Voxeland - Voxel Terrain Tool

Hi thank you for great asset, I faced some issue with terrain update. Each time I start play mode brush stop affecting terrain. After switching off it's still not working (progress tag on top of menu doesn't changes too), but if I hit Rebuild manually all changes which were made with brush suddenly appears. Unity 2017.2.0f3

 

@Wright thanks for the update! (V5.2) Does the new texture array system and support for custom shaders now allow full Megasplat compatibility or maybe adding your own texture a needed step for compatibility? I understand the current limit is 24 max blocks, if Megasplat is supported will it allow 256? At this time it doesn't seem to allow me to replace the default arrays in the demo with ones created with Megasplat.

Everything looks & performs so much better but I'm experiencing a major problem with middle mouse clicking to add blocks.. I've tried two different mice and they don't work or there may be a bug? It doesn't allow me to middle click to sculpt the land in edit mode or play mode -in the demo
If I use the middle mouse button in edit mode it just grabs the terrain -specifically moves the camera as if I am moving the terrain.

Update: ok it was confusing to figure out but it probably should be updated on the Wiki specifically that "pressing CTRL subtracts". The other thing I noticed is that the highlighted area does not automatically cross over to another chunk in edit mode, that only certain areas that are highlighted can be sculpted.


Is the outer non-editable areas the horizon? just trying to understand what's going on with this. If it is the edge limit for the editable chunk size area then maybe a red transparent boundary wall could be made visible to let the landscape artist know not to add/edit the edge area or else artifacts will result.

 

Fantastic! Tell me more about this Voxelump and when can I get my hands on a beta?

 

How about Voxel Glob or Blob? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glob

 

Here is the proper field texture: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6m1wg386jqemog6/DPLayout_Field_pro.zip?dl=0
Thanks for finding that issue!

Just to mention: editing terrain in build works way faster than in editor. So if

You can disable ambient calculations by commenting out all ambient-related stuff in chunk.cs. That should speed up editing ~twice:

Code (CSharp):

1.         #region Ambient
2.             public void CalculateAmbient ()
3.             {
4.                 #if WDEBUG
5.                 if (!ThreadWorker.multithreading) Profiler.BeginSample("Calculate Ambient");
6.                 #endif
7.              
8.                 //reading data
9.                 if (ambientWorker.stop) {ambient=null; return;}
10.                 /*int topPoint; int bottomPoint;
11.                 int margin = voxeland.ambientMargin;
12.                 voxeland.data.GetTopBottomPoints(rect.Expanded(margin), out topPoint, out bottomPoint, ignoreEmptyColumns:true);
13.              
14.                 //empty mesh check
15.                 if (topPoint==0) {ambient=null; return;}
16.              
17.                 //create and fill matrix
18.                 Matrix3<byte> matrix = new Matrix3<byte>(rect.offset.x-margin, bottomPoint-1, rect.offset.z-margin, rect.size.x+margin*2, topPoint-bottomPoint+2, rect.size.z+margin*2);
19.                 voxeland.data.FillMatrix(matrix);
20.  
21.                 if (ambientWorker.stop) {ambient=null; return;}
22.                 if (ambient == null || ambient.cube.size !=matrix.cube.size)
23.                     ambient = new Matrix3<byte>(matrix.cube);
24.  
25.                 lock (ambient)
26.                 {
27.                     ambient.cube.offset = matrix.cube.offset;
28.                     voxeland.data.FillMatrix(ambient);
29.  
30.                     Matrix heightmap = new Matrix(ambient.cube.rect);
31.                     voxeland.data.FillHeightmap(heightmap);
32.  
33.                     if (ambientWorker.stop) return;
34.                     ChunkMesh.HeightmapAmbient(ref ambient, heightmap);
35.  
36.                     if (ambientWorker.stop) return;
37.                     ChunkMesh.SpreadAmbient(ref ambient, voxeland.ambientFade);
38.                  
39.                     if (ambientWorker.stop) return;
40.                     ChunkMesh.BlurAmbient(ref ambient);
41.                  
42.                     if (ambientWorker.stop) return;
43.                     ChunkMesh.EqualizeBordersAmbient(ref ambient, margin:margin);
44.                 }*/
45.  
46.                 #if WDEBUG
47.                 if (!ThreadWorker.multithreading) Profiler.EndSample();
48.                 #endif
49.             }
50.  
51.  
52.             public void ApplyAmbient ()  
53.             {
54.                 if (ambientWorker.stop) return;
55.  
56.                 //empty mesh check
57.                 if (ambient==null || hiMesh.vertexCount==0)  return;
58.          
59.                 #if WDEBUG
60.                 Profiler.BeginSample("Apply Ambient");
61.                 #endif
62.  
63.                 //hi mesh
64.                 /*int[] hiTris = hiMesh.triangles;
65.                 Vector2[] hiAmbient = ChunkMesh.SetAmbient(ambient, hiTris, indexToCoord, hiMesh.vertexCount);
66.                 hiMesh.uv4 = hiAmbient;
67.  
68.                 //lo mesh
69.                 Vector2[] loAmbient = new Vector2[loMesh.vertexCount];
70.                 for (int i=0; i<loAmbient.Length; i++) loAmbient[i] = hiAmbient[i];
71.                 loMesh.uv4 = loAmbient;
72.  
73.                 //grass
74.                 if (grassMesh.vertexCount != 0)
75.                 {
76.                     Vector2[] grassAmbient = ChunkMesh.SetGrassAmbient(ambient, grassMesh.vertices, grassMesh.triangles, grassMesh.uv4, transform.localPosition);
77.                     grassMesh.uv4 = grassAmbient;
78.                 }*/
79.  
80.                 #if WDEBUG
81.                 Profiler.EndSample();
82.                 #endif
83.             }
84.         #endregion

Are you using a demo scene (with a VoxelandController.cs) or your own scene with "Edit in playmode" enabled? Is the brush displayed on the terrain? Is the proper block type selected (for example, you can have a grass or object block selected - you can't dig the terrain this way).
It would be great if you could report this issues on the issues page.

Could you please link to that wiki page (did not found it in brush section at glance)? Middle mouse button is not used for editing the terrain in editor.

Yep, it is. If it is a demo scene then switch the Editor Mode to infinite in Mode and Ranges.

Unfortunately, no. Both Voxeland and MegaSplat use the same technique - the texture arrays, but it does not mean that they automatically can work together.

Still it's just an experiment. I've just made a single Voxeland chunk, and it was working with Voxeland 5.0 (but pretty sure it will not work with the latest Voxeland version). Just though it might be a good idea to make a separate plugin of that. But since it caused such a positive reaction I think I'll work on that.

Yeah, I know, lump means a dumb person. But it makes the name so similar to Voxeland! Just wonder how often the word lump is used in that meaning?

 

@Wright Does Voxeland with the MapMagic generator support blending biomes? I'm attempting to follow your video from a year ago and notice there is no "pinning" feature for Voxeland :

 

If lump works for you, it sounds better to my ear than glob or blob. Glob and blob normally are used to describe something disgusting. Lump can be like a lump of sugar or a lump of clay.

 

@Wright so getting back to you on the middle click to add blocks. When I launched the demo mode to add blocks was the instruction on the Demo GUI. Also left clicking in the demo in play mode sort of works. (odd behavior) left click once it adds, left click again seems to take away although ctrl does for sure.

@hopeful I think "normally" would only apply to the kind of person you are/how you interpret things If I paint, I add a glob or blob of paint, I never really hear people use the word in the context as disgusting but a lump could also be an oozing soar on your back etc.

It doesn't matter to me either way... even Voxel-ends (as in pieces/add-ons) could be another option. -just trying to help generate ideas.

 

Yeah, demo voxeland controller is used in demo scene, and it has the other buttons assigned to dig or add. I thought it would be an example of the flexibility of using Voxeland with a custom code, but it seems that it only confuses users. I think I'll assign the same controls in a script that are used in editor.

hopeful, Ascensi, thanks!
"Voxelump" is okay as long as it isn't associated with tumor or dumb. As a non-native speaker I have no clue about how often the word "lump" used in those meanings, so your feedback is extremely helpful!

 

Well ... true, but ...

Globs and blobs are accurate descriptions for oil or acrylic paint squeezed from a tube, in that they describe formless shapes are are often oozing. If you were writing marketing copy, a "dab" of paint would sound better, because a dab sounds controlled and neat. If you were writing a negative restaurant review, use words like blob and glob to describe the awful food.

I'm surprised you NEVER hear blob and glob used to mean something disgusting. There was even a horror movie in the 50's called "The Blob."

 

Hello!
I found a voxeland in the asset store. It looks amazing. I wanted to use it in runtime
However, WebDemo slightly spoiled impressions. On my i7 on destruction, FPS is greatly reduced.

I looked at several pages of the forum, but I did not find answers to some of my questions. Could you answer a few questions so that I understand if the voxeland is suitable for my purposes?


Building / breaking works just as slowly as in the WebDemo?
Can I get stable 60 FPS on core i3 (WebGL / PC)? 30 FPS on phone?
Can I use my shader?
Can I increase the number of textures by writing my shader.
Can I use different sets of textures for neighboring chunks?
The package has .dll files. How open is the voxeland code? Can I easily use any part of it from my scripts?

Thx!

 

My bad, the web demo is from version 4. I'll remove it from a product description ASAP or build a new one - standalone or webgl, since the web player is no longer supported.

Sure, you can write your own terrain shader. The problem with the number of channels is how are you going to pass blend weights to the shader. Theoretically current shader can support almost infinite number of layers, but is limited to 24 since this number of blend weights could be encoded in 4 floats (mesh tangent channel) fast with adequate gradients.

The web demo you've seen was made with this feature, but it caused a material hell (as well as performance loss as you may notice). It was removed in version 5, and I have no plans for returning it.

I'm thinking about MegaSplat (and MicroSplat too) integration, but this plugin has some mesh requirements that are not compatible with lopoly version of the terrain (however me and Jason, MegaSplat author, found the way to use it on hipoly mesh).

That .dll file is inherited from MapMagic, it just automatically enables MapMagic compatibility for Voxeland, nothing more than that. Voxeland is absolutely functional with this file removed. I plan to replace it with a compatibility menu in further version, and therefore, get rid of it.

In all other aspects Voxeland comes with the full source code, you can use it in any way EULA allows that (license question was discussed a few posts above).

 

Since it is a stone or rock, why not Voxelith, from the Greek root "lithos (λίθος)" meaning "rock" or "stone"?

"Lithos" is the Greek root for a number of geological terms, such as regolith, monolith, lithium, and megalith.

I'm a native English speaker and a professional technical writer. As far as I am aware, the "lithos" root has no negative connotations. (Others, please feel free to point out anything I have overlooked.)

 

@Wright was using Megasplat's tessellation fine with the low poly Voxeland meshes or did the low poly not provide enough resolution when tessellation was set high? I still feel a user set resolution might be ideal since some people want low poly worlds and for myself I'd like to use tessellation with some high end displacement textures but I'm sure between you and Jason you might discover the sweet spot.

 

Sounds good to me too.

 

No I am using my own scene with part of your controller code assigned to character (from demo) which changing land, land was generated with default settings only one step does not follow instructions: I don't use voxeland shader since I don't need blended surfaces I have my own simple shader with rim effect assigned to land. Brush is displayed on terrain but make no change till I hit rebuild button. All problem comes from not using voxeland shader on terrain but due limit of platform I can't use it (everything looking black if I assign original shader). I know it's outside of promised boundaries but if you can direct me where to look or change code I need mobile shader maybe with few blending textures or just one texture ... I can use c sharp basics but shader code make me pull out my hairs

 

I'm having a hard time giving the terrain a faceted look. Should this be relatively easy to do? I'm not sure if all the vertex normals need to be perpendicular to the tris. Any pointers or advice? Thanks

 

Voxelith. Sounds nice. Thanks!

freesquaregames, it's hard to tell where the problem is without seeing your code. The only thing I can recommend you is taking VoxelandController.cs code copy and changing it to your code gradually, testing if terrain is editable after each block change. Once you find what change causes this issue I'll try to suggest anything to fix it.

Making a faceted look is terribly difficult with a shader - at least I don't know the way to do it without modifying the mesh. However I'm not a big shader expert, so if anyone have some advice with that - please share.
And to modify the mesh you'll have to write mesh post-processing script that splits all of the mesh vertices. Good thing you can do it without changing Voxeland code using OnChunkVisibilityChangedEvent event (Chunk chunk, bool visible).

 

I was able to make a faceted shader in shader forge and it has good results. No need to change the mesh. Only problem now is I dont have any connection to the block type/material array so all of the terrain is rendered the same.

Im thinking about trying this asset,
DirectX 11 Low Poly Shader,
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/69971

Maybe someone that has it can comment on if it works?

 

Hello!
I have a voxeland 5 and mapmagic 1.8.4. I want to unite them with each other. But there is a replacement for scripts and a bunch of errors. What is the problem and how to fix it?

Sorry for my english.

 

Hi Denis,
I encounter the same problem.
The errors (the number varies between 100 and 200) are of the type: Assets / Voxeland / Main / Chunk.cs (13,38): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `IChunk 'could not be found. Are you missing `MapMagic 'using directive?
I tried to import Voxeland and then MapMagic. I tried the opposite. I checked / unchecked the replaced items ... The problem is still present.

 

I have the same issue as JollyStone above. I'm using the latest version of Unity 2017.2.0f3 64bit on Windows 10, the latest version 5.2.0 of Voxeland, and the latest version of MapMagic 1.8.4.

I tried adding the suggested "using Voxeland5" directive, but once I had added it to all suggested classes, a whole new cascade of errors were thrown.

Additionally, when I import Voxeland alone there are multiple issues with the demo scenes. When I load either demo scene the fps controllers do not work at all, no mouselook or WASD movement, and there are scripts missing in the scene. Plus Editor errors were thrown when I loaded the scene. However with the mouse unlocked it is possible to edit terrain.

Similarly when I imported MapMagic alone, in the DemoScene the mouselook and character movement are not working, however no warnings for missing scripts. I tried adding the missing reference to the Cam on the CameraController class via the Inspector on the Char GameObject, and also added the missing reference to the Hero on the CharController class, but still no fps controls when I hit play. The IslandTutorial demo scene also appears to suffer from similar issues, no fps control at all, however no errors thrown, notably the main camera position did not snap to the char position as per usual.

After seeing the performance of both libraries I am not confident enough to move ahead with either library in my project unfortunately. I have used MapMagic and Voxeland together in the past and the experience was good, not great, so I will hold off on leaving a review on either library for now.

These are not cheap assets, I would like to see these issues cleared up soon, and I would really like to see more work done on Voxeland as it seemed to go stale for a while.

 

This issue was fixed in the latest MapMagic version (1.8.5).

It was not related with MapMagic code or contents, but with the AS package - somehow one of the files had the same object id with one of the files from Voxeland package.

BTW here is workaround (it's not actual anymore, but I'd mention it in case you don't want to update)

The latest Voxeland update was released just 20 days ago. It brought texture arrays shader (faster than the standard one and supports 24 channels) for both land and grass, the re-written documentation for v.5, built-in generator improvements (mostly for grass), and some demo scene improvements (linear lighting version, new grass shader, enhanced generate algorithms).

You can expect such sort of updates every 2 months, and a big update (to v.6, v.7, etc) yearly. Isn't it enough to prevent Voxeland from being stale?

 

can you look into adding wacom pressure support?

like its done in this asset
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/30384

so we can paint with more control

thanks

 

VoxelLump sounds great - useful for caves, floating islands, etc. The word doesn't have any negative connotations to a native speaker. it's too generic for that.

 

I wonder how does one go about procedural generation with Voxeland? Say I want to roll out my own algorithm, what kind of method should I use? Should I edit the byte[] array used in serialization or just use voxeland.Alter and then apply the changes? Note I'd like to do it server-side in a headless mode so I guess just working on a pure array would be better as the Alter method requires an actual terrain (or is there a mock interface without the rendering needs?).

I don't need an infinite terrain, I'd like to generate once and send it over to game clients.

 

I'm a Wacom user myself, and I thought about adding tablet support to Erosion Brush, but I can't imagine how it could be used in Voxeland. It's useless when you are setting a single block - either you set the block, or you don't - there's no in-between "pressure" values. Maybe it could be used to set the volume brush size, but I thing it's too inaccurate for this.

Thanks! That is exactly what I needed to hear! Personally I like both Voxelith and Voxelump names, now it's so hard to choose from these two!

waxx, the best way to change the change internal block data is to call data.SetMatrix (or call data.SetBlock numerous times, but it will have a lower performance). Then you convert it to byte[] with data.ToByteArray and send to clients, that will load it using data.FromByteArray.


PS

I've got good news for everyone, especially those who have Voxeland on a whishlist: it's gonna have 50% off during the upcoming Black Friday sale, November 20-26.

If you are already using MapMagic it's a good chance to complement it with Voxeland since it is going to be on sale too!

Luckily I have a new video showcasing Voxeland's features:

​

And since I've mentioned MapMagic can't help sharing it:

 

Hi Denis, I'm looking at your two assets (voxeland and MapMagic) and wonder if they fit in with tools I have and are using. World streamer, vegetation studio and microsplat. Are they compatible together or is there overrun between them?

 

Hi! I guess you are going to use pinned MapMagic terrains since you mentioned World Streamer. You can use any asset that could be used with a standard terrain with pinned MapMagic chunks (actually, MM chunks are the standard terrain under the hood).

Unfortunately I can't say the same about Voxeland. It uses meshes instead of Unity terrains, this way it's very specific when speaking about compatibility with the other terrain tools. I can't say anything about World Streamer (there is a chance it can work with Voxeland), but I'm pretty sure other assets you've mentioned will not work as expected on voxeland meshes. Anyways, I can provide you with a fully functional evaluation version so you could check it yourself (email me to get the link).

 

Hi, terrain looks great!
How difficult would it be to extend this to generate subterranean chunks? I expect to do a lot of deep digging.

 

Thanks, I've not actually tried World streamer yet but it is on my wishlist and as come on sale. I presume that would not work with MapMagic infinite terrains as it streams only non procedural terrains.

I had a feeling there was some overlap with them but useful for different use cases. Can you use MapMagic with a terrain already created and just use the benefit of infinite size and biomes?

 

If we are talking about Voxeland (since it's a Voxeland thread) then you can dig it, create caves and other subterranean stuff out of the box. It's a voxel terrain, it is 100% 3D.
If not - I don't quite get it what do you mean under the "subterranean chunks".

AndyNeoman, yep, WS cannot stream infinite MM terrain (because, actually, it is not generated). But you can pin a significant amount of terrains and use them with WS. You will not get an infinite terrain, but at least it will be rather vast.

MapMagic is not streaming terrain, but generates them on the go instead. This way it cannot "stream" already existing terrains, it loads all of the pinned terrain at once and generates the others.

 

Sorry, that was a confusing way to ask. I read in the documentation that chunks live only in the x/z axis. How deep can a chunk go? I don't need infinite depth necessarily but I'd like to be able to dig downwards for an arbitrary distance. Or, is it possible to have multiple layers of voxeland terrain?

Edit: I ended up picking this up just because it looks so good. And mapmagic because it looks nice too haha. Anyways, regardless of the ease of doing the above I'm definitely giving Voxeland top marks. Thank you for making this!

 

Is there an alternative to raycasting to find which voxel I have hit? I've got a bouncing ball mechanic that needs to know which voxel is hit when bouncing off of a chunk. Right now I'm just doing a ray in the direction of rb.velocity, but this doesn't always detect the correct voxel if its a glancing blow. I'd really like to have some way to feed Voxeland a world coordinate to get the nearest Voxel.

 

Thanks for the response. I think I can use WS and Pinned terrains from MapMagic together nicely.

 

I think you might be able to use world streamer if you bake out your limited sized Voxeland world but there there is no way I'm aware of that can add procedural generated chunks to World Streamer unless world streamer can somehow just search and load any/new files/chunks from a Voxeland folder. Voxeland can have components attached to every chunk, perhaps layers as well so it could be possible. I have world Streamer as well but I'm waiting for the Megasplat compatibility first if it's still doable with Voxeland before I try Voxeland With World Streamer.

I believe the Megasplat shader has implemented it's own solution for physics of a tessellated terrain so objects have a closer match to the displaced textured surface. -Again just being hopeful that Megasplat will be fully supported soon.

 

I believe GENA will still work. It can work with regular meshes and is used to populate some dungeon and building interiors and table tops and such in some demos. So while GAIA won't be of use I suspect GENA might be.

 

That's right, you can have only one chunk at some X and Z coordinates. And you cannot dig below zero level. But the chunk is not limited up in height, and there will be no overhead if you raise the total land level (unless internal land complexity is not changing).

yamlCase, you can take a look at Voxelan.PointOut method, and create a clone with Raycast replaced with SphereCast or something. I admit it's not an elegant way, so I'll think about using callback in PointOut so you can send your own function to determine collision.

That makes sense. Unfortunately I have not found time to try GENA, so I can't say if it will work for sure.


2ALL: you can now download a demo scene standalone build here. It's replacing the old Voxeland 4 Web Player demo. It's a single 66Mb file "download and run" SFX with no install or manual unpack required, so feel free to evaluate Voxeland's playmode before purchasing it!

 

I just was trying out VoxelLand for the first time. Pretty decent performance. I thought I'd let you know that neither the Linear or Gamma Demo Scenes seem to work with the middle mouse button. I didn't check the code and compare that to the input settings in Unity default. I thought I'd let you know before trying to fix it. I wasn't terribly worried about it. I've coded voxel stuff for years myself especially after reading the After Playing Minecraft unity mega thread for years.... You've got a nice product here it seems. I am one of those that hopes for Megasplat integration since it does so many things. CTS is also an option, but not as feature rich as Megasplat. I plan to eventually likely mix this with Aquas, Megasplat (If possible), Enviro, and Probably R.A.M. for rivers which is pretty nice if you haven't checked it out. Nice use of shaders that react differently with waterflow depending upon angle of incline.

I just purchased this and Map Magic and plan on checking them out.

 

I did want to add what I plan to do. I am trying to remake a map I made back in an old Neverwinter Nights 1 module. The overall world. I know how I want it to look and feel, but so far I haven't found a mapping program that is very good at helping a person reproduce an existing map. I know of those that are good at reproducing from real world height maps, but I'm going to take a stab at hand crafting some basic height detail and see if I can get Map Magic to fill in some nice noise and transitions. I also own Gaia and TerrainComposer2.

I originally considered going Voxel with the world I want to build and even considered doing a marching cube thing of my own (I know you didn't do that). Considered doing a two mesh system so I could do hard and soft edges together too.

Anyway, hopefully Map Magic combined with VoxelLand will do what I was looking for, or at least get me closer to what I needed. I plan on a static world this time around so baked/pinned once done seems like it might work. However, I had talked about doing a completely random world in the future in which case this will be perfect for that.

Either way... some nice looking projects...

Megasplat (perhaps CTS as well)
R.A.M.
Aquas
Enviro

I own RTP as well, but Megasplat and CTS offer so much more than those.


20x20... I plan on each cell being 600x600 meters

That has been my world I've been wanting to reproduce and so far finding the tools to do it without me making each cell by hand and then stitching the terrains together has been a pain. It also hasn't always looked as nice as I'd like.

 

Dear Wright, at the moment i am just choosing some tools.


Tell please can this voxel terrain be put somehow onto a solid body? I mean making a full planet terrain, not only a 2.5D section.

It is possible to make it fully dynamic and multiuser? Where can i read how the changed chunks are stored and applied to the initial terrain?

 

Should it work somehow? As far as I know it's not used anywhere.

Speaking of the NWN map - you can use biomes to do it. Luckily, Voxeland has a full support for biomes when working with MapMagic, so that should not be a problem.

MegaSplat is already on the list, and Aquas seems to work fine with both Voxeland and MapMagic. I plan to make a poll once it integrated to find out what asset should be integrated next.

There were posts with the sphere terrains made with Voxeland:

However, some special generator was used to create it. Voxeland supports displaying such planets, but there's no tool to create them out of the box.

Voxeland is fully dynamic by default. Saving meshes and generated block data is turned off in a new Voxeland object (but you can turn them on to bake the land).

You can edit terrain with a custom controller, sending the changes via the net, and applying them in other clients with Alter method: Edit Terrain.
For the state synchronization you can convert all of the data to byte array: Serializing via the net.

 

Hey Wright, just bought the asset, I'm trying to get it to work at runtime and having a bit of trouble. It seems like when I am in play mode I can't make edits even though I have the edit in playmode checkbox checked. It also seems like I can't always edit while not in playmode. Sometimes I have to rebuild? Any ideas? I'm on Unity 2017.1. Thanks.

 

After reading last few posts, does that mean Voxeland will be compatible with MegaSplat soon? I absolutely love MegaSplat and will buy Voxeland now if they are both going to work together nicely.

Also, does Voxeland make Gaia obsolete or can they be used together? Can World Streamer be used to create bigger streaming worlds with it?

Also, will the updates be free or will we be charged for them them in the future? (cause I avoid assets which do that)

Thanks.


EDIT: Fudge it, bought it. Developer seems to be working on supporting MegaSplat, so will support him for that. Hooray!

 

Are you using a demo scene or a new terrain? Can you see the brush highlight in playmode? Do you have land block types enabled (when the grass or an object types are selected you cannot edit not the terrain, but grass and object respectively)?

Yep I'm planning to integrate Voxeland with MegaSplat. However, don't have ETA yet.

Voxeland is not compatible with Gaia (since it's not a terrain under the hood), but it might work with World Streamer. It would be great if you could check if it's really so.

I've never charged for updates since the initial release of all of my assets and I don't have any plans to change that in future.

 

Cool, looking forward to MegaSplat integration. Meanwhile, will test it out with World Streamer (whenever I move beyond first huge level).



PS: MegaSplat integration will be really nice, especially with painting streams of water and lava (along with usual goodness).

 

With the black Friday sales I finally switched from Gaia to Mapmagic/Voxeland (due to run time modification/digging). Gaia is wonderful and powerful but did not fit what I wanted to do in this case still use and love it so not taking anything away from it. As I was using Gaia for world creation I have Gena and most of the collection to go with it except CTS.

I was going to grab CTS but also tempted by Megasplat. I see a lot of discussion with upcoming Megasplat improved/direct support. Would people list the pros and cons of either? I may end up with both but right now I am looking to get the best graphical "punch" going for a fairly realistic look for the world. Please no bashing any ones hard work on there asset just want to hear why people would prefer one over the other with Voxeland.

Forgot also wanted to ask about A.I. solutions people are using and on sale. There is so many additional items on sale that just are not coming up when I hit the on sale banner.

 

Voxelith/Voxelump sounds very interesting. It sounds exactly what we are looking for.

Do you have a rough ETA on when you are planning to release it?

 

I did the same. Plus it feels like Gaia is heading into "buy more plugins" territory with the upcoming version and as a Indie, I have no interesting in buying even more addons for my already expensive addon.

Voxeland looks more natural anyway. With MegaSplat integration, it'll look amazing (and yes, MegaSplat is probably the only asset of its type worth spending money on). Unlike other shaders, it gives more natural look plus the tools for painting details alongside 256 textures for painting, are amazing.

 

I just get in to the wagon and purchase Voxeland. But I have a few questions:

1. We currently have Map Magic 1.4 installed (or 1.3 if I remember right). And we tried to get Voxeland work with it, but no success.. Maybe we have to upgrade to 1.8? but then we have to upgrade Unity too to get it work..

2. I really hope you you add support to CTS or Microsplat in the near future? Is this something that we can expect? It will be awesome and I think it will bring more customers to you. Microsplat is really importand shader for those who develop moblie or like us: VR. Megasplat is not a option because it is so "heavy" in terms of performance.

3. Because I am interest mainly caves and voxeland does not support CTS, microsplat etc.. Is there a way to make only tunnels/caves without "outside terrain"? Is it possible Voxeland buildin tools or will I need using MM? I mean the workaround that I have planned is to generate Unity terrain in MM or Gaia and add terrain holes and place voxeland caves to the holes.. You get my point? This is best of both words: combine standard and popular terrain and shading systems and voxels only there where voxels is needed. Wow!

4. I dont undestand completely the compatibility difficulties. Let's say I want to shading my voxeland terrain using 3th party terrain shader like CTS which support 3d mesh terrain import. Now I bake my Voxeland terrain to 3d mesh (obj). Maybe even edit it in 3d package like maya/c4d and then import it as 3d mesh terrain to shading tools like CTS/Megasplat etc.. Is there really issues with this method? Is the mesh so lowpoly that tesselation etc. functions wont work right? Offcourse I lose the ability to runtime edit voxels, but if I just want to "sculpt" terrains in Unity editor using voxeland instead using 3d packages or ZBrush, this is enough..

Thanks!