[NEW PATCH] uNature - GPU, Interactable Grass. Interactable Trees, MultiThreading and more!

Great work

 

Any chance this will work on 4.7? I've got a project stuck there and would love to use it.

 

Do you mean the heighmap pixel error per terrain? I think the default in Unity is 5. If so, yes, you can set that in the LB Landscape tab under Terrain Settings.

 

looking forward to this since i recently bought tms and uconstruct, im messing with ufps, gaia, inventory pro, ice creatures, world streamer, easy roads 3d and just got playmaker. would love it if you guys had an orgy and made an amazing baby. i look at cubicquity and ufps photon multiplayer as players who don't play. i wish they would

i guess im trying to make an open world multiplayer, i guess with photon free (for now). its so hard as a game designer to squeeze this stuff together.

Thank you Elroy, gosh thank you for at least reaching out to other devs to make things so much easier.

good luck and godspeed

 

Hey,
Thanks for your interest!

Didn't get to check out whether it works on older versions than 5.x, but it should, nothing really custom to 5.x was used .
I will test it further before release and update here whether i find anything .

Hehe thanks man!
Trying my best!

Will get some more cool integrations before release

 

Landscape Builder has integration with uNature 2.x and EasyRoads v3 (and AQUAS Water Set) - if that helps.

 

Yep - and it works very well with uNature so far .


Some good news tomorrow guys!
A new feature or well an optimization method i am working on will be announced (will improve grass perf even more)

 

Great! I'd be happy to test it on 4.7 whenever you think it's ready for that -- on both standalone and iOS builds.

 

Will let you know
Thanks!


So guys, yesterday i told you that i will be announcing a new "feature" of the system and its something i am pretty happy with.

As of now, if any of you used profiler when going around the terrain you must have noticed the "BuildPatchMesh" taking A LOT of cpu.

Currently i've set up 2 approaches to deal with this issue and it works pretty well. Those 2 methods actually reduce the cpu taken by quite a lot, but still not where i would 100% want it, So i am still working on improving it .

I am going to try to push out as many optimizations as i can but just wanted to let you guys know about this one as many people reported it being a big issue with unity's grass.

There's still a bit of cpu used by that task but its a lot less than what you would normally get.

Will keep you guys updated on more features i add to the system .

 

Did you also try how much performance is gained using Unity 5.4 Beta?
As I heard Unity 5.4 Beta is improving performance a lot when using lot of Details / Objects in a terrain.
Would be interesting to know if UNature also improves performance so much with Unity 5.4

 

Oh thanks for letting me know!
Will check it and let you know

 

I think you're doing a great job, Elroy!

I'm always excited about any improvements to Unity's vegetation system(s).

 

Thanks!

 

Tested with latest 5.4 beta, looks like it works really well!

With uNature:
https://i.gyazo.com/48ac879c7f49e27851910a4bafc16fee.jpg

Without uNature:
https://i.gyazo.com/446eed723b4cc530c5772e6ed3c7142e.jpg


Sorry i don't have trees in this scene, i removed them from my original uNature package trying to test smth and forgot to add them back.

But you can definitely see that there is a big improvement

 

That's a good question. I would love to have this for Mesh Terrains much more!
I never use Terrains because they have heavy performance issues for landscaping in my opinion.

 

Cool! Like to test this in my system

 

Yep, unfortunately uNature doesn't support mesh-terrains as of now, maybe in future releases though .

I will keep you guys updated when i get to add that .

 

Thank you.
Is this a technically issue to make this work?

 

Uhm, Mostly, because most of the actions that are done by uNature require some values that you cannot get from an go placed grass.

I will try to look into it some time before the release, but can't guarantee .

 

Hey guys!

More cool announcements coming very soon !

So i've been taking a little look at mesh terrains and it seems like i might be able to get you guys some kind of a "template scripts" (like i have for the networking, so you can implement any system with 2 lines) so you could make it work with your mesh terrains, but can't guarantee that it will be included in the initial release.

I have also started to experiment with various ways to get the "BuildPatchMesh" spikes to be even lower - with a mechanic called steps - seperates the lod assigning into different frames so it takes off a bit of the overhead of a single frame.

but i am still experimenting it and it's not yet working like i want it to.

I've also improved the grass assigning generally so it's a lot smoother, and as you've seen from the 5.4 beta picture above the grass looks exactly the same when the system is off and on but fps is different .


I will be posting more exciting stuff soon, i just want to first of all get this grass mechanic to work 100% like i want it to work, and then i will be posting some really exciting stuff and not just boring technical stuff .

 

Sounds great anyway

What the best way previously to get you tool to work. Small example:
This mesh part include some grass (green) areas with single meshes. From about 500 to 16000 grass single meshes. Each green part is a single game object that includes the grass meshes. The grass do not have LOD or is clipped by distance.

What do you think is the best way to handle these?
I'm not sure if it would possible to clip them by distance by your tool or use a vertex shader that calculate distance to cam and prevent drawing. Any ideas?

 

Well in my idea - what i am planning to do is to get some kind of an identification of grass placed on mesh terrain, that way i can calculate the density of that area and that way to manage the grass accordingly and apply the uNature's mechanics.

Tbh, if i nail that concept down, managing mesh-terrains will be a piece of cake with the code-architecture.

I will let you guys know about this when i get it to be useable .

 

Did you test this tool with infinigrass? Very interested in knowing the results.

 

Hey !
Didnt yet get to try it out but if it uses unity terrain it will work out of the box.

I will try it out soon and let you know .

 

Hey guys wanted to let you know that i am still working on it,
and currently polishing the asset and fixing bugs that were reported in the testing group.

I started to work a bit on mesh terrains and it should be a piece of cake to integrate it with any mesh terrain when i am done, so that's good news .

Hoping to get this asset released soon enough in hopefully 1-2 weeks as the development phase is pretty good, and when its released i will probably set up some kind of a milestones page (maybe trello or smth).

But either way, just wanted to let you know that even though i dont post new stuff i am still working on the asset, while the development phase slowed down because of my finals .

Thanks guys for being patient ,
Elroi.

 

Sounds great!

 

Thanks!
Will keep you updated on this because i know you were the first one to request mesh-terrains support

 

hey could i get the latest thing of unature, now uconstruct is on its way would love to see what the fuss is about here.
you have my invoice i believe.
still testing the uconstruct build but being destracted pfft.
i actually think you should make like a uconstruct/unature pro one asset thing. peeps would upgrade to the full pack i reckon.

 

The packs have very different uses but it wouldn't hurt I guess .

 

Elroy is the boss, just convienence i am suggesting.

maybe more money in the long term for Elroy. i have seen other asset creators do it and it is a good insentive to pay more.

aye upgrade to both assets for slightly less. i might do it, proabaly will.

tho i just got both assets cause Elroy is the man with plan.

 

Hehe thanks man for the idea!
Will definitely do it, although i am waiting to have more assets released first .

Also,
uNature isn't out yet :/, still in development but i am fairly close to releasing it so you will be able to get it in hopefully 2 weeks (currently busy with uConstruct's new version).

Sorry for the wait guys!, and thank you all for being so patient

 

no worries man, just a suggestion or two lol

 

Hehe
Thanks man!
Appreciate it

 

just messaging the guy who makes the gravity twist controller and i mentioned photon and you . He is thinking about making a photon multiplayer out of his asset now i talked him in to it.hehe.

gosh i wish i could afford bolt

 

Looking something i have been looking for ages really nice
when are you planning to release?

 

Hey!
Not sure at the moment, i hope in a week or two but i am really busy with finals and uConstruct so i cant guarantee :/

Thanks for your interest and i will be sure to keep you guys updated

 

Hey guys!

uNature is super close to release!, so happy with it as of now.
I am currently making a little video that shows a comparison of using uNature and without using it and also getting some tutorials to give you guys a teaser of the system .


Will keep you all updated, but either way i am hoping to submit it by Friday at most!

 

So, uNature is mostly performance enhancing along with some little features like cutting down trees and maybe some grass interaction?

 

Will it work in Unity 4.7?

 

Yes, the core features that will come with the initial version is interactable tree instances which is 100% generic, that means that you arent limited to trees cutting but you can also use it for wheat fields, harvesting rocks, interacting with trees so you can climb them/ literally anything you have in mind.

The other part is grass performance enchanting which tries to solve most of the issues when using dense grass in your scene and giving you the ability to make dense forests in your game. It doesnt use any custom shader and it doesn't require any setup, just 1 click and play.

This allows the system to be integrated with other grass solution that uses shaders and therefor making it possibly even faster!.

Obviously you also get a lot of extensions including networking libraries (UNet, Photon Cloud, Photon Bolt, Forge Networking) and also some other assets like UFPS.

I have a lot of plans for the next version for example interactable foilage which opens so many ideas, and some other cool features that i will be announcing (Such as support for mesh terrains and more)

I haven't tried it yet, but so far i dont think it uses any features that are unique to 5.x so i will try it out and let you all know

 

Will you have something like grass that is displaced when a collider intersects with it and "harvestable" grass?

 

Absolutely!
And what i like the most about my interaction system is that its so generic that you aren't limited to anything !

You can make anything you want

Please note that the interact able grass will only be added in 2.1 ( version 1 is tms, this is a remake )

Or i might put it as a priority and implement it before i submit the initial version - will let you know

 

I vote for releasing it ASAP -- I really need it!

 

I am currently working on the designs and tutorials so i will try to add it before i submit, but if i wont finish it before i submit i will just submit uNature

 

I am really looking forward to this release

 

Thanks !

I will try to get a nice video today that will show the system in action

 

Okay guys its offcial!!!

The last release candidate of uNature is ready!

it will be tested today with the testers of the asset and i will be submitting it very soon!

I also have such an amazing features that are planned for uNature that i just cant wait to show you guys!!


I will be posting all of the news tonight + the milestones!


Elroi

 

Okay guys,

So some good and bad news.

The good news are that some of the testers while testing the latest release candidate have noticed certain bugs that have existed for a long time which i couldn't fix with unity's grass. It has led me to the conclusion that i will need to some how "get rid" of unity's grass while also not changing the compatibility of the asset with other systems.

It has led me to writing an custom grass system which i will detail about in the next few days, but the short story is that it wont be a must but an option.

the bad news are that i am going to be delaying release for a week, i have decided to submit the asset as a 2.x version of TMS so it will take only a few days to be accepted instead of 2 weeks.

Why am i delaying the asset ? well, in the current shape of the asset, over the few stress test that have been done i have noticed that releasing the asset now will most likely provide a very bad first impression of the asset and will most likely result in a very bad experience of the people who have been eagerly waiting for the release of this asset.

I prefer to release a very good asset with a bit of delay than releasing an not complete asset immediately.

I will not be posting the milestones today as i will need to rethink the roadmap a bit after this sudden decision.

On the bright side, the new grass mechanics will have many features that are most likely not possible in unity's grass without suffering big performance impact:

1. You will be able to use any shader you want, whether its unity's shader, LAM's shader, InfiniGrass's shader, or even your own shader.

2. No spikes at all, no build patch mesh process, no loading chunks spikes, all multi-threaded with reduced drawcalls.

3. I have much more flexibility as I have full control of the grass, and it will also be automatically updated by changes made on the terrain it self so you can still edit the unity terrain and it will automatically update.

4. When unity updates their terrain I wont need to change too much because I wont be based as much on unity's terrain.

5. Opens up so many future possibilities like - interact-able grass, "flatten" grass and more, the possibilties are infinite!.


PLEASE NOTE: The new system will most likely ( i will try my hardest ) be continiously updated by unity's grass data, so if you are editing the grass on your terrain it will automatically update it on the custom grass system.

This will make the system compatible with many other systems without changing a lot of code.



Please give me the feedback on this guys and what do you think and i am so sorry for the delay, i just want to give you all the best experience possible!.

 

Good call. Don't hurry, and go for quality first.

 

Personally I think you are making the right choice. There is nothing more irritating then getting a asset. That is "Ready " and finding out that it isn't even close. It's nice to see a asset developer that truly cares for his product and customers. Keep up the great work.