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CTS - Complete Terrain Shader - Deprecated

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by AdamGoodrich, Jun 19, 2017.

  1. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    We support heights and masks and made it for you at no cost as a free update to the existing system. There is no mask creation tool at this point but it sounds like a nice feature to add to the roadmap. There is nothing to stop you from making your own mask creation tool in the mean time ;)
     
  2. Kivak

    Kivak

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    Hi Adam,

    Thanks for the reply! I must still be doing something wrong. This is what I am doing right now:
    I have my terrain with existing textures, so I click on the terrain and go down to the "Cutout Mask" part of CTS and add my mask (B&W). I then click "Bake ColorMap". After that, when I select the Color Map, I see the proper texture colors plus a transparent part where it has been cut out. However, when I look at my terrain it still has all the textures there and nothing has been cut out. Is there something else I need to do to create the hole?

    Thanks!
     
  3. ForgedChaos

    ForgedChaos

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    I get the sense you might think I'm ungrateful. I'm not. I am really impressed by your asset and their ease of use. What threw me was how all your assets are/have been incredibly easy to use and very intuitive while the cut out system is not. That is why I was asking for tutorial videos and just asked if there was a way to cut out bits of terrain without the use of height maps or masks; not to be ungrateful or condescending of your work, but to simply get clarification of how it is suppose to work in light of no documentation or tutorials. :)
     
  4. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Fair enough. There was actually so much work in this release that I am way behind in my other projects ... in my world the things I want to do always seem to vastly outweigh the things I have time to do. I need a paint system for Gaia 2 as well - so its definitely something that makes sense to create.

    Nope that should work fine. Just try something - dial the color map strength to a small number and see if the cutout kicks in.
     
  5. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    contact me via skype: dahrrrr we will check.
    We can deal that:)
     
  6. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Thanks! Personally I'll be happy to buy it as a separate asset as well. Something like a CTS add-on.
     
  7. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    To be honest megscans use the same maps as unreal... thats why it's so easy. From user side you have to invert smoothness --> roughnes into smoothnes etc and few other operations
     
  8. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Yes, that's the only one I know (smoothness to roughness) lol.

    We don't have a mesh shader that can input these maps from megascan and look realistic. I haven't seen many people show megascan works in Quixel facebook etc. that uses unity engine. It's usually cryengine and UE.

    If you're developing a mesh shader to go together with CTS maybe you can have one variant for megascan assets. It might get a lot of publicity from Megascan/quixel community.
     
  9. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    I talked with Adam. Im pretty overloaded 13 assets to release until end of year but... This will take just a while.

    Soon on asset store:) Automatic River Shader + small spline system + in other pack strones which blend with CTS 100% Screen1.png
     
  10. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Amazing looking screenshot. Looking forward to the release.
     
    NatureManufacture likes this.
  11. coverpage

    coverpage

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  12. ForgedChaos

    ForgedChaos

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    Sign me up for alerts on this asset! ;)
     
    jangomoose and NatureManufacture like this.
  13. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    coverpage likes this.
  14. Deckard_89

    Deckard_89

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    Does CTS come with a quick start guide like GAIA? GAIA's quick start pdf has you up & running within minutes, it's really great. I'm hoping for some equivalent with CTS.
     
  15. raja-naveen

    raja-naveen

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    Holy S***, Color Map support is game changer. Loving it already. :D:D
     
  16. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    OMG... So i made a Megascans importer.. and then started playing .. Gaia, GeNa, CTS, Enviro2 + Megascans!

    Grab 20171011184105 w1920h1029 x-40y66z-129r299.jpg

    Grab 20171011184840 w1920h1029 x-47y67z-118r180.jpg

    Grab 20171011185309 w1920h1029 x-46y65z-126r190.jpg

    Grab 20171011185115 w1920h1029 x-45y65z-131r294_Crop.jpg
     
    briank, mattis89, Corvwyn and 17 others like this.
  17. Bartolomeus755

    Bartolomeus755

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    That looks fantastic Adam!:)
     
    AdamGoodrich likes this.
  18. coverpage

    coverpage

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    The rock looks really good. What are the operations needed to do the import. I used specular standard shader and placed the gloss map from megascan into the specular map's alpha and couldn't get good result. I do it all manually in photoshop.
     
  19. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    At moment I am supporting both standard and standard specular setups and am experimenting with some texture manipulation to get the best results.

    Most likely I will release this as a separate prefab setup utility that will work with any shader, as the approach I have taken can easily be genericized... and anyone who has ever setup bunches of prefabs knows that it is a long and tedious process that can be prone to error.
     
  20. drmanhattan

    drmanhattan

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  21. claudius_I

    claudius_I

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    Hi

    I fixed this problem. but maybe someone know why this happen.

    public Terrain myTerrain; (my terrain)

    myTerrain.terrainData.alphamapLayers

    when i did this in Unity(whitout CTS) work fine and return the correct number (4 this case)

    but when activate CTS "myTerrain.terrainData.alphamapLayers" return 0.

    I Fixed this add:

    public TerrainData tempTerrain; (prefab terrain)

    myTerrain.terrainData = tempTerrain;

    but why fixed the problem?
     
  22. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Finally able to use megascan meshes decently. Still not sure if this will look good for the rest of their meshes.

    screen_1920x1080_2017-10-12_23-40-53.png screen_1920x1080_2017-10-12_23-47-53.png
     
  23. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Seem to be quite stable if I use a less aggressive setting.

    screen_1920x1080_2017-10-13_00-52-43 3-compress.jpg screen_1920x1080_2017-10-13_00-58-52.png screen_1920x1080_2017-10-13_00-59-07.png screen_1920x1080_2017-10-13_00-59-28.png screen_1920x1080_2017-10-13_01-05-44- compress.jpg
     
    lawsochi, eaque, TeagansDad and 5 others like this.
  24. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Yes.

    Switch "Strip Textures" off in your profile settings. Its an optimization that is awesome in most cases because it removes hard coded unity add passes from the terrain render .. but if you need them - then keep them.
     
    drmanhattan likes this.
  25. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Lovely!

    So i took my automatic megascans importer and thought... hey this is cool... could I use this to set up any old prefab up?

    So I generalized the tool so that it can now import and then do profile based material and prefab setups for any shader... and am going to add terrain texture baking in there as well.

    It completely extensible and will allow you to build your own library of automated setups for whatever shaders you like to use.

    My experience is that setting up any prefab is generally time and labor intensive... but I am not 3D artist so maybe it was just slow and tedious for me:

    * Drag n drop textures and models into Unity
    * Mess around with texture types to let Unity know what they are
    * Update the FBX's to turn off animation etc (if needed)
    * Bake textures - put appropriate texture data into correct channels to take advantage of shader
    * Create material and configure it
    * Create lodded game object and configure it
    * Save as prefab.

    Test... start again when you mess it up. Now do this for the next 20 - 40 prefabs.

    I have reduced this down to an instant process.. drag the directory onto the tool.. (it auto generates the prefab name) press Create Prefab.. wait less than 1 second for import, bake, setup. Done.

    2017-10-13_9-28-32.jpg

    So the question I have... is there any demand out there for a tool that will do this ?
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2017
  26. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Most definitely for me.

    If possible, and I'm not sure how hard this is, it would be great if the prefab has a levels curve to edit the any channel of a map. This is super useful for heightmaps where we may want to edit the levels to make it pop up more, or a certain way.

    Also can apply to other map like gloss or normal where this level curve can increase details in a certain way by playing around of the curve. If can see the map update automatically in the editor, it would be huge time saver in my opinion.
     
    TeagansDad likes this.
  27. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Hmmm.. had not considered this - was just baking whats there... but makes sense.
     
  28. coverpage

    coverpage

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    Yeah, might require too much effort. The channel packing is not too bad for me as i don't have a crazy amount of megascans asset and they usually come in increments as i accumulate the points.
     
  29. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Hi!
    River Auto Material is online! Few screens what effect you could get with this asset:
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/101205
    Pack contain:
    - river spline tool
    - river materials and shaders
    - cts profile;)
    - ground textures 8 sets:)

    Screen1.png Screen2.png Screen3.png Screen4.png


    Ofc CTS support! - CTS profile!:)

    T 02.jpg

    Render:

    Shader Technical:

    Spline Tutorial:
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2017
  30. coverpage

    coverpage

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    I'm an auto customer. Can't wait to use
     
  31. StevenPicard

    StevenPicard

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    I'm planning on picking up the new River Auto Material. I've been wanting something like this for a long time and your solution looks amazing!

    It would be great if this worked procedurally with something like MapMagic.
     
  32. gecko

    gecko

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    I've been wanting something like R.A.M. for ten years -- instant buy, can't wait to try it!
     
  33. Mark_01

    Mark_01

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    R.A.M dito instant buy .. love it
     
  34. Game-Armada

    Game-Armada

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    Hi,

    quick tech question: If I create a terrain with CTS there is always a specular highlight on the ground no matter what kind of textures I use (for smooth or for roughness too). I can remove it globally by setting the specular power to 0, but then I loose all my specular on wet surfaces too :(
    Is there a way to do it right, am I missing something somewhere?
    (I am looking for a resutl between to two images, the specular should be 0 on the grass but high on the wet surfaces)

    Thanks for helping!

    specularpower0.jpg specularpower1.jpg
     
  35. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Looks like your smoothness or roughness maps aren't set up right.
     
  36. mukki014

    mukki014

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    will it work on opengl ES 3.0 on android ? i wanna use only basic shader. thanks
     
  37. f1ac

    f1ac

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    If smoothness is in alpha channel of albedo texture - make sure it's not roughness.
    If smoothness is in alpha channel of metallic texture - it won't work.
    If smoothness is supplied separately - make sure it is not roughness, make sure it is in correct slot, make sure it is in correct texture channel(not sure which one is expected by CTS), make sure you have imported it as linear texture (not sRGB).
     
    Mark_01 likes this.
  38. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Great information ! :)

    CTS will take a smoothness texture if supplied and bake it into alpha channel in albedo.

    Alternatively, will take a roughness texture if supplied, and bake its inverse (smoothness) into the alpha channel in the albedo.

    You only need to use these if your textures are not already correctly configured with smoothness in alpha.
     
  39. Kivak

    Kivak

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    Finally got it to work... kinda silly on my part. I had to change the "ColorMap Settings" to a non-zero number for either Close Power or Far Power. One thing I noticed is that even with a value of 0.0001 I can still just barely see the terrain texture ghosted in front of a white background. It's not a big deal for me because I'm using a non-white texture on the other side of the hole (and it's nearly unnoticeable), but it seems worth mentioning in case you haven't see this yet. I imagine I could upload another colormap with a white spot there and it would resolve it but I haven't gone to that extent yet.

    Thanks a lot for the help! A+ support :)

     
  40. Game-Armada

    Game-Armada

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    The point here is that there is no option to set the specularity (with specular map maybe), only smoothness and there is only a global Specular Power parameter for that. Because of that it is hard to create a surface with water (I even checked the swamp demo, and there is no specular highlight on water from the directional light :( )
    In other words if I'd like to create a totally rough surface (like rough soil, definitely not wet), I couldn't, because if I don't set the global specular power to 0, it will be always a bit specular, which is not really realistic when facing the main light (ie. sun).
    There is a forum about the same issue with the built in standard terrain shader. https://forum.unity.com/threads/standard-terrain-shader-smoothness-solved.297691/
    any opinions ?
     
  41. lawsochi

    lawsochi

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    Of course, yes, yes, and then again YES))
     
  42. doublegumbo

    doublegumbo

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    I've been scanning the forum for an answer to this question: for the record, does this shader support non-terrain meshes? My precursory read says that it does. I'd love to roll my own terrains in Blender, vertex paint them in that program, and then apply this shader to them. Possible?

    thx!
    -g
     
  43. FargleBargle

    FargleBargle

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    This is a feature I'd like to see as well. Better yet would be the ability to use @jbooth's Vertex Painter right in Unity. At the moment (and I'd love for @AdamGoodrich or @NatureManufacture to correct me if I'm wrong) it looks like the CTS shader works on meshes as long as they have existing splat textures - so if you create a terrain in Unity, you can convert it to a mesh terrain and apply the existing splat. I don't think this method will work with vertex painted meshes. It looks like some additional mesh support may be coming though, as seen in post #1076. I'm looking forward to trying some of these new features out when they arrive, to see if they can be applied to scratch built vertex painted terrains, and Avatar-like floating mountains. ;)
     
  44. johnlanz

    johnlanz

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    Is it possible for you to create a demo as well for webgl2 and mobile?
     
  45. lumeneo

    lumeneo

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    Hi! I've got a deadline today.... and a problem I can't solve.

    In my project, the terrain is required to move back and forth in relationship to the Earth's core. (It's a simulation for a USGS talk tomorrow.)

    When I move the terrain, the mapped textures move with it.

    I can't seem to export it, or convert it to a mesh, I've run out of ideas... and I was up all night working, so I'm out of steam too.

    Can anyone suggest anything helpful? I have about 3 hours left.

    Many thanks in advance!!!
     
  46. elbows

    elbows

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    Since nobody else replied I will just throw out a random thought, a possible crude workaround:

    Can you cheat by moving everything else (earths core, camera etc) back and forth and keeping the terrain in one place, in a manner that makes it look like the terrain is the thing thats moving?
     
  47. lumeneo

    lumeneo

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    I tried that actually... the physics were not even close. It's for a scientific demo, so I couldn't get away with it. It has to show the core and mantle going in and out of sync. Thanks for giving it a shot!
     
  48. SirTwistedStorm

    SirTwistedStorm

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    Might be too late =(
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/47276
    For $25 this will convert a terrain to a mesh and it does transfer textures and trees, I don't think it does grass though but Gena would work if you already have it. Sorry I can't be more helpful.
     
  49. lumeneo

    lumeneo

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    Yeah, I keep hitting that result as a possibility... I was just searching for a script that can export splats, then I could use the infamous Terrain to Object... which is great, but doesn't attempt to create the splat... and here's where I'm just not sure, CTS uses multiple layers to achieve it's glory, and it's not clear that Terrain To Mesh will merge them.
     
  50. lumeneo

    lumeneo

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    Ass saved!
    So yeah, Terrain To Mesh works very well! It took care of my gorgeous but bloated CTS file.

    If you're stubborn and a perfectionist, on a deadline, like me, just let them take your money! haha
     
    SirTwistedStorm likes this.