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Planetary Terrain

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by HenryV, Dec 4, 2013.

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  1. trudeaudm

    trudeaudm

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    Everything above is perfectly possible.

    I get the idea that a lot of people miss the concept of this asset. Its primary purpose as I could see, was to provide a method for generating procedural planets, with an LOD system. And the asset does exactly that.

    Everything else is extra, and most of it is only for demonstration purposes.

    Does the asset have a gravity system? Yes, but it is not a great one, so I scrapped it and wrote my own.

    Does it have a system for having a character move around on the surface? Yes, but again it is more of a demonstration feature, to spark the interest of the people who use the asset, so they can know what is possible.

    I wrote my own character FPS system, along with a method for calculating atmospheric density and a pile of other stuff.


    If you expect this asset to do everything for you than chances are you either are not experienced with unity enough, or you need to sharpen your programming skills before attempting whatever project you are struggling with that uses this asset.

    This asset does not push Unity, I can run with great terrain quality and be getting excellent fps, not to mention thousands of rigidbodies moving around constantly.

    More of a space age science fiction Rust to be honest.
     
  2. behemothentertainment

    behemothentertainment

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    Quick question for anyone who uses this asset. Can you still place your own trees and grass? Can you still use Unity's terrain editor? Thanks for anyone who can reply. I wanted to spice up the visuals a little bit and make them stand out a little more. Thanks again.
     
  3. DSebJ

    DSebJ

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    You can place your own trees and grass, yes. You'll need to do it by placing the game objects directly or write a script to do it programatically.

    You can't use Unity's inbuilt terrain editor. This means you can't paint grass, trees or textures on to the planet using the inbuilt unity tools.

    Once you generate the planet, you basically have a new mesh and game object in the scene (this is an oversimplification as the planet is significantly more advanced when you turn on subdivisions etc.) and can do what you want with that game object as if you just imported a planet mesh made in blender.
     
  4. ZeroSumGames

    ZeroSumGames

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    I'm interested in buying this asset but frankly $90 is too much for the hobbyist purposes I intend use it for. Have you considered running a sale? You might be surprised how many you might sell at $45.
     
  5. StaffanEk

    StaffanEk

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  6. Calm

    Calm

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    Thanks for the plugin! Can't wait until I'm proficient with it.
    Here is where I'm at...
     
  7. petak_core

    petak_core

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    Hi Henry, thanks for great plugin.

    I have some questions before I buy your asset:
    *it's the Planetary Terrain optimized for mobile devices ?
    *it's possible make planet looks like Earth ?

    My goal is make some simple Google Earth - So you can zoom in to mountain, and recognize basic continent (America/Europe/Asia/Africa). So there is focus on real word (map-data) looks like.

    For example when I zoom to Nepal I would like find Mount Everest.

    Is that possible with your asset ?

    Thank you for your answer.
     
  8. aaronhm77

    aaronhm77

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    good to see this.

    if we can create planet terrains and build our games on them like a "real planet" then we have evolved from ameba to astronaut.

    its only a matter of time before we no longer live on flat terrains but ROUND terranes as the world is not flat but round.

    90 dollars is good price to if it works well.
     
  9. Anaes

    Anaes

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    Great addon. Small suggestion

    Make the surface borders be the same size as the planet.heightVariation.
     
    aaronhm77 likes this.
  10. EthanC

    EthanC

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    I haven't gotten a response from the developer yet so i'm posting the inquiry here:

    I'm interested in using this software to create the terrain for my game. The issue is that it's an MMO that has every object in it placed via coordinates, so if the world under your feet were actually curved, I can imagine that in the distance you'd see trees and objects hovering above the ground.

    What I'd like to do is adapt either it's own system or my own system to re-flattening the terrain and possibly converting a generated planet into heightmaps all stitched together at the seams.

    Anyone want the job? If so email me at ethan@divergence-online.com
     
  11. ZJP

    ZJP

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    MIA since May 16, 2014. So, it's time to request a refund. :mad:
     
  12. Vadur

    Vadur

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    Hello,
    I am looking for a full documentation , or is it ? how does it generates plants? a detailed documentation of the "surface color.cs" + "foliage renderer.cs" + on the nodes is too much to ask ?
    I have just this http://planetaryterrain.com/files/PlanetaryTerrain.pdf and

    Thanx in advance ....
     
  13. Yann

    Yann

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    Henry, since you seem to have given up supporting this asset : please put it ASAP into the public domain, so that a motivated team can keep developing it.
     
    TheNorthridge likes this.
  14. DSebJ

    DSebJ

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    Yann, just curious but what would be Henry's motivation to do that?

    The source code comes with the package, your able to extend it further if you like for your own purposes already aren't you?
     
  15. Yann

    Yann

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    DSebj, I won't comment on Henry's motivation, but can clearly say what would be mine as a user : a simple matter of time, given the ambition of such a project as Planetary Terrain. In my opinion, it would deserve to be pushed to a much higer level - which is very different from just extending/adapting it to suit some particular needs.
     
    trudeaudm likes this.
  16. thepenguinmaster

    thepenguinmaster

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    I agree with you on this. I like the idea of the system and thought about buying it (if it was still active) mainly to just learn some of the concepts. The price is a bit on the steep side just for somethign to take apart and look at.

    Really because of the price and lack of support, it would be better for me to just reinvent the wheel here and take on the task of building my own terrain generator.

    Since the project is not supported, and not many people woudl likely buy it, it might as well be something that can be used as an educational tool or community supported. Really otherwise it is just a waste of the developers time. If no one is going to buy it, and no one is going to use it, then why have written it?
     
  17. kinnik

    kinnik

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    Eeee... yeah. It does look like a lot of fun to dig into, but at 90$ for something that I have no idea if I can get to work or not is kind of scary. :/ Are there actualy anyone on this forum useing this asset? Does the author come here ever?

    Also, does anyone here want to start a "planetary thread" to discuss resources and scripts for making planets? Mine is doing pretty well and I'd love to share / bounce some idea.
     
  18. DevJim

    DevJim

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    Yes there are a few people I know of using this asset for a game, and it does what it says, it creates planetary terrain. But you will need to heavily modify it to suit your needs(using C#) because its a terrain engine, not a game template.
     
  19. ZJP

    ZJP

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    Funny, this excuse the fact that the developer does no coming here since several months? :rolleyes::confused:
    I love the Store, but I think seriously reduce my future purchases. Models yes, but few software tools.
     
  20. DevJim

    DevJim

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    No, not making excuses for the developer but on that note I bought this as a base to work from and 'luckily' I understood how this system works. And even if the developer created an updated version now it wouldn't be worth the work to integrate it into my project.

    I guess if we're getting into this, the main obstacles I've faced up until this point are:
    -the planet renderer uses quite a bit of resources before any objects or game-play are added to the scene
    -foliage renderer does not work with floating origin off-the-bat, nor does it have colision.
    -the placement helper (which supports colision) is random, not procedural and doesn't have a slope property
    -any large planet will have floating point issues(shaking) on the surface, unless you figure out a way to make subsurfaces independent from the planet itself
    -the imposter system was a great idea but needs an overhaul, and possibly mixed with a LOD system depending on what you're aiming for
    -its going to take you 100's of hours to get a decent detailed surface view, orbital view, and the space in between o_O
     
    chelnok likes this.
  21. kinnik

    kinnik

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    Thank you so much for the replys! I do believe I will take the plunge eventualy (maybe real soon) and try and work this. I'm pretty decent with c# so I'm confident I'll get it working ok, even without support from the author (thank you again comunity! There is lots of trouble shooting to draw from already!) As for the obsticals, I'm making small planets only, I'm planning to paint the folliage into the scene with another asset that I've allready modified to work on planets (so long as coliders work on small scale ok). And I might use my own LOD system if needed (or QuickLOD or some combination). 90$ is a fair bit for me but dang this looks like too much fun and a lovely addition to my project, regardless of support.

    WholeNewStudio: Blooody beauutiful video!! Reminds me of "No Man's Sky" (this is a big compliment and I suppose an unfortuanate reminder of potentail competition... :/ I assume your using this asset for that video? Did you use the atmosphere shader to get the fake (?) atmospheric scatter? Also, are you using / planning any chunk loading systems (to load / save the planets from disk and free the ram)? Great work and thanks again for the tips! -kin
     
  22. thepenguinmaster

    thepenguinmaster

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    Thanks for the good information. At this point, would you say that given the upfront cost and the time investment, would it be worth purchasing, modifying, and implementing, or better off just creaing one form scratch? What I am trying to figure out is if it takes 100 hours to modify, or 100 hours to create one of your own, is there really a return on the investment if you already have a good idea on how procedural terrain is generated?
     
  23. kinnik

    kinnik

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    Good question. There is a lot more in the package then just terrain gen, but if that's all you want it for... I'd image stiching the seems might be tricky. Also, here is included a good number of noise / fractile formulas, with an entire system for creating / combining the formulas with add / subtrack / multiply / levels / curves ect ect... There is a huge amount of content (dozens of very large scripts). Also, I *think* 100 hours is an exageration... It would probably be a good idea (i think) for the author to let people download and test the asset to see if it would be suitable for thier needs (and usable without 100+hours of frustration). There are other assets I've seen that require you to write a request for a test suite, this could weed out people that just want to play with it or that might try to steal it.
     
  24. DevJim

    DevJim

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    The 100's of hours applies to my game and is more of a level design aspect, balancing resources(foliage, clouds, buildings, lifeforms) in order to have a nice orbital view, surface view and in between. I wouldn't say it's purely aesthetic because we've added our own LOD system, made tweaks to the terrain generation itself, created dynamic view distances and a lot more. It's still a continual battle for resources, we've used all of our knowledge for a frame boost here and there, I do feel we could push it even further.

    While we have had to rewrite parts of this asset I still recommend the purchase, its a small price for a major head-start. In the end I guess it depends what kind of game you want to make!

    Kinnik: Thanks! Yes, No Mans Sky.. tut tut tut, I guess it doesn't matter if I say I started this before No Mans Sky was announced? :p Actually Stars End is a story that spans several worlds with many procedural aspects. It's inspired by Planetside 2 and Mass Effect. (And we didn't use the provided atmosphere that comes with the asset.)
     
  25. BES

    BES

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    I will still use these planets ...but I decided to use an on the fly map switch when entering the planet atmosphere ...it will switch to an unlimited or nearly unlimited terrain map while keeping the same sky and other tidbits...it SHOULD be smooth and not noticeable ...well depending on the computer specs probably..
     
  26. trudeaudm

    trudeaudm

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    How do you plan to map where a player appears on your flat terrain? WIll they just appear randomly? Or will you work out a system that transfers the spherical coordinates to your flat map?
     
  27. BES

    BES

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    Actually I haven't worked that part out yet ...figured I would get the map switching working ...then the rest, but I have an idea to link the planet and the flat terrain to the same empty game object so it keeps the same rotation, to keep the night and day synced up.
    For the flat terrain I plan on using a big sat image from world/terrain composer adjust it with World Machine or L3DT ...then try to match the planet terrain to that or find a way to wrap it to the planet, so basically random unless I get everything to sync up without much programming ...I suck at programming so actually making a system to transfer the spherical coordinates to the flat terrain map might be hard for me ...lol.
     
  28. thepenguinmaster

    thepenguinmaster

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    Thi
    This is getting off topic, but why switch to a flat map? Why not just keep it spherical? Are there issues with the generated spherical terrain that will not work form some cases?
     
  29. BES

    BES

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    As I said I am not good at programming ...its why I buy assets with code in them... at this time I cant get planetary terrain to function properly at ground level for my specific needs ...so I will do it a different way ...the ideas I posted above will most likely not be the way it will be done.. I might just go with SGT planets instead ...since I can wrap a terrain texture to them... I don't know at this time..
    I am busy with work and other RL things so i am slow with my game project at this time ...I am currently just working on the flat terrain maps..
     
  30. michaljabrzyk

    michaljabrzyk

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    Please for help. 0_o

    NullReferenceException
    UnityEngine.Material..ctor (UnityEngine.Shader shader) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/artifacts/EditorGenerated/ShaderBindings.cs:149)
    Planetary.SurfaceColor.Awake () (at Assets/PlanetaryTerrain/Scripts/SurfaceColor.cs:45)
    UnityEditor.HostView:OnGUI()
     
  31. DevJim

    DevJim

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    You arent using Unity 5 by any chance are you?
     
  32. michaljabrzyk

    michaljabrzyk

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    No..It's fixed.My bad.Sorry
     
  33. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Will this work with Unity 5 betas?
     
  34. DevJim

    DevJim

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    Has anyone tested how big the rewrite would need to be for Unity 5. Because of the shader rewrites for Unity 5, chances are pretty slim that this will run, but I cant confirm this.
     
  35. petak_core

    petak_core

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    Hi evrybody, and HenryV

    I would like to ask if anybody have issue with painting on generated planet. The planet contain 6 surfaces and when I draw with brush from one surface to another threis some "holes" into planet. The surfaces is not in one solid planet.

    Is there any option for mirroring edge one surface to neighbor sufrace ?

    PlanetSufraceHole.PNG

    Thank you for any advice
     
  36. ZJP

    ZJP

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    Hi HenryV??!!! You have faith ..:(
     
  37. trudeaudm

    trudeaudm

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    Edges do this automatically, what your issue appears to be is your LOD range. Your grids on the top and right are at a different detail level than bottom left. That is my best guess at least. Also HenryV has not been active for almost 8 months or something.
     
  38. GregMeach

    GregMeach

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    Plus the website is now offline... bye bye Henry! :(

    Unity 5 beta 18 update: Atmosphere shaders don't appear to be working nor does the material for the "Massive" planet scene. The other scenes load and seem to work fine. I did have to edit Nodes.cs (again) and revise this line
    Code (CSharp):
    1. [System.NonSerialized] protected Node[] inputs;
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2014
  39. GRF75

    GRF75

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    Hi. I was thinking on doing small planets, with a cartoon-like style. Can you share how / where did you get a proper shader? My game will be a platformer, so no competion from here.

    For all the community:
    Another idea is to get a planet with steps in the terrain, I mean, a laddered terrain, if this term exists. Have you seen sometime rice fields on some Asian countries? I suppose this can be done with the module editor, but as the documentation doesn't write anything about them, it's hard for me to understand what to tune. Any ideas about that?

    Thanks in advance!
     
  40. DSebJ

    DSebJ

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    That's not a good sign :-(
     
  41. ZJP

    ZJP

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    Time for a 'Class Action Refund'?? :mad:
     
  42. petak_core

    petak_core

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    Thank you for tip, I'll check LOD again.

    I solved my "black holes" in planet in Sufrace script modify varialble borderDepth = -0.5f, its temp solution, but for now it's ok.
     
  43. Corpsejacked

    Corpsejacked

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    I really like what you've done with your project. Since you seem to have a lot of experience working with this tool I was wondering if you think it would be possible to make a hollow earth type terrain. Like is it possible to flip the UVs and heightmap inputs and have a negative gravity in the planet centre? I would have no need of seeing the planet exterior as the game would be completely based in the hollowed planet.
     
  44. DevJim

    DevJim

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    Thanks! I haven't run any tests but I would assume you could apply a negative height to the planet, and then invert the normals in surface.cs, which is a script applied to every planet subsurface piece. Inverting the gravity shouldn't be difficult.
     
  45. ValrikRobot

    ValrikRobot

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    Hi Guys

    I was wondering if anyone could offer some assitance.

    First how does the LOD system work? is 0 the closest?

    How do i get the trees and grass working correctly?

    Thyank you. also if anyone has developed any decent plugins for this i wouold love to hear about them. Seems this product wont be developed any further
     
  46. ValrikRobot

    ValrikRobot

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    i keep getting a shader problem. they say verts not completely initialised and everything is purple. That said, most shaders now seem to have problems. Including rtp. i just moved to U5
     
  47. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    To be precise RTP3.2 works with PT as far as I know, I've got example scene included with planet generated in PT and shaded by RTP.

    Tom
     
  48. Deleted User

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    Guest

    what script are you using to prevent your character from going through the terrain. I can't seem to find a solution to this problem I'm having.
     
  49. Mazak

    Mazak

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    HenryV has been gone for over eight months.

    We should create a closed source version of the project only open to those who own the asset.

    This way we could work on the project to help each other.

    Who is willing to help with this process?
     
    Yann likes this.
  50. piacentini

    piacentini

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    Most of the shaders included in this asset do not work with Unity5. The basic TexturedPlanet one still works, but it fails for me on Windows Store/Phone builds (9.1 level). So... anyone has a suggestion about alternative shaders we can use with planet meshes generated by this asset?
     
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