HORIZON[ON] - Bridge the gap between the sky and your scenery.

Ah. Thanks @Rowlan and @hopeful . I tried contacting the dev to ask if support would continue but got no answer back so will hold off on purchasing this alas. He may have other priorities and the work required to maintain the asset was possibly not worth the money compared to what he could earn elsewhere. Or he may be unwell. Or maybe Unity is building this into their upcoming next-gen terrain system and he's not allowed to drop hints. All very understandable - stuff happens. But yeah, it would be good if he could perhaps pass on the asset to another developer if he doesn't have the time for it.

 

I don't want to get into a debate with you. I increased snow to show that that feature works. The land is also fine without snow. The shaders work, the trees work, the snow works, and it builds.

As for the effects you are getting by pressing some of the arrow buttons, those are related to the demo program, which is not the actual horizon effect. You don't use those buttons to make a horizon in your project.

 

You don't happen to have a bugfix for the tree shader problem I posted in February?

 

Hi Rowlan,

No reason to doubt what you saying but I just tried 2018.1.6f1 and it's working great and looking great for me. Using windows 10 this end. Pressing those 4 buttons will drastically change the scene but that's expected. Try hitting the reset button to see if that gets it back to normal. Also make sure you have the right demo scene open for your color space settings as he has Linear and Gamma versions there.

Totally agree though that the support needs addressing. For me this is still the best of it's kind and has even more uses with a bit of experimenting. The tree and object painting tools alone are fantastic. These DRONE guys make some of the best assets anywhere so would be a shame to see any of them left to in limbo.

 

Is that the question about fog and trees? First, let me say that anything involving transparency, like fog, can be tricky.

However, I don't see an issue. Here's a shot from the demo scene zoomed in on trees with max fog.

 

Yes. It happens when you paint them yourself. Here's the specific post:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/hor...-and-your-scenery.259733/page-24#post-3389657

I guess it would be an easy fix, but I'm not that experienced with shaders and I rather have the developers fix their assets than other people having to do that for them.

 

I can't troubleshoot this for you. But everything in the asset appears to be working fine so far as I can see, so I would think the problem is somehow on your end.

Check the demo scene and make sure the tree shader you are using is the one used in the demo. Make sure whatever fog solution you are using is the one in the demo. Check all the settings ... like, are you manipulating the fog from inside the Horizon prefab? Are your trees parented just the way they are in the demo? Maybe you need to do something inside the Horizon Tools section, or NOT do something there. I have no idea, it could be anything. But the fog works on the trees when it is set up correctly.

EDIT: It occurs to me to mention that many times the developer said that the best workflow for this tool is to start with the existing demo and change it bit by bit till you get the results you're looking for. That includes changing the maps as to where water goes and so on.

 

Hi all, just passing by after a long summer break and see there is no news from the dev!
months after months i get more upset with this asset and i suppose it's the same for TC2, MCS ...

No support for an asset that mainly works i'm alright with it but Unity need to lower the price by 50% at least and mention this fact on the asset page!!
It's not just a bunch of 3d models or some simple scripts...It is supposed to solve a big problem, the tool is powerful but considering the lack of videos (to me it's the real shame you don't even know what u can do with it.
You only can Redo the demo scene!) and the poor assistance:

I am very disappointed facing a tool i don't even know the possiblities!

How else could it be! But i never saw someone (except the author himself) doing something with a good looking result that is not the same design like the demo scene! SO his advice are: "try, change, struggle and find out by yourselves!" whaouh awesome!

Cheers

 

i would be very interested in checking horizons made by owners of this tool! if it's not a green forest backgrd of course! i already know the demo scene

 

okay @eaque . Since you are ragging on Hopeful I'll throw my hat in the ring.

I did just post an entire workflow here for making flat edged terrains like the demo then realised you haven't provided a use case. Could you provide one?

There are so many scenarios that one might encounter or come up with that is impossible to give good, general, advice.

There are plenty of scenarios where this is not the best solution, and plenty where it is.

What is yours?

 

Do you have a solution for this:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/hor...-and-your-scenery.259733/page-24#post-3389657

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/hor...-and-your-scenery.259733/page-21#post-3007062 ? this maybe?

you have given an incredibly small amount of info. Are you using the built-in fog? something else?

 

All built-in, problem is reproducable every time I paint trees. I wouldn't mind if it would only occur in edit mode, but it's in play mode as well. I would have sent the project to becoming if he were interested in fixing it, but he never replied to the thread / pm / email since February. However, I just opened that old project in order to check with what your link provides, but then I thought how blurry all is and that I have better alternatives now and won't use that asset anymore anyway. But thanks for offering to help. Fixing this would just be a waste of your time.

 

okay mate. fair enough

 

Its ashame that they don't care about these assets...They need to be shut down..if they don't want to support it or just don't have time...we understand they WANT to make games....Well so do we, this is why I no longer use this, I made my own Horizon. as I got sick of it as well due to lack of support...No replies.... So again, we understanding wanting to make a game.... but this is not fair... THIS is why I refuse to sell any of my assets I made in code.... because I know I would never be able to support them as I'm to busy with client work and my own games.... and support is important to me...very important... So this is why after using Unity for 9 years, I refuse to release any of my tools I made.. So as much as I like Peter and NATH. they should cltose there assets... Its unfair to users..it really is then, they make new ones, and disappear.... Not cool guys... not cool at all... So I see why people are upset, I been a huge supporter , everyone knows that..... but I'm also blunt, when I feel someone is being unfair to people....


Becoming, I suggest to post, on the store....NO SUPPORT... or close it down. Just to be fair to people. the community shouldn't have to do your job for you.while you get paid... Now Unity has let this happen all over the store and that is why it happens... I expect tools to STOP being made, and don't have an issue with it.. I do have a PROBLEM with it being on the store STILL being sold with ZERO support for nearly a year, and he come back for what 2 weeks and gone again after he released a new asset... I suggest looking into making your own solution. or fixing his... Its actually not that hard to make your own..even with little to no experience.


If you can get Horizon On to work, it did work great. But I had issues with it with certain aspects and no I never seen any game, released with it.. personally, not to say it hasn't. Nothing personal to Peter, but this is our lively hood for some as well.. to make games, and buy these tools. So people need to understand this.. again I expect an asset to end and be on your own. That happens.. but to be allowed to keep selling and the community has to help and NOT get paid... makes me sick to my stomach. I do wish Nath, and Peter all the best with Drone, I truely do. I suggest to NOT do this to your game...people won't tolerate it... gamers aren't as forgiven...

 

I agree that if there is no or limited support, it should be stated up front ... on the store page, very visible for customers. Some customers will find the cost of the plugin to be inexpensive and the challenge of maintaining it themselves trivial. They might still buy it. Others who have limited experience with Unity and limited resources would rather spend their money elsewhere.

I don't want to be in the position of acting as substitute developer for this. We have a community of like-minded developers here on the forum, people facing similar challenges, and I tried to help that community find its way with this asset where I could. That's all.

Best of luck to everyone!

 

I hear you, I always try to help people, but it can be annoying, when the asset developer them selves just don't show they are willing to help .. Again, I'm just as busy as those guys are, yet I post... So I find this to be a poor excuse. Just be fair to people that is all I ask. So in the future if the same developer decides to come back. or make a new asset, we won't look the other way....

 

i like that man! maybe thanks to you we will finally know how this thing work in different cases.

My case is a 8000/8000 with 4 terrains (for info) it's a desert like...Check my forum

TAKESHI THE GAME i did post a little workflow with my own project:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/tak...entures-of-takeshi-one-man-game.505741/page-2

cheers

 

Hi recon,

Sorry if i'm wrong but if i do remember well you are the one who blamed me on the TC2 forum a year ago, when i wrote one of my favorite punchline " TC2 is like an alien technology we all try to back engineer"
Seems it's just the case now for Horizon ON.

But at the moment you were a huge supporter for sure (as you admit), i'm glad you finally made up your mind regarding the POOR service offered around those assets since the very beginning!
TC, TC2, MCS, HOrizon....

Yes i insist, the first TC had 2 or 3 videos from an old version nobody had!!!!!! useless videos but when some of us dared saying it was a problem,
here was your answer "People expect to push a button and get their terrain done"!!!

Just to be clear now cause it seems we all agree; regarding Nath tools the idea of pressing a button to get things done in a sec has never been an option, cause TC INTERFACE was CRAZY as hell so as for TC2!! nobody expected that!

Back then i noticed there was no picture of good looking terrain made with TC2 in TC forum, i got blamed once again by some supporters, but i notice as a "coincidence" that it's the same case with Horizon, no pic of a good looking Horizon made by a user who is not the author!! waouh!
The same clues for the same fact!

And back then Nath had the time to deal with that he had no DRONE affair but nothing came, no tuto, no video...
TC2 started the same, CRAZY STUPID interface.
I've been waiting years to say this, cause i was a big fan of NAth and TC promises i was waiting... I still admire the guy but as a client and a user i can say now that the service so as the tool were not satisfying

Once again sorry if i make a mistake, no offense anyway
Cheers

 

I disagree with you, TC2 never had bad support back then I'm fair and call it as I see it... Back then TC 1, 2 had amazing support... reviews don't lie.... now he has been gone so yes the support is not there...Horizon On, I have never defended. as the support has mostly been wishy washy./ SO I stand correct back then on TC2.


as far as a good looking terrain, yes some where made. on the actually asset....Also the Forest and a few other games where made with Terrain Composer...anyways...again I'm all about fairness....I was a tester for TC1 and TC2, Nath was always around...Now if you had a bad experience, it possible he got over whelmed, but check his post, HE WAS always around..

So I won't let you claim false information about him, or anyone.. I'm fair...ask anyone else, that has been a TC2 user.. They will say the same thing, he was always around back then... Now , I would agree, he has NOT been since Feb.... so I will be blunt and call it as I see it. His support does not exist now. But I won't let you use that, to claim back then he didn't give the support. anyways, your welcome to discuss this else where. but I'm done with this. I said my peace.

 

TC2 is pretty overwhelming at first. but Recon is right about the support for that.
Horiz[on] and many others have failed in this regard, true.

At the end of the day all assets eventually end up unsupported from the UAS - save maybe 5 or so out of the hundreds purchased by my org. Honestly you just have to suck it up. Which sucks but meh.

It's a great opportunity to go code-diving and learn new stuff. One has to look at it like this I suppose to avoid total misery

 

Firt of all, all apologies to the moderator for answering this, i was friendly he is not:

i hope anyone here will clearly see that:
I NEVER WROTE WHAT HE IS SAYING

"Much ado about nothing"
I never said there was no support for TC2 i said:

and:

I guess even the youngest users on this forum would understand that "Service" was here used as a generic category.

 

dude. chill on man. Honey over vinegar. we ARE the developers that can/might/could help you now...?

shoe peeing won't get you anywhere

 

He is accusing me of spreading some false info, like i was a hater and i am the one who should chill?!
Is it a forum or "wonderland"?

Man, i'm chilling like bob dylan!

 

Anyway. this is not the place for that.
If you need help or advice or examples happy to help. PM is there for a reason.

 

Yup, pm me. I'm fine with that. I was replying to your comment. and i'm not upset or anything, I don't get upset over this stuff. I just reply to what I feel is fair .So you may want to re-read your own thread my friend. Nothing more. but your welcome to PM me a friendly convo if you like. I would be happy to address any issues you have with my reply to your comment. Have a great day.

PS: You do know what service means right? This includes support. This has nothing to do with UI, I been a UX.UI Designer for 20 years..... that would be a first if that was related to UX/UI. anyways. please by all means. PM me.

 

I just want to say that I am glad there are people stepping up to help us in the absence of the developer.

As an artist and someone who is still learning Unity and not very good with code, it's nice to have people willing to help where they can for those of us that have spent our money on the assets too, but are having a harder time learning the ins and outs.

Thank you to all of you who help by teaching us the tricks and functions of someone else's asset! You are very much appreciated for stepping in and offering a helping hand.

 

Why not solve it in public on the forum? If one asset user has problems, chances are high that others will have the same as well.

 

Not the point that was being made.

 

Actually it is the point for both Horizon[ON] and the mentioned TC2. I can totally relate. Bought TC2 two years ago for a lot more money than what it costs now. Simply because it was advertising better, as it turned out. I complained that the advertising screens didn't resemble what the asset could do and instead you needed more expensive assets in order to achieve the displayed results. And I was speaking only of the terrain itself, not whatever else was displayed (boats, houses, etc). No comment about additional assets in the description or screenshots on the asset store page then, no comment now. I wanted a refund. Fanboys stepped up and tried to defend the dev and said that it's still in the works, how awesome all is and "it will come". I was okay with that, also with having to buy other assets, especially after dev promised to show a tutorial how he made those scenes. Nothing happened for 2 years except that the dev dropped support for the asset. Besides TC2 is very bad usability wise. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is new at terrain generation. I rather would recommend other assets.

Horizon[ON] started excellent with Unity 5, was excellent for a long time, but for my personal taste it's pretty much outdated now in 2018. Yes, it's fast, but that's easy given the poor visual results. 40 € is a lot for an outdated, unsupported asset.

And back to the "point", why would you want to keep it a secret via PM that both assets have been clearly abandoned? Neither of those D.R.O.N.E. devs has the decency to find a few hours in more than half a year to say what's up? Will the assets be future proof and be maintained and support the new render pipeline / terrain system / etc? Do you have any information about that? Otherwise I couldn't recommend any asset to anyone who isn't active. In general.

Only because you are in the mood and try to defend this asset now doesn't mean you'll do so tomorrow after people bought it and find out they have problems with it.

 

Owning this asset and others from the currently known as the Drone guys. Only Thomas (RTP) is still active in supporting his assets. I did undertake numberous attempts through all known mail accounts asking them (Nat and Peter) to check their forums as people were getting upset with the lack of support. Nothing happend, not even a simple reply nor an update on the forum.
I was about to support (pledge) the DRONE project but I reviewed my opinion and concluded they aren't worth it.

 

Sigh. I simply meant that personal differences are better handled in PM.

 

I never found out how to change the textures of the asset so I could use my own textures to match my terrain, I just got told to read the documentation and there is nothing in the documentation, now I just make my own backgrounds in blender.

 

All I can figure out is to change tint and try to match. Not easy since the colors are a blend of the existing, unless you turn the alpha completely down.
I kept reading the manual thinking I missed something but couldn’t find anything either.

 

Does this tutorial video help you?

If anyone else is stuck ... this tutorial video (above) is found on the first post of this thread. Also on the first page is a link to the manual, which does explain how masks are used to create the horizon.

There's also a tutorial video to help with tree placement.

 

as hopeful stated. you click the layers tab to put in new - per layer - images. you adjust the mask to instantiate parts of these images within the gameworld. hope it helps.

 

Hello.
How can I draw roads on HorizON surface?
Or it is not possible, and I should build roads manually or use special road assets?

 

You can find this sort of information in the user manual, which is linked in the first post.

Generally you'd want any Horizon roads to be seen, but not used for player driving. Any close-up action, which is where the player would be, would normally be done with actual road meshes and textures.

But if you want roads on your horizon, you include them as part of your diffuse / albedo image texture, which is like your aerial map photo. The alpha layer on this texture is used for emission, and you can use it to activate the effect of lighting on your streets at night.

If you are using the normal map and height map features, changes in elevation for roadways might also affect those.

 

Thanks.
I saw no info about roads in the manual. Maybe it's my fault, but still.
The exact situation.
I have city. And of corse I have roads.
And some roads lead out of the city. And end with nothing. And it's not cool.
And I want to know if I can put roads on my HorizON automatically.
I mean, in Horizon there is a tool for drawing trees. And for setting details (houses)/ Is there a tool for painting roads?
Or I can do it only via painting roads on some channel texture? Or use one of a channels for road texture and draw roads on "mixing" textures?

I'd like to draw roads manually. Like: chose road texture/prefab and paint the road wherever you want.
I'm nt sure I explained everything clearly.

 

People might use Horizon a little differently, so it's good to see your use case.

No, there's no tool for drawing roads in Horizon, and I doubt there's a specific reference to roads in the manual. Roadways - like a highway or road winding into the hills - would be a part of the horizon art that you need to develop.

You'd have to make your own art with roads on it (think aerial photo). I believe the demo scene for Horizon has tiny model buildings and a roadway as part of the horizon, where at night emission lights up the road in spots as if there were street lights. It looks pretty good.

The example you provide indicates that maybe you are thinking of the horizon mesh being closer to the player area than it probably would be. If I were creating a solution for your situation, I'd probably have high detail city where the player actually plays, and then a thin surrounding area of lower detail city where they cannot enter, or at least agricultural fields or something, if your game is a city building game. Beyond that would be the horizon art.

As to how you might make horizon roads line up with your modeled roads, it occurs to me the easiest way to get good fidelity is to build out low resolution roads (like LOD3) for a fair distance outside your city model. Maybe structure it in your hierarchy so that all of this additional modeling is easy to enable / disable, so it doesn't slow your game testing. In other words, turn it off while testing the game, and on when trying to get the city looking right from the air for the horizon.

Anyway, when you have the low res horizon roads extending way out, then take a screen shot from the air of the whole thing, and take it over to GIMP or whatever you're using for 2D art. Pop your screen shot in at the center, and use that as the beginning point for your horizon texture. That should give you the best control and detail over your road art on the horizon.

If you put all of your street lighting and your roads on separate layers, I think you can do an emission texture for night lighting in the same way. Turn off all the other layers except for roads and lights, with the rest of the scene black, and put the camera at the same height and location as before, and take a screen shot. That could give you a usable emission map. Add that B/W screen shot as your alpha layer on the main texture.

I think that would work, and be relatively easy and high fidelity. But I've not done it myself, so think it through on your own.

The basic technique here with Horizon[On] is to float the highly detailed player area slightly above a low resolution horizon "terrain" mesh. Horizon[On] has been optimized to make your horizon work easier and to make it look better, but that's basically what's going on.

So ... I hope that helps give you some ideas, if nothing else. Best of luck with it!

 

hello, in unity 2019, lastest version, it seems that i can't expand any menu. Also the horizon logo (in the component) is off (offseted to the top). Can't use the asset right now, anyway else have seen this ?

 

The "ExampleScene(Linear)" runs perfectly for me in Unity 2019.2.19f1. I just tried it.

If you're using a more recent version than that ... then perhaps Unity has a bug ...?

 

im on 2019.3.0f6

do you know the latest stable version for production is? should i stick with 2018 LTS ?

 

Unity's LTS series are the only versions that are really stable for production and publication. You should use the latest one. They're as stable as you're going to get. I'm using 2018 LTS myself, so that everything at my foundation is solid, and if I'm using plugins from the asset store, all bugs with them have likely been fixed. Thus any errors that crop up are likely to be my own. When Unity releases 2019 LTS, I'll migrate to that.

Migrations can be difficult once you've got a lot of work done, so it's best to rarely do them. One migration a year seems reasonable.

The Unity tech releases (year.1, year.2, etc.) are for developing new features for the engine. Usually they are buggy, and they don't get stable till around the time the next tech release comes out. You'll notice that 2019.2 goes all the way to 2019.2.20, which was recently released. That's 20 point releases issued over several months to fix bugs and finish features.

On top of that, if you are using any plugins from the store, they may need bugfixes for each tech release.

So I believe the intended manner of usage is to stick with the most recent LTS. However, if the game you are developing is predicated on features only available in the 2019 tech cycle, then - looking at where we are currently - the latest version of 2019.2 would be appropriate for you. It would be the most stable of the 2019 cycle.

 

I wouldn't go to 2019 LTS unless they fix performance. 2018 is way faster than 2019.3 and it's clearly noticeable on mobile.

 

I think I've read that performance is expected to be fixed in 2020.1, which is a little weird. You'd think they'd fix it in the 2019 branch, since that's where the performance hit was introduced.

Possibly it would be backported to 2019 LTS, but ... as you say, it's something to watch out for.

 

Yeah, if they don't back port it, it will suck. Because 2020 leaves out a lot of devices (they forced upgrades to ios and android). But for what I can see, I doubt they have any intentions of back porting it because they are focusing on 2020.

I definitely regret moving my projects to 2019. If I could, I would go back to 2018 and I highly discourage anyone to move to 2019 unless absolutely necessary.

 

still hope to get a fix for 2019 so i can expend menu... such an annoying bug

 

Unity seem to have fixed things on their end now: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...xpand-when-clicked-directly-on-the-arrow-icon

 

if anyone has some pics of what he did with horizon that is not "another demo scene" i'll be happy to see...