Ferr2D Terrain Tool

If you do, you got another buyer

 

+1 for Unity 3.5.7 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6R

 

Was it mentioned at some point that you'd also like to create a 2D Lighting kit or vegetation kit similar to the UbiArt one, or did I imagine the lighting one?

 

Well, it seems like the verdict is in =D Next patch, I'll definitely try and make sure it works with 3.5.7!

I did mention that! Lighting is one of my favorite things ever, and I'm still hoping to. I just haven't had the time to get around to it. I'm also still trying to think of a way that doesn't involve Pro features, if I'm not mistaken, render to texture stuff is Pro only, right? Either way, I'll get to it sooner or later.

 

Render to texture stuff is indeed pro only.

However you could create most of the same effect using 'fake' lights, basically light shaft images with transparency, so long as they have a tinting option and an option to have 'fog' or something similar I'm pretty sure you could get the exact Rayman look if you wanted to.

Might I make a suggestion for the current Kit:

Layers, foreground background etc seperated by say 2 or 3 unity units, we tag an item foreground 1 or foreground 2 for example, of course we can move it about ourselves manually, however having it as part of the script could mean having a gradient of some sort darkening or lightning the background or foreground areas.

Blur, generally blur scripts seem to be Pro only, however if we could blur a foreground layer with a slider that affected the entire material then we'd be able to make some really nice effects, though this sort of goes hand in hand with the above I suppose.

Giving us the ability to decide if we want a repeat of 0.5 or 1.5 and whatnot, as sometimes when control points are close together the texture section between those 2 gets really squished.

Shaders:

A Rim lit shader, effectively its a shader that only lits the edges of a material but never the centre, I'd take transparency into account, I'm sure there's probably something that already exists for unity, but I've never seen anything like that for 2D in unity (a tiny amount of 2D specific shaders exist really).

Can you possible make the preview area in the material editor larger? Or perhaps make it a seperate window, as currently that little tiling window is so tiny I can't really make much use of it a lot of the time. I've attached a screenshot to show what I mean, I've cut out the other 50% of screen space thats just solid grey and unused. I think a lot of people would like this fix, or perhaps its already there and I've just overlooked it a lot.

On the subject of the material editor, could be possibly lock areas? If you look at the screenshot I have there I've got bourders that touch eachother, meaning its quite difficult to grab one without accidentally grabbing the other, being able to lock one, and thus turn off its 'edititability', I'm sure I'm not the only one with this issue though.



Sorry for that overly long list of suggestions, didn't mean for it to be that long, I am loving this kit though.

 

Rayman uses images for the shafts, and for at least a few of the fog layers. The lighting engine runs the rim lighting through a mask, and does the fancy tone/mood lights they show in the behind the scenes video.

 

Oh it uses masking for the rim lighting, hmm thats interesting, I wouldn't have thought of that, still I've no idea how to do that in unity,

I knew the first game used images for the shafts but I wasn't aware all the lighting in the second game is done the same way too, thats interesting.

 

Please don't be allergic to pro users, since pro users tend to have a larger budget. In any case, unity itself is available in pro and free, it just disables a couple of features.

If assets all go free-feature set only, they kind of do alienate pro users as well who look for ways to improve their games with render textures or speedups.

But if it can be done without compromise in free then of course.

 

Sorry, if I wasn't clear there, not all of the lighting in Legends is done the same way. They just still use scaled/stretched images for the shafts and a lot of the fog/atmosphere layers just as in Origins.

Legends then adds the new light engine on top of the tried and true methods. It runs the new environmental lighting system, and seems to take over some of the fog/ambient duties from the old system. Its most obvious use is in adding the subtle color shading all over the place, which really helps to give the game its "painterly" look. It's all about the (colored) lighting...

 

This is definitely one of the things I'm looking at right now, I keep forgetting how flexible the alpha blending stuff can be~

So basically, if you move the terrain back a bit on the z-axis, it would automatically get progressively darker? Or automatically moving "background" tagged objects back a few units? Not entirely sure I'm clear here, but when I get around into the lighting shader stuff, this should happen simply based on distance from camera while still giving you control over terrain color.

Rayman actually used entirely separate textures for blurred materials! They'd pre-blur them in photoshop, and treat them as separate objects. You could also do it no problem automatically with a fairly standard DOF post effect, but that would definitely be slower. My recommendation would definitely be the photoshop blur. Probably not a feasible idea for me to add in to it.

This! Yes~ I had no idea anyone would even be able to tell. I'll put this one in for sure =D

I'll definitely have one of these, probably mask based as idTaken methioned. I love to pieces some of the selective lighting stuff I've seen so far, I just hate having to use an additional texture to mask it out. Still worth it though =D This'll also probably be a pro feature, I can't really imagine doing this purely with alpha blending.

I usually have a terrain object with the current material up in the background for a more detailed preview. It updates live while you're making the material, and you can also check how corners interact and everything. I never really meant for that tiny preview to be anything other than.. a tiny preview.

This one's also a great idea =D I'll see if I can add this bit in!

I love the pro version, and I love performance! But I also really like being able to work with the free version, especially since I happen to fall in that camp too, when I'm not using my work computer. I'm most likely going to be doing both render textures -and- something else (surely that won't be a lot of work!). That way free users still get something good, but pro users get something better.

Oof, man that's a wall of text. Sorry about the lengthy reply guys!

 

Yeah I also imagine this to be more part of the lighting system honestly, then its set to distance from light (or fake light) and would make a lot more sense.

I see I'm not the only one who's peeked thoroughly at the innards of Rayman, so far I have indeed been using preblurred versions of things.

Could you attach it to the material and make it per material instead of a global setting, some materials its barely noticeable, whilst in others its pretty fugly.

That sounds good.

Thats how I've got it too actually, so its not a requirement, but I sort of wonder in that case what a preview window is really needed for if its not really intended to be used.

Yay, this is something that frustrates me a lot.

I think if its to be part of this kit then Pro Only might not be wise, seems kind of strange to half a kit half and half, but if its a seperate Kit I suppose you could go the Pro route really, Personally I don't have a Pro license for 4.1, only for 3.5 and unfortunatly I require some features in 4.1 for my game.

Sorry for forcing you to reply to a wall of text with another wall of text.

 

MAn it just keeps getting better and better!

I see there is some interest in how i do my textures, and ive just upgraded my net so i can stream just that. If the interest is high enough, i'll start streaming everything i do for the rest of my game

 

Yes, I would be very interested in that.

 

i tried livestream.com but it seems extremly gpu and cpu heavy to run, anyone know a better option? I can hear my PC work overtime when i use Procaster from livestream...

 

@ Kelde :
Your work is wonderful and it would be great to show us a lot... to learn !!!

6R

 

You could stream via youtube, I've seen people do it but I don't know if you need a special account type for that.
Alternativly you could simply record and then upload it afterwards.

The biggest question here is, are you for hire , your work is awesome, can't wait to see a video.

 

record your screen and upload on YT

 

haha thanks, but no,not yet If our company goes down the drain then sure, i'll rent myself out

Yeah ive tried Camtasia wich is....overkill, and it seems to freeze alot. I'll figure out a way, ill most likely do youtube vidoes since i'll have to make several clips into one When i do these i dont really spend alot of time on them, its autopilot so hopefully someone finds it useful.

Im guessing u want realtime and not some crazy speedpaint thing, i personally hate those, u learn nothing, u just get unmotivated and want to find a "real" job..

 

I notice i enjoy making Ferr2D textures so much i have a question, for everyone interested.

Ive used Ferr2D so much now i know basicly everything there is to know, artist wise. I know absolutely no code, thats Adrien's playground(the programmer)

The assetstore sells Textures for 3D models, and art assets specific for cetain tools.

Would it be wrong of me to set up shop selling Ferr2D terrains at an extremly low price? I'll have to ask Nick as i dont want ot step on his toes in any ways, he's one of the nicest and fastest responders that has an Asset up.

Ive seen numerous games using the same art assets over and over in games, BitGem is a good example as he makes superb stuff, and people buy it and use in their games.

I would love to provide developers with "lesser" artskills terrains for this tool, and maybe even take requests incase they dont want something everyone else is using.

But like i said, Nick would have to clear me on this one, it would be a separate thing so.

Here's the "style" im currenlty using, and the one i like to do the most. I made these from my atlases so didnt include all the caps,sides and additional decor textures, but u get the idea.


had to make it a compressed .jpg so excuse the poor quality and grainy picture, Unity didnt want my 10mb png

 

Kelde, can you upload to youtube an screencast showing how you do the textures? It will be better than live stream. If you use Mac you can try Screenflow to record the video.

 

yes i intend to, looking at software to use for it now, and music, dont wanna bore u guys while i work realtime

 

Low price pack for Ferr2D with so nice textures would be great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sure !!!
6R

 

I think selling backgrounds would be good, people could vote on areas like 'Ice stage' 'hell stage' or whatnot.

I think your art is awesome, the only thing that I noticed is that its very similar art style to Rayman, which is great because their art is great, but it is their art, if you're not making money from it nobody cares but if its too similar to something of theirs then its possible they'd file some sort of complaint or worse.

 

I would buy...create as layered psd files so, then the owner could modify and re color.

 

+1 : Backgrounds would be great too !!!
6R

 

Heres the thing. I started painting stylized/cartoony to do 3d textures because its a style i personally enjoy looking at. Stylized looks like any other stylized, so yeah, it can be very hard as an artist to break away from something they used as inspiration for such a long time. Rayman came way after for me, and simply blew my mind. Its extremly sketchy and yet holds its own simply because they use color so well. Im not too worried about beeing complained about or filed against because u cant do that, its a style. Its like a rap artist filing against another rap artist for using the same genre.

It is MY style, i have quite a few, but i wont argue with it not resembling rayman because it certainly does, major inspirationsource to me. If u google stylized textures or the likes u will come across tons that also resembles rayman, in a way.

I will ofcourse not make textures so ppl think its from rayman, im not even skilled enough to come that close to their stuff, im selftaught like the ice texture there, very standard stuff u will see in torchlight, diablo ans games using that cartoony concept art style.

But hey, if it looks like rayman, its very cool

Oh and read this as if im smiling all the time, hope it doesnt sound harsh?

I downloaded Camstudio, seems like a good screenrecorder. Will have a video for u guys in about 2 days, wanna add music and stuff so its easier to look at

 

It doesn't sound harsh at all ^___^, your art is friggin awesome honestly.

 

If you make textue packages to sell, please, do them in a higher resolution, like 4096x4096 pixels.

 

U want em that large for a 2D game? Raymans largest seamless texture is 1024x1024,. I can ofc but its gonna be a serious filesize for a 2d game texture if u wanna use that all over the place, right?

 

Yes, keep in mind Retina display screens. The current textures are upscaled on most HD screens.
You should keep in mind that your work should prepared for 4K screens or any screen resolution, not just desktop or mobile screens. It should be the same for you, just start the texture in a 4096x4096 with a reduced visual zoom.

By having a 4096x4096 pixels texture, you can keep it that size for the future, and now use a 2048x2048 or whatever the develop wants on their game. Just to give you an idea, on iPad Retina, to fill a single background you need a 2048x2048 texture, the iPad resolution is: 2048x1536 pixels.

 

Wow these are AWESOME!!! I don't see any reason why you shouldn't upload these on the asset store! Of course I can't speak for koujaku but it seems to me it can only help sales of his asset!

Also FRAPS might be a viable option to record your art sessions.

 

I have another question about procedural generation. Can you back and edit existing nodes on the terrain and add new ones in-between existing nodes? I'm sure it's possible to destroy the existing terrain and rebuild it with the modificaitons but that would be expensive.

I'm remembering a first person shooter from a few years ago (called Fracture I think?) where you could raise and lower terrain with a gun. Something like that could be cool with this system.

 

We want to know the same as we have a small gameidea we wanna make in like 1 week, to test how it can be done. I belive Ferr2D will be our lifesaver if it works like we hope it will. Now...if Ferr2D could only be destructible...

 

I don't have a simple interface for inserting between points yet (I'll add one =D), but either way, the mesh has to be rebuilt from scratch right now =/ I might be able to only update sections of the mesh, but I don't have that in the tool right now, I'll sit on that one a little, see if I can come up with a solution for that.

Right now, rebuilding a mesh from scratch -could- be feasible during realtime if the terrain is small.

For a 12 point terrain, build times take 1-2ms, on my laptop.
24 points, 3-6ms
36 points, 8-12ms

Probably not the most fantastic numbers ever, but that wasn't exactly my initial intent.

I should also have news for another update soon~ Small changes mostly, as I've been really busy lately, but hopefully useful ones =D JSON save/load among other things.

 

Hey, just bought this tool (great job btw) and noticed a few things.

Firstly, turning on smooth path doesn't seem to be corrected for pixels per unit. I use 1 for pixels per unit and it places textures extremely close together along the edges with smooth path on (also nearly crashes unity).

Also, turning off the 'simple' setting in the material editor and editing individual components is not saved when going from one edge piece to another. If I go back, simple is turned on and all my values are overwritten.

Finally, I just wanted to add my +1 to getting lights working with this, I feel it is a much needed feature and would really appreciate it!

Thanks for such a great tool and all your support!

 

Hey koujaku,

I'm still following your progress in the hopes one day I can use Ferr2D for my games.

Looks like you solved one of the issues: the ability to override the textures on certain segments.

The other big issue I see, for me, is the ability to have a smooth surface to ski on. Do you have, or plan on having, different collider options for the terrain? What I need is the ability to adjust the resolution of the collider geometry for certain parts of the landscape.

Currently I use RageSpline's "Ouline Mesh Collider" physics options which I then have to blend-in/overlap with the normal meshcollider areas. You can see this in the following image.



It would be nice if, just like you can adjust the material/texture, you could also adjust the collider properties.

-Jeff

 

did a quick and dirty test texture, so its very sloppy done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPEm_hdDb8

now that i know my recording works i can start making some more tutorial like videos for this, but uploading to youtube is INCREDIBLY slow.... I kinda have to speed it up or divide it into parts, that video was 50 minutes long, had to set speed tpo 400% so make the file smaller.

Anyway, have a look, expect more high quality textures soon

 

Fantastic ! It's always incredible for me to see a so nice work from scratch...
Thanks Kelde.
6R

 

I've for some reason never tried a PPU of 1! I'll look into that~ For the 'simple' setting, I've no idea, you're using 1.0.5, right? I know there were issues with that in an earlier version.

AMAZING! I would definitely watch more of these =D

The smoothing bit is definitely high on my list, and I -will- get to it at some point! It should help with texture stretching along badly skewed quads too, which'll be nice. When you say adjusting the collider resolution, are you just referring to making smooth surfaces, or do you use a variety of collision resolutions on the same terrain?

Either way, when I get around to fixing the smoothing, it -should- work well enough for what you're looking at.

 

I just need to be able to make the snowy surfaces smooth enough to ski on. Currently, for each snow section I manually adjust the number vertices of the collider and corresponding mesh. This is partly due to how the version of RageSpline I'm using works. If I create a very long snow section, I have to manually set the vertice count of the collider and mesh higher to get a smooth surface. Would prefer to just set some minimum collider resolution for all snow surfaces and have it handle things.

To understand how I currently have to do things, here is a sort of in-progress view of a level in Krashlander. I purposefully made the lower snow section low resolution so you could see the difference between that and the actual "smooth" snow section above. The higher resolution of the top snow section is more in-line with what I require.

I also pulled the "fill" area down so you can see how I have to manually over lap the snow sections and the fill areas. Bit of a pain.

As you can see, this is not an ideal way to create my landscapes. Would much prefer what I'm seeing in your tool.



For performance reasons,I don't want all my surfaces to be as high a resolution as the snow sections.

I will patiently wait for you updates. Very excited to use this tool. Especially if Kelde starts releasing his awesome textures!

-Jeff

 

I 'hate' stuff like this, always leaves me massively jealous and super critical of my own attempts at game art.

You sir were not meant to work in dentistry. I follow your blog - update it more!

 

I'm pretty sure I'm on 1.0.5, I bought and dl'ed it just two days ago. Not really sure how to check the version.

I'm able to repro the 'simple' setting case by starting with 'top', adding a few 'body' pieces of equal length and size, incrementing their positions by width, then having a final body piece that is wider than the first few pieces. Then click to the 'left' piece, and click back to the 'top'. I'm guessing that it's checking that the first couple pieces are incrementing in a 'simple' pattern, and if so, assigns the simple setting to all pieces.

I'm seeing now that this would be a pretty rare happenstance (we are now just making textures that conform easily to the 'simple setting' anyways), I just triggered it when I first bought this and was playing around and got confused/frustrated when my settings weren't being saved. So, sorry to nitpick such a small problem, after playing around with the tool some more I'm finding it to be a lot more solid than my first impressions.

Thanks for being so speedy and helpful, really excited to see where this tool goes.

 

A lot of parameters to be able to adjust the platforms and the sidewalls ! Great !

First I wanted to (try to) "copy" Kelde textures then I have decided to use my Cartoon textures instead of Stylized textures, here.
As you can see, a little bit shadow gives a nice effect. Thanks to the clever Ferr2D editor I can use the same texture to keep shadows or not.



6R

 

haha thanks, no i hate dentistry

yeah i think ill have to do that, never did blogs very much so updating them tends to slip my mind!

 

Ferr2D Terrain Tool is very interesting with this kind of textures too :



6R

 

Here our test :




Ferr2D is gona be used in our game

 

So it looks like 4.3 is out! I'm downloading it right now, and I'll be making sure Ferr2D Terrain works fine with it. I expect there shouldn't really be any issues with it, but I do intend to work on adding support for those sweet 2D colliders they've got =D Expect related news shortly!

Also, I -love- seeing what you guys are doing with it! Those are definitely some badass looking bits of terrain, can't wait to see more of 'em!

@jeffweber, thanks for the breakdown there, that's definitely insightful! Looks like a lot of work too~

 

Looking forward to this taking advantage of the new 2D features. Really loving using Ferr so far, just need to get my own textures loaded up!

Tried using a polygon collider set up to match the shape of some decorative terrain, however both Ferr2D and unity's 2D system seem to share hotkeys meaning I keep moving colliders when trying to create terrain and creating terrain when I want to move colliders haha.

Tried adjusting unity's 2D hotkeys however it gives me only a select few options which appear conflict with other things on my mac. Is it easy to swap the shift - create point hotkey system in Ferr somehow? Hoping it's as simple as renaming something haha.

 

Hey there! Just bought your plugin! It's really awesome, I was looking for something like Rayman Legend's platform tool, and this is exactly what I wanted.

AAAAND I have one bug report for you

Physics 2D (included in Unity 4.3) doesn't seem to collide with your plugin's collision generator!

Tryied it with a simple 2d box collider + 2d rigidbody, did not work. Then tryied it with a simple box collider + rigidbody and it worked.

It's probably easy to fix, I guess, but I think you needed to know this!

 

Unfortunately, the 3D colliders just don't interact with the 2D stuff, it's an entirely separate system. However, I've got a build with Ferr2DT generating 2D colliders properly! I'm also working on fixing up the undo system, and yes, working with the those shortcuts! I've been super busy at work this week, so I'll probably have this done over the weekend, along with a few other nice tweaks, sorry for the delay there!

If you're in desperate need of something compatible with 4.3, just let me know, and I'll get you the current build! It should be perfectly useable, just lots of warnings, and not streamlined for the new workflow at all.