► Mesh Materializer ◄

Spoiler

Using Export Terrains as Chunks 3x3 with a 103x103 Resolution I get

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Texture rectangle is out of bounds (128 + 1 > 128)
3. UnityEngine.TerrainData:GetAlphamaps(Int32, Int32, Int32, Int32)
4. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMGenerator:‍‏‏‮‫‫‬‮‍‎‌‪‍‎‏‏‬‭‏‌‍‮(Single, Single, Single, Single)
5. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMGenerator:MaterializeTerrain(Terrain, MM_INFO[]&, String[]&, MMData[])
6. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow:Generate()
7. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow:Draw_GenerateButtons()
8. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow:OnGUI()
9. UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()
10.  
11. //and then
12.  
13. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
14. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.CreatePrefabAsset (UnityEngine.GameObject _saveObj)
15. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.Generate ()
16. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.Draw_GenerateButtons ()
17. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.OnGUI ()
18. 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-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
19.  

Sorry to break your thing again
I was seeing just how manageable 9801 pieces of mesh (33x33x9) would be to process on a script and the sub-chunking spat that out before I got anywhere near. ( I was exporting from a simple 5x4 terrain setup)

this is now fixed

 

Spoiler

If anyone else gets this (until it is fixed) and cant export a particular asset (that same one) no matter what you try..
and you just get

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
3. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.CreatePrefabAsset (UnityEngine.GameObject _saveObj)
4. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.Generate ()
5. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.Draw_GenerateButtons ()
6. VacuumShaders.MeshMaterializer.MMEditorWindow.OnGUI ()
7. 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-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
8.  

and a dialog box left open

EDIT: You can get around this by naming the asset something other than its default.
that works.


I thought I should also mention that using IBL on terrains in groups will cause the triangles around the edges of the terrains to not match in colour. EDIT: Actually all exports edges have one half too-white edges like that :\

Like so:


Perhaps the edges are being matched against an "all bits on" value?

Cheers.

THE FIX FOR THIS IS HERE http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mesh-materializer.293796/page-3#post-2028546 This is a texture type import issue

 

@twobob
I have fixed last "Texture rectangle is out of bounds" bug. Update will be available in 15 minutes



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Spoiler

Thanks man

Did you note the bit about the edges?

Using the Unity Ambient Setting makes everything REALLY bright (so maybe that is off a bit)
But I will play around until I get a colour that matches by hand.

Okay, so the colour match if I turn Unity Ambient On but Black. Hmm. Maybe i am wrong. will keep checking - one sec

EDIT: Okay so I get it now. The reason everything looks so bright relative to the converted mesh if you have some ambient light setup and turned OFF in the little preview icon seems to be addition to the meshes twice (which makes sense) - Simply Setting the Unity Ambient to Black and turning on the Little Light preview icon will make the conversions match....

Now let me go test those edges...


Dang, they still don't match. And those lines look pretty horrible :\

EDIT THE FIX/REASON FOR THIS IS HERE
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mesh-materializer.293796/page-3#post-2028546

 

Update 0.97 beta is already uploaded on Asset Store, in several minutes it will alive.

As for terrain and IBl. Here is 5x5 terrain chunks with IBL. Seamless connection.
May be I need more detail info, to reproduce your issue



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Spoiler

Okay - even weirder than I thought.

I have switched back to the Terrain and found where that data is coming from...




there are now two dark edges and two light edges on my terrain texture!

I think it must have happened when I selected to use it as a Texture Overlay with IBL turned on in a resulted mesh?

Something like that.

I will go recover the original images (I hope) and see if I can replicate. ouch.

No idea how on earth I managed that...

EDIT: Okay this artifact is cause by the settings on those two images changing from their defaults to some sort of advanced texture setting... Will have to see if this is done by the tool again - or what.

It should be like this: (the defaults) and it wasnt

anyway: Fixes the edges..

So reverting BACK to the default settings fixes the original data - which can then be re-exported. phew.

 

Fixed in Update v0.98 beta

Spoiler

Okay so now the multi-chunk export exports perfectly.
However the resulting piece is not placed in the same place?

Here is the results of an export (you can see where it should have been)



This seems to be a miscalculation in the parent pivot? or something?
Still trying to find the pattern.

But anyway - that is the only problem I can find now.

Love the package. Sorry to be a constant QA thorn in your side.

EDIT: okay so I found the relative offset via careful placement

That is the proper offset to use while broken it seems...
That is probably a function of the total size or original locations, in some way, I imagine...

Anyway, it's definitely not right

EDIT: Okay so I worked it out...



You need to add 1/2 the total are z to the result. And also you fail to account for the offset in the x (which goes up by order from the "center"). Z possibly also works in the same way, will find out.

Wow this is agonizingly slow going now I thought it was slow before I had to hand align via vertex snapping (which I now can do as I got the first mesh copy in place correctly)
I am so desperate for batching right now I would start a kickstarter campaign :\

 

Fixed. Currently I have began working on U5 support and all further fixes will be included in v1.0
Fill free to post about other bugs. And thanks for help improving Mesh Materializer.



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Fixed in Update v0.98 beta

Spoiler

So... it will have a broken offset until 1.0?

It's cripplingly slow to move it all by hand :

15x9 piece took me till now to do... From my last post - so two - very dull - hours.

But I did get this tiny terrain excerpt finished successfully in the end...
I am happy to improve the product mate. Better product now, less heartache later.


for both of us

I will beg one last time.
If I build a church to your name would you consider adding a simple select by list option?
or even a standalone script to facilitate batching?
I am looking to setup 33x33 terrains at some point - it took me two hours to do 5x3, granted most of that was actually putting them all back in the right place but... 1089 > 15 by a scary margin.

So, a school bearing your name? Donation to a charity of your choice? Lie on the stairs and wear a cilice for month?
I am at your mercy.

Good luck with the u5 support!!! I imagine getting the meshes to receive shadows is a real trick.

 

Update v0.98 beta released.
Fixed generated terrain chunks position related to the parent asset.



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zomg. Hero. I was nearly crying last night. (in a really manly way).
Missed the eclipse this morning and got into great trouble for my troubles... (honestly sometime I wonder why I bother making things near-perfection).

Much obliged, by the way if you are not going to adding batching - it would be nice to know - so I can figure something else out for myself.

Much obligedness

 

@twobob
I can not understand what you mean by 'simple select by list option' and 'script to facilitate batching' ?
Can you explain it better?



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He wants to either select a bunch of objects to convert one-by-one in one batch. Or a way to script going through a batch of objects to convert one-by-one.

 

Well, it seams a necessary feature, currently it is not planned. Maybe I will add in next updates.
For now to convert several objects, or even entire scene, just group them within one parented object (even empty) and put that parent to 'Source Object'. MM will convert them all.



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Excellent. Now THAT is exactly the type of info I was hunting for.

Starts building church.

Thanks man.

 

Spoiler

Request for something helpful:
It's not - critical - or anything. just would be nice.

Auto LOD naming. So simple to implement.
It would be really helpful to have a dropdown box that lets the user choose an LOD suffix for the converted objects

The drop-down could say for options NONE, LOD0, LOD1, LOD2, LOD3 (4 should be enough)

and that just attaches _LOD0, _LOD1, _LOD2, _LOD3 to the exported objects name (or nothing)

It would REALLY helpful to have a box that says "ALSO ADD SUFFIX TO SUBMESHES" - since I would really be using this in a batch parent object.

I am currently doing this by hand for multiple exports however I understand if this is outside the scope of the project. Would certainly help for post-scripting, as you can probably imagine.

I have provided a script for this below


Also, I was just checking that shadow support was on-track for 1.0
I just noticed (again) that the shadows don't happen on 5_0 (f4 + p2) and I kept meaning to ask


Finally remembered to ask.


In other news....
I am enjoying mangling my test terrains down to little numbers with the LOD stuff
(this is about 15km2)


It makes the batching that was killing me before much more manageable, keeping frame rates high.
Nice. Really appreciate the work you did on the Terrain slicing



Thanks

 

On the off-chance someone else needs a simple suffix adding script for this package...
https://gist.github.com/twobob/84431c58ba65282f450f

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using UnityEditor;
3. using System.Collections;
4.  
5. public class AddSuffixLOD : MonoBehaviour {
6.  
7. [MenuItem("Tools/AddSuffix/_LOD0")]
8. static void AddSuffix0()
9. { // Suffixes _LOD0 to the name
10. AddSuffixViaString("_LOD0");
11. }
12.  
13. [MenuItem("Tools/AddSuffix/_LOD1")]
14. static void AddSuffix1()
15. { // Suffixes _LOD1 to the name
16. AddSuffixViaString("_LOD1");
17. }
18.  
19. // Repeat the above structure for however many LOD options you want in the menu.
20.  
21. // Just in case we mess up or something...
22. [MenuItem("Tools/AddSuffix/Strip_Suffix")]
23. static void StripSuffix()
24. { // STRIP suffix from the name
25. RemoveSuffix();
26. }
27.  
28. private static void RemoveSuffix()
29. { foreach (GameObject go in Selection.gameObjects) {
30. go.name = go.name.Remove(go.name.IndexOf("_LOD"));
31. }}
32.  
33. private static void AddSuffixViaString(string suffix)
34. {
35. foreach (GameObject go in Selection.gameObjects)
36. {
37. go.name = go.name + suffix;
38. }}}

Does what I needed.
EDIT: Added Suffix stripper

 

Okay - I take it back. it does receive shadows... kinda

Here is me turning on a blob shadow on a player


(note the lack of shadow under player)

If I zoom out a LOT however...


There it is, the world largest blob shadow Off the Left And Back a bit, spanning like 300 meters or something
Thought I should report.

EDIT: Okay so it scales to the entire mesh material I get it.
To be clear, in this picture I am standing on the CORNER of 3 mesh chunks.

So three shadows...

 

hello,
how can i make the mesh after converting from terrain look the same as terrain with splat textures.as we can observe that a triangle is having a single color not the texture,
thanks.

 

@akhil9 post a picture.

If you mean USE COLOR AND TEXTURE - it's in the shader I think.

It switched you over to a vertex based shader color solution, thus one triangle, one color.
Simply re-activating the texture back over this mesh will effectively set it back to how it was.
(more or less, remember splat textures are combinations of colors) in my case I was using a single texture ALREADY for the terrain colors so I could just "put this back on the texture", if you have a complicated terrain texture you may be better off doing some sort of isometric grab of the total terrain texture prior to conversion to save all of the combined terrain texture data.

I could of course be wrong, but that sounds about right.

 

no actually i didnot bought the asset but as i see from the images posted above a triangle is having a single plain color but not with a texture.its not looking same as the terrain.but if it looks similar to terrain(with painted texture) i will buy it.i am expecting the same looking mesh as terrain.

 

hmm. well. I think you should consider whether it will actually convert your terrain texture - to the resolution you want - and also consider making hi-res overlay if that is really what you need - but honestly - this product is not really aimed at preserving hi-res detail - and terrains can be massive. So, just saying... expect a more "reduced information" style.

 

******It switched you over to a vertex based shader color solution, thus one triangle, one color.
Simply re-activating the texture back over this mesh will effectively set it back to how it was.*********

i did not understand about the second case.can you show me the screenshots of these two cases.

 

sure,

regular - flat 3 - conversion - with a reference bit of land on the left.



And then - reapplying a texture over it.



For this to work "properly" for multi-chunked terrain you would need to ensure you don't select "Force one Submaterial" so you could apply a picture to each.

if you don't you will get a Tiled Effect



to be honest, this is a very long winded way of just converting the terrain to a mesh and applying a single texture to the material, but it would work - which is what I thought you were asking.

And the end results are not that "great" on terrains without HUGE textures...


This would have a LOT more value if you could blend it with the vertex color (or other channels) but currently it is ALL or NOTHING for the textures.

And - just for fun - here is that same mesh with a completely OTHER shader on it.
(just to show you can do that too)


Hope that clears it up a bit.

 

ok fine,understood.
but regarding the last image.it looks very good.is it a single texture or small textures which are painted on the mesh as we do with the terrain.
is the shader you used in the last image inbuilt?
what should we do to get that.its looking same as the terrain.
thanks.

 

I simply used one of the Horiz[on] "Object" shaders over the mesh that Mesh Materializer spat out (note the lack of shadows) - it is not included. RTP3 would do the job too.

 

No rush on the shadows. I saw you were busy and have simply implemented an alternate local solution until 1.0 U5 shaders are ready.



Cheers mate

 

Is there any reason why my Terrain (created with Terrain Composer) would now have a black line (thick) around two edges after conversion?

 

is it an odd number? or something?

sounds likes an indexing error? maybe

 

I deleted the Mesh Materializer, downloaded the newest version, and tried again. It works fine now.

 

This thing is so fun with Skinned Mesh. I took a nice character, used Simple LOD, assigned the LOD2 (default settings), and then used Mesh Materializer. It looks awesome. I like the look of LOD2 with MM better than LOD1. Fun.

 

Ah yeah. that WAS an indexing fault. it got picked up about 3 iterations ago.

I too am messing with Simple LOD how spooky is that

 

I'd really like to see a "Water" tutorial using U5 and the standard Assets water

 

Anyone try this with ProBuilder yet? If so, what's the trick to get it to work?

 

So I tried to do some REALLY lo-poly stuff.

9 unique grids. All exported from just several versions of one hand-mangled terrain.

64x64 verts on the 1st export to non-flat. Then Crunched using external tools. Then flat shaded. (so 3 part process)

Result was a 756m2 of terrain coming in at the following numbers with real-time self-soft-shadowing. And Two directional lights in a forward pass with gamma.



It also handles the objects shadows for that cost



Pretty decent.
Very in-game usable, in fact so low at that point there is no LOD on that at all.

and here is Deferred Linear with one directional Light and real-time self-soft-shadowing.



Those are some really great numbers for the space covered...

(and with a character for realities sake)



Fun! great system

 

New feature - Color Adjustments

(part of Mesh Materializer v1.0)



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Hi mate.

It seems like I do that same settings (and have to reset manually) over and over - could you consider a very simple PRESET system to save/load last used settings (or something)

Many many thanks, love the colour thingy

 

Substance material baking in Mesh Materializer v1.0

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Mesh Materializer v1.0 will be released tomorrow . Just need to update doc and make some final polishes.



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Will just ask if you would consider the possibility of presets in the future, I do a lot of repetitive "settings" clicking (and so do you in the support videos), even just keeping the last settings would be helpful.

I was also hoping you may consider a "Transparency" setting for an overlaid texture in the final shader, to mix with the Vertex data. That would be a "nice to have" - I could probably do this myself I suppose.

and finally just reminding you about the mega large shadows
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mesh-materializer.293796/page-3#post-2038459

Exciting! 1.0!

 

1. Preset system is ready with save/load/delete options.
2. That specific shader is not in project. Just some basic vertex color shaders with optional: texture and color, specular, reflection, IBL and emission options. +U5 Standard with vertex color support.
3. Realtime shadows and projectors work without problem in U4 and U5.



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That's great thanks. I guess I will make my own partially blending shader.
How hard can 50% blending the texture be... (famous last words)

1.0 here we come.

 

Mesh Materializer v1.0 released!

• Unity 5 ready.
• Added Color Adjustments tool.
• Added procedural material (Substance) baking.
• Added presets system. All Mesh Materializer and Color Adjustments window settings can be saved as presets.
• Ambient occlusion can be generated for terrains.
• AO supports dirt texture.
• AO can be blurred (only for terrains).
• AO generated data can be exported as texture in editor (only for terrains)
• AO power option now works as supposed.
• AO baking uses zero Random.seed that guarantees always the same AO results.
• Added generated mesh asset name format option.
• Generated asset's material shader can be selected from MM editor window.
• Converted mesh can automatically proceed to Color Adjustments using selected preset.
• Converted terrain mesh now has uv1.
• Depending on project setting color will be baked in Linear or Gamma color spaces.
• Flat1/2/3 has been renamed to Flat/Flat Smooth/Flat Smoother.
• Improved vertex color shaders.
• Shaders have correct fallback and shadow cast/receive code.
• Shaders have specular and emission options.
• Shaders work in Gamma and Linear color spaces.
• Added Unity 5 Standard shader with vertex color support.
• Improved GUI.



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I can import Mesh Materializer 1.0 in Unity 5 on OSX, but on 4.6.3 it is not listed as a possible update. Forced to download the package again 4.6.3 fetches an identical copy of the 0.98a beta package. The moment I import MM into a 4.X project the "VacuumShaders Update Checker" asks if I want to update from 0.98a to 1.0, but the "Download new version" button only leads back to the asset store, something doesn't work.

If I manually try to import the package that works in Unity 5, I see a "Error while importing package: Package has unknown format" in the console, while the same works with other packages downloaded via Unity 5. I vaguely remember that Unity announced that with the release of 5.0, the store might offer different releases of assets depending on compatibility to the Unity version used, but somehow I doubt that MM 1.0 not only gained Unity 5 compatibility, but lost Unity 4 compatibility at the same time. So unless this is a strange glitch on my side, the MM 1.0 package might have been misconfigured before uploading it to the asset store. Is anybody else able to import MM 1 with Unity 4?

 

@faduci
I have uploaded two packages of MM v1.0 for both U5 and U4.
U5 version is uploaded through Unity 5.0.1
U4 version is uploaded through Unity 4.6.4
I do not know why Unity does not allow you to download latest version of MM, but try update your U4 to 4.6.4 and try with it.



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This fixed it. I wasn't even aware that 4.6.4 was out, but while waiting for the download to finish I tried again in 4.6.3. This time I was offered the update and it installed MM v1.0 without a hitch. As far as I remember the asset store listed Unity 4.5.5 as a requirement for the v1.0 from 2014-04-14, so uploading it again helped.

Out of curiosity I reverted to 0.98a and tried to upgrade from Unity 4.2.2, which also worked. MM v1.0 threw some errors in 4.2.2, but at least the package download problem doesn't seem to depend on the version of Unity used. I followed the "Example 5: Color Adjustments" video with "Palace of Orinthalian" in 4.6.4 (with some artifacts that turned out to be caused by not disabling the ivy in the scene after I had replied), all in all it worked well and fast and I loved it. So thanks a lot for the upload, your answer and the great job you did with Mesh Materializer.

 

Before capturing that example I removed sky dome and water plane from convertible objects array, actually they can not be materialized. Otherwise you may get errors like 'Material doesn't have a color property 'WaveSpeed'' - water script attached to the plane looks that variable inside material and as after conversion MM replaces all materials with vertex lit shaders, water script can not find required properties.
If you got other strange artifacts caused by MM, let me know.



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does it respect u5 global fog?

Or am I doing something wrong

 

Yes, unlit legacy shaders have no fog macros required by U5. I will add them.



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Ah, thanks very much. Good to know