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

Thanks!

 

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I don't know how to privately message, so.. "Terrain Former," for those of us who work our landscape by hand.

 

I read the entire thread and to be honest, I don't know what uNature is. Is it a shader? Is it a spawner/instancer/brush/ painter? I`m asking this because you`re talking about integration. The packages you mention for integration have a very wide range/spectrum in what they are doing. Hence the intriguing feeling.

 

uNature is a complete grass solution, very different from unity as its based on the gpu, that means no spikes when moving around the map, fast runtime manipulations, interactions, non terrain dependent grass (can be drawn on anything) and a lot more.

On the other hand uNature has a multi threaded tree solution for interacting with terrain trees which is very simple to use and extend.

For the terrain systems the integrations could be that instead of generating terrain grass and then you need to press the copy from terrain button it will already paint uNature grass.

And for stuff like World Streamer it will use the streaming to draw the correct grass (it wont show grass on out of bounds terrain and when it resets the world into 0,0,0 it will also draw the appropriate grass)

 

Sorry for the double post, looked into it and it should already work out of the box with uNature so no worries

 

Hey guys I wanted to get your opinion about the raycast physics feature for uNature,
So a week ago I posted a picture of a new system that I am working for uNature which will allow you to raycast each one of the grass instances -




And it will take me a bit more time to finish it and I am not sure how useful it will be for many of you, so I wanted to ask if you would be alright with me delaying it to ~1.1/ 1.2?

I want to make sure that I release the asset as soon as possible without a lot of delays.

Normal interactions like touch bending, wind zones, etc will still be available on 1.0.


What do you guys think ?

 

I can definitely wait on Raycasting, especially if touch bending is part of v1. I say release it (pretty please, with a cherry on top)

 

Thanks for your feedback!

 

I use unistorm for weather if you can add that to the list of possible integrations and maybe even IceControl NPC AI.

On the raycasting i was looking at using the feature for animals grazing but if is just a push back to v1.1/1.2 and it helps speed up release of V1 id be happy to wait or look at alternative implementations for now.

 

Unistorm is definitely interesting, but will have to pinpoint it to 1.1's poll as currently it has no way to catch up to the top 5 :/.

And don't worry you can still achieve grazing! raycasting would have helped, but the interaction system that is currently being made is more than enough generic to allow any kind of interactions without any performance impact

 

I'm really rooting for TerrainComposer 2 anything else is a cherry on top.

Touch bending is thing I really cant wait to play around with I have lots of predators that like the tall grass but the movement can give the prey a chance!

 

Thanks for answer Elroy. I have the feeling the grass gets a better treatment? What options do I have if I need to use trees (3D objects or maybe speedtree assets) with a mesh as terrain? I don`t have much experience with vegetation.
Again, thanks for your answers!

 

I don't know if this is the kind of answer you are looking for, but since Elroy told me that uNature would only tweak the player->tree interaction with its colliders etc. and its major tweaks are for the grass management, I was watching AltTrees and I think those two systems could do an amazing job together.

At least it is my plan to get both as soon as they hit the asset store. Should save me from some headache with SpeedTree grass and tree performance.

 

Atm there is no mesh support for trees(There is one for grass though) because the trees system is based on unity's terrain but it will change in the future!

I agree

 

Hey guys please note that the poll will be closed in exactly 24 hours from now!,
The integrations that were not selected will be on the next poll before V1.1 with some other assets and have another chance to be integrated!

 

I believe WorldCreator would be a game changing integration, too bad the polls dont show it :/

 

No worries!, the next integration poll keeps the old votes, so it has a better chance of being picked .

 

Hey guys!

The poll is now closed, the next assets will be integrated in V1.0:

TerrainComposer2 by @eagle555
GAIA by @AdamGoodrich
GeNa by @AdamGoodrich
World Streamer by @NatureManufacture
InfiniGrass by @nasos_333
AFS by @larsbertram1
DirectX11 Grass Shader by @Nonakesh
uConstruct by Me

I will also consider MapMagic by @Wright depending on how much time i will have left (As i have put a limited time for integrations to get the asset out on the planned date)

Also, already integrated assets:

UNet by Unity.
Photon Bolt by @fholm
Photon Cloud by @tobiass
Forge Networking by @farrisarts
UFPS by @VisionPunk


Also, about the interactions, still working on it but its 80% done already, here's a quick stress test (with constantly updated items) and still haven't optimized it completely. (Around 500 items without any noticeable performance hit).
Please note that none of the objects disappear, they all stayed active.

 

1.6/3.2M Tris/Verts and only 130 Batches... I am drooling right now

 

I'm curious how this would work. Maybe I just totally misunderstand everything (generally true), but don't uNature and InifiniGrass effectively work towards the same thing?

 

Yes, but, I had many requests of adding the ability to use other shaders so I am adding support for those only for the visuals, not functionality.

 

Early preview for extremely light-weight touch bending anyone?
https://i.gyazo.com/fdca8f117b99be2a8f99eb53ad012ccc.mp4

 

That video doesn't work for me.

 

Oh, I guess gyazo doesn't work too well.for everyone
Sorry for that, will get a better video with the fully working version tomorrow .

 

Looking forward to the release

 

I agree, , but only can add, what people want right now, sadly what is killing WC is the price tag for some. I seen the tool as the dev showed me and was impressed.

 

No offense but what does grass and AI have to do with one another?? sorry but don't see it needed... It a grass, and tree solution..

 

When grass is interacted with, things happen, when it is eaten things happen. There are already texture integrations with AI so why not grass or trees.

 

Because this kind of interaction should have nothing to do with AI, even if the action causing the grass interaction might at some point be triggered by AI. There should be at least one, if not a couple, layers of abstraction in between. Additionally, integrating other assets (and maintaining that integration) takes effort that could otherwise be spent in further improving the system. And lastly, there's already enough assets (terrain authoring assets etc.) that should be integrated.

 

While its cool for your opinion you are not designing either the grass system or my program.

Elroy asked people for suggestions and i gave mine. There is no gun to anyone's head.

There are many reasons for my game why the integration would be great. Although hooking into unistorm would probably be enough as shock horror ICE integrates with Unistorm.

 

" See your game" these developers aren't here to make your game. Unistorm , I possible could see, but ICE, no.. has nothing to do with it... Elroy sets it up so you add your own mechanics.... If he made it for "YOUR GAME", how would it work for others games?? Needs to be generic .... I see to many developers trying to please everyone and the tool itself suffers.....I agree with Christoph 100%.

You are correct he , did ask, but remember lets be real on what is really needed and what has to do with this tool. AI has nothing to do with it.. and I respect your suggestion we are just letting you know , and our opinion why its not a good one:') anyways, have a good one.

 

Guys lets relax, its all good.

Andy, the AI doesn't need integration because interactions work on any objects, so it's not necessary .


Everyone has their own opinion, let's respect that

 

I understand Elroy, I am quite happy to code things that are needed in my game myself, people just like to cause drama where it is not needed.

I appreciate the effort you are putting into this product and i cant wait to integrate into mine. .

 

Notice I was being nice and asking a legit question.. wasn't looking for drama.. But some people get tired of assets being ruined, don't think that was your intention...anyways AGAIN have a good one...will try my last attempt at being nice as I can.

/cheers.

 

Yup looking good so far, Elroy

 

Thanks

 

Quick question Elroy.

Are bigger plants and foliage going to support the same grass features?

Is there a limit to their size?

 

nope, it should work with any kind of foliage you use, whether its a mesh, or a texture it should all work properly.
Also there's no limit to the width/ height

 

Do you know yet when you'll be submitting it to the store?

 

Uploading the release candidate in an hour or two for the testers and then will update the documentation, make the tutorials, add the integrations and upload to the store (this phase will take most likely around 5 days)

 

Jammy testers is all I can say.

Great news all around.

 

Haha they are

 

uNature's release candidate is out, started to work on integrations and on the trailer, we are almost there

 

Sounds good.
One question regarding mesh trees. If I have trees that are just a common mesh object, not Unity terrain trees, can this be used with the same benefits as the regular grass meshes? Also, can this be applied to other mesh objects like boulders, logs, etc.
Thanks!

 

No - Trees can only be interactable on the terrain as it would be meaningless to do that for world trees ( they already have unique colliders )

 

I don`t think you followed me with this. If I build myself a mesh that has the shape of a tree and it`s not the terrain tree with collider, wind etc and I want to use it only in the background. No close ups. It can be a mesh with 3500 triangles or a simple polygon/bilboard.
A second question: Can I build my own meshes for grass? I`m not that keen to use only flat polys.

 

Uhmm still not sure i understand your first question :/

And yes of course