Lightning and Thunder System, Coming Soon!

Hey everyone,

This thread has moved, go here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/121021-UniStorm-v1.4-Dynamic-Day-amp-Night-Weather-System-Coming-Soon

Updated: Done and submitted to the Asset Store.

Play the Stormy Ocean Demo here:
Stormy Ocean Demo


It's an efficient way to add realism to your games and almost all AAA games have it; MW 1, 2, and 3, Skyrim and Oblivion, Battlefield 3..the list goes on. It can be used in any style of game as needed.

It's still a little early in development but it works and it looks great in Unity. It will work for both pro and indie licences, but indie will not have shadows.

So far the you can edit how often the lightning will flash and how long the flashes will last but it's all randomized. When the lightning flash sticks there's a thunder sound effect to add more realism to the system. The lightning also flashes off the clouds and sky.

Update:
There are 3 different lighting systems all behaving randomly. They each have different light, sounds, colors, and positions for added realism. Also video demo is up.

The prefab will be as easy as adding it to any scene you want to have lightning to and that's it.

The price for this system will be very reasonable at the start but as it becomes more complicated and advanced I might increase the price so it'd be good to pick it up early.

I'm open to suggestions and ideas, I will try to use them to make the system better and more realistic.

I will have a web player up later today, screenshots can't really show the system.

Please let me know if you guys are interested I'm working on the system full force and hope to have it released by the end of next week.

 

This sounds really cool. Can't wait to see it

 

@siflandolly thanks!

Video demo of early testing is up. Feedback would be nice. Webplayer demo will be posted tomorrow.

 

I like the lighting effects, but maybe it's the video but I don't really see a lightning bolt model. I think having a realistic lightning bolt model would make it much nicer.

 

@pkid Thanks, and thanks for the suggestion. There are no lightning bolts, I've thought about it and I still may implement it, but most games don't have actual lightning bolts. They are so quick and fast above the player's head that they most likely wouldn't see it especially with a 3rd person game. Not to mention it would probably affect performance.

My system is very efficient and hardly affects performance even with shadows because the lightning strikes somewhat quickly thus not adding too many draw calls to the scene. Without shadows there is no performance lost meaning this can even be used for android and iphone games. I will run some test and see if I add some lighting strikes efficiently though.

 

This looks really really good. Will the rain effect included too?

 

Thanks, not sure there are a lot of free ones out there so I feel it'd lessen the meaning of the pack. The pack will be pretty cheap so it probably won't be too big of a deal. I could just add a simple one though, depends if buyers care or not.

I was thinking $15 for the lightning and thunder pack, what you guys think? Fair? I'm ahead of schedule so it should be submitted by tomorrow or Thursday.

 

Shouldn't there be a delay between the light an the sound? And what about a streak of light flashing across the sky?

 

Is the delay between the lightening flash and the sound adjustable by us? For instance we could have the ability to enter 2 floats that show the min and max seconds for the delay?

 

@siflandolly As of this point no, I have been trying all day and I don't think it's even possible. I have read every piece of documentation on the web looking for a way. See with sound you can't use WaitForSeconds, for some reason it doesn't work; at least so I've read numerous times, so I looked at something called coroutines which also wouldn't work properly either. So I looked for a way to put in floats using lets say Play.audio or some type of audio file call, but it doesn't work for some reason I think sound is different so as of right now I don't think there's a way of plugging in floats for delay times. I am however not going to give up and I'll keep trying. Simple fix could be that I'll just supply thunder sound effects with any where from 1 to 7 seconds of delay so the buyer can use whichever they prefer. We'll see what happens, you had a very good suggestion though thanks.

 

@Ik Animation: This might help

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/AudioSource.Play.html


I don't really understand the math but apparently you can delay it by knowing the sample size and length of the clip. I've never done it myself but hope this helps.

 

Thanks, but I've already tried this many times and I can't get it to affect the sound. I tried messing with the numbers and using similar equations and still nothing. I'm thinking I'll just add a randomized sound pick from the lightning itself and the buyer can choose how many sound columns they wish to have. This way they can have a huge variety of both sounds that are delayed and a mix of different sound effects that are all being played randomly.

 

Yeah sounds good. Watching the video, I think the sounds seem pretty believable as is. So if we have even more options then that's even better.

 

Thanks, just let me know if you have any more suggestions. I already finished the randomizing sound, it sounds even more believable. I will better the system with updates after it's submitted to the Asset Store though.

 

does that work on ios and android devices ?

 

I have not tested it yet but it should it's written in java and I've ran numerous performance tests without shadows and from what I can see it doesn't even affect performance maybe 1 or 2 draw calls if that. It's too little to tell really.

 

Final suggestions? I'm going to be submitting it soon if not. If I have already submitted it no problem I will be making updates and I will add it then

 

The more random the better. In nature the sounds and flashes are never exactly the same, so if it become repetitious then the effect is lost. Other than that it looks useful, I'm sure people would buy it.

 

@Daniel Talis Thanks, it is very random. I have tested it hundred times and it has never once been the same sequence of lights and sounds. I've added a sound column that allows for unlimited numbers of sound files for the system to pick randomly. I am supplying 12 different sounds, delays, loudness, and rumbles. So the odds of the same sound and light sequence won't happen.

 

Sorry as this sent UniStorm got accepted. New thread here: UniStorm - Lightning and Thunder System for Unity [RELEASED]