Full sized planets for Unity3D -- interesting?

This plugin does not and has not to take care of the type of game is the target, it's not the task of the producer.
The producer makes an "all purpose" plugin that generates planets as detailed as possible.
It's up to the game producers to use it the right way.
In example, you could use the planets in a Elite style game only as "fillers", where in reality the only parts of the planet used are spaceports.
Or you could make a huge MMORPG where are the same players to build up stuff on the planets.

Planets in the demo are very small compared to Earth.
I don't know if it's possible to make larger ones because as Imerso said, I'm not a customer yet but I suppose yes.
About comparison with a real picture, you can't see anything with a cloudy sky and everything looks flat.
Apart this, you usually don't want a flat surface in a game, it looks boring as hell and quite useless (not very fun to fly over it), so, often in games there are many more mountains than in reality.
Keep in mind you can meet a huge quantity of variation in landscapes even only in our Solar System.

 

No, no, dear. I should have added a smiling emoticon for you to know that I was in good mood.

That other (also under development) project is quite nice --- not only the engine is amazing, but the game as well. But then, given your marketing and consequent thread hijacking, I was asking if you have access to their source-code, or at least a multiple planets demo, because Etherea1 supporters already do.

No problems at all, my friend. Sorry if the quick reply sounded like that.

Cheers.

 

Oh god, ok.

No, I don't have access to anything, I only like to watch how these things are evolving.
And I didn't intend to hijack the thread, but it's always good to see what the competition has done around... they are not on Unity anyway.
They are not giving away multiple planets demo but there are many videos and one especially impressive with thousands of stars on screen each of them clickable...
Anyway, it's not a race between them and you, I was just watching around and found that.
To be precise, I was watching about the Infinite Detail engine when I stumbled on it

 

Amazing work here Imerso! Keep it up!

I will definitely buy this system when it's completed and available at the asset store.

Q: Will you improve the shaders for land and sea before release?

Feature suggestion: Sea waves! as seen in this xna project...

 

For those trying to get some additional information about the Etherea1 project, the Unity3D realtime multi-planet extension:



There is a WebPlayer demo available here:

http://etereo.com.br/WebPlayer (~7mb)

The WebPlayer is adjusted for average tesselation/quality, to run in realtime under a broad number of configurations. Although real size planets are supported through runtime, the WebPlayer is showing scaled down planets.

The Etherea1 extension is still a work in progress, but its full C#/CG source-code is already available for purchasing.

Pre-Buying you get:

- full C# / CG source-code with no hidden secrets;
- free source-code updates with bug-fixes and new features being implemented;
- access to an online repository for easier source-code updating.

 

Sorry, Megamaltese... I must admit I don't know what point you are trying to make. I'm also confused as to which of the two (Imerso's Etheria project, or the posted Infinity project) you are talking about, now.

I posted my comments as a response to the Infinity project video.

I felt that the terrain in the infinity project video had some terrible stepping in the terrain.

I felt that many of the "example planets" (even from the XNA project) have huge issues with scale compared to real planets or planet-objects. This may be due to the scale of the terrain as much or more than the absolute scale of the planet. In the XNA project example, judging by the "speed" value, I'd suggest that it's the scale of the terrain rather than the plane. A small move required a speed of several thousand kph. Looking at the video around 2:00 in, a simple move would be between 800 and 2500 kph.

Now, I'm supporting Imerso and his work. I think this is a great project.

To quote myself:

I don't have a project to put this system in, so I can't justify the cost, but if I did, I'd certainly give it a drive.

 

Cool, that was a misunderstanding, I talked about Imerso system

Yes there are some planets with huge terracing but that's just to show up what their system is capable of.
Actually I think their planet look a bit more realistic than Imerso's solution. Of course his Etherea is still in development so there's good hope he'll increase the planet look as well.

I don't get it exactly... you mean that the planets look "wrong" because they are small?
Well first of all there's no point in making real size planets for games, even though it may be give a good impression of what a system is capable... I don't know if it would kill performance or not... I think it would have some impact but I'm not sure.
Second, it's missing a lot of features to make it complete... first of all clouds (which I don't know if Imerso will take care of) and surface meshes, which would give a lot of detail that is essential to perceive distance in panoramas and make them complete.

 

The Inifnity Engine is a beautiful work in progress and for those who are new to it, I have been following it for about 10 years. I think getting some ideas or inspiration from it is nice but they are two entirely different projects in the sense of time in development. Plus Infinity is an in-house project for the use of their game only not available to other developers. So I have been eying it with envy for the last 10 years or so as well which is why this plug-in is so cool.

 

This plug-in is made by one men in-house.
SO its even more amazing knowing the fact that most likely there is few people working on the Infinity one and only one on this one.
You need to also remember that just like imerso said:
1. Unity limits him of what he can put in the plug-in. ( so we can only dream of what he really could do with this. )
2. They are working 10 years on this imerso few months.
3. We good information ( people who bought it ) that imerso is working on something huge. Because he didn't put any info on the forum it is my interest to not do id to. ( i don't know why maybe its a present for you guys ).

Infinity is awesome don't understand me wrong but you must remember that they plugin is so pretty because every planets takes HUGE amount of space on the hard-drive. Imerso planets as pretty as their are take only few KB. So in theory you can make a game with realistic planets Sc-fi with landing on the surface and all that good stuff on the phone !.
We as a developers need to understand the most important thing that starts to be forgot by AAA developers. I will quote my friend from the company. " Game is a creation of mind hearth and soul not someones wallet " So graphic is not everything .
I hope infinity will make great success like every other game project but if it comes to what project is much more amazing on its possibility Imerso plug-in leaves infinity far behind.

 

Hi Imerso

for some reason i do not get any mountains or water on my planets
i just run your web demo with safari on Mac 10.7
see picture

any idea ?

thanks

Norbert

 

Please red the forum content before asking any question because it is high possibility that someone already ask the question .

Now your question:
This plug-in works on Mac but it is VERY limited on mac now. Imerso is working very hard now to improve the plug-in to the point that it will work exactly the same on mac like on windows.
So in short. You don't see a lot of things because you are using mac .
But don't be worried it will soon support mac as well.

 

Hi Thinker

thanks for clarifying

will wait until its ready

Norby

 

Any update on this project? It's been a bunch of weeks/month now... no updated demo (webplayer or youtube)... Still hoping for Mac support (I will purchase once that is available).

 

Does anyone who bought Etherea1 have any cool screenshots they can post that give us an idea what *other* people have been able to do with this?

 

Wow I just tried it out and its amazing!
I cant wait til vegetation and structures can be created
A true space exploration game would be insaaaane

 

The new demo is just posted at http://www.etereo.com.br/WebPlayer.







(Compatible with Windows and Macintosh)

IMPORTANT! At this moment, the Asset Store version is *very* outdated. If you buy from there, you'll need to either contact me directly or wait for them to update the source-code to the latest version.

Buying from me you will get the FULL PROJECT source-code for only $99 -- now I think that is a bargain, sincerely, for the amount of work I spent on it and what it can already do -- plus access to the source repository and free access to ANY future updates.

Many thanks,


imerso

 

Imerso,
The project has improved greatly but I think still falls short of being usable commercially for just a few reasons.

The Planet rendering breaks up terribly when approaching or leaving. There is no distant point of light to move towards or away from.


On the surface, pointy artefacts really kill the effect.


Although generally the collision is working, I went through the surface on two occasions.
The serious Lod Popping when approaching the Planet is an effect killer also.

Keep up the excellent work.

 

Sorry, shortly will be uploading a new update with MAC compatibility enabled.

 

This first issue is a matter of adjusting near/far planes to accomodate your planets from a far distance. That is sometimes a bit tricky, though.

Yes, I need to agree here. This bug must be fixed asap.

Hmm both are easily solved with parameters tuning, I'll add this issue to my personal list of things to discuss with the supporters list.

Thanks, Daniel!

imerso

 

Hey, Imerso

Quick Question - Do you intend to add Linux support to Ethera1?

Let me know - I am buying allot of things right now

 

I don't think he can test Linux until Unity supports Linux which won't be until August...

 

I know I just want to know if he intends on supporting it.

Never said if he could test it.

 

Hey HeadClot. When it becomes available, I'll surely test it and try to start supporting Linux as well.

Your earlier support will always incentive the further development of Etherea1. Please consider supporting. =)

Thanks,

imerso

 

I read this whole thread through and checked the web demo. To me it looks like some amazing tech, really inspiring. I guess there would always be a use for something like this in a space combat game or the like. If you clean it up and get a proper community going you could well become a featured tool for unity!

 

Truely amazing to watch. This asset will have so much potential over the coming years. I can't wait to see it develop.

 

For fun and as a proof-of-concept, I have now a private personal project using Etherea1 for Unity3D:

The link to the youtube video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCOaUVhcQYo


I will be expanding the concept as time permits.


Thanks,

imerso

 

Amazing work, had a project on my mind for yrs now and this is the key to making it happen, I will be purchasing in the near future.

 

Hell yeah dude! What's the sea shader? IT looks EEEEEEPIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!

 

This sir is epic. I am so excited about what you have shown and done here. Any news on Indie version yet? I will purchase in the near future if there is.

 

Sounds cool.

 

I have some bad news for the Indie people:

At this moment I can't recommend the Indie version as its visual quality is not even close to the Pro version.

Unity3D does a very good job hiding some needed GPU features from the Indie version, and although still technically possible, I don't know when I'll have the required energy to do all the needed work to make it run under Unity3D Indie at realtime speeds.

Making something that will run as a slide-show does not make any sense for game development.

So, the conclusion is: Etherea1 is a Pro (Win/Mac) only extension, I'm sorry.


Cheers,

imerso

 

Hey. No problem! Just means it will look and perform better.

 

I went to preview this, and the site gives me an error:

 

Not sure whether it's Portuguese or Spanish or Italian or whatever but the general notion I'm receiving is that the site is down.

But you've probably gathered that already.

 

Is this project still active and ongoing and is there still a discount for direct buy? Also your down site doesn't help the sales pitch.

 

sparky8251 yes this project is still very much a live and active you don't have to be worried about it.
I am sure imerso is still working on this project you must understand that this is a highly advance next generation plug-in that takes a lot of time and energy to complete.

I am working on this plug-in my self for many many days and i must say that with few changes in the option can give stunning results YET i think we can have much much more !. If i could advice or ask for few changes than it would be:

1. Give all the textures option to add normal map just like water already have. You can really add a lot of realistic normal map to the simple stone textures making mountains look much better.

2. Water separate sphere. With that we can really add underwater level and not flat plane .

3. ( most important to me at least ) as we know we have moons asteroids and planets in this plug-in but what we need A LOT is the sun the center of Solar System. I know that simple large sphere with glow on it would be enough but i wonder if we can use this plug-in to make something more organic that would really remind of a sun.

Keep up the good work !

 

I know a project like this takes time and energy to complete which is kinda why I was wondering if it was active, glad to hear it is. Still wondering about the direct buy discount though, and the down site.

 

To people that didn't saw yet any demo of this plug-in, Website like the demo are up and running again . You can test everything threw playing the demo, watching videos on youtube or just spending some time on the website that link to is put on the first post.

 

I just purchased this a few days ago and have just been blown away by the product and your excellent customer support!

I have some questions regarding the "proof of concept" demo and the landing area placed on the planet, as well as a few product requests. I hope this is the proper place to discuss this.

1. I am interested in doing something like how you have placed that landing base on the planet in your "proof of concept" demo and was wondering if there was any general strategy to figure out how to place it - i.e. what position and rotation to use, and was it done programmatically or manually placed? I was thinking that things like trees, bushes, boulders and rocks might also add to the level of detail. Obviously you wouldn't want those all over the planet but maybe to enhance the main area around your scenes.

2. I think the water looks great close up but was wondering if there is any way it can be made to be less shiny when viewed from space, yet still look just as good as now within the atmosphere?

3. I am interested in seeing a "plains" feature on the planets where you could perhaps set an average km2 area and average height as I would be interested in placing buildings, roads or other items in certain locations. Similarly, what about the same for deserts (rolling sand dunes or flat baked clay), rain forests with rivers, ice sheets or large mountain ranges? I'm not so much concerned about the textures as the landscape characteristics.

4. It would be nice if you could select the dominant number of land masses or number of large oceans so that the distribution isn't so evenly dispersed.

5. And the grand finale: What about clouds, tropical storms, dust storms, snow, rain, sleet and hail?

6. I noticed that the ice, snow, grass, etc. is all done via textures in the config but was wondering why you didn't go with materials as I would think that would allow the use of Allegorithmic materials as well as providing an opportunity to provide normals for each texture?

7. One last thing I wanted to pass on was a fix for the seams in the skybox by setting each of the 6 skybox images "Wrap Mode" to Clamp - At least it worked for me.

Wow - that is probably enough for tonight!

Cheers!

-Tim

 

Thanks, Thinker!

 

Thank you!

No problems, but the mailing list or my direct email may be better.

In that case I placed manually, but that is not so hard to make a little utility to do that using longitude and latitude coordinates plus distance from the center. Vegetation is planned, but I can't promise a date yet.

By now only editing the shaders by hand. In an upcoming update the water will be enhanced and separated from the terrain mesh --- so we'll have underwater and the water will be more customizable. I can't promise compatibility with the Unity water shaders, though, as they do not support spherical geometry.

There are the "Shape Textures" in the planets, which manually influence terrain heights. They are a preliminar feature, and I have not experimented very much with them, but when time permits I'll be providing some sample uses for them.

You can add noise layers to create more terrain/water variation, but even then, yes, I could agree with you. Although Etherea1 is projected to require a minimum of manual modeling, but yes, nice as well.

All nice features, but please note that I'm working on this only at the weekends. I would be quite happy to implement features quicker, if it was possible.

Nice suggestion, this one I think could be quick to change, so I'm taking note right now.

Thanks, in some update the sample got some properties broken.


Cheers,

imerso

 

I am a bit busy lately, but the project is still going.

And just to remember, Etherea1 is not just a single planet, it can handle a hundred planets or more together in the same scene, all them visitable to the ground.

 

Very very useful.

I think this tool ( http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/148432-Smart-LOD-RELEASED ) would be perfect for "occlusing" the trees.

 

Hello I am a newbie here , this sounds like a fantastic plug in I have been trying to do two 3D games which I wish for whole planets rather than just a terrain block and I want the player and a.i to be able to fly spaceplanes between planets and land on them as well as fly in the atmosphere and also have hovertanks and other hover vehicles as well as wheeled, and tracked and walking vehicles, Also got a an idea where you can become a God and control your own universe and fight other Gods.

There is one thing though would it be possible to import planets from say Mojoworld Editor as I have 2SE and 3 and I was wondering can you create hills, valleys, canyons, mountains ,cliff's e.t.c. ?

I have Battlezone 2 which is a fantastic game once you bet all the bug fixes and updates and I liked how you could create maps in that. If you know it or download the game and play it and look at the editor Is that possible?


Other than that I look forward to getting this and other plugins so I can finish my games, great work

 

So, how would you simulate gravity and is there some way to get a grid for positioning objects on the planets, also, is terraforming in the works?

 

Hi,

In Etherea1 you add a new planet to the scene, edit some parameters and you're ready to go with it. There will be no conversion from other tools, and it's not really designed to manual editing of terrain topology.

Thanks,

imerso

 

Hi,

There are many different ways to solve gravity, and it depends on the game you're going to make. One solution would be, for example, add a small force to a rigidbody always in the direction of the center of the nearest planet.

There is already a way to do gross terraforming, but I'll be looking into a finer (and fast) way to do that.


Thanks,

imerso

 

I decided to make a 50% off promotion for some time.

Etherea1 from my site: $50 --- (originally $99).
Etherea1 from Asset Store: $75 --- (originally $150).

That is 50% off !!!

Both are the same product and include full source-code of Etherea1, the multiple realtime procedural planets generator. As you probably know, in Etherea1 you can have 50, 100 planets at same time, all visitable to the ground in realtime.

Works under Windows, Macintosh and Webplayer. Requires shader model 3.0 and targets UnityPro (but runs under Unity Indie as well, with some limitations).


Thanks,

imerso

 

Hi, imerso!
I bought your extension in Assets Store, it's awesome!
But still there are some questions want to ask:
1.When I deploy it to IOS, it shows the rendertexture format unsupported, and no textures show. That's a important one coz we are building IOS game, any clue?
2.Is that the up-to-date version in Assets Store? If not could you plz send me the last copy?
3.About the terrain, how to make peaks in the surface like sample do?
Glad to hear from u!