CTS - Complete Terrain Shader - Deprecated

Awesome tutorial Patrick!!!

 

I'm making a system to detect when my player wanders off the path. So far so good, got it detecting what texture is below (had to disable strip textures, although I wonder how I'd detect the texture if I leave this enabled...)

Anyway, in the CTS profile I can slide the brightness up and down. I'd like to lerp a fade to black if my player veers too far away from the path on every texture but the path itself.

How do I access the CTS profile in real time?

 

CTS creates a custom material for your terrain according to your profile settings. You can access this material and change it accordingly during runtime. You only need to figure out which CTS profile setting translates to which terrain material setting. Here is how you can check:

Select your terrain, switch to the terrain settings in the terrain component in the inspector. You should see that there is a custom material applied to the terrain. Double click on the material entry, so your inspector will display the material settings itself.
Look at the list of settings here. You should see basically the same settings that you have available in your CTS profile editor, just not formatted as nicely. But you can still edit those and the changes will be applied to your terrain. Here it is important that you find the setting you want to edit, I think the brightness just influences the color value for the textures, so you probably need those.

During runtime, you should be able to access this material with

Code (CSharp):

1. Material material = terrain.materialTemplate;

(where "terrain" is a reference to your terrain of course) and then you should be able to change the settings on the material like

Code (CSharp):

1. material.SetFloat("_Terrain_Smoothness", 1);

Changing the colors will need some extra work, since those are stored in Vector4 objects in the material. This should work in theory:

Code (CSharp):

1. material.SetVector(Shader.PropertyToID("_Texture_1_Color"), new Vector4(redValue, greenValue, blueValue, shinynessValue));

(where "redValue" etc. are set to the corresponding color values that you want to set.)
If I remember correctly, Unity will keep changes on a material as they are when you exit play mode, so you maybe need to reset those to the default values as well when the game stops, not 100% sure though.

 

Hi @FrozenEmpire - I was going to fire up amplify tonight when I got home to achieve something similar - I'm proc-gen ing with Map Magic, and need to punch arbitrary holes in the terrain. Do you mind sharing details of your approach?
Thanks in advance!

 

No worries, I sent you a PM...

 

Hi Adam,
New user question: I have a terrain that I have shaped. I did not texture it, but added CTS. If I add a profile, do I automatically get a lot of textures? Just started trying it, but each profile seems to look the same, just rock. Maybe I'm not clicking an "apply" button?

 

A CTS profile only contains settings for how the terrain textures will be rendered, but it does not contain any logic regarding where which one of these textures will appear on the terrain. In other words, you still need to texture the terrain manually or with another tool before or after you use CTS to benefit from the improved rendering.

 

Hi,
There is one question.
When using Swamp, is there a way to determine if the foot is a water field?

 

You use water as snow or as simple terrain texture?

 

Yes,
I'm trying to make a puddle using Snow Settings.

 

Can I change the layers?

 

What do you mean by that?

 

I mean like that you said that layers is inportant, small first then big.. What if I F***ed up and have it the other way around? Can i re order the splats?

 

Hi,

Does CTS support Vulkan?

 

No. Best way is to get your textures right first and then build your terrain / splats.

There is no specific integration. If Vulcan supports use of Texture arrays then you should be fine, and i believe it does.

 

Thank you. I want to use Vulkan in my project and I seek a perfect shader for my terrain. I don't know what is best for Vulkan.

 

Getting lots of errors in the console during compile-time.

Code (CSharp):

1. Menu Component/CTS/Set Linear Deffered can't be checked because doesn't exist
2. Menu Component/CTS/Add CTS To Terrain can't be checked because doesn't exist
3. Menu Component/CTS/Create And Apply Profile can't be checked because doesn't exist
4. Menu Component/CTS/Add Weather Manager can't be checked because doesn't exist
5. Menu Component/CTS/Add World API Integration can't be checked because doesn't exist
6. Menu Component/CTS/Show Forum... can't be checked because doesn't exist
7. Menu Component/CTS/Show Tutorials... can't be checked because doesn't exist
8. Menu Component/CTS/Show Documentation... can't be checked because doesn't exist
9. Menu Component/CTS/Please Review CTS... can't be checked because doesn't exist
10. Menu Component/CTS/About/Nature Manufacture... can't be checked because doesn't exist
11. Menu Component/CTS/About/Procedural Worlds... can't be checked because doesn't exist
12. Menu Component/CTS/Set Linear Deffered can't be checked because doesn't exist
13. Menu Component/CTS/Add CTS To Terrain can't be checked because doesn't exist
14. Menu Component/CTS/Create And Apply Profile can't be checked because doesn't exist
15. Menu Component/CTS/Add Weather Manager can't be checked because doesn't exist
16. Menu Component/CTS/Add World API Integration can't be checked because doesn't exist
17. Menu Component/CTS/Show Forum... can't be checked because doesn't exist
18. Menu Component/CTS/Show Tutorials... can't be checked because doesn't exist
19. Menu Component/CTS/Show Documentation... can't be checked because doesn't exist
20. Menu Component/CTS/Please Review CTS... can't be checked because doesn't exist
21. Menu Component/CTS/About/Nature Manufacture... can't be checked because doesn't exist
22. Menu Component/CTS/About/Procedural Worlds... can't be checked because doesn't exist
23.  

I'm using Win10, Unity 2018.1.2f1, CTS 1.7.0.

Any ideas?

 

Addressed in this thread...
https://forum.unity.com/threads/cts-complete-terrain-shader.477615/page-38#post-3495898

 

Hey guys. My project won't export to windows with CTS in use in unity 2017.3. I get shader compile errors. Any ideas?

 

Hello. Is there any progress or may be estimated date for CTS update with LightWeight support?

 

Hello!! I have exported a mesh terrain with gaia.... How do I apply textures on it ? Using cts too

 

hey guys, does anyone knows why when i push on play button i lose my textures and cts leave just with base material all over terrain ? do you know how to solve it ?

 

Not sure , but I think you want the tutorial at the top of this page that says how to use CTS on a mesh terrain exported
by Gaia ... https://forum.unity.com/threads/cts-complete-terrain-shader.477615/page-39#post-3519524

By @ForceVFX

 

NIICE!! Didnt find that one

 

Hello Im only using Gaia & CTS, i exported base map and normals with cts... is splatmaps to export with gaia? EDIT:

NVM, I got it working =) Thanks for the tutorial!

 

When do we get HD render pipeline support? I tried to export a mesh terrain with cts basic mesh shader and all the maps but its purple... When I changed to hdrender < lit .. And assigned the bas map and normals it looked like the terrain but without any detail.. just color..

 

I would not expect HDRP support for many assets that do stuff involving rendering at this point. Its a lot of work, Unity are still making quite a few changes to the way the pipeline works, and there is very little support for terrain with HDRP at all. Also, aside from some very basic support of terrain they might be providing in the interim, all sorts of Unity terrain system changes are planned for 2018.3, which is also the version of Unity that they hope to have HD pipeline a bit more finished for.

So, whilst I will shower any asset store developers who provide early HDRP support with my thanks, I dont expect it or really ask for it at this stage. How true this is depends on the type of asset, but terrain & rendering/shader stuff sounds like the least likely combination to expect early compatibility with to me.

 

LW and HD pipeline support is dependent on Amplify support, which is dependent on Unity support.

Unity still has not stabilised the HD pipeline, so do not expect anything from us until this is stabilised, and Amplify has supported it.

We have implemented support for the LW pipleine, and this has exposed some issues that need to be addressed by Amplify before we can release it. As soon as they update and we confirm that it works we will make a release. We are hoping that this will be relatively soon.

And in other news - I have some code from Bart that should enable mesh blending - and I need to do an integration of this into the terrain - so all things going well - maybe we should get a release for that and the bogus U2018 error messages later this week.

 

Sounds awesome =)

 

Yeap I can't wait

 

Finally,... can't wait

 

um..question.

Is Unity's new Render pipeline dependent on a third party solution... Amplify?

 

No.
It's pretty complicated. Unity now is developing srp which is pretty fluid. Huge amount of changes in short time. It's hard to support by everyone.

We made our CTS at amplify shader editor with our and amplify boost (custom solutions). Unity is in contact with amplify guys during srp development, because they want to keep it stable during srp development. This means that Amplify always have fresh info about what will be changed and when. We met small problem during cts upgrade and we wait for fix. I hope it will takes only few days, shaders are already convered but they need small fix to become fully functional. They even render properly on srp atm when you hit play button.

 

I have sort of the same issue. did you get a resolution for this?

 

We have not seen this. Can you please lodge a support request with more details so that we can try and replicate it. Support URL is in my signature.

 

I'm sorry these are basic questions but I have watched several of the CTS and Gaia videos and have not seen this covered. Where can I see an image or other representation of each of the textures in CTS? Is there an easy way to view/select these? The thumbnails in Unity are so small they are really not useful. This does not have to be within Unity, I'm just trying to understand what is in the CTS packaged textures.

Also, I'd like to make a stone path with moss on some of the stones. It looks like that is two different textures. Is there a way combine these?

Thank you.

 

There is a small image preview inside of the CTS profile. Not enough really to get a great sense of what the texture looks like, done more as a simple way to visually validate that you have applied the right texture. As it is a simple thing to to look at a texture in the inspector, detailed views is not something we felt that needed to be implemented.

If you want to make a stone path with moss then you can either create your own stone / moss path texture, or use features like height blending in CTS.

 

We will be making an experiment with the next CTS that might help with the compilation times.

Previously we were putting all the CTS shaders in the resources directory to ensure that you always have them all at run time... but as most people wont be using them all - just the one they selected - this is probably contributing to slow build times.

So we will move them out of there with next release and perhaps this might make a difference.

 

Is there anyway to use CTS to have a different texture render in the close field compared to far? For example, close it renders as dirt and far it would render as vegetation covered?

 

Hmmm... you could perhaps use a color map and blend that in at a distance.

 

Any ETA on that fix?

 

Hi adam,

I want to finaly use CTS to check texture weight to detect texture under my player's feet. There is only a little post about that on procedural worlds.Am i missing something?
Could you please briefly tell me how to start and how to manage my script?
thx in advance

Cheers

 

Working on it at moment - plus a bunch more - hope to have out by end of weekend:

* Material caching system, and general multi terrain speedups
* Mesh blending
* Improved normals exporter
* U2018 bogus annoying error bug

CTS does provide this capability - any old script that does this will work - if - you disable the strip textures optimisation in your profile.

The downside of this is that CTS will no longer be a 1 pass shader, so there is a performance impact on terrains with more than 4 texture sets.

Unfortunately there is no way around that - Unity hard codes the number of passes.

 

I didn't know about that issue I have 8 textures so i will give a try without the strip texture option.
Can u give me the syntax for refering to Cts textures. A little exemple of such a useful technique would be much appreciated by many people!

quote from procedural wolrds forum: a bit mysterious for an amateur like me!
float[] textureMix = GetTerrainTextureMix(position, terrainData, terrain.GetPosition());
int textureIndex = GetTerrainTextureIndex(position, textureMix);

Cool, thought it would never come because it was already a NatureM product!
thanks guys!

 

So... I have been experimenting with the MenuComponent error, and trying to find a work around that would allow CTS to stay where it is in the Component menu....

The Unity bug is documented here : https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...be-checked-because-doesnt-exist-error-message

Anyways, looks like its completely broken and I am going to have to move CTS so that it will now have its own menu - which is painful as now all of our tutorials will be out of date and that will confuse people.

In the mean time, as has been commented previously - to fix remove "Component/" from every line that starts with [MenuItem] in CompleteTerrainShaderEditor.cs.

The general structure is:

From: [MenuItem("Component/CTS/Add Weather Manager", false, 43)]

To: [MenuItem("CTS/Add Weather Manager", false, 43)]

 

Hi,

I'm new to CTS and am just playing around with it in VR. I still have to play around with it a lot more but a couple of observations so far. I'm using the Steam plugin with VRTK on a one of demo terrains that come with NatureManufacturers Landscape pack.

I add CTS to the scene and it works great. I've run Basic, Advanced and Tessellation. The first 2 with no issues but my VR doesn't like the Tessellation, it looks great and adds a really nice level of detail but the are flickering black bands across the headset (not on screen).

I then added VRWorks from Nvidia running SLI and MRS.

That's been fine pre CTS (well, MRS has some issues), but now has the flickering black bands with all 3 shader modes. I wondered if it has to do with the custom shaders and Single Pass Stereo - there is a note on the NVIDIA VRWorks page about it.​

​

If anyone has any experience and tips about running CTS with VR, I'd be interested to hear it.​

​

Cheers

Chris​

 

Oh man that sounds like alot of work for you ! I dont generally care so much about the errors but thanks for the fix, its still a bit annoying so .. Hows it going with Gaia II ?

 

There is some interesting stuff happening with Unity terrain at the moment. We will see how that pans out and what the impact will be.

 

Okay, intersting stuff ay(?) Gotta go and check it out.

 

Hi there.
I recently just got this, and straight away im having issues.
1.
When applying the Unitypackage, into the Projects under Assets, You cannot move the CTS folder into another Sub folder to keep Your Game clean. (i have a Plugin Unity Package folder keeping all the unity packages together. (Cts no longer works with lots of errors)
2. (most importantly)
Ive been working on a project for a while now, and already have a Terrain made, but have been desperate to find a tessellation plugin to bring my textures to life.
Having applied CTS too the terrain, and having created a profile. I cannot place the Profile into the Terrain's profiles slot. I get:
"Base.mat' is not a valid asset file name."
"Base.mat failed"

anyone have any idea what is going on here?
thanks xx