Terrain 4 Mobile System

ALL NEWS HERE :
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/89361-Terrain-4-Mobile-System

 

Looks very good, looking forward to it

a few questions from my end:

1. I don't assume it offers multi pass rendering to have more than 3 textures in total?
2. Did you consider to make it capable of alternatively 4x diffuse + 1 detail texture in the future? (for those where 3 aren't enough or who don't want to use normalmaps and thus "just lose" performance due to the shader that calculates the stuff etc)
3. What weighting / math do you use for the smooth blending on the normal maps?

 

Hello Dreamora,

I looking for a way to add more texture... Ans keep always 1 pass ans 1 deawcall.
"4x diffuse + 1 detail texture" great idea! I will make That if I can.

For my normalmap I use shadermap pro.

I keep you aware ;-)

 

Hey - looking very interesting - can I have more than one terrain i.e. I'm considering having a few islands, which would have different textures on each, would I load them in as separate scenes or could I have more than one T4M in a scene?

 

Looking good so far. I have a question though
Does it offer U3's own terrain system capabilities like (selectable) LOD levels, texture detail distance, tree placement, etc.?

P.S: the price is so fair, I'm gonna buy it right after it is available

Thank you

 

@IPete2
Yes, you can have as much of T4M as you want on your scene, with differents textures for each.

@Curious
LOD levels : no, for the moment (future free update)
Texture detail distance : yes
Tree placement : yes

 

really amazing when you will make available on the asset store

 

Thx, I will finish T4M, the more fast possible.

Update : You can make your own Brushes (64x64 Max) to add in brush list...

 

Will this work for Android also?

 

Why is the euro version more expensive?

 

I'm going to say yes: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/83536-Terrain-4-Mobile-System

 

Ah, whoops. I definitely missed that. Apologies.

 

@jonbonazza
Yes, but only (like iOS) on OpenGLES 2

@Earl
Thank man...

@2dfxman1
Sorry it's a mistake 15€ and 21$, I will change that.

 

Interesting... where can I buy?

 

SOON on Asset Store

 

Very Soon, I have some of things to finish before sell it.

This saturday, I think

 

Now, You can paint with 4 textures, but not with bumpmap (3+3 only).

I will try to finish this weekend...

 

Azert2k,

Thanks for your response, will be waiting to purchase as soon as it is finished!

IPete2.

 

That's great!

Take a look..

 

Hello all,

Is Out ! on http://www.store.azert2k.fr/?page_id=499

Soon on Asset Store

A little Screen from my iPod 3G

Shader 4 textures diffuse (no bump)



Sorry for my palm, but the normal foliage is bad and for my mipmaps are middle

 

Hello, I forgot a little bug...

The brush preview is a projector, the brush increase the number of drawcall when you paint on the scene (it's normal).

But unfortunately, I forget to destroy the projector when you keep the T4M window open.

To destroy the preview projector... Just close the T4M window!

I work on a future update to fix that and integrate a good LOD System without script on object and without 'update'... The best LOD solution for mobile device.

 

Looks very good

*bought *

 

Does it work on normal platfoms like web player and so on.
What is the performance hit when viewing top-down? is it culled to the screen?

 

Hello,

Yes it works on all plateform. And the performances are very high.

But you will be limited to 4 textures for the terrain... or 3 diffuse + 3 bumpmap

It mainly for target an mobile device.

But yes it's works... ;-)

 

There is another potential use and thats for toonish and stylized environments. With the 4 textures you have 2 slots free (assuming you use beast lightmaps) gives you space to add a detail texture and a toon light ramp texture to modify the pixel light for example and still remain in a single pass on nearly every S*** card as you remain on <= 8 texture dependencies

 

This looks great!

 

bought it too ...

ca y va les tools la

 

Thank All !

Salut Giyomu et merci.

 

@ Azert2k
Yes I have tried T4M , and I'm happy with overall funksjonality.
It reduses polygons count in orginal unity terrain. Painting terrain is ok.
Can you make some more trees types ?
Pdf. documentation should be in A4 or it is hard to read.

 

In fact, actualy I work on many project in same time : the LOD System who will integrate to the T4M soon, update for the 3D anaglyph System and my real job. I don't have the time for the moment. But later, I will.

 

Will lod actually be slower in some cases due to overhead?

Does it work on older 3g hardware with fixed function? Still important to support.

Does it also work on desktop, webplayer etc? I do not want to use unity terrains. I would use this as complete replacement.

Also Watch Video Part 1 link broken...

 

Hello hippocoder,

For LOD, I will make many test for proposing the best solution for mobile.

It's impossible to make the same on iphone 1,2,3G or iPod Touch 1,2G. To work it need the shaders 2 Only.

Yes, working on desktop, webplayer, but the terrain is very simplified to work correctly on mobile.

The link for video works fine... you can't see the video?

It isn't a tools of remplacement, it is complementary.

 

Thanks for this! Just bought it. Appears to be very impressive. Can't wait to play with it

Keep up the good work!

 

I think its important to mention that you must also not disable OpenGL ES 2.0 through the AppController define either.

 

Download aint working buddy...

 

There is another way for fixed function. You have 3 mesh overlap and use vertex alpha to blend between. To optimize, you delete triangles which are fully opaque or solid. This way, performance is still awesome but it will work without the need for shaders. Would you be considering an approach like this?

It is likely to be faster in some cases, depending as well for ES 2.0 due to the absence of shaders.

 

@Friendlydevelopper
Thank, I hope you enjoy.

@Dreamora
You are right


@Adrenaline Crew

To avoid the share-link and protect my product, you can't exceed 3 download max.
I saw you in my download manager, you have download T4M, 3 times.
But if you need, I can send the product by mail.

 

@Hippocoder

I also thought about this, But It Still the problem of camera distance : to compare the magnitude between camera and each object, it's stay still too heavy for performance.

Yesterday, I looked the side of shaders and camera culling, without succes.

I have two other way to explore. And maybe retry my firsts.

 

Azert2k, I assume you mean for LOD or such as the above step can easily be preprocessed?

 

Yes, I speak for LOD .

My english is pretty poor, and sometime I don't understand the sense of some discussions...

But... I still not understand what do you want meaning :-? when you say :

"There is another way for fixed function. You have 3 mesh overlap and use vertex alpha to blend between. To optimize, you delete triangles which are fully opaque or solid. This way, performance is still awesome but it will work without the need for shaders. Would you be considering an approach like this?
It is likely to be faster in some cases, depending as well for ES 2.0 due to the absence of shaders"

Sorry, I'm very confused...

 

Well there is a program called ALE (Advanced Landscape Editor) and it lets you choose up to 6 textures. Then like unity, you can raise lower the terrain at will then export to .x format etc and it is all fixed function pipeline, it works on old hardware.

The author shared how it was done:

basically its 8 meshes but they are on top of each other... and he use vertex alpha to blend between the different textures. Before he export to .x format, he optimise by removing all quads or triangles which are not visible or are alpha 1 so you only have say, two quads if there is a blend in that location if you understand my meaning?

The end result is a low polygon terrain but with more poly with vert alpha where they blend together

The application is here:

http://www.dyvision.co.uk/ale.htm

I will probably have to purchase it if I cannot find a suitable unity way of working Although it is obviously better to use something like what you have created because it is working inside unity.

 

There are many tools offering that. But for mobile its inacceptable due to the 6 drawcalls and 6 times the geometry at worst. Thats a pretty beefy hit as already 128x128 heightmaps result in 8k meshes, 6 of them give you 64k

I wrote such systems on Blitz3D (for and with which many of these tools, be it ALE or T.ED, were created) and its fine to use on desktop, but if you have such drawcall caps and cpu limitations its a bit more troublesome as the devices that would need it (pre 3gs) are unable to handle more than 1 128x128 heightmap with 1 at max 2 tiling textures while allowing you to still do anything else

 

Like Dreamora, I think the ALE or other of same type, increase the drawcall and multiply geometrie by each different texture. like when you import a model in unity with many materials differents.

my solution keep the same number of tris/vertex and give many texture in 1 drawcall.

keep me informed...

Because Dreamora can help me to integrate the same (always 3gs+ but opengles1.1) in my solution

 

@Azert2k 2 questions:

1) Does the purchase includes source code?
2) Would changing the shader to only 2 textures make it work on 2g devices? I'm currently using my own custom terrain with 2 texture pass only, and it works fine on 2g devices: http://snipr.com/dogfight
I believe if you add a 2 texture shader instead of the one you are using, it will work perfectly fine with older devices.

 

2) pre 3GS has no shader support (OpenGL ES 2.0) at all. They are limited to fixed function pipeline (OpenGL ES 1.1)

 

Until I can support openGL ES 1.1 I will be modelling the terrain manually in my 3D package because its too much business lost on the appstore.

There's still millions of 1.1 devices from ipod, iphone. Need a robust solution for 1.1 even if its only allowing to blend 2 textures at a time (for example cliff blends to grass and grass blends to road but not cliff, grass and road at the same time). I am certain such a solution is possible for 1.1 because so many old games without shaders do it fine.

I watch and wait

 

@dreamore I know shader 2, 3 is not supported, that's why i use opengl 1.x on my terrain with 2 textures. It's one draw pass. I think that terrain could be easily modified to accept my shader. And Yes, pre 3gs support shaders. Mine are shaders, although you can't add tons of features but you can create a shader with 2 paths, one for old versions and one for new versions of phones.

@hippocoder, i agree with you. I released my game for 3gs and I got like 100 emails in one day complaining that they wanted to use it on pre 3gs phones. I believe there are like 10 million pre 3gs phones/ipod around there because about 25% of my sales are for those. You'd lose lots of customers writing for only 3gs and above.

 

Yours are no shaders in common sense, its only shaders cause Unity has a F***ed up naming convention which causes major confusion (shaderlab stuff is not shaders, thats pipeline setup on OES 1.1). Those shaderlab instruction files aren't what I mean with shaders, I talk only and exclusively about cg and glsl which require OES 2.0 and 3GS+

You could potentially rework it to use shaderlab file but the use of it is extremely questionable in its use if you ask me as you lose most of the things what this system is about without programmable pipeline.
What it leaves you is a static mesh with other static meshes (trees) on top, you can no longer paint it etc ...

So the question is really: What part of the system would you like to use in the end as it isn't the terrain itself? Perhaps there are meaningfull ways to achieve that much faster and easier so you can safe time on it


10-20M left in active use should be pretty accurate, perhaps more. But don't forget that the total install base for iOS is in the 2xxM range, so they equal 5-10% so the effort needs to be correspondingly small too and the game needs to lend itself to it. For 3GS+ games going down there its normally not reasonable as the effort to create the art for them with their much more limited drawcall and polybudgets etc isn't something cheap or 2 click away if the game previously really required 3GS and it will not needfully always translate to sales if the game looks that much worse on their device than it did on the appstore.

 

I understand your points of vues, but

- The techinique used by T4M don't work (same with 2 textures) on OpenGLES 1.1.
- With iOS 4.3, the iPod 1,2 and iPhone 1G,2G and 3G are obsoletes now.
- With others technics, maybe that it works on old device (mix textures), but you increase dramatically the Drawcall and Tris/vertx, that give for result, a terrain unusable on this old devices, because poor performance.

I think, if you target the old devices, it is useless to try to put one terrain above, they are too poor in performance.

 

there is no iphone 1G ;-)
On iphone the G does not correspond to generation but to the supported phone band ;-) iPhone 2G -> GSM only, iPhone 3G -> GSM, GPRS and UMTS

after the 3G was the 3GS already