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

As a programmer I find presets more useful. Being able to change a bunch of settings with just the single line of code that loads the preset is golden.

 

Thanks for your feedback, that's definitely a good point

 

Hey guys here's the first runtime coding tutorial which explains how to change the grass densities on runtime using the good old Get&Set Detail Layers (obviously on uNature tho ).

A lot more runtime tutorials are coming, some are more advanced and some are rather simple like this one

 

Really like to have presets. But ultimately it would be great, if i can save my own configuration to the already existing presets...

Cheers Michael

 

Yes of course!

 

Hey guys!

V2.2 has been accepted on the asset store!
It seems like there's an error on the forest demo scene, fixing now and pushing a hotfix to the store


Updated forest demo (New grass stress test, now the difference is a lot more noticable)

 

Hi Elroy,

I'm eagerly waiting for the shader adjustments forthcoming in v2.3. Could you give an estimate on release?
-pete

 

Hey -
Taking a week break from uNature (as I always do after each version to not get burnt out) should be getting back to work in 4 days or so.

Regarding estimation - probably 2 weeks but I don't want to promise anything

 

Insanely fast reply. Thanks!

 

Hehehe

 

Hello there. What an amazing asset this is.
I've checked other related assets, this is the one I truly recommend to use. Saves performance and also saves time.

 

Thank you so much for your kind words!! Truly appreciated!

 

Starting to work on the next major update (V2.3) on Monday, so if you don't have access to the beta repository now is the time

 

Hi.

I have procedurally generated world made up with mesh grounds (tiles) I would like to populate the ground mesh with the grass and other foilages, possibly not spawning / painting over the existing rocks or tree etc.

I was wondering if this tool can help with runtime cases like that.

Basically I need to be able to paint the grass on runtime using api calls instead of unity editor painting tools. If the spawning system requires a density map , I can possibly generate those during runtime using rendertexture rendered from top down .. (maybe)

Any idea if this system is suitable for such purposes?

And has the asset been tested on the console platforms?

 

Hey -

Regarding not spawning on trees/ rocks - uNature gives you the ability to assign which layers uNature will read heights from. So as long as you put your trees & rocks on a different layer than your mesh terrains it should work fine

Regarding runtime cases - uNature supports full runtime coding and provides a few approaches:

Density:

1) The good old set/get detail layer approach -

2) Access the actual map pixels which is not yet documented but will provide more flexibility over the set/get detail layer.

Heights:

1) The good old set/get detail layer approach -

2) Access the actual map pixels which is not yet documented but will provide more flexibility over the set/get detail layer.

 

Humm.. ok, I think I have some idea what I can try and do after watching the video, but I am little hesitant to buy the asset because it seems like it has not been tested yet on the console platforms.

Please PM me if you would like to test the asset on the console platform if it has not been tested and found to be working on XboxOne and PS4.

I am not asking for freebie.. just don't want to buy the asset when i am not sure about the platform that I am working on and I don't want to hassle you from asking for a refund.

 

Hey -

I know it works well on Wii U,
and also a beta tester had tested it on an xbox - @recon0303

Feel free to buy it and as you said, if it doesn't work and I wont be able to fix it just ask for a refund

 

I have tested on XB1, works. I have tested on mobile, and it don't work on Tablets. PS4, can't comment.

 

Hi,

if i change the width or height noise of a prototype, the size changes, but every "blade" gets the same size. So it only changes the overall size of the prototype, but not per blade.

uNature 2.2
Unity 5.6.0f3 Personal

-krIxh

 

That's correct - that's actually something I forgot to fix before submitting V2.2, thanks for letting me know!
At the moment its based off perlin noise and I added to trello what you requested (which is how it was originally done)
I will hopefully submit V2.2.5 with some small stuff somewhere next week (including this)


Thanks!

 

ok, thats great

 

I haven't tested this on the Wii U in many versions so hopefully it still works there. I was going to give it another go soon though and see how it does. Last time I tried it it was still having performance issues.

 

Oh I see, let me know when you get the chance!

 

I actually need to try it really soon so I'll probably test it out in the next day or so.

 

Hi Elroy!
I'm using speed trees in my project, and I need a big amount of trees. Don't know if uNature has some optimization features for the trees?
I have about 10k trees on one 1km^2 terrain, and it gets really poor fps on my midware PC. And I need the interact feature from uNature, so wondering if you are going to make an optimization for trees or should I use some other assets for the trees while preserve the interactive tree feature from uNature?

 

Hey -

uNature for now doesnt optimize trees but it is planned

For now, like many others do, feel free to use AltTrees or smth similar with the interaction feature

 

Thanks for reply!
Can't find an AltTrees asset on the store, won't know if it is the full name?
And I got a problem using unature with map magic.
After I checked the active box on mapmagic's section in Extensions window, there are three error occured:



Seems there are two namespace can not be found: Plugins & Tuple
I'm using mapmagic 1.71, the newest version from store and uNature 2.2.1, it should not be a version problem.
Any ideas?

 

Oops my bad, its this one - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/76657

Regarding MapMagic, you also need the latest map magic version from the repository of MapMagic (By @Wright)

But he is now pushing it to the store, so if you don't have access, it will be available in a few days

 

Oh,I see. I'll try PM him to see if I can get the latest version earlier
And about AltTrees system, does uNature compatible with it?
Or does it support runtime generated terrains from map magic?
I checked the store page and forum, but didn't find any info about such things.

 

Haven't tested it personally but I know quite a few that use it with uNature.

Regarding MapMagic, don't know - sorry

 

So I can basically use AltTrees for the optimisation and uNature to let me manipulate the trees?
Will need some time to test, don't know how to achieve that for now

 

Exactly
I recommend contacting AltTrees author and asking how it works with MapMagic.
Also, it's not just AltTrees, basically any optimization asset on the store that supports terrain trees

 

When i do some thing on scene view ,
I don`t know why the "Replace" button show it on scene view and freeze my scene view .
It's bothering me so much .
Is it a bug ?Can you fix it ?

 

That's an interesting bug - could you send me reproduction steps?
Didn't encounter it before :/

Sorry for the inconvinience!

 

I know they support terrain trees, the only problem is that almost all of them need an editor converting progress. Since my map is randomly generated at runtime based on seeds, the converting process may be either not operatable or very performance consuming in runtime.
And I contacted the author of AltTrees, he is co-operating with MapMagic's author to make the integrations, I guess I'll just have to wait a few weeks to see the results
BTW, is it ok to consult with you if I got any problem integrating AltTrees with uNature?

 

Oh I see, makes sense.

And yes I will try my best to help even though I don't have any experience with it hehe

 

I just use W.A.S.D and Shift and mouse right button ,looking around in the scene view ,
Perhaps through some uNature grass and it happens.

 

Uhmmm
Will check it out today and keep you updated! thanks for the report!

 

Just comfirmed with altTree's author, that altTrees can also can let me interact with trees in runtime, but since it is not supporting mapmagic for now, I guess I'll use uNature's trees factor first.
Just tried the grass features of uNature, seems the touch bending feature is a bit different from what I thought.
The bending is not very obvious, but it will push the root of grass out of the touching object's range, I think it is weird, maybe maintain the roots in place but move the top part of the grass will end up with a better result?

 

Hey-

In order to get the touch bending to work properly you need to play with radius and strength parameter on the prototype.

Its a bit sketchy but I am remaking the touch bending for the new version

 

yeah I played with the strength and radius.
and great to know that it will be improved in new version!
I still got my original idea about the touch bending, is it possible to add a parameter to let me adjust the recover time of the bending? it may leave a trail behind animals if I can set the recover time longer. just don't know if it will cost the performance badly :\

 

That's also planned for the new version with the refactor of the TouchBending

 

Hi Elroy!
I got an issue integrating unature into my chopping tree system:
I use prefab gameobject as a choppable tree, with scripts on it, children objects and several components.
The gameobject's children and their components will be changed during runtime (fix joints removed to simulate the wood chopping, and children get disenabled when their health got hit to 0).
And when finally the whole tree got chopped to small resources(other items), usually I'll just destroy this gameobject, but I found uNature's trees pool very useful and performance friendly, so I'd like to return the suppose-to-be destroyed tree back to the pool, but I need to revert it back to it's original prefab state.
Then I found it impossible to revert whole prefab back in runtime, and I searched several forums and communities, the best answer I got is to destroy the old object then instantiate a new one. I found this method a waste of the pool feature of uNature, so wondering if there is a better way to revert things?

 

Uhmmm thats an interesting question.
What I am doing is if you inherit from PoolItem
You can override "OnReturnToPoll" and then reset the values manually.

Or you could just use reflection to copy back the values from the prefab (more complicated, but doesnt require manual assigning of values)

 

the problem is, it's not only about the values, there are some fixed joint components are deleted during the logging process, reflection may not be able to restore that, or the restoring will be too similar to instantiate a new prefab.
BTW, I encountered a new problem using the tree's feature. I used my custom speed tree model to test interactions, and found the raycast can not find the tree colliders more often, always return terrain collider when I'm facing a tree. The trees' colliders are well assigned, and they can be shown correctly in the tree's pool, any ideas what may caused this malfunction?

 

Regarding tree issues - Make sure that you disabled terrain trees colliders on the "Terrain Collider" component (Unfortunately unity didn't expose that value)

Regarding pool - uhmm I see, you could probably just destroy it and instantiate a new one each time and add it to the pool, will work pretty much the same without the pooling.

So basically instantiate a new one and access the UNTerrain.pool and add it to the pool

 

thanks! I'm pretty sure it's the terrain tree colliders' problem, I just created a new terrain for test and didn't examine the check box.
instantiate new gameobject costs a bit performance, but there seems has no other way for now, it's a shame that I can't use the pooling system.
Still, I'll continue the work, thanks again!

 

Np,

And keep me updated!

 

"Assets/uNature/Scripts/Core/Extensions/Integrations/MapMagic/Integration/UNMapMagic_Manager.cs(10,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Plugins' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?"​

I'm getting this error in a new 5.6.0f3 project with only MapMagic 1.8 and uNature 2.2.1 installed.

 

Hey-

Strange, during the beta map magic was included with a plugins package.
Might have missed something - will add @Wright into this conversation

Sorry for the inconvenience