Mesh Terrain Editor, a mesh-based terrain creator, converter and editor

MTE v2.8 published.

 

Hi, does MTE support baking shadows to one baked splash (control) map?

 

What do you mean by baking shadows to a baked control map? The shadow should be baked to lightmaps. I don't understand your intent.

MTE Pro can bake a basemap for a mesh-terrain, but the shadow is not counted in for now. (I just tried it.)

 

What does it mean bake basemap? It means that (for example) all 4 textures and control map will be baked to one texture?

 

Yes.

For example,
original:

basemap:


(The lighting and shadows haven't been take into account for now and will be added in a future version.)

 

Ok, does pro version can export trees from unity terrain?

 

Currently, no. That should be added in the next version.

Update:
Sorry I failed to complete the tree exporter but I promise I will add it before MTE v3.0.

 

I'm getting an error when I hover over terrain mesh. Any ideas?

 

What version of Unity3D are you using? Try reimporting MTE/Editor/MTE/MTE.dll.

I just tried Unity3D 5.0, 5.3 and 5.4. But no NRE happened.

 

Thanks for the reply! I'm using 5.5. I'll try reimporting.

 

I don't have Unity3D 5.5. I'll install one and test your issue in two days. Please be patient.

 

Hi, @EricMuyser

I have tested MTE Free on Unity3D 5.5 and only found some issue of the texture painter. No NRE happened when using the raise/lower tool.


Could you please send your mesh-terrain folder(the folder containing your "terrain mesh") to me ( zwcloud@hotmail.com ) or upload it here? (You need to compress the folder into zip/7z first.)

The issue of texture painter can be solved manually: in the importer setting of SplatMap 0(1), set Compression to None.

 

Hi dear @Max1982 and other users,

Please feedback! MTE v2.8 is really a big update. Much basic code has been rewritten and may have possibly introduced some drawbacks.

If you encounter a decrease in performance when editing the mesh-terrain, please use v2.7 instead. I hadn't realized that until Max1982 punish me in his or her review. I'm trying figure out how does that happen.

Any feedback is welcome, REALLY.

@Max1982 If you don't have MTE v2.7, please PM me your email address, Unity3D version and MTE edition(Free or Pro) or contact zwcloud@hotmail,com, I will send MTE v2.7 to you. (If you are using MTE Pro, please send the invoice number to me by email.) The following fixed v2.8 version will also be sent to you. I may need some help from you to figure out the cause of the performance decreasement in case you are willing to help.

 

@Max1982 I cannot reproduce the issue you described. Please feedback how to reproduce that. Could you please send your mesh-terrain folder(the folder containing your "terrain mesh") to me ( zwcloud@hotmail.com )?

 

Progress:
I have fixed the known issue 2: Smoothing heights results in different height at the edges of two neighbouring mesh-terrain. I'm working on to improve the editing performance.

 

Hi @zwloud, I deleted v. 2.8. This version loaded textures slow that v.2.7. But the really pain was "Raise/Lower Terrain", sometimes it shows only one green dot (not four) on lower (sometimes lowest) values (Size & Straight), and very often when I wanted to edit - it didnt nothing. I dont know what you change in 2.8, but in v.2.7 everything was fine and smooth. Now I use v.2.7 because I didnt deleted it before update. I didnt have errors in Unity in Console when I used v.2.8. In v.2.7 I gave you 5 stars! I will delete my review when you do something with this. Thanks.

 

Hi @Max1982 ,

When you open MTE editor, select the texture painter tool or refresh the filter, MTE will freeze for a while loading textures. Do you mean this takes more time than v2.7? But it is not that slow on my 6 years old laptop when editing 4 mesh-terrains with 5 splat-textures. How many splat-textures are you using?

In v2.8 a flexible unit solution is introduced: The unit can be adjusted in Setting/BrushUnitSize.

In v2.7, MTE use a calculated tile size as the brush unit. But in v2.8, by default, brush sizes are in the same unit as Unity3D. You can click the button to set brush unit to tile size. It seems a mistake that MTE v2.8 doesn't keep using the tile size as the unit. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
Note the actual size can be previewed in the scene:


Thank you! I really appreciate your feedback with concrete details.

 

Can we utilize this to make terrain / mesh deformations at runtime?

 

Currently, no.
But it is highly likely to be implemented in MTE v3.0. And I'm interseted how and where will you deform mesh-terrains. In what kind of scenario? Please share your ideas to help me to implement that in a better way.

 

Cinematic or real time scene where an explosive / gun / weapon blows up the terrain. Perhaps a heavy character jumping down on the land from above, etc. Meteorites.

 

If MTE integration with MegaSplat , I will definitely purchase your asset.

 

MTE v2.8.1 uploaded to asset store and waiting for their approval.

Change Log:
# Creator

* Create a mesh-terrain from a height-map.
* Create a mesh-terrain from a curve.
* Display statistics of the created mesh-terrain.​

# Converter

* Add a default tilling setting to mesh converter.
* Display statistics of the converted mesh-terrain.​

# Editor

* Smooth:

- Fix issue: Smoothing heights results in different heights at the edges of two neighbouring mesh-terrains.​

* Texture Painter:

- Add a button to refresh brushes: no need to reimport MTE.dll any longer.
- Fix issue: When the brush is very small, black pixels are painted.​

* Settings:

- Add an option to use compact GUI.​

# General

* Optimize the performance of editing.
* Support Unity3D 5.5.
* Improve brush size solution: Default unit of brush sizes is now changed to a calculated cell(tile) size.
* Fix issue: NameToLayer is not allowed to be called from a ScriptableObject constructor (or instance field initializer), call it in OnEnable instead.​

Not so many new features are added in this version. But I'm pretty sure you need the features and improvement.

a screenshot of the compact UI:

 

MTE v2.8.1 published.

 

So with this, only a maximum of 4 textures can be painted on the mesh? (Using control texture)

 

In MTE Free, you can only paint with 4 textures on each mesh.

I mean you can create mutiple mesh with multiple textures and paint more than 4 textures on those meshes. For example, given 6 textures(A, B, C, D, E, F) and 2 meshes(meshX, meshY).

Use A, B, C and D on meshX and C, D, E, F on meshY. Then you can paint A, B, C, D on meshX and C, D, E, F on meshY. AND paint C, D together on meshX and meshY. In this way, you can actually paint more than 4 (5 in MTE Pro) textures on the mesh-terrain if you treat those meshes as a a whole terrain.

Note you can only edit the first two meshes in MTE Free.

I'm working on new shaders that may possibly enable more than 5 textures on on mesh. So I think you may need to keep an eye on this thread.

 

Ok I see what you mean. I am currently trying out the free edition. I am trying to convert a 8kmx8km terrain. The resulting mesh seems to be non-tiled and although the converter mentions cells, I see no tiled meshes in the result nor having any control over their resolution. Is this only in the Pro version?

 

Currently the MTE converter hasn't supported converting a unity3D terrain or a mesh to chunks of meshes. This should be available in future version for MTE Free and Pro.

But you can create mutiple tiled meshes with the MTE creator (hierchary view->right click->GameObject->Mesh Terrain).

(image deleted accidentally)
Tiled mesh-terrains can share one or more splat-textures.

Just select Create Mutiple Copies and adjust the number of meshes.

 

I need help. When I convert my terrain the mesh is black. I have tried vertex painting it to fix this but that does not work. I am using unity 5.4.2f2

 

The converted mesh is black? OK, I'll try on Unity 5.4.

 

I have tried and it worked well. Could you please post a screenshot?

 

Is there anyone else experiencing issues on Mac? I got feedback from a customer that MTE Pro 2.8.1 didn't save the mesh on Mac. But I failed to repo the issue. It works well on my hacktoish Mac.

 

@Pyrotechnic I'm looking forward to your feedback! Any information is welcomed.

 

Let me explain my absence since last month.
I failed to pass the interview of Microsoft because my algorithm is weak.

Now I'm back and working on new features of MTE.

 

Hi~
MTE can`t seem to edit model like that.
Do you have any plan to improve it ?

 

Only single layer mesh-terrain is supported. Sorry, MTE is not a regular mesh editor so it is not to be supported.

 

When I convert my terrain to a mesh, and set it as a trigger (touching it should make player die), I see that selecting ,,Convex -> Is Trigger" in inspector shows these long lines, spreading from, for example, the top of the biggest mountain into every corner, thus player is always in the OnTriggerEvent. How to avoid that? How to have this mesh trigger work only with the ground of the mesh (since my plane is in the air and it's death is triggered automatically at the start of the game)?

 

The convex-mesh is generated by Unity3D and the behaviour is quite normal.

Your problem is about game logic. The key is how to define the ground of the mesh. I have two ideas:

• Create logic death region to represent the ground of the mesh: in OnTrggerEvent, check if the player is in the death region.
• Don't create mountains directly on the mesh-terrain. Use separated meshes to create relatively higher mountains.

 

I was wondering if there is a possibility to read position of the mesh renderer at given point and then compare it with player's position, thus if the difference between them is 0, the OnTriggerEvent will run.
Thanks for ideas, but I don't really know how to create logic death region ;/

 

OK. Then you can just use OnCollisionEnter instead of OnTrggerEvent and don't select Convex.

 

Is there a way to get even better representation of the terrain, as in closer to the original quality?

 

If you change the terrain shader in Unity3D terrain to Built In Legacy Diffuse, the converted mesh should be almost the same as the original Unity3D terrain because the surface shader provided by MTE is quite similar to Built In Legacy Diffuse. For example, can you tell which one of the following terrains is the original Unity3D terrain?


I will try writing standard shader that resembles the Built In Standard shader in future version of MTE. Then we should get the same (better) representation of the mesh-terrain as Unity3D terrain.

I'm also exploring new possibility of terrain shaders and editing functions like painting 256 textures on one mesh-terrain, drawing flowing lava or water. Please looking forward to it.

 

Progress of new coming version:

I have added support for Unity asset file format (mesh file in *.asset) to MTE. And I'm working on implementing MegaSplat-compatible editing functions.

 

I met a problem when the mesh has rotation, the paint uv is wrong.

 

Hi @watsonsong,
Thanks for your feedback!

Painting on custom mesh is still experimental so bugs may exist. Can you send the mesh file to me so I can repoduce the issue? Email: zwcloud@hotmail.com.

It only happens when the mesh is rotated, right?

 

Hi when I convert my unity terrain to a mesh it doesn't convert the Speedtree grass to the new mesh is this possible with version 2.8.1 or will it be released in a later version. Thanks

 

Hi,

That should be available in the next version.

 

So do you have any idea when that will be? Thanks for the quick response

 

Probably in this month. I'll send you the package once it is finished, if you are badly in need of the function.

 

WOW that would be fantastic thank you very much and yes I'm badly in need of it thanks again

 

What kind of tree are you using on terrain? Mesh trees, Speed trees or tree-creator trees? See https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/terrain-Trees.html .

And what's the version of your Unity3D?