Mad Maps - Non-Destructive Terrain Workflow w/ Layers, Copy/Paste, Roads, and more!

Sick, I'll get on that now. Thanks for being interested!

 

The docs mention the middle mouse button repeatedly. Can this package be used effectively on a Mac without a middle mouse button? Or is source code included so I can change that if needed?

 

Heya Claytonious, that's a very good point, thanks for bringing it up! Mad Maps includes all source code with no obfuscation, so you can fix this yourself. I'll also put in some options for changing this control scheme so there will be an official solution in the near future. AFAIK the middle mouse button is only used with the road tool (as there are some extremely annoying selection issues surrounding the primary click and the unity terrain).

Just an update with some change logs, as there have been a couple of patch updates! We're now on 0.1.2d

0.1.3 is one it's way, including some demo assets. Also I've been working on making more (much needed) videos - the first is a very quick overview of the problems that Mad Maps tries to solve, and answering the question of it's it right for you. Check it out below:

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Next up will be a "Getting Started" video that walks you through the process of integrating Mad Maps into an existing project. Stay tuned!

 

Thanks for the response. A video overview of roads specifically would be much appreciated, too!

 

Hey guys, check out this new Getting Started video. It shows you the basic steps on integrating Mad Maps into an existing Unity terrain.

The demo assets included in this video will be released in 0.1.3, but they're all available for free on the asset store.

Currently working on a roads video. 0.1.3 will also have an alternative control scheme you can choose in the Road Network Editor window, under the Configuration tab, that means you can use the tool without a middle mouse button.

 

And also a "Your First Stamp" video, that runs through creating a first world stamp and stamping it on the terrain:

 

Here's another vid for you all! Just a quick, flashy trailer to show off the main features.

 

Heya folks! 0.1.3 is now live, you can get it now on the Asset Store. The biggest changes to this version is the inclusion of demo assets and a demo scene - simple for now, with more complexity and more demo scenes on the way!

There have been some small changes to how layers work, and how the Terrain Wrapper UI looks:

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For the Terrain Wrapper, there is now a lock icon up the top right of the inspector. Locking a Terrain Wrapper will prevent any changes to the layers or information within. You can still reapply your layers, and manually modify information, but no stamps. roads or other components will modify the Terrain Wrapper.

For layers, the layer "blend mode" dropdown is gone, as there was no real reason for it to ever be set by the user. In it's place are three icons/buttons to the right of the layer name:

Clicking the Padlock icon will lock a layer - this means that stamps, roads and other widgets won't modify the data on this layer. Note that this does not prevent you from modifying a layer's properties yourself - you can still clear individual channels, delete the layer itself, or change the position of the layers in the stack.

Clicking the Refresh icon will find all stamps, roads and gizmos that write to that layer and recalculate them.

The Dirtiness icon will become opaque when a layer detects that something has changed in the layers below, and so the components that write to that layer might need recalculation (which you can do easily with the refresh button). This is just a warning, and you can click it to dismiss it if you don't think it applies.

@Claytonious, this version also includes compatibility if you don't have a middle mouse button

Check out the full changelog:

 

@cowtrix im looking for a tool that can stamp agricultural land splatmaps like in the attached image, im hoping this is a possible feature inside mad maps as its my goal to create this type of scene, is it possible or can you have this ability inside mad maps?

Also i was hoping to learn more about the spline tool, i would like to see more on complex road layouts and how they are applied onto terrain, have we options for the amount of lanes a road has?

 

Hey iichiversii! Yes, World Stamps can create an effect like this - you can build individual farm shapes separately, and then piece them together like a jigsaw on your final terrain, and use the road tool to create paths between them.

I'm currently working on more comprehensive demo finals. You can have very complex roads, with as many lanes as you want. The mesh component distorts a mesh along a spline, so you would just make a straight road section of however many lanes you wanted.

Hope that answers your questions!

 

Wow, glad I found this. I would, too, like to have more informations on roads, especially connectors like exit ramps (most road solutions only over T or X connectors, while angled one like highways exits are usually not there)

 

Hey folks, after a brief hiatus, 0.1.5 is now live on the Asset Store

As always, let me know here or on the Discord what you think, and what else you'd like to see!

 

Is this extensible? We have our own road tool, we'd like it to deform the terrain to make it line up with the road. Is it psosipos for me to create a "plugin" that does this as it's own layer?

 

Hi Prodigga! Yes, Mad Maps is very extensible. Both the road tool and the stamping tool are basically plugins built on top of the Terrain Layer system, just like you are describing. Fundamentally the Terrain Layers act as if you were writing to a normal terrain, but allows for that non-destructiveness.

Feel free to look through all the codebase and I'd be happy to help you integrate your road tool!

 

Considering purchase; I saw in your videos that takes an insane amount of time to stamp/capture; is it just the video or is it that slow ?

 

Hey DiscoFever! Thanks for taking a look at Mad Maps. Which videos exactly were these? I recorded some of the older ones on a pretty old laptop, as it was all I had at the time.

Generally speaking Mad Maps is pretty fast and does a lot of it's heavy lifting on the GPU. Capturing stamps should be pretty much instantaneous, and stamping them down is quick as well. Of course, when you work at higher resolutions and with more components, more time will be required to recalculate the terrain. However, one of the advantages of using a non-destructive pipeline is that you can prototype in very low, very fast resolutions and then bake out a final high-resolution level when you're happy with everything.

 

Went ahead and bought the package; to my surprise it doesn't work ... it complains about VegetationStudio missing; really ? How can you ship something like this obvious ?

Very very disappointed ...

 

Hi Discofever. Sorry to hear that. Could you provide a little bit more information? It sounds like your project is not configured correctly. The fix for this is probably very easy.

Do you have Vegetation Studio installed, or have you ever used it in this project?
What exactly are the errors?
What are your prebuild code defines?
What version of unity are you targeting?

 

My bad, I had Vegetation studio previously in that project; that caused the confusion.

Now, to the more serious stuff; I don't get how this thing works, the videos you posted have nothing to do with this version; i've tried following them from scratch.

First off the plugin is not called "World Stamp Creator" but "Stamp Creator"
Then the 'handles' just don't work or very eratically, moving one moves the other for no reason.
"Capture" asks me to create a bunch of "Wrappers" ?! Why ? From where ? What's this ?
Hitting the "Create Stamp" button does creates ma a new game object but then i don't have a 'Stamp' ...
Finally adding a "Terrain Wrapper" completely F***s up my textures on the terrain.

Documentation is more a 'post it' not for yourself not for someone that's 'new' to your asset.

I am sorry but I'll request a refund this clearly doesn't work for me.

Thanks

 

Yes, I suspected this might have been the issue.

Although you requested a refund (which I've just submitted to Unity for processing) it may be useful to cover your issues quickly for future users.

Yes, correct, as the previous name was too long to display nicely in some cases. This does need to be updated in documentation.

This does sound buggy, although the handles do snap around to sit on top of heightmap data points so you're not doing nasty subsampling of the heightmap.

You can find a brief summary of Splat and Detail Prototype Wrappers, including why they are necessary, in the documentation here.

This new gameobject is the stamp. Stamps are any gameobject with the WorldStamp script attached.

This may be related to the link posted above. As mentioned in the documentation, the TerrainWrapper manages splats and details for you, and you define those in a slightly different way as scriptable objects within your project.

Thanks for the feedback, and I will definitely be looking into touching up the documentation soon - especially with the new terrain system, although because so much is in flux with that right now it may be premature.

 

Hey all. Join me and The Messy Coder on Twitch to talk about Mad Maps!

https://www.twitch.tv/theMessyCoder

 

@cowtrix just wondering is there plans for this to work with VS pro at all? I notice its also breaking with 2018.3 we been making the move slowly. Thanks

 

Hey recon. Sorry it's taking so long, I'm in the process of moving to the other side of the world and starting a new full time role. There are quite a few breaking changes in 2018.3, with a lot stuff changing around prefabs especially. I'm really hoping I'll have more time in the near future to just get it done! Thanks for your patience.

 

no worries I understand, it happens well for now, we will pull it from our game. Until you get back. We moved to 2018. for our new Steam game, so I was hoping to use it. but hey life happens. Good luck with your new job!

 

Map Maps is still very high on my 'to buy' list so hoping it stays maintained but yes - life happens Best of luck with the move!

 

Darn! I just found out about this asset and was about to buy it. Sad to hear it has 2018.3 issues. And that the developer won't have the resources to actively work on it. However, I'll keep an eye on this asset, it looks amazing.

 

Hi, is there any roadmap for your asset or any estimate on when you might resolve the above issues? I was very impressed by your messy coder video and so would like to see it working with the latest Unity version. Thanks.

 

Does the splines tools work with MapMagic? Also is Vegetation Studio Pro supported? Do you have any videos with the integrations with MM and VS?

sorry for all the questions, asking before buying.

edit: Also just saw about the 2018.3 issues. Any ETA on an update?

 

Hello. I would like to know how flexible/extensible is road tool? Since I'm looking for a road tool mostly, for very complex road combinations, not just T and X intersections but custom ones also like Y and custom roundabounds, bridges. Easyroads doesn't suit my needs. Also do you plan on integrating Real World Terrain to work with road tool for it? Would also love to see a demo of road tool, because that's the only thing I'm currently looking for, for my project. Thank you.

 

Hi @cowtrix , can your tool be used to create stuff procedurally? My project is fully procedural, that's why I chose @Wright 's MapMagic as my weapon of choice. I've been looking for a way to procedurally create road networks and rivers that approximately follow the terrain slope. What I want to avoid is to be manually placing roads and rivers. Is this feasible with Mad Maps?
Thanks!

 

@anyone who has this. Is this worth getting? Does it work with the new terrain workflow? Is it stable?

 

hello *
i`m just on the go to use "vegetation studio pro"; "map magic" with "voxland" and " mad maps"... but i can`t get " mad maps" up &runnin...
i got following errors:


Assets\MadMaps\Roads\Connections\ConnectionConfigurationBase.cs(9,10): error CS0104: 'Min' is an ambiguous reference between 'MadMaps.Common.GenericEditor.MinAttribute' and 'UnityEngine.MinAttribute'

------------------

Assets\MadMaps\Roads\Connections\ConnectionComponent.cs(46,10): error CS0104: 'Min' is an ambiguous reference between 'MadMaps.Common.GenericEditor.MinAttribute' and 'UnityEngine.MinAttribute'

-----------------
Assets\MadMaps\WorldStamp\WorldStamp.cs(67,10): error CS0104: 'Min' is an ambiguous reference between 'MadMaps.Common.GenericEditor.MinAttribute' and 'UnityEngine.MinAttribute'

---------------
plz. help

 

Just bought MadMaps also, and I'm getting the same error that Patchworkx asked about a month ago -- exactly the same set of errors related to MinAttribute.

The fact that the dev hasn't responded to the error report in almost a month isn't a good sign.

 

Don't know if you have the latest beta version but if you email the dev he'll send the latest version. May fix your problem. He's on discord as well. He said he's had problems submitting to the asset store.

Agree though - also hope he keeps supporting this tool.

 

Wish I had checked the forums, I just bought it and can't use it :/
I'll give him time before saying anything on the page, but if someone who gave five stars when it was working wants to update their review to warn people that might be a good idea. I don't feel he deserves a one star rating when I haven't even tried it yet, but hopefully this will change soon!

Wow, this is what I get not coding the past two years lol. I have codeaphobia again. Guys, Visual Studio will fixe those three lines, just change the lines with an error to [Common.GenericEditor.Min(1)] and it compiles just fine.

 

To fix this:

Code (CSharp):

1. using MinAttribute = MadMaps.Common.GenericEditor.MinAttribute;

 

it works great , the dev does not keep it up, he has been MIA due to like many of these guys they don't make much..but the errors most of us seen are easy to fix.. for coders.. non coders can ask here. as seen above, will help fix some of the out of date code.

other wise it works really well. It was used in Hurt World, so its a proven tool something that was rare on the store, many tools are tech demos. So even while the dev has been gone, this is totally worth what you pay and yes its very stable.

PS: Some people also have luck emailing the developer and he will also fix issues. some I hear, has had no luck. So, your a coder, so its easy fix if you are using newer versions of Unity.

 

Is this asset still supported by the developers?

 

Hi @Black-Spirit, unfortunately Mad Maps is no longer in development. I was never the owner of the intellectual property, and I lost access to the Asset Store account on which it was developed on, and then life moved on. I don't make games with Unity anymore. In total, I only ever made about $400 from this tool, which while not bad probably worked out to about $2 an hour.

I am looking into publishing this tool as completely Open Source, and handing over the reins to the community in the hope that someone would be willing to come along and take over. I will let you know how that goes.

 

Keep us in the loop if you push the code on github.

 

FYI, users, this has been disabled... for anyone who owned it... Not sure the reason. if anyone can post to why that happen, that would be great I maintained it early on and added alot of custom code to it. So, trying to find out the cause for it being disabled.


So you can't download anymore....

.

 

https://github.com/cowtrix/Mad-Maps

 

Thanks! glad to see your still lurking. I have the download, but good for those that don't or if I ever lose mine. I just happen to notice it was disabled, which was odd.

 

Ok so I found the 2018.3 version on github and it works in Unity 2021 LTS HDRP!
Has any gotten this to work with MapMagic 2 and/or Microsplat?
Thanks again for making this cowtrix!