Path Painter - Paths, Ramps, Roads & River Beds for Unity Terrain

This is the one aspect of path painter that I would really like to see implemented, I use neighbour terrains extensively and currently it's a bit fiddly making a path across terrain boundaries.

Another feature that would be nice would be the ability for it to keep a record of created paths and to be able to re-select and tweak them after they have been created, although I realise this may be a bit of a stretch too far.

Great asset btw, very pleased with my purchase.

 

Hi @Tanoshimi2000,

(Sorry, I had to drop out for a few days)

You are right. It's pretty much just like "dry paint on a piece of fabric", so it doesn't have colliders that it sounds like you are looking for.

I presume those surfaces have mesh colliders you can use for this.

I guess you would need colliders for which you could set layers, tags, etc.

So I thrown together a quick and (very) dirty (ugly, horrible) script that might get you started having colliders for your paths.
It's literally just something I could come up with for you right now, so there are no guarantees it will be all perfect.
No planning or design whatsoever. Just started writing and coming up with it on the go, so not recommended way of doing things at all.

Regardless I hope it helps somewhat.
Here it is in action:









Better visible here:


(At first I actually made one that would create meshes and mesh colliders on the path surface, but then I realised that those "sheets" don't work as triggers so moved onto box colliders that are probably better for performance as well.)

You can get it here: https://3dhaven.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/attachments/43144690954

I have been planning to look into ways of Path Painter providing data to users they can use to get pretty much anything done and that could certainly be used to improve on this. I hope I'll be able to explore the direction not too long into the future.

 

I'm right with you on that.
I would really like to do that too. The reason why it's not implemented already, because it can get tricky usability wise due to over-painting, but I really want to figure out something for it. It's been dragging on for a long time like the multi-tile thing, but I hope I will be able to explore a few more things regarding it (have looked at this briefly a few times in the past).

 

Hi, I'm trying to find out if path painter has any impact or issues working with the latest rendering pipelines, specially URP. Thanks!

 

Hi @AlvaroGonzalez,
To the best of our knowledge Path Painter is RP independent and should not have any impact or issues with any of the Render Pipelines, but please get in touch if you are a user and run into any problems.

 

Please be advised that I have to go offline for a few days and will have only limited internet access (if any) and won't have access to PC, the forums and other things.
I will try to pop on Discord (https://bit.ly/2Vosx6R) via phone every once in a while, if I get the chance, in case someone needs urgent help. Alternatively I'll get back to you upon my return in about a week.

All the best!

 

Looks good. Does this system work with MicroSplat?

 

I’m using it with MicroSplat, 8x8 terrain split and 16 textures per terrain, and no problems.

 

Cannot save editor window layout on Unity 2019.4.9f. Please fix it.

 

Will look into this. Previously had to make some compromise and remove opening next to the Inspector Window, because some Unity versions were having issues with saving and restoring editor window layouts (for their own, Unity native windows as well). Will see if newer Unity versions had fixed that.

It looks like you are behind on patches. I recommend updating to the latest 2019.4 (2019.4.15), because there's likely been a lot of fixes sine 2019.4.9, one of which could help with your problem.

 

Could you please provide a little more info to make sure we are talking about the same thing?
I did some testing, for example, saved a window layout with Path Painter docked next to the inspector and checked if selecting the layout would open it there:



Is this what you mean?

 

Looked into this deeper over the last few days. I expect things will work as intended now. Keep an eye out for the next update. Will do some more testing across different Unity versions.

 

@frankslater
Thank you for the updates. I have tested 2019.4.15f but still cannot works. Unity cannot destroy Path Painter window and cannot be loaded back.

Right now, I'm using 2019.4.9f again.

https://ibb.co/P9cX91f
https://ibb.co/SX04wWK

 

Thanks for the details and thanks for reporting this @restush96!
There are improvements already included in the next update. I'm looking forward to get it out and see how it works for you.

 

I have seen a gif of gena pro and it looked as path painter is now embedded. Is there free upgrade when you buyed gena 2 and path painter from procedural worlds publisher? I want gena 2 feature complete what i did pay for and do not want to buy another path painter variation i already have. Upgrade options?

 

mostlikely not possible.

 

Hey @frankslater - how's the multi terrain support coming along?

Thanks!

 

Apologies for the delay @Mike891. I've been gone from the face of the earth in the last while, because I've been laser focused to release an update that's been long in the making, so hopefully users can give it a spin during the holidays. I know many have been waiting for it. (I see you there @adslitw )

I wasn't aware of this and I'm unable to tell if Path Painter was used to make that. What I can tell you however is that I cannot provide upgrades or coupons to Procedural Worlds assets, since we are no longer affiliated. Sorry to hear about your experience and troubles!

 

Hopefully very soon. *FingersCrossed*
What Unity version do you need it for?

As a teaser, here's a test I did a few days ago in Unity 5.6:

 

Looks like Gena Pro was just released which incorporates road and river drawing. That could be what you were seeing. However, it's $144 ($77 for beta period) which, to me, is a ridiculous cost. I've owned Gena 1 and 2 but I'll be skipping the "Pro" version.

 

So it now supports multi-terrain? That'll make some people happy. Any other new features? I'm sure the multi-terrain support is a big enough improvement but I'm just curious.

 

Thank you @frankslater! Looking forward to the update.

I'm just prototyping at the moment so I'm using 2020.1.17f!

 

Sorry to disappoint Steven. The update is not big as regards of the number of new features really.

I started working on Path Painter in Unity 5.6. Neighbour terrains were not a thing for another 2-3 years after that, and I was new to Unity at the time, so multi-tile didn't even cross my mind. Because of this, there were a lot of question marks regarding how I was going to be able to add multi-terrain support, but it was even more work than I imagined.

The update ended up to be a pretty big undertaking. Pretty much a complete rewrite. Path Painter aims to be simple for the user, but it's much more complex under the hood than a typical painter. I had to come up with complex strategies to add the new multi-tile features, while keeping the existing ones that everyone came to know and love. In hindsight, it would have been quicker, easier and better to start afresh, instead of updating the existing code.

Here is the change log that contains most of what's changed:

Code (text):

1. Enhancements:
2. · Improved texturing and straight line performance and a number of other performance optimisations (needed for the more taxing new functionalities).
3. · Thanks to these performance improvements, the max brush sizes were greatly increased.
4. · [New] Paint across several terrain tiles.
5. · [New] Auto Terrain Layer (SplatPrototype in older Unity) propagation.
6. · Removed the camera from the Demo Scene, because new Unity versions didn't like a camera that was also compatible with older versions.
7. · [New] Improved GUI.
8. · [New] Shaping, Texturing and Vegetation Clearing can all be toggled separately.
9. · [New] Help System with better information.
10. · Improved tooltips
11. · The API Painter is no longer static, so one can use several instances of it with different settings.
12. · The API also supports multi tile painting.
13. · [New] API 3D Painting - The paths height sticks to the spline, or other points provided. (See documentation for more info)
14. · [New] API Bulk Painting. Use for the best performance when painting several paths at once. (See documentation for more info)
15. · The API now takes both a List or an Array of points. Use the overload that best suits your data for best performance.
16. · [New] Path Painter now remembers your settings for each of your projects, so you can pick up where you left off.
17. · Improved import and compilation.
18. · Some improvements to avoid unnecessary value boxing in stroke calculations.
19. · The demo scene now contains 6 tiles of the demo terrain to provide a multi-tile playground.
20.  
21. Fixes:
22. · [Fix] Toggle buttons' toggled state was not visible in new Unity (2019.3+) due to Unity's new GUI system.
23. · [Fix] Path Painter could not be saved in Editor Window Layout.
24. · [Fix] Unused field warning that could show up older Unity version.
25. · [Fix] Occasionally might have unintentionally affected the 'Draw Instanced' setting of terrains in new Unity versions.

and stats of the actual changes:


With so many changes, there bound to be some bugs and such, so releasing as a Beta and keeping the known stable version for a while. I'm proud that there's been barely any reported issues for the first version, and it only needed 5-6 minor fixes in over two years. Especially since most of those were just adapting to unforeseeable changes of new Unity major updates. Let's hope this will do similarly well (but I don't count on it).

So, in short, not that many new features I'm afraid, especially considering that I've been working on the update for over a year now. It's been a humbling experience and I've been looking forward to this day for a long time.

 

Cool. (I was out. but I just found out that) it went live yesterday:

Get it here: http://bit.ly/PathPainterII

There was a little delay due to a hiccup. I forgot I had to publish it with min. 2018.4, so the first attempt got through the tests and all and got declined due to it being published with Unity 5.6. (I guess I had to get my first decline sometime )

Give it a spin. I hope it works well enough!

There are loads more I wanted to do with it., but I didn't want people waiting for multi-tile support any longer.
For example, Unity Undo's been a headache, because you never know when it starts acting up as your env gets big, so it's worth to keep that in mind.
I only realised how annoying it can be when I started large (dozens of tiles with loads of trees and grass testing). I included some tips in the Troubleshooting section of the documentation. (Generally enabling only a number of tiles you are working on at the time is fine.)
Different Unity versions seem to have different behaviour regarding this. Some won't record undo at all if your environment is over some limit, while others will just skip tiles once they reach the limit (so undo on some tiles, while no undo on others). Add to that, the limit is hard to estimate. It's virtually arbitrary.

I need to do some down time (because there's been complaints that I haven't been seen by family in a long time), so I may be spotty if at all available at times for the next couple of weeks, but do let me know if any feedback, issues, or comment.

 

You can check out the documentation here: Path Painter II Documentation

 

This asset looks awesome and so helpful, I say this about all unity tools that are paid, but there should be a free demo version.

 

Not impossible for that to happen one day. In fact, I was just thinking about it again last week. I've considered different options for that over the years, and talked to the relevant community leaders about them. I was considering what you mention at the beginning, but I had a publisher and we didn't see the need for it at the time.

To be honest, it would be all free if that was a viable option. Maybe I'll win on the lottery *fingerscrossed* (although that would be surprising, considering that I don't play ). At the end, what has fueled this was the thought of how many people's lives could be made easier, who need just the kind of tool.

So it's not out of the question. I didn't get into this hoping to make a buck. That would have been a very bad decision, because this has been a huge step back for me in that regard. It has also had considerable psychological cost from the early months (although my case is likely an outlier). Things like these may have contributed to abandonware over the years, but I'm primarily here for my users.

 

good job

 

can remember me how use in real time

 

I presume you mean Edit Mode, that provides near real time editing?
The status bar at the bottom helps you with that:


Help is also intended to keep most of the relevant info at your fingertips, so you don't even need to look at the documentation:


(Although there are some good info in the docs, with loads of images.)

 

Do you really need to call

AssetDatabase.GetAllAssetPaths()

after every single script reload?
Path Painter costs 3.4 Seconds (not milliseconds) after every script reload, most likely because of that line (combined with our 34.7GB Assets (41k Files)).

It's the CompMgr.cs script, getting InitializeOnLoad at line 19, then checking NC() at line 21, then OE() at line 115 and inside OE() calling

AssetDatabase.GetAllAssetPaths()

and comparing the end of each string with certain other strings until one is correct.

Is there a fix available?

 

@Hanibal

Frank just replied on Discord and asked me to relay this message to you.

"There's a question and I'm unable to help right now, because with the computer gone, I lost access to everything. (Thank God, I still have some access to Discord with my phone). Could you please tell that I'll be coming to help as soon as I recover access and have access to a computer to look into the question."

 

OK, thanks for forwarding the message ^^
You can tell him it's not super urgent, if you want ^^

 

Thanks for stepping up to my request in the #help channel @andeerock! You do rock!
I finally managed to login on phone.
(Downside of having strong security is that it takes time to regain access when things go south.)

Hi @Hannibal_Leo,

Apologies for the delay.
If

GetAllAssetPaths()

really runs after every single script reload, then there is a bug somewhere. That's supposed to only run on very rare occasions, for example, when you update your project to a new major Unity version.

Unfortunately my computer died on me recently and I cannot look into this closer until I recover from that. Could you insert something like the below just before or after that line (that has

GetAllAssetPaths()

) and see if it really runs at every compile or we may be facing something else?

Code (CSharp):

1. Debug.Log("Getting All Paths!");

I have it on my list to clean up that script at some point. It was made into pretty much a gibberish for odd reasons and I don't like that. Not on top of the list though. There are some more urgent things as long as it does what it needs to. For example, I figured out that something was missed during testing just before my computer died, and I need to look into splitting up functionality to support GPU instanced painting for large scenes that Unity can't cope with without GPU instancing.

 

Jep, it does.

The whole thing looks like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. [InitializeOnLoadMethod]
2. static void Onload()
3. {
4.     if (NC())
5.     {
6.         return;
7.     }
8.     // more stuff
9. }
10.  
11. private static bool NC()
12. {
13.     if (OE())
14.     {
15.         return true;
16.     }
17.     // more stuff
18. }
19.  
20. private static bool OE()
21. {
22.     string[] ends = new string[] { "/Editor/Pptrjhc.pp", "/Editor/Pptrjhc.dll",
23.         "Path Painter 1.0.0 U5.dll", "Path Painter 1.0.0 U5.dll.pp" };
24.     foreach (var path in AssetDatabase.GetAllAssetPaths())
25.     {
26.         foreach (string end in ends)
27.         {
28.             if (path.EndsWith(end))
29.             {
30.                 return true;
31.             }
32.         }
33.     }
34.     return false;
35. }

[InitializeOnLoadMethod]

is called after every script reload and up to the line of getting all asset paths, there is no branch, no condition how it could be avoided.
But I inserted your debug.log line just to double check and yes, it gets logged after every script reload.

 

I can't look deeper into this without a computer, but that doesn't seem like what's on the Asset Store, so the fix could be as simple as making sure you have the same as what's on the Asset Store.

 

You mean it's cracked or something? I'll check that but it wouldn't make sense as we have a budget for assets ...

 

Not what I meant. Update/download to make sure you have the same as what's up there. It could be an obsolete script or corrupt or someone changed it by any reason. Deleting Path Painter from the project and downloading again is a quick and easy fix worth trying. (You can make a backup of it before you delete, in case someone did changes you guys need and the backup would help implement the changes without the unwanted side effects.)

 

What is the pro and cons with Path Painter 2 and Map Magic 2? Which one is better?

Path Painter

Map Magic 2

Looks very similar, what is advantage of Path Painter?

 

This is kind of apples to oragnes since the two aren't meant to do the same thing. Yes, there are some apparent overlaps, but there are things you can do with one, but cannot do with the other and vice versa. In regards to what Path Painter does, it's advantage is that it's cheaper and it's much simpler and better at those things, but you can do other stuff with Map Magic. Many users will use both.

 

TL;DR; You may like Path Painter better for the kind of work you showed in the Path Painter video. Map Magic seems to do (never tried myself) a bunch of other cool stuff.

By what I've seen in the Map Magic video, Path Painter is more specialised and focused on what it does, while Map Magic seems to be more generic and does some awesome things that are not in the scope of Path Painter. The 12 seconds of path creation in the Map Magic video may seem similar to what Path Painter does above it, but if you look closely, you can see differences. For example, a character could easily walk the path painted with PP there.

Check out this video in case it helps with your question:

It may give a little more complete picture of how PP works.

Specialised vs generic hardware tools are possibly a good analogue to answer your question. If you ever tried to use a swiss army knife, you probably know what I'm talking about. I can show you how I tighten screws, cut paper, or grab bolts with the army knife, but there may be a difference between that and having just the right screw driver, scissors, or the right wrench.

In the future I aim to get something out for people who want to feel first hand how Path Painter works.

 

Just a heads up for anyone interested: Unfortunately I've been struggling with dying computer syndrome and that's been considerably delaying an upcoming update.
My computer died at the beginning of February (that poor old thing) and I had some issues with the fixers. It took a staggering amount of time to fix it (around 3 weeks).
Once fixed, I continued working on the update, but about 2 weeks later my computer collapsed even worse last Friday.
I'm hoping to get up and running soon!

To finish on a positive note, here is roughly what's coming in the update:

• Fix: Found and fixed a floating error bug that mostly affects some large environments. (It throws out of range exceptions, so you'll know if you bump into it. It's fairly elusive.)
• New: Painting on GPU instanced terrains. Important for large environments. (Currently your terrains are not GPU instanced when you are painting, so Unity can drop to its knees when you are painting in large environments. This was missed during dev due to a hiccup in creating the environment for the large env tests.)
• Improvement: Came up with some optimisations that result in huge performance improvements in large environments, so you can probably test the limits of how large environments Unity can handle and still use Path Painter on them.
• Improvement: Also came up with optimisations that makes Unity undo much more reliable in large envrionments than in the current version.

Several km long path on 320x 1K active terrain tiles (320km²):





and undo:

 

Hi, before I purchase can I ask a question: is this useable at runtime so users can create their own paths?

 

Hi @marcjammy,

Thanks for asking. You can use the API to drive Path Painter both in editor and runtime, so in theory, you should be able to do that depending on what you need. Hit me up on Discord before you purchase to chat about what you're trying to achieve, so together we can do our best to determine if Path Painter is the right choice.

You can also check out the documentation for the API in the docs (page 58)(you can click in the table of content to navigate there quickly): PPII documentation

At some point I will probably include an example script/GO in the demo scene that uses the API, but very few people have asked about the API so far, and there are some more urgent things that will provide much more benefit for the userbase as a whole.

 

Just checked and the update is not yet out, but it will be soon enough.
In the meantime, @here is the version log if you are interested:

[Version 2.1.0b2]

Enhancements:
· [New] Painting on GPU Instanced terrains. This primarily has an effect in large environments, where Unity struggles when terrains are not GPU Instanced.
· [New] Demo now includes API usage examples that can be customised for users' projects. Two hand paint and one spline/point based example.
· [New] API undo callback for a better option for undo mechanisms (examples provided)
· [New] API hand painting just became better/easier thanks to a new API Line Paint mode that allows lines to be painted point by point.
· Improved/optimised paint performance on several fronts when painting in large environments. These provide a significant performance improvement in huge environments.
· Optimised Unity Undo operations, so Unity Undo is much more reliable in large environments.
· Simplified API Bulk Paint usage: 1. StartBulkPaint(); 2. Do any number of Paint()/Paint3D(); 3. EndBulkPaifnt();
· API now provides warnings when used incorrectly and attempts to guess and do what the user intended to do.
· Path Painter II (v2) no longer imports on top of Path Painter (v1), so both of them can be used in a project (Avoid using the hotkeys if both versions are open, since both uses the same hotkeys for consistency.)
· Cut Unity version support in two for leaner packages (A single package supporting more than 17 Unity versions was becoming messy). The main package now only supports Unity 2018.3 or newer. Will release 'Path Painter II Legacy Unity' that supports Unity 5.6 to 2018.2 if users need it.
· Numerous versioning changes, so major versions don't collide.
· Numerous small improvements.
· Better namespacing for the API.

Fixes:
· [Fix] Some terrain locations were miscalculated due to floating point errors and this could cause out of range exceptions in large environments.
· [Fix] GUI now gracefully handles broken layer references of terrains.
· [Fix] Path Painter API was getting into a disagreement with itself when only road texture was being painted and this caused an error.
· [Fix] Fixed an API bug in Bulk Painting that could cause some de-syncing in some circumstances that could affect GUI painting that immediately followed it.
· [Fix] Fixed a minor API bug that could sometime throw errors during some extreme painting, without an effect on the painting itself.

You can also check out API changes in the >documentation< (page 58).

Demo scene API examples in action

The spline example shows the difference in Paint3D (that vertically sticks to the points/splines provided) and Paint.


Paint3D:


Terrain follow:


Hand paint examples:




Thanks for all the feedback (on Discord)! You guys rock!

 

If you thought painting paths with Path Painter was easy, check out the new update, because it just got a lot easier! (update landed 3 hours ago)

With the new Auto Ramp feature you just do the painting and Path Painter will automatically create ramps as needed from now on.



This feature is close to my heart, because it's the last bit of how I first envisioned Path Painter. It has been forgotten for about 5 years, because I've been focusing on what people want and various other reasons. Forgotten until now, when someone reminded me of it (thank you!).

I'm excited about this. I hope it will be as useful to everyone as I always imagined and it will give you a lot of joy. I wanted to record a video, but I have to go offline till next week. Talk to you then.

 

Oh, I might have painted that too fast (running late). I'm afraid the gif will give me seizures.

 

awesome update Frank, thanks!

 

Hi! How can I purchase the source code and could you please inform me of the price in advance?

Best regards!

 

Hi @Hemath,
Please use support to get in touch with us regarding queries like that.