[50% OFF] UniStorm 5.2 - AAA Volumetric Clouds, URP Support, Weather, Sky, Atmospheric Fog, & More!

Yeah already done that, you actually have to do it every...single...time (hint, hint, dev ) for a new project in the updated version of unity they just released on the 5th. Doesnt fix the bloom errors and the depth of field errors that pop up after adding unistorm to a project.

 

Ok from what I can tell I am going to chalk this one up to a continuous troubleshooting loop. The bootcamp demo doesnt have the upgraded pro imagining effects and when you do it basically creates naming convention errors and throws everything into a spiral which you have to track down and is time consuming and not worth the trouble, the unistorm requires the updated pro image effects so when you install it it creates errors that you can fix by importing the new image effects into the project. This leads back to the errors in the bootcamp demo (and other projects) which just keeps you going around in circles.

Prognosis is just start your projects with the updated version of the pro graphics and hopefully with the next release of unistorm the image effects will be current, and hopefully they will update the demo to alleviate this problem.

 

The team that reviews assets for the Asset Store have to include the image effects folder when they make it live. I have tried to have them submit it out it but they won't.

What happens is the image effects version has to match the exact version of Unity 3d. Reimporting the image effects updates them to the current version of Unity 3d you are using.

 

Yeah but what they REALLY need to do is update there own demo to the new effects package and fix the DX errors they in there its not your fault its Unity not wanting to work on the demo anymore .

 

Hi once again, it's been about 2 weeks now and I'd really like an update on the release of 1.7?

 

Couple of questions:

Our game is not realistic and don't need bump on snow, how do we remove bump? Even after I removed uni prefab, it's still there.
Can I still use skybox with Unistorm?

Thanks

 

We are all kinda waiting... some of us waiting to buy... to see how release 1.7 resolves outstanding issues. I ditto the request for update...

 

The thing that Unnistorm needs most right now actually is the ability to directly set the cloud color based on the time of day as with the other values that you already can. What we're ending up with is that our night skybox is overcast with these grey clouds that end up just looking terrible. Also during the day time this would help by allowing you to actually set the clouds as true white.

 

Can your own sky box be used? Or can the sky box coloring can be changed?

And do clouds move when the wind blows?

 

Hi
I bought unistorm recently. It's a very well made asset, but I have two major problems with it and hope that you might help me.
1) I cannot turn my skydome in the right direction. It does not matter how I turn the clouds and sun / moon, they will always end up rising on the same wrong side of my environment (rising in my southwest instead of east). Since My environment mixes a highmap terrain and a huge mesh for a playground, it is impossible for me to turn my playground in the right direction - you cannot rotate highmaps. SO I need to turn the skydome to the right position, which seems kinda impossible, since you obvoisly hardvcoded all coordinates for sun and moon.

The only solution I found for this is changing the direction of the world axis, but this causes a lot of trouble since it messes up the cycle. I will have sun and moon changing places and distorted sun /moon animation due to a wrong point of view.
Is there anything else I can do to change that without messing up the code?

2)
Secondy I find Unistorm to be very hungy for performance. Depending on time of day, it eats up about 15 frames per second on my quad core / geforce 660 / 16 GB PC , which ist quite a lot in my humble opinion.
Did I implement it in a wrong way or is there anything I can do to improve the performance?
Oh, and by the way: It is a pity that there seems to be no transition between weather styles. You just see a very sudden change of cloud types. But again: Maybe i implemented the scripts in a wrong way or something like that.

Btw: I really like the time management system of Unistorm and the settings for random weather changes. This is what keeps me looking for solutions to have Unistorm fit in my project. I also have "Time of day", which is much smoother in performance but it has no real weather system with particles and such.and does not seem to change weather types automatically.... I need the best of these two worlds, somehow

 

Hi karaokefreak

I done some primitive testing with unistorm basically testing on various PC's running fraps

I'm developing for low end PC market my test machine is a very old athlon dual core with a $17 graphics card, most assets kill it even the medieval kit which apparently runs at 30fps on an ipad ran like a dog at like 10 to 15fps on it.

Unistorm however runs fine on it perhaps 1 or 2 fps hit, I intend to use unistorm because of that.

I did try a FX asset with a water shader that killed test machine I was lucky to get 1 or 2 fps

So I'm thinking you might have something set up wrong or some additional thing effecting it.

 

Nice images - what nice images? Ohh there they are ( I always click the last page doh)

They are nice images but will it be possible to have clear as in no clouds in the sky?

 

Can we get an eta

 

The lack of developer feedback, the inability to meet public deadlines as well as poor quality in terms of code (unfortunately) and bad design decisions (15000 far plane? Really?) and performance issues have made us decide to leave UniStorm behind and go with our own system.

We wanted to see if 1.7 addressed these issues, but we have by now lost all trust in the developer that this will come out in a reasonable time, so even though we have been waiting until the last second, we will now move on because this developer can not be trusted.

I am now convinced that UniStorm is a showcase product, which is only good for showcasing a nice weather system, but using it practically in a commercial game is not advised by me. Mostly because of the poor code and performance.

 

I don't know about you but I have seen no performance issues

 

There are definitely many problems with a lot of fundamental things that UniStorm uses. The most obvious one being forced to have a 15000 far plane, but there's a lot of other things.

Just turning off UniStorm in our project gave us a 15fps boost.

 

what do you us then?

 

We will just make our own system that will be focusing on being able to be used in a production game.

 

Hi Justei,

the problems you are mentioning, are widespread these times; I guess it´s because small developer teams are working hard to offer such great products as unistorm - and I totally agree to what you say about reliability.
I am having similiar troubles with ddo and ndo, and I am not the only one, who is getting tired of waiting - and of course we have to be able to schedule, which software we are gonna use.
One simple way would be, not to make promises, that won´t be kept. And I am sure, everyone agrees, that it´s better, if the developers make more generous timelines, that they are able to live up to.

Another way for us customers is not to take the timelines for granted, which I got used to - always add 6 months, and you might be safe

Now I wonder, if you have a proposal how to avoid the 15k far plane - this is something, that seems strange to me as well.

It´s good to speak out, and I believe, you have good reasons as well, but let´s stay constructive and problem solving oriented here.

keep us updated about your developments!

 

Which water shader do you mean? The rain system? The rain system is being redone due to the individual calculations that have to be calculated to simulate rain drops.

Also, clear skies are coming we will be sure to post some pictures.

We don't give eta's anymore because if it takes us long than expected people don't agree with.

UniStorm is used in many very well known games and is fully capable of being used in any game. The post above this is a perfect example how efficient UniStorm is. It only takes a 1 to 2 fps hit when UniStorm i enabled. There are most likely many factors to your issues such as shadows being enabled. Shdows alone, without UniStorm, can cause a 15 fps decrease.

I understand that we took a little longer than expected in the past to release an update, but like we've said a few posts back we are in full development of UniStorm 1.7. We have to go through several thousand lines of code to do our rewrite, which is the overall point in your disagreement. We're working hard to release a good product. We are even splitting up the update to work with our customers. Being a UniStorm customer you know we are always willing to help out our customers the best we can even if that means writing a couple requested scripts and taking an hour+ to reply to each individual post/email with a response answering their exact question.

If you read the documentation, which I'm positive you already have, there's an option to use 2 cameras that eliminates the need for 1 camera rendering everything with a far clipping plane at 15,000. For casual games 15,000 is okay but in MMOs and in your case it may be needed. Most people who fit the second camera category saw significant frame rate improvement. Please try this and let us know how it works for you.

As for 1.7 we are working hard on it. Since we are splitting the update into 2 parts it should be released soon. If we release an unfinished or buggy product/update I'm sure people would be more frustrated about that then needing an extra week to polish our system.

This is a good reason why we don't usually give eta's we plan on meeting them but things sometimes come up. We really do try to meet our eta's but it's not always possible especially with all the awesome new content we have coming with UniStorm 1.7.

A far clipping plane at 15,000 is not needed for UniStorm we also offer a solution using 2 cameras. Instructions are included within the documentation.

I agree with thousand, can we please keep this thread free of disagreements.

 

Those of you asking for natural blue skies, how are these? We have redone the 2 clear weather types with 1.7.Keep in mind all screenshots below were captured using the free version of Unity.

New clear weather types:


Those of you who missed our updated screenshots here's some screens of 1.7's new gradient skies:

 

Much better on the clear skies 1, I think alot of people including me were expecting clear blue skies with clear day 1 and then just maybe a smidgeon of high elevation clouds with clear day 2. The scattering looks good as far as I can tell.

 

More importantly fix the documentation for the installation and procedures and take it back to beginner levels when your explaining stuff . If you look at your recent review he gives you a TON of helpful suggestions without being all whiney about it AND he pin points the C# issue I described here in the forums in a much clearer way with the graphic file issue. That alone would be good enough for alot of us on a release.

 

No it was the FXLab one, I've got a i7 x980 CPU 6 core and 2 GTX 580's 12gb ram 64 bit and as soon as I stick the script on my camera I get hit for 30fps which isnt noticable on my machine but on my target test machine its a killer, I posted on their thread and the guy said there are performance tweaks I could try but to be honest nice water is not worth the hit for what I'm working on.

Lesson learnt - Don't get tempted with shiny things (I'm not trying to make a skyrim on my own lol) and don't buy assets unless the developer looks professional and is actively developing the asset with good support. Unistorm imho is the sort of asset that has been growing nicely through various releases with good regualr support. I hope that 1.7 isn't the end of the story ;-)

 

One thing that would be extremely helpful is the ability to use our actual night time skybox instead of a stars "texture". I've spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to do this without programming and no luck so far. Drives me nuts because of all the time we spent designing our "night time sky" skybox back in the day and we can't use it with this system currently.

 

I've been eyeing UniStorm for a while now and this seemed like a good place to ask: Any suggestions on handling distant shadows with dynamic sun position? I have a forest biome that I've been using dual lightmaps for but unless I bake them high quality they look terrible (pixelated) and of course if I go dynamic time of day, the baked maps are a problem. Since much of the terrain is wooded, shadows are pretty important - a distant forest floor lit like it's in full sun is an issue. It seems like the answer is low quality distant real time shadows but I'm not aware of anything like that available.

 

Is it possible to use UniStorm with Deferred Lighting and Linear Color Space?

 

I'm looking at possibly using UniStorm in a project I am still trying to flesh out. I am looking at designing a world with different continents and island systems. Is it possible with UniStorm to set up weather regions for different weather? For example I would like to set tropical weather along the center line/equator of the map, polar weather in the northernmost/southernmost poles. Seasonal storms may consist of rain or snow year round if in one of those types of regions whereas seasons between equator and a polar region would be rain in the summer half of year (last half spring/summer/first half of autumn) and primarily snow the winter half. If not region based, can weather be defined by terrain tile maps?

 

We will still update UniStorm after 1.7. We're always looking to add new features and improve the system.

The best suggestion I can give you is to use low quality shadows.

You can add your own custom skybox textures to UniStorm by changing the blended skybox textures on its material.

Deferred Lighting works and looks great with UniStorm. Linear Color Space hasn't been tested by us but I think some of our customers have it with UniStorm.

With UniStorm 1.7 we have a new feature coming out called Weather Zones. This feature allows you to place collision or trigger based zones anywhere in your scene and change the weather according to that zone. You can either disable or enable the dynamic weather with the weather zones. Since you can control them yourself you might not want them changing dynamically, or maybe you do, which is why we have both options.

 

Sounding fantastic. Now get 1.7 done already!
Can't wait. Awesome work so far.

 

Does that line also include the C# example script you promised to PM to me MONTHS AGO? I would have to agree with the reason for your response. Your customer service isn't up to par with what it should be.. I even asked you multiple times where it was.. I would say this is a product I wish I had not bought.

 

Which example script were you talking about? We apologies, we have a lot of customers and sometimes we make mistakes. We will send the script you need just let us know which one you need.

 

Hello BHS is it possible to push an update for UnistormMobile ?
The time event script that trigger event depending of the time/meteo is not included ( but is advertised on the store description)
Thank you if you have time to do it in C#.

 

Just one word. Amazing.

Thank you for this amazing system. I have been looking for a system like this for almost a week and as soon as I watched all the videos in the OP I decided to go for it. Right now I'm seeing the scenes that comes with the system and I'm more than amazed.

Keep it up!

 

LOL

 

Sure no problem. I also sent you 3-4 PM's here over the last couple of months. You didn't even reply to those.

 

We PMed you the script example you needed.

Yes, after we finish 1.7 we will try to make UniStorm Mobile equivalent.

Great to hear you like UnIStorm

 

How can I make the DynamicSnow affect models too? Right now It's only affecting terrain, which is pretty awesome, but I have some models that I will like to be affected by the dynamic snow.

I searched around the documentations and didn't find something similar.

Thanks.

 

What version of UniStorm are you using? We temporarily removed the snow a few updates ago?

There should be a custom snow shader that handles add snow based on a model's bump map.

 

Just a quick update.

We're putting the finishing touches on UniStorm 1.7. Proper Error Logs were heavily requested so we're currently adding this feature to both versions of UniStorm. After this feature is completed we will submit UniStorm to the Asset Store.

The Error Logs, if there's an error/null reference, will tell you exactly what's wrong, what caused the error, and what you can do to fix it. Error Logs make it much easier to fix errors so you're not left searching through the documentation or waiting for emails to get a solution. The Error Log will tell you via the console.

There shouldn't be any null references because all game objects are already added if you're using the prefabs. However, if there is you're now notified with a solution and what you can do to fix it.

 

I have 1.6.2. I haven't updated because I really like the snow. If 1.7 comes with it enabled then I will update for sure. Thanks I will see how I can make it work.

 

Take your time, make it real good. Thank you for doing this.

 

BHS, i'm guessing a few more days until 1.7? Realistically speaking, whats your manage-able release date? Forget what people expect and what you've said. Just wondering, It does not matter for me, just that I would like to know ahead of time since my development team relies on the current model, and are making preparations for the newest system. Please message me if you don't feel comfortable posting here^^

Shawn Ellen

NeoWorks Development Team

 

Hello BHS, We have been following this project closely for about 3 weeks now with much interest.
My team was wondering if you could give us a rough release date for 1.7. unfortunately, without 1.7 we would have to make some serious changes to our already complicated engine, we are hoping with the implementation of UniStorm 1.7 that we will not need as many engine changes.

As a rough estimate, when do you think version 1.7 will be released? possibly within a week? We are all very eager to see the new changes.

 

I feel like we are very close to submitting UniStorm 1.7. We're putting the finishing touches of the implementation of Error Logs on the JS version then we have to add them to the C# version. After that is finished, which shouldn't take too long, we're going to tweak the editor to make it more user friendly.

Realistically I'd say no more than a week until we submit it. We will announce when we do and post an update list.

 

Hello, I'm seem to have stuck at some point, I really don't know what to do, can you help me?
I've added prefab, copying it from your demo scene, I've transferred all the systems from your player to mine, and all the camera effects to my camera.
Everything seem to work pretty fine, I mean I can see clouds, sky and everything. But I have a problem with shadows... Here are pictures:


On first one you can see that the shadows are working in fact.

On the second one you can see shadows working as well, but they are so transparent, that I can barely see them, I can't figure out what the problem is. In your new video shadows are so dense, so realistic, but this...

 

Would this be compatible with Mod Monkey's Time Of Day? I really like the skybox for that, but am really wanting the weather and AI events you've got going in this too.

 

Well, I figured it out with the shadows - it appeared to be sun angle problem.

But I've got another one now - lightning (during storm) doesn't rotate X and Y, only Z axis. Any ideas?

 

I'm not sure we have never tested it. However, UniStorm's version 1.7 will surely impress our customers and people who are interested in our system.

I'm not sure why that's happening because it shouldn't. We have greatly improved everything, including the lightning system, as of UniStorm 1.7 so once you get the new version it should fix this issue.

 

We are close to submitting UniStorm 1.7 here's our patch notes. We hope everyone is excited for the long awaited release.

UniStorm's fancy new Window Editor added to the Unity tool bar.


UniStorm 1.7 Patch Notes:

--System Improvements--
* Code clean up
* More efficient coding
* Improved performance
* Various bug fixes
* Added Error Logs that specify each error with a proper error log message telling you how to fix any errors.
* Smoother transitions between night and day
* Better blending of light between night and day.

--New Window Editor--
* Added UniStorm to Unity Editor Window
------- Added setting to Create UniStorm System directly in scene with both JS and C#
------- Added setting to Create Weather Zone directly in scene with both JS and C#
------- Added setting to Create Time Event directly in scene with both JS and C#
--------Added documentation tab that take you to our new online documentation using Google Docs
--------Added Customer Service tab that takes you directly to our website showing customers our contact information.
* When you create a UniStorm System using the new Editor Window it will place it properly according to a standard Unity terrain. (This allows UniStorm to fit perfectly into nearly any scene.)

--Weather Zones--
* We have added a new system that works with Unistorm. This new system allows you to set non-dynamic weather types to whatever you choose.
* There's no limit to how many weather zones you can place in a scene. This allows you to set zones for places like mountains, plains, deserts, ect.
* Weather zones can be used for this like quests/events.

--Editor Updates--
* Added gradient color adjustments
* Added tool to adjust star speed within the UniStorm editor
* Added tool to adjust star rotation within the UniStorm editor
* Added help descriptions to all option categories explaining what they do
* Added option to enable and disable this setting

--Thunder System Updates--
* Improved Thunder Storms
* Completely rewrote lightning system
* Lightning system is now apart of the UniStorm Editor and is no longer separate
* Added Lightning Options to UniStorm Editor to adjust lightning settings
* Various settings have been added to the lighting options
------- Min Lightning Intensity
------- Max Lightning Intensity
------- Min Lightning Fade
------- Max Lightning Fade
------- Flash Length
------- Various Thunder Sounds
------- Lightning Bolt
* Soft lightning has been added allowing you to set how fast the lighting fades on and off when a lightning stike happens. This can be instant or slightly gradual.
* Randomly spawned lightning based on your player's current position.
* Lighting bolt game object can be replaced with custom one if desired.

--Temperature Updates--
* Completely rewrote temperature system
* New advanced temperature algorithm generates realistic high and low fluctuations each month.
* New advanced temperature algorithm generates realistic high and low fluctuations each day where early morning is the coldest and midday is the hottest
* This algorithm bases this off of the user's settings for each month's high and low temperature settings for each season.

--Fog Updates--
* Fully supported use of Linear Fog
* Linear Fog settings have been added to the UniStorm Editor
------- Fog Start
------- Fog End
------- Stormy Fog Start
------- Stormy Fog End

--Shader Updates--
* Added gradient skies
* New cloud shaders
* Storm clouds are affected by lightning and light