Yep, I'm working on CTS generator literally right now, and Adam is kind enough to answer all of my questions. I planned to release v1.8.3 yesterday, but since CTS integration has a huge demand (here and in CTS thread) I decided to add it now.

Speaking of uNature I got reports that it does not work with MM, but as far as I remember Elroy has fixed this bug. I will test it once more.

CTS Output generator will use 16 textures for all of the biomes. At least at it's initial release.

Don't know about the snow yet.

 

Indeed I agree on that point with uNature, going to publish a version soon to make sure its noted as "work in progress".
At the moment working on a new version with core changes that will allow me to have it working properly including trees.

Although the current approach should still work for the newest map magic version, in fact using it on a personal project as we speak. Please send me your errors on a pm and I will help you fix it!

 

@ElroyUnity I've been posting MapMagic integration errors since April. You said three months ago "will be ready in the next week or so." If I make a new project, with an entirely simple MapMagic graph it does work 90%, but nobody builds graphs or projects that simple. I don't know what is causing the problems, but uNature is still entirely unusable in my project based very heavily around MapMagic. The most recent screenshots are on the MapMagic git which still has an open uNature issue, though it's the same problem I posted on your git in May which still has the same open issue.

Your grass is a hundred times better than the basic mush, but it's really frustrating being told a fix is coming for months and still not being able to use it.

 

I absolutely agree. One of the issues that I had with integrating uNature and map magic is that the maps generation (of uNature) was very slow as it needs to well... generate maps. That caused me to make huge work arounds in order to avoid spikes during terrain load so it kind of broke some aspects of the system.

I am now remaking some of those mechanics so it will be much much much easier to integrate MapMagic and I believe that it's the best way, so I am sorry for the long wait

 

I m trying to add the new 5.6 NavMeshSourceTag script to the new runtime generated terrains so I can use the runtime navmesh, how could I add this script to any new created terrain in runtime?

 

Looking a little further down the road, have you taken a look at Vegetation Studio yet? It's still a work-in-progress, but pretty amazing.

 

I use Unity 2017.1.0f3 and tested it before with 5.6.0f3.
i use map magic 1.8.3 and RTP 3.3h and i place the InstantUpdater in my project. it dosnt produce any errors or warnings but it dosnt instant updates. i must "force generate all" for every change on my RTP settings. it's hard to finetune the texturing with no live update. i also make a whole new empty project with only map magic and rtp to test but same problem, no update.. what can i do?

 

Hi

I'd like to know how to use MapMagic to integrate with unity terrain. I know that I can export terrain data by the script you provided before, but is it the only pipeline? Let's say I want to use MapMagic to generate most of terrain shape at first. Then I use unity terrain brush to sculpt more detail by hand. What if I want to go back to MapMagic again? How do I make the terrain data read by MapMagic again and keep the detail I add by hand? Thank you.

 

Hey there,
I get a compile error when I want to build a version. I´m using Unity 5.5.1f and MapMagic 1.8.1



Also, I have defined a MainCamera and activated bake light probes for trees. Neverthless, I get compile errors for this. But these are not the errors that prevent me from making a build. It just the last one in the list and I have no clue what could be the cause. Any idea ?

 

Add the script to the Map Magic object and enable Map Magic's "Copy Components to Terrains" option.

 

YHS, unfortunately MapMagic does not work this way. It was made to generate procedural terrains, so it creates terrains from scratch, and does not read already existing terrain data. I have plans to experiment using MapMagic as an editor tool, but I'm not sure that it will fit current pipeline.

secondsight_, try updating to v.1.8.2, as far as I can remember I've already fixed this issue.

Diego_Graphics, MapMagic v.1.8.3 you use - is it MapMagic Beta from GitLab? If so could you please report an issue on here on GitLab issues pages?

dlevel,

Yep

trilobyteme, I've already have a list of assets I've promised to integrate: it's CTS and Ultimate Survival, and I'll follow it in queue. Thanks for the link, BTW, that looks interesting.

An speaking about CTS integration:
Here is a video showing how the new CTS Output Generator will work:

 

Congratulations on over 211,000 views on your map magic tutorial! That must be a lot of users!

 

Awesome with the CTS integration! Could you tell us if the Snow effect works???

 

Hi,

I'm trying to create a custom generator, but I need world position of every pixel I'm iterating.
How to do that?

Code (CSharp):

1. public override void Generate(CoordRect rect, Chunk.Results results, Chunk.Size terrainSize, int seed, Func<float, bool> stop = null)
2.     {
3.         Matrix src = (Matrix)input.GetObject(results);
4.  
5.         if (src == null || (stop != null && stop(0))) return;
6.         if (!enabled) { output.SetObject(results, src); return; }
7.  
8.         Matrix dst = new Matrix(src.rect);
9.  
10.         Coord min = src.rect.Min;
11.         Coord max = src.rect.Max;
12.  
13.         for (int x = min.x; x < max.x; x++)
14.             for (int z = min.z; z < max.z; z++)
15.             {
16.                 float val = src[x, z];
17.  
18. // HOW TO CONVERT X/Z TO WORLD POS HERE?
19.  
20.                 dst[x, z] = val;
21.             }
22.  
23.         if (stop != null && stop(0)) return;
24.         output.SetObject(results, dst);
25.     }

 

malkere, thanks! And speaking about the number of users - from time to time I get new acquaintances among Unity developers, and never cease to amaze how much of them use MapMagic. It's more the matter of a small world of game developers rather than popularity, but anyways it warms my heart

dlevel, since terrains use CTS material they can display snow effect - at least I've tested it with a standard noise snow, and it is shown without a problem. But to be honest I'm not very experienced with CTS, maybe there is some snow feature that I'm missing. Does it require any terrain-dependent map like control texture?

kulesz, you've got to multiply your X and Z values with terrainSize.pixelSize value. Internally it is terrain world size divided by the map resolution. But keep in mind that it will give you a position relative to MapMagic object rather than absolute world position.

 

If you go to CTS Profile editor->Snow settings, you can see the snow effects along with the Snow power slider, If that texture works when you up the slider then it works. It doesnt work at the moment on the first integration with 1.8.2 thats why I m telling you

 

No rush for Vegetation Studio, since that asset is still pre-release (I think the developer is planning to have it ready in the fall. I figured it was something you might want to have on your radar.

 

Any known issues with Map Magic and Unity 2017? And while I'm at it, any known issues with Voxeland and Unity 2017?

 

Didn't notice anything wrong with MM and 2017.1 so far.

 

You can install multiple versions of Unity on the same hardrive. When installing just rename the install directory, example, "Unity_2017_1". Make a copy of your project and open it in 2017.1, it will answer any questions you have about compatibility with 2017. My project is almost 2 years old, opens in 2017 without any issues.

 

Howdy all! I hope I am just missing something basic but I have been using MM for a good while but since adding Voxeland into the mix, I have a new issue I can't seem to nail down (pics following). I am on the most current stable release of Unity, MM, and Voxeland.

This is an image taken from the tutorial the author posted:



I understand that noise generators change, versions change, etc. But my result isn't remotely near what is shown here.

I ran two versions, one with the legacy noise generator and one with the new noise generator, each resulted with a ton of "spots" that get worse when you zoom into the surface.




I went ahead and removed the grass texture to make it apparent what the issue is:



If these images don't post well, the Imgur album is here: http://imgur.com/a/bQeio.


Any tips?

*edited for broken links*

 

kulesz, MapMagic works with Unity 2017 (since v.1.8.1).

totallylegitunicorn, just tried to re-create graph, and here is the result I've got:

It changes a lot from your result, and looks more or less similar to the one shown in the tutorial.

Could you please make a copy of your project, remove everything but this scene, Voxeland and MM components and send it to me (via dropbox or other hosting)? I need the project, I guess I will not be able to reproduce this issue having only the scene.

 

Does Map Magic work with RTP's geometry blend feature? I can get it to work up to a point, then when I try to paint tris on the terrain I get this error:

 

Unfortunatly I cannot find the 1.8.2 version in the download manager. 1.8.1. is the latest version I can download. Is there any other place I can get the package ?

 

MapMagic is having conflicts when i import it in a project with DunGen asset. I get the following errors:

Assets/MapMagic/Generators/SampleGenerator.cs(13,12): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Output' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
Assets/MapMagic/Generators/SampleGenerator.cs(16,40): error CS0115: `MyCustomGenerator.Inputs()' is marked as an override but no suitable method found to override
Assets/MapMagic/Generators/SampleGenerator.cs(17,33): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Output' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
Assets/MapMagic/Generators/SampleGenerator.cs(19,26): error CS0115: `MyCustomGenerator.Generate(MapMagic.CoordRect, MapMagic.Chunk.Results, MapMagic.Chunk.Size, int, System.Func<float,bool>)' is marked as an override but no suitable method found to override
Assets/MapMagic/Generators/SampleGenerator.cs(41,26): error CS0115: `MyCustomGenerator.OnGUI(MapMagic.GeneratorsAsset)' is marked as an override but no suitable method found to override

Anyway to fix them without breaking everything?

 

dlevel, you can remove SampleGenerator.cs since it's just an example script for writing a custom generator. I guess DunGen is not using namespace, it's kinda bad form. But I should not blame others for the fault that I'm in: I should add that example script in MapMagic namespace either.

secondsight_, odd thing. I would say that it could happen because you are using Unity version below 5.4.5, but I have only one version in package. But anyways, what is your Unity version?

Dorian-Dowse, I have not tried RTP's geometry blend, but theoretically it should work with pinned terrains only. And since it requires renderer - are you sure that this component should be assigned to terrain? Have you tried using it with non-MapMagic terrains?

 

I did some more experimenting and it does work if you copy the Mesh Renderer and Relief Terrain components from Map Magic down to the pinned terrain, but doing that messes up all the existing textures.

 

Hi, I am really interested in this asset. I have couple of questions..

1. Does it support multiple terrains ( grid terrains ) ?
2. Does it turn terrain to mesh without any lose ends ? ( I create games for mobile platforms, mesh performs better than terrains )

 

It works by creating multiple terrains (seamless), so yes - you can create multiple terrains or even multiple MM terrain grids in one scene.

 

Thank you for your response. Does it have terrain to mesh conversion capabilities ?

 

I´m actually using Unity 5.5.1f. I guess at one point I have to update, but I´m in the middle of a project and don´t want to if I don´t need to Is it possible to download the 1.8.2 version from your site somehow ?