► Mesh Materializer ◄

Im going to try and bake some lighting with your tool this weekend but want to be clear on the process.

So once I bake the mesh with materializer it should be safe to remove the light map files since it's baked into he vertex color map?

 

Everything will be baked inside mesh vertex color. Textures can be deleted.



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Here are some screenshots to show the problem I'm having.

Here we have a simple static cube with default material; two baked lights (red and blue) and a non-baked directional light; lightmap is not baked yet at this point.




After baking the lightmap and disabling baked lights just to ensure.




After MM Generation with no material + vacuum shader : red lighting is not there, and blue is wrong shade.




Tried again this time with standard shader;



Finally added a material (standard shader) to cube (replaced default material); cleared and rebaked lightmap; then this is what I get after MM generation while selecting the material cube had.




-----------------------
Advice?

 

Lightmap texture and all other kind of data is baked inside mesh vertex color.
It is per-vertex effect. More vertices mesh has more details will be baked.
In your case lightmap is baked correctly. Color is calculated at the vertex position and it is baked.



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Well red is missing, right?

Please confirm that it needs vacuum shader to work.

 

Red color is not baked as it is inside polygon and not at vertex position.
Texture that happen to be at vertex position are baked inside vertex color.

Any shader that support vertex color will work.



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hi does your asset decrease poly count ?

 

No.



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@arkivrag, hi davit, som people have also for this: would you please allow us to move your folder around...

Before you mention that it’s only one folder, I would also add “yes, from you. And then there would be another developer with only one folder and so on.”

My suggestion would be to say that you can’t rename the folder, and then simply locate that folder instead of assuming it will be under Assets.

PS: i’ve Mesh materializer and there are some of your other assets that I do want to purchase - but honestly it’s this folder that is stopping me.

I hope you understand.

 

Hi,

But terrain to mesh can reduce poly count. I mean it can be adjusted, right?

 

Hi,

I'm considering purchasing this product but had a few questions. Sorry if this was already asked/answered...

Do the DLL libraries get included into the final build of the app if I'm using mobile vertex shaders? Or is the dll primarily used while working in the editor producing the various functionality?

If I want decide to use vacuum shaders, do only the shaders I'm using get included in my build or are they a part of a DLL lib and the whole dll get's included as part of the application build?

I'm targeting low end mobile (eg. iPad 2) do you have any data on how performant your shaders are vs. the stock unity mobile vertex ones?

I would appreciate if you could chime in on those answers.

Thank You,
Regards.

 

Yes, during converting terrain into mesh you have full control on vertex count.

DLL is included into final build only if using tools run-time API (do some converting/calculation using scripts).
Shaders and DLL are not connected in any way.

Included shaders are optimized for mobiles, but you can use any other shaders with vertex color support.



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Thank You for getting back.

 

Hi,

I've done some research - as you suggested under a different thread (in Terrain to Mesh thread) - about achieving the low poly art style. As I understand it materializer deals with Vertex Colour assets. With that said, if I want to use any of the utilities like Colour adjustment, or Light baking into the vertex colours but already have a vertex colour asset from another package (Ie. was not created using MM with the Vertex Colour burning) will these utilities still work on those assets. Or do they only function with MM created Vertex Colour models. I just want to make sure that I'll be able to use these MM tools with other Vertex Colour assets and not just MM created/generated ones.

Thank You,
Regards.

 

Mesh Materializer bakes various material data inside mesh vertex color. Generated file is a standard Unity mesh file.
You can use any tool with those meshes.
You can use any shader (custom, third-party) with vertex color support.

You can use MM on other meshes too, whether they have vertex color or not.
If you have some mesh with already vertex color inside and need to bake Lightmap over it using MM, then original vertex colors will be combined with Lightmap data (or only Lightmap can be saved).

MM works with any mesh and there is no 'special' MM mesh type.



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Thanks. Appreciate the clarification.

 

Hi Davit,

I'm trying MM to just do a conversion to vertex colour mesh using Mesh Texture & Color. For some reason the conversion happens for some models and not for others. Some of the models I just get the popup saying Preparing then going straight to Restoring. The directory is created for the MM mesh but no model get's created. I'm using the same settings as for other models that get converted correctly (and these models from the same pack I purchased)...

False alarm, I had to restart Unity and everything seems to be working now.

 

Hi,

I've been using the VacuumShader/Vertex Colour/One Directional Light shader and have a question. When I enable "Receive Environment Lighting" and am using SkyBox under Lighting->Environment Lighting->Source the model (Vertex Coloured model) that is using the shader looks like is being effected by the SkyBox lighting source. If I disable the "Receive Environment Lighting" checkbox the Colour of the Environment Lighting->Source is being used. This can be seen easily by selecting Colour as the Source setting the colour to something crazy like Red and then setting the Source to Skybox. Then by toggling the Receive Environment Lighting box in the shader the model will toggle between SkyBox lighting source and the red colour source. Is this intended behaviour?

To me "Receive Environment Lighting" implies any source of environment lighting not just SkyBox. If it is intended to only work on skybox then perhaps renaming it to something clearer like "Receive SkyBox Environment Lighting" might clear up the confusion.

Can you please comment if this is expected behaviour or something that needs to be fixed. By the way I'm using Unity 5.6.4f1 (latest 5.6 version).

Also an FYI, small typo under the Lightmap section in MM. Instead of Intensity you have Intenity, just a heads up.

Thanks,
Regards.

 

I have a new empty project in Unity Version 2017.2.0f3

Downloaded Mesh Materializer from the asset store - seems to be up to date.

Everytime I try to bake anything I get this Editor Error Object reference not set to an instance of an object

The built in "Check for update" function for the plugin also says it "Can not connect to the Update server."

I haven't moved the plugin folder or anything. This plugin use to work for me so I assume it has to do with the unity update?

EDIT : Got help through email - turned out I had to delete my asset store cache

Asset Store cache folder:
PC - C:\Users\[Your Profile Name]\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store

Thanks!

 

Confirm. It's a bug.



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I had a question about the Color Adjustments asset. Can you please have a look at the forum for that asset?

 

I am considering to buy it to create colliders for my mesh instead of using mesh collider... Is that a good idea? Can I duplicate my mesh, simplify them and use them as colliders.

 

Mesh Materializer does not reduce mesh vertex count, if it's what you are asking for.
As for MeshCollider attribute, you can use any mesh.



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I am really confuse at this point about on how and what vertex colors are but lot of effects that you are showing are needed for my game.

As I need to use a custom shader for other reasons, will this ASE node, render those vertex colors and all the effect you are doing?

http://wiki.amplify.pt/index.php?title=Unity_Products:Amplify_Shader_Editor/Vertex_Color

 

Any shader with vertex color support can be used.



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Yeah I got that part.

I am wondering if I can make a shader that support all your feature in Amplify Shader Editor with the node/link that I put in my last post.

 

If that node reads vertex color value of the mesh, then yes.



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Hey,

This is a great asset, but I am having some trouble with one particular thing. I am only really just starting out so there is much I don't know, but previously I managed to create a single texture from the 4 texture layers on my procedurally generated terrain which looked like this (1).

I've come back to a project after sometime away from it and unfortunately I now realise that the resolution is too low, so need to do it again and can't figure out why my new basemap_diffuse looks like this (2).

Any idea what I am doing wrong or how to get the results I am looking for? I thought I did it all with Mesh Materializer, but I may have used another program in the process but can't remember.

thanks in advance

 

First of all make sure terrain is using Unity built-in shaders and not custom shaders.
Basemap baking works only with Unity built-in terrain shader.




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Hi awesome tool,
I have lots of terrains I need to convert to obj's. My question would be that I can convert them to mesh terrain, but the command to turn them to obj's is missing in the api. I would like to use the window for easy life, but for some reason it uses the same name so it just get overwritten. How can I use the terrain in process prefab name so that it doesn't do that? It takes a lot of time to process all the terrains and just waiting and clicking is not a humans job.

 

v2018.1 includes runtime OBJ exporter for terrains (example scene is included).
If using editor, for each mesh you have to use different prefab name or generated files will be overwritten.



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Ok nice! Maybe I can now work something out! I tried making them as separate prefabs. I can see it going through all the terrains and it just overwrites the same one. I have tried finding the code that handles that part so I could add the needed lines myself, but not much luck. It's hidden somewhere in the dll files, but how can I get access to it? Feels stupid to code it with the run time tools when it's just few lines of editor code...

 

Prefab name must be chanched inside editor window, it also becomes the folder name created automaricaly by editor. Generated files are saved in that folder. Changing gameobjecsts/prefabs manualy has no effect.

 

Could you add an option so that it looks the name of the prefab and uses that as an optional. In my case I have many terrains and would like to process them all at the same time. I have parent gameobject that has child terrains and would like so they can be all materialized at one editor action. They are quite huge so it takes time. That's why I'm asking.

 

I recently got this and it's been a "curve". Hopefully what I went through will help others noobs lol.

I have a simple scene with a terrain with simple materials which compiles and builds fine (iOS build).
If I add the Mesh Materializer package it no longer builds and gives an error with Runtime_OBJExporter.cs(4,7), "UnityEditor" could not be found.

Ignoring that for the minute, if I followed the steps in the TerrainToMesh video I got a solid white mess and can see no wireframe.

Next, I tried to create a base map and those files seem okay except they are not applied to the mesh. Sigh.

So I generate both a base map and a mesh at the same time and I'm getting somewhere. But the maps created are 2k even though I chose 4k. I considered trying to make 8k maps but Unity crashed.

I load Unity again and try 8k, but it still creates only 2k textures. Then I see I have to over-ride the texture import for iOS but the texturing still looks really poor compared to the original terrain even though the textures on the original terrain are only 1024x1024. Certainly not good enough for my game.

Then I decided to try adding a splat map. I did this the previous day and got nothing but pink which is why I didn't do it today. But lo and behold it drastically improves the result. The mesh terrain looks great. Happy days. So make a splat map at the same time as a base map and at the same time as making the mesh.

Unfortunately, the project still won't build due to the Runtime_OBJExporter.cs issue. It runs in the editor but won't build. So I delete the offending .cs script and then the project does build. So this needs fixing for other users out there!

In terms of performance, my environment with the Unity terrain was giving me 30 fps. As a single mesh, my FPS went up to 40, with multiple mesh chunks it stayed at around 30. So I got a performance lift from the single mesh as desired.

I export the trees and that works. But the performance is a lot worse than the trees from the unity terrain detail. So, for now, I am going to use the mesh terrain and the unity detailing. The benefit of being able to have wind, grass and other details with the unity terrain and still have significant performance benefits make it a no-brainer. If MM gets the other unity terrain detail exports (stones etc) then I may re-evaluate.

So overall, the tool is not very user-friendly in my opinion and the tutorials leave a lot to be desired (little to no explanations really). However, I did eventually achieve my main objective which was to improve performance for my environment so it was worth my while buying.

I've reduced the number of unity terrain trees and camera render distance and got back to my target 60 fps with my environment so onwards to my next phase!

 

Runtime_OBJExporter.cs is an Editor example script showing how to convert Unity terrain into OBJ file and then load as asset in Editor. Why including it into the build?

Terrain is converted into mesh and assigned default material. This material has no textures to render and that's why it is white (even in video tutorial mesh is white as it has not textures assigned).

If you are generating terrain mesh and baking textures together, then enable Create T2M Material option and editor will assign those baked textures to the mesh material.
Baked textures resolution is controllable, but you will have to manually set Max Size parameter inside Texture Importer.
If Unity can not handle texture resolution you have baked, it is not Mesh Materializer fault.

Basemap bakes all terrain textures into One. If terrain is big (mostly it is) using just one Basemap texture, of course, will have poor quality. In that case use Splatmap.

It seems to be a bug, can you provide more details so I can fix it? Support E-mail: vacuumshaders@gmail.com
Note, if you are using custom terrain shader, it may even do not have Splatmap to export.

It is Editor example script. Do not include it to the build!
I have to 'fix' it, for other users to not have the problems with it when building.

Exported trees are original tree prefabs and they do not have Unity Terrain LOD system, because original prefabs have no those LODs.

Grass and detail meshes are not saved inside Terrain asset and can not be exported. They are generated by Unity.
Adding that feature (not planed for now) means to manually generate and instantiate millions of game objects into a scene (you do not count Grass and Details when drawing them on terrain, don't you?). And without Unity Terrain LOD system again. Do you really need this?

Any suggestions for improvements?

Tutorials for terrain converting and texture baking:

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Hello, I am using a fairly large map 10240x10240 along with World Streamer. I was going to try and convert my Unity Terrain made with World Creator to mesh so I could use it for higher performance LOD so I bought Mesh Materializer. What it gave me at the end was not what I was expecting as seen below.

I thought it was just going to end up with a basic mesh with a texture on it, but this has the "terrain" object on it and my MicroSplat material/shader on it still, but shows it with a mesh instead of a Terrain.asset file. Should I just use this anyways? I was going for maximum performance since it was originally just going to be view distance LOD, is the "Terrain" and MicroSplat objects on it costing me unnecessary performance when I am just wanting something to look at in the distance? If you see in the second pic below, the wireframe part certainly looks like it would be a much lower poly terrain, yet the details in what is showing, such as the bumps and divots in it look much different than the wireframe.

Which also leads to my next question, if it is and does act as a normal and actual terrain should I ditch the original Unity terrain from World Creator I am currently using and just use this converted one instead? The actual mesh part of it is showing that it is only 225 vert / 392 poly, which I figure should be pretty good, but then again I don't know how many poly the original Unity Terrain was to begin with and it looks like its more than that based on the second pic.

I guess the main question is, if what I have here is actual normal terrain but better performing than stock Unity terrain, should I just use this instead, but then also take this and convert it again to even lower poly and hopefully better-performing mesh for LOD than it already is? Also, how many poly should decent usable terrain be, vs how many is a good number for LOD?

If anyone has any insight to this, I would definitely appreciate it! I am going to have to convert hundreds of these, so I have only done a few by hand to test it out until the batch processing update comes out, so if I need to do this a different way to maximize performance, I definitely want to figure that out before I do much more.

 

I have never used MicroSplat asset before and did not know how it works. But after checking here is solution:
MicroSplat is a custom third-party script attached to the terrain and like all other custom components it is duplicated to the generated mesh.
If you open MicroSplat script file (on line 7) it has defined required component: [RequireComponent(typeof(Terrain))] and that is why after converting terrain, generated mesh still has attached Terrain component - MicroSplat requires it.
You have to manfully remove MicroSplat script from the generated mesh first(!) and then Terrain component.

The main question you may have is - Is Mesh Materializer compatible with MicroSplat? I would say - No! Because it is custom script modifying terrain and effecting it's rendering through custom shader.

Mesh Materializer is guaranteed to convert only Unity Terrain asset into mesh. And Basemap can be baked only if terrain uses Unity's built-in terrain shader.



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Oh, I see, hmmm... that mean that what is actually there and showing up isn't low poly and is essentially the same? There is still a mesh on it, and I don't see the actual terrain.asset file on it anymore. I don't know what I ended up with, lol.

Any update on when the batch processing update will be coming? What I am going to do is reimport my world creator terrain and just not add microsplat to it in a different scene, then process the terrain there with just the normal textures and shader on it and then bring those back over to my main scene and see how it turns out using those instead.

 

I created a new scene, reimported from World Creator and all that without applying MicroSplat so that it would work properly, it seems to have, but the color is much darker and would not match at all even from a distance.



Did I miss something in my settings I was supposed to use? I watched a video on it, but it looked different and had different options than these.

 

Terrain Texture bakes original textures inside mesh vertex color, it is used in 'low poly' effect. Disable it.
Instead enable Export Terrain Maps and Create T2M Material option there.



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@Arkhivrag

How do you go about writing a mesh to file? The example I found only creates it in the scene, if I try to drag it in to project it makes an empty prefab. I see how it writes the obj, but when I use the UI to do terrain to mesh it ends up with 3 files. Is there example code how to write the mesh properly to file so you get the prefab, mesh file, and the material?

I am guessing that the parts from the obj export

Code (CSharp):

1.         //Save OBJ file
2.         StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(objFilePath);
3.         try
4.         {
5.             sw.WriteLine(strOBJ);
6.         }

won't end up making the needed files?

 

Never mind. I got it figured out..

On a side note, the scripts (Runtime_OBJExplorer in particular) aren't namespaced, I was getting compile errors.

 

Use AssetDatabase.CreateAsset()

Runtime_OBJExporter is an example script for Editor, do not include it in the build.



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Hi there.
Looking forward to using this rad package on a cool low-poly game... but something is up.
When I hit "Generate" the progress window appears, but doesn't go anywhere.
I see the following error in the console...

Could not load type 'VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.ProceduralMaterialImportSettings' from assembly 'VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer_Editor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null

TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.ProceduralMaterialImportSettings' from assembly 'VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer_Editor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MM_EditorWindow.Draw_GenerateButtons ()
VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MM_EditorWindow.OnGUI ()
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232)
System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115)
UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName, System.Object obj) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:291)
UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:284)
UnityEditor.HostView.InvokeOnGUI (Rect onGUIPosition) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:251)

Any ideas how to fix this? Could this be due to the fact that I am using the 2018 Beta?
Thanks,
Dan

 

Unity beta versions are not supported. Waiting for official release.



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I get this same error on official release version 2018.1.0f2 but on the asset store it says the package is updated to 2018.2 but the asset store also says the asset is up to date, should I try and clear my cache?

 

Yes, clear cache and re-download asset using Unity 2018.1.
Plugin version is 2018.2 (second update in 2018).



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This worked, I think it is also worth noting that you don't have to clear your entire asset cache but just remove the package file from the asset directory.

 

Hi! What is the main advantage or major differences in using the Low Poly Mesh Generator vs. the DirectX 11 Low Poly Shader? Also, does the Generated Mesh Asset Optimizer set of tools in the Mesh Materializer suite ideal to use for reducing tris count of meshes just like how a mesh decimation tool works?

Planning to convert a terrain made with Terrain Composer 2 and convert it to a low poly version together with some assets. Would this set of tools be compatible with that?