Assets Path Painter™ - Terrain Roads, Ramps, Riverbeds made easy

Hi everyone,

I'm a senior engineer working as a freelancer. A few months ago I found myself in need of a simple tool while working on a project and I made this. People in my community are very excited about it and said it could help lots of others. I'm here to find out if I can really help a lot of people with this.

The concept was to create something very user friendly and very simple to use.

Look forward to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
Frank

 

There are some cool features planned. For example you will be able to easily integrate it in your game, or level editor, for your players.

 

Hey .. that is nice .. but Sentieri does the same ..project started last december and now release is ready

 

Hey antoripa,
Thank you for your feedback. I didn't know about your project. I wish I did, because this has been in the making for a long time and is mostly release ready as well.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will consult artists regarding Sentieri to see if I should drop the project. That's what I did about Easy Roads months ago, and they advised me that even though there could be some overlaps in functionality, they would use the two for completely different things. They said they couldn't replace Easy Roads for certain things, while could not substitute Path Painter for others. This is the only reason I'm here. I don't think you have anything to worry about. I'm not interested in creating solutions that are redundant.

In fact I have been considering to insert a link to Easy Roads into the asset store listing, so people can choose what suits their needs best. I'm only interested in helping people and making customers happy, even if that means they choose another asset. If I'm lucky, later they will be working on a different style project, and get my tool as well.

 

No worries .. Sentieri is a different tool with a lot of other features . so I think a different target .. . I think that is nice that user can have options, so I hope you will release your tool soon that it looks nice

 

Sorry guys, I first didn't add an option to the vote for those who don't need this tool right now, but like it very much (also didn't realize I had to click a button to see the results). There were options only "I want it!", or "It's okay.", so added "Awesome" to the end. (thank you for bringing my attention to this!)

The poll and the answers are not great, but I can no longer change or delete it. Grateful for all the feedback.

 

I like how simple it looks to paint a road. Unity has to buy this from you and make it standard terrain editor feature. Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks a lot! Glad you like it!

 

Don't stop developing, it's simplicity will be it's selling point. Fantastic work.

 

Thank you Boz_1!

 

Whats new?

• Made a voice over video that better shows how the tool works.
• Changed the hotkeys (visible in the video: CTRL, G, SHIFT+G, CTRL+SHIFT+G). Happy to hear opinions on these!
• Found a typo on the GUI window. Please let me know if you still see anything that needs attention, or you think some terms could use some rethinking.
• Fixed 2 minor bugs in the scaling tool.
• Fixed bug #1(#1 in bug tracking): “Able to trigger unwanted tool actions while painting (e.g. Move Tool)”.
• Improved how the textures are displayed in the GUI. - Originally had a more robust solution, but it also took a little more time to process when the user selected different terrains. Now it is as quick as in the Terrain component itself (and also has the same glitch sometimes with RGBA textures. That sorts itself easily and the performance is better this way).
• Now using a better way to switch between tools.
• Done some refactoring on raycasting.
• Some refactoring of the Scene View cycles.
• Fixed bug #2 “MouseUp not detected out of the Scene View”.
• New optimized and improved ‘in Scene View brush changes’. +Values are now displayed near the mouse cursor.
• Finally updated the brush graphics from the previous temp solution(circles). Still using the circles for ‘in Scene View brush changes’ because I find them more explicit:

Going to create an updated demonstration video that will be shorter (will attempt to show the most interesting bits) and hopefully better. That was my very first video attempt. A lot of effort, not great result.

The voice over Intro:

 

The tool at this stage is pretty much release ready. Development was TDD where it made sense but I want to add some more automated tests and create some thorough and vigorous test runs for the other aspects of the tool. I want to make sure it works reasonably well upon its first release, and also that I can quickly push out updates when I need to.

There is something I wanted to iron out before giving PP to anyone. The end bit of brush strokes works as originally intended, however I realized that might not be ideal. The caps of the strokes are always in level:


This can become a problem when drawing paths with multiple strokes. Here is a worst case example:


So far everyone on other forums said things like
"I think that the path ends thing probably shouldn’t hold it back" and
"I'd want to try it this way. The stroke ends issue seems like a fix for the next iteration to me."

but I'm very interested in your opinion.

Thanks for all the support!

 

The new demo video is live.

 

This looks like a great tool.

Have you thought about adding some procedural capabilities? Like picking a start and end point, then using a spline to generate a path.

 

Hey .. just joined Unity galaxy .. I come from Cry and Unreal world . nice to see your tool @frankslater ...
r u gonna release on the store ? Do you need beta tester .. I am from Canada i can support you ..Cry has similar tool ..
Cheers.
John

 

any chance to get an answer ?

 

Thank you @camta005, and thank you for your question.

That is not on the roadmap as of yet. The tool was created with free hand drawing in mind.
Can certainly look into that in the future, if it's something desired.

 

Hey @jlocke,

Welcome to the galaxy! Yes I'm going to release on the store and I appreciate your support. Your experience might come in handy when we get to Beta testing.

Apologies for the delay. I have been very busy in the last 3 weeks working to remove some roadblocks for the project and securing its future for the users. These non-technical aspects move much slower than development and take up all my attention at the moment, but I must make sure you guys get the best out of this on the long run, not only for a brief period. Once I'm done with that part, things will move much smoother.

It's hard to provide a timeline at this stage, because I'm dealing with some gov agencies and they keep disappointing me, but I will let you know as we come up to Beta testing phase.

Best,
Frank

 

Thanks a lot ...when you are ready, we can support your beta testing and help in fixing / improving. Stay in touch ..
Cheers,
JL

 

Hi Frank,
how are you progressing ? Just sent you a PM

 

Hi John,

Thanks for your message. Writing here as well in case others are interested. Delays are caused by legal and other requirements. I'm aiming to start the Beta program before the end of the month.

Happy New Year to All!
I hope the year is off to a good start for everyone!

Best,
Frank

 

Hey Frank!

Love the simplicity of the approach and it looks like a super useful tool!

Cant wait to start playing with this on a Gaia terrain!!

 

Hi @frankslater This looks awesome, and recently been getting some mentions on Adam's Procedural World discord server (https://discord.gg/bvmAsbz)

Where are you at with the tool? Is it getting close to release? I'd very gladly help with pre-release testing if that's useful to you.

... a thought... You might consider releasing the scaling tools (terrain and splatmap resolution changer) separately. It seems a bit of an add-on to PathBrush3D and would actually be incredibly useful for a whole number of people who might not consider buying the path painting tool. Anyone working on VR or mobile projects would find this a god send for terrain optimisation.

Finally, since you're asking for feedback. It's difficult to tell from just looking at the videos (rather than trying the tool itself) but the Edit mode/holding down Cntrl seems a little confusing. Can this be simplified? i.e. when the tool is activated you're in edit mode, and when it's not you're not editing. It's unclear quite what 'not being in edit mode' does.

It also seems that after making a second brush stroke you can no longer edit the first (I think you say this in the video). Could this be improved? i.e. giving users the ability to step through an array of the brush strokes they made - selecting which one they want to edit.

 

Just wanted to give a thumbs up on this tool - it looks awesome - and simple to use.

EasyRoads3D is a very different solution, and I can easily see I would like to have both packages in my toolbox. A lot of terrain tools have quite a steep learning curve - but this one seems to be something everyone could just get up and running and have great results within minutes.

Besides, the other WIP tool that might resemble this - Senteri - is still not out, so there is a great chance to scoop that market by being avaliable first
I know I will purchase BOTH products if they were available.

Ps. I had totally missed out on this tool until today - I guess more frequent posts could get you back on the front page from time to time and catch more casual readers like myself

 

Hi and thank you for your kind words, interest, and questions! I'm just back from a trip where I had no access to the forum but will do my best to answer all your questions now.

 

Hi @jeromeWork,

In its current form the tool has been very close to release.

I'm fairly new here and I thought a lot about possible pitfalls and how I could make sure no one would ever regret getting this tool. I am lucky because after the last few months I can now consider a number of possibilities, some of which are very exciting.

Some new, amazing use cases and possibilities came up that would shape the future of the tool. I already dipped my toe into some very exciting development on the procedural side, because I was interested to see what I can come up with in a couple of days to accommodate a use case. Got some awesome procedurally generated content out of it, but I don't think this feature will come with the first release.

If things go as I hope, I was expecting the tool to get a new thread, considering that it would on some level eventually become a different project. More exciting, and most importantly much better for the users. A different roadmap really. This was the reason why I was not updating the thread.

The release date could be really soon, but it depends on a number of things:

• Where things go regarding the mentioned opportunities.
• What's going to be decided regarding what the first version should be like.
• How the beta tests go - Fingers crossed we won't bump into elusive bugs and the tool will be as intuitive to the users as I hope it would be.

Thank you for the offer! Pre-release testing will be important.

Interesting you say that. That has been on my list to see if people would be interested.


+1 then

Edit mode does 2 things:

1. Changes are applied to an existing brush stroke instantly (so it allows you to see your tweaks near real time). When you are not in Edit Mode, you might just be setting up for your next brush stroke. Like in a paint program: When you have the brush activated, changing the brush size doesn't change your last brush stroke. Here you have the option to tweak your strokes after painting them.
2. Allows you to continue painting your last stroke or create a straight line coming from its end point. I hope tests will shed light on how much sense this makes to the users. I might just need to change how "Edit Mode" is called. The idea was that you draw a line and then you think "I don't like the thickness of it. I want to edit it." -> "Edit Mode"

Thank you for the feedback! Recently the tool was tried by someone whose opinion is very important to me. I will ask what thoughts came up regarding this and if it was confusing.

Last year I thought long and hard about making all the strokes editable. The deeper I got into it, the more I could see that it can get more complex and confusing for the users than one would initially think, because the tool acts like a paint program. For the same reason it seemed like one would just paint over where changes are needed. Long story short, it seemed like it would be better to look into that once the tool has a user base and include the users in the process.

 

Thank you @ChezDoodles!
I was allowing the thread get lost in time somewhat deliberately, and hopefully that will all make a lot more sense soon.

 

Hi Frank, thanks for the informative reply

It sounds as if the tool is morphing into something new, but perhaps the trick is to initially release smaller, simpler tools (simple PathPainter3D, TerrainResolution, etc.) If priced right no one would regret buying those and you'd get a lot of feedback which could then be channelled into something bigger e.g. TerrainPainterStudio (or whatever you call it ) [edit: people are more likely to regret buying an expensive, bloated asset that does some of what they need plus a bunch of things they'll never use]
.- and you'd learn a lot about how the asset store works.

As has already been mentioned, be careful of feature creep...

Do give me a shout when you're ready for beta testers.

 

I forgot: you can now also use Edit Mode to display the terrain without trees and grass.
This is because of how painting works now:

[edit: the .gif was only displaying while editing the post]

 

Yes, it will be definitely a smaller, simpler initial release. Thanks!

 

Hello, is this released yet?
I am not seeing a link to it unless I missed it? I mostly saw examples of positive extrusion, but down does negative end up looking? I have both Cascade and R.A.M. and while I really like them both, their terrain carving leaves something to be desired as it is still fairly new to both so it ends up being a ton of clean up work to smooth it out as it looks like the below, even with a fairly decent resolution terrain. I would love to be able to carve out my rivers and then just go over them again with Cascade or RAM to lay down the actual water material.

I like to have lots of options in general in the tools I use, even if there is some overlap in them, some are just better at some things and others at other things even with similar tools.

Also, I definitely would like to recommend integration with Vegetation Studio if it is not planned already, to be able to automatically lay down a vegetation mask where ever a path is laid.

Thanks!
-MH

 

Hi @MostHated,

It is not released yet, but main focus is being turned towards getting it out there.
After looking at your picture, it's worth noting that it has no multi terrain capabilities as of yet (although that has been on my list for a later iteration


Vegetation Studio integration is going onto the list, thank you!

Yes, in the video there was only one riverbed example. I recorded another one if that helps:


The resolution of the terrain was 1024


and a close up

 

Changed the curve on that one so it looks more like your example


Your issue could be that Unity terrain is not very good with vertical walls due to how it works. They will come out jagged unless the wall is running in certain angles. You can try to make the river walls less steep. That might give you smoother results.

 

I appreciate the reply. I do get what you are saying as I noticed that going certain directions for some reason it was between somewhat and also extremely worse than others. I definitely am a big fan of the consistency of depth when you are drawing with this, I try to do it manually with the current in-game brush by setting the opacity really low, but end up having to go over different areas 10x to fix different things. Using this one looks like it would be sooo much easier.

As for multi-terrain, that would end up being pretty essential to my needs as my terrain setup uses 1600 256x256 tiles for use with WorldStreamer, so I tend to quickly reach from one end to the next and one of my rivers I was working on covers 9-10 tiles or so and its not even super long. I am not in a huge huge rush though, there is *always* something else I can work on while waiting for things, lol.

 

Sounds like you won't get bored any time soon.
You can create a fairly detailed 400 square meter map with that.

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't think multi-terrain support is going to be in the first release. It's going to be a bit trickier than with the built-in style brushes.

 

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update to say that in the last few days I have been working to get a first release version ready.

Sorted the aforementioned line cap question:

you can still create terraces:


You will now be able to adjust texture painting strength:

This can be particularly good for height blending with CTS.

 

You can also do the gardening






I've done 60+ little changes and adjustments for various reasons, including optimisation and convenience, but I'm sure there will be a lot of great feedback once it gets out there!

 

Is there any eta on this yet. I use Ian Deane's Ramp Brush, which is useful, but I badly need something more sophisticated and wider ranging in what it does. This looks really promising.

 

Thanks for your question @JBT27 .
It depends on how the beta will go. I don't want to give a too optimistic ETA and as far as I know it takes like a month to get on the Asset Store. Considering that, my guesstimate would be mid-late October.
Cheers,
F.

 

Thanks! Good luck through the beta. I'm watching the thread and I'll be buying when it's out.

 

We are super excited to announce that we have teamed up with Frank and Path Painter and that it will launch shortly!!

World was made with Gaia, shaded by CTS, populated by Gaia & GeNa 2 (check the fences there!), flythrough and ambient AI by Pegasus, and of course an epic set of paths by Path Painter!

 

Wow, the path and road creation tool of my dreams. Better yet it's been partnered up with Gaia and Gena creator?

When Tiled Terrain maps becomes a thing in Gaia, I will be even more happy with all of this. Working with SECTR to craft large world's that should in theory allow Open Territories for Players to explore.

Kinda wish path painter or path brush also had a spline and mesh based option, but a hand painted texture path tool is plenty awesome to be honest.

I look forward to seeing and using more of all this good stuff when I get deeper into scene creation.

 

hey, great tool,just a question.I see Pathpainter changes the geometry of the map,so i cannot use it with TC2 because it updates the heighmap deleting the changes done with PP.
Does Gaia do the same?i mean, if i stamp with Gaia after using Pathpainter, all the paths/roads done will be deleted?

If so, would like to suggest a total integration with Gaia.The option to do manual changes on a map or with Pathpainter and then continue stamping with gaia or other terrain tools will be the perfect tool

Thanks

 

Hey @txarly,

I think it depends on if you are stamping over the paths/roads (the same as painting over them would change the paths). With Gaia stamping you can do things that will blend the existing terrain with the stamp in several different ways.

I probably have not done anything like you mention there exactly. For example what I roughly did for the fly through scene you see in the Path Painter asset store was that I

1. planned roughly what textures i will use and created a CTS profile so I would have the right number of textures already in it for convenience.
2. started on a new scene with Gaia
3. Gaia stamped the terrain in different ways until I liked it
4. touched up rivers and created new ones to my liking with Path Painter
5. ran the Gaia texture spawns
6. ran the Gaia GameObject spawns
7. I think this was the point where I added the big GeNa objects like rocks, boulders, and buildings for the mountain village
8. ran the Gaia tree spawns and grass(detail) spawns
9. added textures i wanted for paths to the terrain
10. painted paths and some other details with Path Painter
11. added details with GeNa - fences, smaller objects/props, touched up trees and grass around the inhabited areas i created
12. added the CTS profile I created when I was planning
13. tuned the CTS profile somewhat
14. created the Pegasus fly through

Don't look at this as an expert workflow though. I was actually brand new to GeNa, CTS and Pegasus, and I would consider myself still a beginner with Gaia. Adam did fine tuning on the CTS side and improved the Pegasus fly through and some other things.

I'm not actually sure I got what you are trying to do there. Visit us on Discord and let me know if I'm off track.

 

Thanks Frankslater for your help.I was considering to buy Gaia(actually i have Terrain Composer ,and Landscape Builder),but if i modify the terrain with pathpainter and i want to stamp something more(a hill for example) and all the work with PathPainter is deleted because the update of the heighmap,it is the same problem as Terrain Composer.I understand the way and order you plan the steps, but the chance to manually update the terrain and preserve the changes,in development has no price.At least, for me is difficuIt to create a big terrain and keep it without changes until the end.I understant that may be this is tricky and that is because there are no tools in the asset store that allow to do this.Anyway, i appreciate a lot your comments.

 

Hello,

Any hints why I don't see the painting cross-hair on terrain ? It is displayed on other objects in the scene, but not on terrain (an example below) :



Using Unity 2018.3.0.f2

 

Great question @Jbs_GameZone.

I just recently heard of this happening in 2018.3. Unfortunately I haven't had time to look at 2018.3 compatibility and new abilities as of yet, while working on other products that need updates.

A Path Painter update's been coming down the pike with only small progresses at a time since September, but PP is now bubbling up on our priority list in the coming weeks, and I hope an update will be out by the end of February.

Sorry I can't give you better news and thank you for baring with us.

 

Thanks for the feedback. It's not a major issue, I can work without it for the next weeks. Looking fwd for the update.

 

Hey @Jbs_GameZone,

The issue with the brush is due to a possible Unity bug introduced in 2018.3 that affects other Unity functionality too (well, bug unless it is the intended behaviour and I saw no indication of it being intended in the documentation of Terrain or the affected functionalities).

If it doesn't get fixed in the foreseeable future and becomes bothersome, I'll change the visualization on the brush to something else.

For the time being you can make the problem go away by not enabling the Draw Instanced option for your terrain while working on the paths (you can of course enable it after for your game unless it affects some of your features as well).

 

Hi @Jbs_GameZone,

An update has been released. Please let me know if you bump into anything you deem noteworthy.