Map Magic World Generator - a node based procedural and infinite game map tool

Greetings, How do Players change the terrain, digging a hole for an example, or making a cave into the mountainside?
This is not at all explained or shown in the Videos.

 

PeteLaChatte, there's no need to write 'Add' generator since Blend Generator is exactly what you need. It has different modes to choose from, including add and subtract.

twentyfourseven, I think you may be confusing MapMagic with Voxeland. It is Voxeland that have an ability to dig holes in playmode and create caves; MapMagic is a separate tool that generates game maps on-the-fly using the node based logic.

 

Wright wrote: "twentyfourseven, I think you may be confusing MapMagic with Voxeland. It is Voxeland that have an ability to dig holes in playmode and create caves; MapMagic is a separate tool that generates game maps on-the-fly using the node based logic."

Do you mean that there is no way at all to do it with mapmagic alone or that i need some extra tool or extension for mapmagic?
I bought mapmagic so i could get an easy start on a gameidea i have, something inbetween "7 days to die" and "ultima 6".
Like, you know, a proper rpg plus caves and overhangs and digging for resources.

 

Where did you get an information that MapMagic can do digging in playmode and can create caves? Seems that someone is misleading people, I think I've got to do something with it.

 

I just thought so, Wright. My decision to buy it was also influenced by a review that said something like
"if you only ever can afford to buy just ONE terraincreation-package, THIS should be the one!"

 

@Wright yep that was it; forgot. Gosh why it takes soooo long for assetstore to upgrade to 1.3

 

1.3 is in the stores now

 

Yep just about now

 

As you may already notice MapMagic 1.3 is now available in Unity Asset Store. It brings almost all of the features that were planned:

plus:
- Flatten, Blob and Simple Form generators
- new Stamp Generator algorithm that allows creation of craters or other stamp elements
- save/load/duplicate of a single generator, group or entire graph
- objects output preview

Actually it was not so long. Just a couple of days. In an old times I had to wait for a week with a SplineBend upgrade.

 

Hi wright

1
I wonder how to get the 'terrain'.asset file after done a new terrain with mapmagic.
for example, your demo scenes doesn't have terrain.asset file.
for example, i want make a terrain, then use it without mapmagic. how to get the terrain.asset file?
2
how to use mapmagic edit exist unity terrain?
3
I watched your 90min tutorials in youtube, suggest add an in-plugine wizard for quick and easy make terrain in 1 minute.
it may looks like this:
simple gui and choose style=>drag and drop texure/tree/grass/item=>setting values=> click generate=>done.

 

I really like the new features; however, for me this update did brake the other things :

The seed field (next to Generate button) is not editable anymore ...
Scatter Objects doesn't work anymore too; nor zero, nor with floor ...

I've tried importing to a blank project, same result. All works well in 1.2 ...

 

Yes, I have the same problem with the seed field, only rightclick->paste works.
I already wrote him, that there is maybe a bug with 'TransformPool.cs'. On line 66, it should be "for (int f=0; f<=frames; f++)" instead of only '..f<frames..'. This helped me.

Else it's a nice update.

But whats the easiest way to prevent that objects are placed to near to each other when you have many (>12) 'Scatter generators'?
And how can I define, that a map shouldn't work (have the value 0) for heights over a specific value? I only want to place detail meshes above height 10, but I'm using the same texture for the whole map.

 

I'm trying to use hellhounds fractalnoise generator and get this error:

Assets/MapMagic/FractalNoise.cs(147,38): error CS0115: `MapMagicExternalGenerators.FractalNoise.OnGUI(MapMagic.Layout)' is marked as an override but no suitable method found to override

Also noticed that the version number on my MM script is 1.2, is that just a simple typo or has something not imported correctly? *edit something hasn't upgraded properly as I see no new features.

 

@Exbleative The MM OnGUI method signature has been changed with version 1.3. I've uploaded a fix for the fractal noise generator. Please take note that this version is not compatible with MM 1.2 anymore.

@Wright I don't know what you have done but I got a speed improvement with version 1.3. You have added excellent new features, nice work! Keep going on! BTW may it be possible to add subfolders to your base folders? I've changed my generator locations to the folder External, which is adjacent to Map and Objects folders, but I think it would be nice and more comfortable if I could locate this folder under Map and/or Objects if required.

@PeteLaChatte I've also uploaded a new pre-early development version of the watershed generator. This works now stable with version 1.3, but with the same old restriction: It works only on a single pinned terrain at location 0,0 in edit mode.

 

Thanks I'll grab this!

I tried reimporting MapMagic 1.3 and while it seems to have updated now, I lost my node network. Luckily I'd backed up beforehand. Not sure if perhaps this was caused by the fractal noise generator incompatibilities? I also noticed that after update I seemed to lose unrelated connections on my other game objects, I had to reconnect references to game objects and other unrelated scripts.

 

Thanks stevenson and PeteLaChatte for finding out bugs! Fixed version is pending review, while you can use the Quick Fix.

I would use one Scatter for all with an output to Split Generator. And then split divides all of the objects to different type using Random mode.

Thanks! Switching node data to scriptable object can boost a performance due to disallowance of constant serialization. You can create subfolders by dragging one group into the other entirely.
EDIT: Oops, I thought you were talking about the node groups I'm afraid that there is no easy way to add the menu level - I've never planned to make a very branched menu tree. Btw I think that storing it at 4-th submenu will be a bit uncomfortable to use - it will be too difficult to get there.

 

I think I found the cause of my update problems, I had previously renamed CameraController to MMCameraController due to a conflict with another script name. Once I'd deleted that and reimported, it seems to mostly work fine. I wonder if you could rename it to MMCameraController as I'd done, or something similar? Or maybe I just need to learn how to manage this/its not an MM issue? The only way I figured to get around it was to delete the renamed MMCameraController script entirely then reimport again from download manager. It seems that Unity still had some connection between it and MapMagic.

Also I still had these errors on update:

MapMagic: trying to load unknow version scene (v.0). This may cause errors or drastic drop in performance. Delete this MapMagic object and create the new one from scratch when possible.

ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
Parameter name: index
System.Collections.Generic.List`1[MapMagic.Serializer+SerializedObject].get_Item (Int32 index) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:633)
MapMagic.Serializer.Retrieve (Int32 num) (at Assets/MapMagic/Main/Serializer.cs:236)
MapMagic.MapMagic.OnAfterDeserialize () (at Assets/MapMagic/MapMagic.cs:779)

Do I need to worry about the first one? Is there some way I'll know if I'm getting a drastic drop in performance? What kind of ms numbers should I see in the profiler for MapMagic?

 

Here's some other errors I'm getting:

After trying to use the stamp/simpleform generators I get the error below. I'm unable to see the effects of a simple Scatter, Simple Form, Stamp setup on my existing terrain, but it works fine on a new terrain:

Generate Thread Error:
System.DivideByZeroException: Division by zero
at MapMagic.Matrix.Replicate (MapMagic.Matrix source, Boolean tile) [0x00087] in ...

After having the above problems I went to a new scene, confirmed it worked there, and came back to my old scene. Now the generated terrain child objects have multiple duplicates of components that are attached to MapMagic. Specifically, I placed a script on MapMagic to stop terrains using reflection probes. Previously, each terrain generated would have just one of those scripts attached. Now each terrain has about 20 duplicates of this script attached to it.
*edit - every time MM auto generates the terrain (every time I make a change in the editor), it adds a new duplicate of this script to each terrain. Unpinning and repinning fixes the duplicates, but they are recreated with each generation of terrain.

Also are the terrains supposed to be renamed to MapMagic now? When I run my game I get a combination of terrains named the old way (terrain 0, -1) and ones named MapMagic.

 

Are you using the scene made in the pre-release beta? Anyways I've got to see it myself. Could you please send the scene to mail@denispahunov.ru?

Terrains will have an initial name of "Terrain X,Z", the same as in the previous versions. I should definitely see your scene.

 

I'd like to inform that the fix for the non-clickable seed field and output with number of objects <400 is now available in Asset Store.

 

Sent you the scene! The correct one this time!

 

Hi,
I got this asset a little a while ago and haven't got very far into it yet, but it really looks great! The results are very impressive.

I have a question though. What is a good way to handle managing objects that are on terrain that gets removed when the main camera is too far away? For example, rigidbody objects will just fall once the terrain they are on is removed.

I tried parenting them to the terrain. This works if they stay over the terrain they're parented to, but it won't if they get moved off of that terrain.

 

Thanks!

Maybe it's worthwhile to consider turning off physics calculations for the objects that are further than a certain distance from the camera? I guess this should be done anyways for the games with big open worlds and large number of rigidbody objects. A coroutine can iterate in all rigidbodies (say 100 per frame) and turn kinematic and collision detection on or off depending from the object distance to camera. And if that distance is lower than MapMagic build distance it will prevent objects from falling.

 

Hello,
I plan to buy your asset, as it looks awesome.
Two questions though - is it possible to change seed at runtime (to be able for user to generate random, but repetitive maps of choice).
Is there any callback systems, eg. OnTerrainChunkCreated, OnTerrainChunkDeleted etc? This could be connected with Weezel question above, as knowing exact moment on map removal we could clean our custom create objects.

 

It is possible, but keep in mind that it should be done on scene load before the first terrain is generated - otherwise the new terrains will not be welded with the old ones with an old seed.

There are three events:

• OnGenerateStarted - called before the terrain is started to generate
• OnGenerateCompleted - called when the terrain generate is complete, but before the generate result is applied
  
• OnApplyCompleted - called when the generate change is applied to the terrain and it will not be modified with MM further.

These events were made to process the terrain heightmap, splatmap, objects, etc before they applied to terrain, so there is no event on terrain remove. But I see the point why it is should be added, so I'm writing it down in my to-to list.

 

Great - that would be very useful feature, especially when mixing custom made objects with generated terrain.

One more question - how problematic you think it'd be to apply some floating origin algorithm when using your terrain.
Does moving everything to the center of the scene will break generation?

 

You can move MapMagic object any time and any distance - no matter if the terrains are generating or applying, they will be created at the right places. I've tested the scene with a static player and moving MapMagic and other objects each frame, and everything worked well (except the lag on moving lots of objects).

 

Just noticed that OnGenerateStarted event starts multiple times (about 5) when generating map.

 

is there a return state for terrains that are not generated yet? Where can I find that? My issue, partially like what weezel mentioned above, is that when a player object spawns, he falls - then the terrain generates. Likewise, other object that are placed are also falling through. Knowing where to get the value that says "this terrain is generated" would be most helpful.

thanks!

 

Hi Wright,

I noticed in version 1.3 the stamp generator has changed significantly, and I can't figure out how to replicate the behavior of the older stamp generator.

Basically I am trying to figure out how to paint maps under objects and to level areas where the are objects placed.

Thanks for any advice!

 

kulesz, OnGenerateStarted is called once for each terrain. It has a "terrain" argument to help to determine what terrain began to generate. If you generate 4 terrains at game start (a most common case) then it will be called 4 times, each time with new terrain argument.
Btw it's worth checking if you have added one callback with += multiple times.
arrested_games, you can use this event (OnGenerateStarted) together with OnApplyCompleted to track terrain state. OnGenerateStarted means that generate was started, while OnApplyCompleted means that the terrain is ready and will not be changed further. For example, to determine if an object can fall you can use something like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. public class FallEnabler : MonoBehaviour
2. {
3.     public void OnEnable ()
4.     {
5.         MapMagic.MapMagic.OnApplyCompleted -= EnableFall;
6.         MapMagic.MapMagic.OnApplyCompleted += EnableFall;
7.  
8.         Rigidbody rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody>();
9.         rb.isKinematic = true;
10.         rb.detectCollisions = false;
11.     }
12.  
13.     public void OnDisable ()
14.     {
15.         MapMagic.MapMagic.OnApplyCompleted -= EnableFall;
16.     }
17.  
18.     public void EnableFall (Terrain terrain) //checks if applied terrain contains object, and enables it's rigidbody if it does
19.     {
20.         Rect terrainRect = new Rect(terrain.transform.position.x, terrain.transform.position.z, terrain.terrainData.size.x, terrain.terrainData.size.z);
21.         Vector2 pos = new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.z);
22.  
23.         if (terrainRect.Contains(pos))
24.         {
25.             Rigidbody rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody>();
26.             rb.isKinematic = false;
27.             rb.detectCollisions = true;
28.         }
29.     }
30. }

cmart, you can use Blob Generator to paint maps under objects, it works the same way the old stamp generator does with "Full intensity" turned off.

 

Thanks wright, I was able to use the blob generator to paint under objects, but I am still having trouble leveling the area under objects. Using the blob generator, the leveled area under the objects is uniform across all objects regardless of their vertical position, where as with the old stamp generator the leveled area was relative to their vertical position.

Basically what I want to reproduce is the first and second example on page 45 of the manual(Canvas enabled/disabled, max height off), but all I can manage to create is the third example(canvas disabled, max height on).

Also when you say turn full intensity off, is that just setting intensity to 0?

Thanks for any advice!

 

Hello,

I’ve bought your asset a little while ago and have only say one thing: Awsome! I haven’t got very far into it yet, but after playing around several hours with the demo I could create my first mountain side. The results are very impressive.

I’ve a question thought. Actually I got mountains spread out across the complete chunk (like in your tutorial videos and demo) but this looks not realistic, plains, valleys and hill sides are completely missing. What is a good way to add or combine plains, valleys and hill sides to this result?

And one more question: Is it possible to use the asset for a RTS style game? Generally the terrain generation is infinite. I’ve read some entries in this thread where Wright recommended to use pinned terrains for villages only. But what if you have several players with differend starting positions? And what if the player have to build up roads, settlements and structures during the game (i.e. like Civilisation, Banished, Anno ect.)?

 

How does the evaluation version work? I know you can't build with it, so does the plugin keep all its' stuff in a single folder? Supposedly the asset comes with source code, is it true?

 

WOOT! thanks!

 

I'm running into a problem running MapMagic on iOS. Followed setup instructions for a simple map, runs great on my Mac - goes forever in any direction.

On iOS, only the terrain under the player is generated, then no other terrains in any direction generated. Throwing this error:
Array index is out of range.at MapMagic.Curve.Evaluate

Generate Thread Error:
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
at MapMagic.Curve.Evaluate (Single time) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.CurveGenerator.Generate (MapMagic.Chunk chunk) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.Generator.GenerateRecursive (MapMagic.Chunk tw) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.Generator.GenerateRecursive (MapMagic.Chunk tw) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.MapMagic+Chunk.ThreadFn () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.MapMagic+Chunk.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at MapMagic.MapMagic.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
MapMagic.Chunk:ThreadFn()
MapMagic.Chunk:Update()
MapMagic.MapMagic:Update()

 

cmart, aha, I've got what you mean. I'm adding a special Flatten generator to do that, it will be available with a next patch in a couple of days.

Thanks!

You can mix different surface types using the Blend Generator and a large-sized smooth (detail=0) noise as a mask. And if you are talking about a more diverse difference then it's a biomes feature - the one I'm currently working on.

The asset comes with a full source code. The only reason why the evaluation version does not allow to perform a build is a platform-dependent UNITY_EDITOR directive that could not be changed in a compiled script.

Keywise pity there are no line numbers to help to find out what exactly goes wrong. I'll take a look what can possibly malfunction here

 

awesome, sounds good

 

Biomes sounds fantastic, have you already an appointment for this upcoming feature? And could you give me an simple example how I could use the blending effectively to combine plains with mountains? This are my first steps with procedural generated terrain. I've played several ours with this combiner, but I completely failed. In most cases any mountains are gone or flatten. I wanted to get such effects looks like already realized by secondsight_ or in your badlands screenshot:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ma...and-infinite-game-map-generator.390920/page-4

Could you give me an answer to this question?
Thanks in advance.

 

Okay, let's assume that you have two presets for the mountains and for the valleys:


Their final outputs are blended together using the Blend generator. In a Mix mode it blends two maps together using the third map called Mask. When mask values are low (black) the influence of the first map is higher, and when the values are high (white) then blended result looks more like the second map:


You can find the saved data here.

I don't see any obstacles in using MapMagic for the RTS game. Personally I would use a pinned terrains for the whole map, generating them with a random seed with ForceGenerate function every time the new game starts. This will prevent them from disappearing and re-generating so that any changes will be permanent. It's the simplest approach and in this case you will not be able to create an infinite land (it could be a great USP for the RTS game - but as anything great it will require some work to implement).

 

Thanks for clearing up some of my confusion. I found the manual on the website and I am not clear on one thing: how do I spawn e.g. buildings instead of trees and rocks? There's a mention that it's possible, but it's not followed by any examples or instructions.

 

I can only agree with what has just been said, and thanks a lot for the sample.

This sounds good, but will this not consume much memory? Generally the map should not be infinite, but large, I am thinking about maps like they used in Medieval Grand Ages.

 

You just have to assign a building prefab in an Object Output slot. Note that MapMagic will not create a dense city, but a village with a detached houses could be fairly created.

To be honest I don't know what is the map size in Grand Ages: Medieval. As far as I can see from the screenshots they do not have anything extraordinary - about 1 or 2 kilometer maps with some mountains in the background. With such a detail it all can be placed in 4, or even 1 terrain. But maybe I've missed something - like, say, they have all the Europe as a single map that could be zoomed in or anything like that.

 

If I remember correctly from what I have read than their terrain should baring more than 25.000km². Thanks for your hints I've to play around with it.

 

Hi! I'm trying out the Evaluation Version, but I can't seem to find the "MapMagic" object in menu GameObject -> 3D Object. I also don't see any component script to add by that name. I'm using Unity 5.3.5f1.

 

Do you have any errors in the console on asset import or on script compile?

 

Sorry, I just tried a blank project, and that seemed to work, so it must be an error in one of my projects (although it didn't show any console errors). I'll look into it some more, thanks for the help!

 

It seems like if there's another Editor script within the project, the MapMagic menu item disappears. That's why it works on a blank project but not on my existing. However, there's no error or warning shown in the console. Reimporting assets or restarting Unity does not seem to help.

Edit: I tried with some different Editor scripts. For example, by importing the CrossPlatformInput standard asset (includes an Editor folder). Also tried some custom Editor scripts that adds a new menu items that counts polygons, and one that adds a ReadOnly attribute for inspector variables. If just one script within an Editor folder is present, the MapMagic menu item disappears, but if all Editor scripts are removed, it shows up again.

 

Odd thing. I've got Erosion Brush and Voxeland in my test project along with MM and both of them have an Editor folders with editor scripts. Obviously I should receive tons of reports about that bug, but still it's the first of it's kind, so it should be something about the details. Maybe the Unity version matters - the closest version to 5.3.5 is my main 5.3.4p4, so I'll start with testing the latest released Unity.

And I can provide you with a full version for the test purpose to check if it is the bug of the evaluation version only (it could happen because of compiled dlls) or MapMagic in general.

 

Yeah, it's probably only related to the Evaluation version and dll:s like you say, because no-one else have reported it.

One thing I forgot to mention is that an older version from about a month ago worked fine. I tried it quickly back then within a project with similar Editor scripts, and I could use the menu. So this problem only occurred after I downloaded the latest Evaluation version.

If you want to reproduce, you could create a blank project and import the MapMagic Evaluation package. You should see the MapMagic menu item. Then import Standard Assets -> CrossPlatformInput and it should disappear.

If you don't want to spend too much time on this, you could just write a notice on the Evaluation page that there's a bug when it's used together with some other Editor scripts, so it should be used in a blank project (and that it doesn't happen in the full version).