ats color map ULTRA shader [RELEASED]

thank you good sir. i will give that a whirl.

edit* when you you talk about the basemap distance, is this in regards to game mode? that it is active? in the scene mode it seems to be slightly out of wack,but the game mode it seems clear. is this what I want? the game mode to have no issues?
k it seems to work a bit more but still comes up a bit. even after setting to 5,000,000 but still looks funky.


Edit 2 (should i be making the terrain paint invisible when going into game mode? k i am a goof! i unchecked the terrain paint. and viola worked lol derp! <---getting his coffee obviously I need it

 

ups, in version 1.6 you do not need 2 terrain any more!
please read the docs.

lars

 

Hey there!
The shader worked great for us on a project that works heavily with satellite imagery right now.
One hint though: I've spent a couple of hours trying to get it to work following the documentation, since my editor was looking and working differently than what was described. The reason was that I didn't discover right away that there was a separate Editor folder with files that required renaming as well

Could be something to add to the documentation

 

(update) i had a look at the readme.
editor script is already mentoined...

lars

 

hey lars. I have a small problem maybe I am overlooking. For example when I apply my paint right, I play for game, and come back the textures in the terrainbump have reverted back to 100. What is it am I overlooking? I have the terrain 1 unchecked while painting. I then do my painting on terrain 2 and then hit import, go back to the main terrain and the terrainbump has reverted the detail textures to 100 (or whatever original value it had). I know I am overlooking something.

 

hi there,

if you use version 1.6 of the shader you don not have to and SHOULD NOT work with 2 terrains...
to get rid of the second one: assign its 2nd splat map to the proper slot of the "custom terrain script colarmap ultra u4" script.
then hit "apply" or whatever the related button is called.
then simply remove you second terrain from the hierarchy.

that shoul solve your problem and will it make just easier to paint your terrain.
no more "ups, i am on the wrong terrai" or anything.

lars

 

InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type.
CustomTerrainScriptColorMapUltraEditorU4.applyCustomSplatMap (UnityEngine.Texture2D customSplatmap, UnityEngine.Terrain targetTerrain) (at Assets/ats colormap ultra terrain shader 1.6c/Scripts/Editor/CustomTerrainScriptColorMapUltraEditorU4.cs:868)
CustomTerrainScriptColorMapUltraEditorU4.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/ats colormap ultra terrain shader 1.6c/Scripts/Editor/CustomTerrainScriptColorMapUltraEditorU4.cs:210)
UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditors (Boolean isRepaintEvent, UnityEditor.Editor[] editors, Boolean eyeDropperDirty) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/cac08d8a5e25d4cb/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:888)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

was getting this. splatmap alpha 0, and alpha 1 from my terrain paint to terrain.

 

while I think your shader is good. your documentation is sorely out of date, and often confusing given the general consensus from the community, as all your documentation read's like a vcr instruction manual. Often people are forced to either ask you directly or hopefully stumble across the solution.

 

I am trying to paint using the one terrain. how do I do it? use color painting tool? when I start painting and go to save it, it new textures don't show up til I save the colormap.

 

hmm – of course it does not work, sorry. script expects textures…
so you have to export export both spaltmaps from your terrain paint as png.
use the "exportsplatmap" script which is included in the package.
simple mark your first spaltmap in the project tab, thean chose "asset/export texture".
the splat map will be exported to the asset root folder as "exported_texture.png"
you should rename it before exporting the 2nd spalt map – because the script simply overwrites "exported_texture.png".

lars

 

sorry, but that is absolutely not true.
the docs are pretty much in sync. you just have to read them. e.g.:
"2.2 basic set up of the shader" which is the step by step introduction. not a single word about the need for a 2nd terrain…

and i will not judge why people have to ask although every information is given in the docs (and even a lot of it in the editor).
as i won’t judge about you.

lars

 

in order to paint the detail texture simply use the built in unity painting tools.
only if you wish to paint to the colormap (with just a simple color brush) you use the color map painting tool.

lars

 

finally got it i think!

edit= k think we are good to go. got all the nonsense taken out, and now on the main terrain, painting directly with the unity paint tools.

Again thank you, as far as the instructions, not a real issue regardless, even despite the uphill battle with getting it to work, I must say thank you for your extreme support. Very impressed.

 

you are welcome!
and enjoy your work with the shader.

lars

 

Wow, Lars why dnt you ever mention how the colormap painting tool is fantastic? This shader is a recommended purchase. i used it below for creating a greenish surface for the grass next to this rock i just created.(bottom right of pic). the texture elevation is cool although i hadnt applied it when i took the screenshot on the rocks.

Btw, I saw your decal shader now im wondering, is it compatible with this shader or will adjustments have to be done. can this shader alone be used to create such decals or is their a heightmap issue?
thanx for this shader again
.

 

thanks! well, i and have mentioned it somewhere how much fun it can be using the color map painting tool…

you can either use the color map ultra shader OR the terrain decal shader.
but the color map ultra shader is the much more powerful (and bit more expensive in rendering costs) one.
so i would recommend to just keep with the color map shader.

if you need additional decals on the terrain you can use dantus’ free decal system. it works great in conjunction with the colormap shader:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/3779

lars

 

This might be a very simple question or one that has already been answered but; regarding the color map; I'm generating this in world machine and it seems like I have problems with the colormap making colors too bright.

If I am happy overall with the color of my splats, should I try to recreate the splat texture colors on the colormap as closely as possible and only add some subtle variation? Is there a way that I can leave some areas of the splat texture nearly unchanged?

Also, do you have plans to move to Unity4 any time soon? I know I'm knit picking but I'd love to see Unity4's new terrain normal map slot used instead of maintaining it in two places. Seems like it's time to try to leave Unity3 to legacy support and start enjoying the additional Unity4 goodness.

 

hi goblox,

first of all: have you adjusted the "average color values" properly?
next thing to check: gloss maps – which should be stored in the alpha channel of the detail diffuse textures.
if you have not adjusted those carefully the terrain might tend to overbrighten. simply assign a fully black alpha channel if you do not want to use them or set the terrain’s specular color to black.
if there is no alpha channel at all unity will assume a gloss value of 1 – which is far too much and will overbrighten the terrain too.

i hope that my answer to your first question already has solved the problem.
if not making the colors in the color map fit those of your detail textures as close as possible is always a good idea.
but usually it is not necessary.

in case none of the tips help just send me your terrain so i can have a look into it.

the shader already comes in 2 different versions, one of them fully supporting unity 4’s material system for terrains.
(please make sure you use the right shader/script combo as described in the unity4 readme).
but you are right: the shader/script does not support unity 4's normal map slot in the terrain texture settings. but to be honest: you simply do not have to assign it to this slot, so you do not have to assign it twice! the slot that is relevant is that of the script.
we do have to combine those normal maps anyway as the shader needs combined normal maps...
so would it really be such a great improvement to add the normal maps to the terrain texture slots instead of adding those to the slots of the script?

lars

 

Hi, I am trying to use the ATS shader, but I'm missing something when it comes to splat maps. I exported a splat map from World Machine (though I'm not 100% sure I did it right, I basically tied nodes from slope selectors and height selectors into a channel combiner (3 channels to an RGB output) and then sent the RGB output to file. One thing I'm confused about is it doesn't have alpha, so that may be my issue.

Anyway, when I tried using that splat map, it turned the terrain into a specular spectacle. It's basically just reflecting insane amounts of light and almost completely white. I've tried playing around with the alpha values and alpha channels in the splat map, but I'm not having any luck. The only way I can remove the specular highlighting is to make the entire splat map black, then I just get what appears to be the 4th texture in the detail splats everywhere. I add a small section of blue, green, or red, and that area just becomes the 4th texture with growing specular based on how much blue, red, or green I add. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

By the way, I'm just setting the terrain detail maps to grass, cliff, rock and grass, and snow from various textures I have.

EDIT: I found the problems. 1) Photoshop wasn't saving the splat map with an alpha channel for PNG. I'm just saving it as psd now, and as long as my alpha channel is black, most of the issues are gone. 2) I had some red, green, and blue components that added up to more than 1 (I just realized this would be a bad thing), so I need to fix my world machine export.

Thanks,
Chris

 

First off, this is not a complaint, just my experience. I love the shader, but I want to post my particular happenstance for why I didn't realize I was running the U3 version of the software in Unity 4 (haven't read much of this post, but looked like at least a few other people found it confusing).

I didn't see the Unity4-Readme file at first, because when I opened up the "ats colormap ultra terrain" folder in the Unity Project explorer, I saw a folder called Documentation and clicked on it (I did not click on the top level folder). Inside the Documentation folder was the "colormap ultra v1.6c docu.rtf" file, and it simply said to disable the U3.shader, nothing about renaming the U4 files. I searched and had no such U3 shader, so assumed the documentation was just out of date and the author had combined the shaders somehow selecting them based on your version of unity.

Then, it says to add the CustomTerrainScriptColorMapUltraU4.cs script, but the only one I found when searching within the Project window was not a C# file type and unrecognized (I should have looked closer), and there was no U3.cs script only one without U3 or U4 in the name, so again I assumed the author had combined the two scripts into one that checks the current version of Unity (which I recommend).

It would have been a no brainer if I had just seen that readme file. I really only have two recommendations as this shader is great out of the box if you read the proper documentation. I had a little trouble following the readme file, because it says to rename the files, so I was thinking I could do that in Unity, but searching for __cs shows no files in the unity project window. Unfortunately Unity hides the file extension, so you have to do this at the File System level. Again, not an issue with the shader, but the readme could be enhanced by specifying this.

My recommendations:
1) Add a line in the "colormap ultra v1.6 docu.rtf" file that references the readme, in big bold letters so dumb people like myself can go find it.
2) When I click to paint on the color map, it paints even when I depress the middle mouse button. Is there a way to ignore the middle and right buttons? I really like to move the terrain around when painting. As of now, I have to deselect Paint mode, move the camera, and reselect it.

Thanks!
Chris

 

hi chris,

thanks for sharing your experience.
i will make some adds to the documentation and hopefully less people will use the u3 scripts and shaders with unity4.

as far as the middle mouse button is concerned, i will think about it.
but moving around while painting at the color map already is possible right know:
– press "f" to zoom to the point on the terrain your mouse is actually pointing at.
– hold "alt" to enable orbiting.
– use the scrollwheel to zoom in and out.

you may want more features but those are all i personally use – may be as i am working on my track pad…

i hope this helps.

lars

 

With the addition of the file names it's not as painful to assign the normal maps.



Speaking of the filenames, I just downloaded the version from the asset store and it looks like you may need a to check for nulls on the 4 and 5 label. Without them set you get null reference exceptions and the rest of the editor isn't drawn if those two textures aren't set.

Lastly, I'v noticed since the first time I've used the shader that I have to manual flip my colormap on the "vertical axis" (in photoshop). These are generated in worldmachine and all of the others images (Normals, Splats) ,are applied correctly. It's enough of a nuisance to mention. All of my maps are on the same orientation so it seems like something is up with the way they are being applied.

Last question:
Splat 4 and 5 (Decals) are just being applied like a regular splat for me (and are also receiving the colormap tint).
Is there anything I need to do to the texture to make it more "decalable" with hard edges?

 

OK I just got this and look forward to playing with it! Learning TerrainComposer at the same time, too so I hope colormap and normalmap generation will be a snap...

Just worked through this thread and here are a couple of inputs...

If Lars ever does decide to bump the shader model then I hope it will be optional or a new separate "ultra-ultra" package... I am eyeing this for next-gen mobile devices (GL ES 3.0) and given its performance optimizations it might run pretty smoothly (with small-ish terrains and higher pixel error)! PM/POM/RTP would still be a no-go for me in this usage scenario but for the current ShaderModel3-optimized ColormapUltra I'm much more hopeful! If I were targeting standalone I'd probably go for RTP tbh. but for next-gen mobile this asset seems to hit the sweet spot so far --- experimentation pending

Hell yeah please, this is badly needed! As long as you're not willing to abandon that damned legacy version 3, that is. NGUI also does this, in a single Asset they package up 2 different *.unitypackage files (ngui2.7 and ngui3.0) and this makes importing very easy. When I just first saw the instructions for manually renaming various script and shader files after import to up this to U4.x I literally thought "what in EFFIN heck?!".... so I'm supposed to do this whenever the package is updated? Come on, or at least make 4.x the default now and make 3.x oldtimers manually rename their files..

Perfect approach, keep it that way!

I second this request! It's pretty important to me and came up more than once in this thread.. I can't imagine this being extremely complicated to fix up? I know you're on a MacBook with a single-button trackpad but for a variety of reasons many gamedevs are decidedly not. and the scroll-wheel scrolling isn't my thing either so the default scrolling with Alt+Rightclick shouldn't be broken by this painting-mode if at all possible... puleeeze....

OK, I'm off to experiment. Can't wait to leave a glowing review in a while as soon as I get somewhere gorgeous and yeah looking forward to your input on the above items

 

I'm having this trouble after using this shader for the first time in many months. This is with Version 4.2.1f4; in the following screenshot you can seen I painted columns of the splats in order, the first 4 using Red,Green,Blue,Black and the next 4 using very different actual terrain textures. 0 - 5 work normally. 6 and 7 get applied as decals properly but are actually utilizing texture 2 and 3. The noise you can see in the solid colors is from the normals.

All base maps and textures have been assigned. I've recreated any materials. I don't know where to go from here.

 

hi goblox,

i am sorry to disappoint you, but reusing texture 2 and 3 as decals is the common behavior of the shader.
there are simply no more texture samplers left to store texture 6 and 7 in shader model 3 unless you would go with texture atlases.

lars

 

....which would actually be extremely neat! How about you quadruple the price for Pro and add that capability? I'd buy again A 4096px atlas can have 4 1024px texes, so you'd quadruple everything...

 

hmm, why should i do a clone of the rtp especially as tom has done a pretty good job?
using texture atlases can be pretty expensive on older hardware like on my 3 year old macbook pro. for some reasons they slow down performance by factor 2 – so in some cases it could be faster to just render a second pass…

lars

 

hi metaleap,

thanks for the feedback. i hope you will have great fun using terrain composer and the colormap ultra shader.
and i am pretty interested in the results of your tests as far next gen mobile devices are concerned.

i will have another look into the color map painting tool and hopefully come up with a solution for the second mouse button soon.

speaking about unity3 / unity4 i will have to check out the possibility to bundle 2 packges.

lars

 

OK makes sense. It's not that urgent anyway, for my use-cases I prefer the current optimized state. Now if it was zero-cost perf-wise then I'd be all over it, but since it isn't as you say, I rather make due with what we have.

 

hi there,

color map painting tool and second mouse button

i guess it will take a little while to get the new update to the asset store.
but meanwhile you can add support for the 2nd mouse button by editing the script: "ColormapPaintingTool" or "ColormapPaintingToolU4".

so find the lines:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. void OnSceneGUI(SceneView sceneview)
3. {
4.    Event current = Event.current;
5.  

and replace those with:

Code (csharp):

1. void OnSceneGUI(SceneView sceneview)
2. {
3.    if (!Painting) return;
4.    Event current = Event.current;
5.    // handle right mousebutton
6.    if (current.button == 1) {
7.       HandleUtility.AddDefaultControl(GUIUtility.GetControlID(FocusType.Passive));
8.       return;
9.    }
10.  

lars

 

Thanks, appreciate it

 

Actually I'm not particularly disappointed; I just didn't know what was going on. I'll just change my map output workflow a bit and this will work fine for me.

Almost seems like it would make more sense to reserve 4 and 5 as decals instead of 2-3. That way the first 4 textures are splat only and the next texture map contains everything related to decals.

 

fine.
and you can easily change the shader to what ever you need or want – although using texture 2 3 as decals makes a lot of sense in my opinion:
layer 2 is mainly reserved for rock like textures that you probably might want as decal too (multi uv mixing) to e. g. rework seems.

lars

 

Current version of the unitypackage when imported via AssetStore contains a colormapUltra_Version1.0.zip file, I assume I can safely discard this? Or does this serve any specific purpose?

 

if you have started your work with the latest version you can simply ignore or delete this file.

lars

 

spec values look a bit too high for a sunny day…

time will tell!

lars

 

I changed your directional light to very bright, so that might be it..

 

From the docs:

Does anyone know whether this applies to terrains fully created in TerrainComposer?

 

Would be nice to have a video tutorial on how to set it up quickly. Even if its something simple, I cant understand the doc that much.

 

The links don't work in the Unity Asset store description
Just have to remove the assetstore link -
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/“http://bit.ly/Y0DRnd“
to
http://bit.ly/Y0DRnd
and same for the forum link

 

Hi Lars,

this shader system looks fantastic, and I would love to try it, but as soon as install the package, I get six script errors:

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(84,72): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `DebugNormalsInEditmode' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(94,49): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `DebugNormalsInEditmode' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(96,41): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `DebugNormalsInEditmode' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(102,49): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `DebugNormalsInEditmode' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(164,25): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `MeshCombineUtilityAFS' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Assets/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/CombineChildren.cs(217,25): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `MeshCombineUtilityAFS' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

Any ideas of what I can do? I installed this and the Advanced Foliage Shader v2.031 together, but got these errors before this (AFS v2) was installed.

I'm working with the lastest unity version, btw.
thanks.

 

I've used this shader for projects often, and it's great for Terrain, well done!

I do have a question however - is it possible to use this to a certain degree on custom fbx mesh terrains exclusively? I've given it a quick try, but don't wish to spend too much time experimenting if it's not doable.
I am sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find much info on the subject.

 

Ha, did I ask this or just think about asking it?

I feel like this might have changed. I'm pretty sure when I first bought it I had to change multiple maps but, right now the only thing I'm changing during an import is flipping the Colormap Vertical.

Would be pretty neat if the Inspector had a button to do this automatically. I'm not sure if it's possible but it would be really excellent if it could prep all of the maps for use (Set resolution, type, and such for Colormap, Splats, Normals) so I don't have to do it every time. Seems like Tom's Terrain tools does a lot of this.

 

hi stiltskin,

i assume that you also have the "original" combine children script insatlled. it should be located somewhere in the "standard assets" --> "scripts" folder.
you may simply remove it (if you do not use it).

or you can open the combine cildren afs script with mono, copy all the code, then remove the script from your project.
go to its original folder, create a new c# script, name it "CombineChildrenAFS", open it in mono, and copy the script from your clipboard.
then save it.
you may have to manually recompile or even restart unity, but the errors should have gone.
please note: the script will be missing on all game objects using it, so you woll have to reassign it manually.

sorry for the inconvenience.

lars

 

theoretically you can use the shader on any mesh (when using the unity 4 version):
- create a new material and chose the following shader: Terrain/Terrain Colormap Ultra U4
- next assign all needed textures. you will have to do it by hand… but you may use the terrain script on any terrain to create the combined textures.
- splatmaps have to be created manually (using e.g. photoshop). make sure you import them as uncompressed texture.
- assign the material to your mesh.
le voila!

but please note: the shader will not take any uvs into account but do a simple top down projection --> texture stretches on steep slopes.

lars

 

You're right that would be extremely neat! Just to clarify though, are you using TerrainComposer too?

 

Hi all, this is a really wonderful package. I have a question however, is it possible to use atsAdvancedTerrainShaders V2 for Terrain without screwing up the behaviour of the atsColorMapUltra ? Every time I've tried I lost the main color map applied to the terrain. Thanks in advanced for any help!

(By the way I'm trying with the most current _free versions available from the Asset Store) as I'm testing first

 

if you want to use the advanced terrain shader v2 together with the color map ultra shader you should make sure to remove the terrain replacement shader from the advanced terrain shader package as it might overwrite the colormap ultra shader.
if you use unity 4 please make sure that you read the unity 4 readme file whch tells you how to setup the whole package!

lars

 

Hm, encountering a problem. When I create the material after following all instructions on Unity 4, the terrain turns gray and odd colored (sort of like what the Normal 12 looks like). The only thing that comes out in normal color are Texture7/8 the decal ones when painted on.

Any advice? Going to keep messing around, reading more.

 

hi there,
do you have some information for me?
and may be some screen shots: from the material, from the script and from the terrain?

lars