Real world Terrain test

Do you have the functionality done yet to generate the terrain? I know what you've done so far is...well...incredible. If you do have that functionality done can you make a video showcasing it?

 

Yes, that is working, not sure it would make a very interesting video but I will see about doing one to show it working.

 

Please include a massive terrain, flying camera, and FPS counter. I'd really like to know what the framerate is when viewing terrains from about 100m, 1000m, and 3000m where 1 unit = 1 meter. How many drawcalls does the average terrain need to render?

Is it better to have fewer large terrains joined or smaller ones joined? I was thinking a terrain segment of 1024, but that number would be dependant in how the LOD system works for terrains.

 

@SpookyCat :
I have read this thread, but I need to understand you well :
- you are about to do the job for Unity, aren't you ? Can we have a very approximative timeline ?
- will you have the same features than in your 3DS plugin ?
- I am quite new to Unity, and I have choosen the product mainly for its terrain capability for a game of mine. Is it possible to create "batch" scripts using your scripts, to generate a large number of tiles, with some pre-set parameters ? Not sure I am clear... I want to generate in a paintless way a lot of tiles, for instance 10km x 10 km covering a whole country. Is is possible ?

 

@SimtropBuggi - I will do a video of a large tiled terrain very soon, I have been busy adding multi threaded support to the system but that is done now. Draw calls is up to Unity, I guess it will depend on how many objects etc you place on the terrain, but a standard just terrain scene should only be a single draw call. I have not really used Terrains in Unity that much.

@sylvain - I was asked to convert the plugin from Max to Unity by Unity but have since not heard anything further from them. The system will have the same features as the Max plugin, the texture grabbing feature may be delayed as currently that is a PC only option as we have no Macs to compile the code to talk to Google Earth on OSX but for games I don't think that is too much of a problem as most users will want to paint their terrains or use one of the splendid shader systems on the Asset Store. Currently the Unity version has more functionality than the Max plugin as we have been changing the data streaming systems to support more data sources hence Mars, Moon and different coloring options. As for making batching scripts it isnt really needed as you could quite easily now just zoom out to say get the whole of Italy in view and then set the tiling options to generate 10kmx10km tiles and the system will just build those for you, it would be a lot of data but it can do it

 

@SpookyCat : GREAT ! GREAT ! How can we benefit of the Unity plugin ? Or, more precisely : how, how much, where, when ?

 

This will be my #1 asset to purchase. Can you guesstimate a timeline for release? Will it come with an API so I can integrate it for real-time use? And while I'd love to comb through the source, I completely understand if you don't intend to include it.

 

Same as the above two replies, please give us an estimated date of release if possible, as I'm very excited for this Unity plugin!

 

@SpookyCat :
Hello,

Any news ? I suppose we are several to be ready to get your plugin... Even in a 0.9 version....

 

awesome work!

 

Excited to see this. Any news?

 

@SpookyCat :
Waiting the Unity plugin, I have tried the Terrain Plugin trial for 3DS 2013. Quite impressive. I am able to export the terrain in a Unity .utr file. But how can I import it in Unity ? I have found nothing on such .utr extension...

 

Sorry for the delay in replying the forum notifications were not getting through. The plugin is coming it has been slowed down a little by support requests for our other systems but virtually all the code is done now. We need to setup some servers to host the data as well, and or provide a means to get the data on a USB stick or HD since there is a fair few GB's of data.

@sylvain - The unity scripts are included with the full version of the plugin at the moment. If I can find some time I will try and code up a demo version of those scripts as well.

 

Can't you release it as it is (getting data from the original provider) and maybe add your on service providing on a later update?

 

What data do you have to provide? I thought it pulled data off the net.

 

We have added further data sources to the original DEM elevation data such as Mars elevation and color data, Moon elevation and color data, and ETOPO elevation data for the earth and color data for the earth. Only the orginal SRTM DEM data is hosted on other servers the rest we will be hosting or provide for direct download.

 

Ohhhhhhh.

Can't we get an eraly version without all the added data?

I do want it, but I can't wait to use this

So is it possible you can release without and add the rest on a newer version?

 

No, the original elevation data will be hosted by the usual sites, I would rather not host any data due to server costs etc but it needs doing for the data sources we have generated.

 

As you can see, I edited my post once I saw what you wrote.
We were posting at the same time

 

@SpookyCat :
I am now freezed on my project, because I cannot create terrains based on reality, which is an important part of the project. Could we have an estimated date for any first release. I'll really be happy to test/discover it and integrate it...
Sorry for the harrassment...

 

Any news?

 

Oh man, I need this so bad You have a definite buyer here. Looking forward to the underwater terrain feature.
Will this feature a method to stream in/out created tiles in game depending on player position?

Also any chance you could sell DVD's containing all the cached map data required for the whole world.
That way it can be saved locally saving download time

 

Any update?

 

Lots of interest for this, any ETA?

 

Just a quick post to say we have found a little free time to finally get this product made available to you all, we will be setting up the servers for the data and getting the first beta release ready for release quite soon now.

Also a quick note to say that if you have 3ds max the plugin for that does now come with Unity scripts to quickly import the generated terrains into Unity along with the generated textures, so if you cant wait you can always go for that option. Below is the video that shows the Unity scripts provided with the Max plugin in use,

[video=youtube;Tee4GfziGG4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tee4GfziGG4

@John G - It is an option we are looking at providing the data set on a USB stick to save the downloading.

 

Glad to hear

 

Brilliant news, really looking forward to this.

 

Hi Spooky Cat,

I've been returning to this thread frequently and like many others, just wondering if there is any news on progress and release of the Mega Terrain Unity plugin?

I would like to add I think it looks awesome and am keen to purchase

Any news would be greatly appreciated..

 

+1

 

@Spooky Cat
How are you guys dealing with satellite images and licensing? Is that up to users to find and sort out themselves?

 

.. I keep popping back.. anyone heard anything? re: Mega Terrain for Unity? (other than here maybe?)..

 

Any updates on this Asset?

 

Is it a dead subject ?

 

I never liked the idea of paying for a product that streams terrain data off free servers. Sooner or later the servers get shut down, unless of course its a paid service. I doubt these guys could afford to host their own terrain servers either. Plus there are licensing issues distributing data sets that they do not own, for commercial purposes.

 

Hi... Nice work....
I too am working with similar concepts...
Here is a link to my latest post...
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/199549-Test-Resort-Template-w-Run-Time-Forest-System
Otherwise... There are others besides Lars who work in this realm...
TerraUnity has done quite a bit of work and his work is quite impressive... As yours is also...
Here is his web site link but he is here on the forums too...
http://www.terraunity.com/default.aspx
Anyways.... Nice work... The biggest problems I have found, is as you say... for one... the vertice count of big terrains and then the texturing...
A shader like Lars does wonders and can look quite realistic but I think there is nothing like using real Sat Imagery... That's where the problems comes in... You just can't use a texture a million pixel by a million pixels on one big terrain... So, I bust the terrain into a matrix and skin each one with its proper Sat Image texture... It's a hell of a lot of work let alone getting the rivers to line up with the height map etc... it's a frickin bitch... If you can automate that entire system... THEN YA GOT SOMETHING.... None-the-less nice work, one of these days someone will put it all into one package.... Thanks for sharing...

 

+1.

 

Still no answer?.
It seems that this guy spends more time hunting for pirates who download these products.

 

He seems quite occupied by other products (megafiers, ...).

But, four months ago (05/30/2013), he said to us : "Just a quick post to say we have found a little free time to finally get this product made available to you all, we will be setting up the servers for the data and getting the first beta release ready for release quite soon now."

If megaterrain for unity is developed at 99%, I think that it becomes a priority to finish the last 1%. I always said that to people developing code.

 

It's not even about the code.....

The system is already complete and working.

They just don't want you to download the information from the same resources as they did (there is more then one resource).

So they want to set up a server so all their customers can download all data from one source.

This is where they are stuck at.

I personally think it is a good idea, but since its delaying the release, I'd rather have it as it is.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding but I have been reading and decided to make the time to at least get the code tidied up for an Alpha/Beta test, so if there are a couple of people out there that would like to help iron out the bugs (will be a few to start with so be warned), I would need a Mac and PC user to start with so if you are feeling brave do email me with your system details and what functionality you are hoping to see in the system and I will get back to you.
Chris

 

Hey, sent you an email using the forum's "send mail".

Not sure if it will get to you.... any actual mail address I should send to?

 

That's great news, sent you a pm.

 

Just done the first draft of the help page so you can get an idea for what the system can do and can't do at the moment.You find it at http://www.west-racing.com/mf/?page_id=4422

 

Excellent, checking it out now.

One question what are the licence issues regarding using the elevation data for our games.
Do we need permission to use use from the sources?

 

The data and color sources are all in the public domain and the use of the data has no restrictions.

 

I have been waiting for ages for this to get released, email sent to hopefully help out with some testing.

 

I have to say, excellent work. For those who cannot wait, I have a working script to display DEM data:



I am thinking of putting my code on Unify wiki, so anyone can use it. Its of course not polished like MegaTerrain, but it will get the basic job done.

MegaTerrain grabs the texture from Google Earth. I don't like this approach, because the shadow, trees, snow, houses at the time of image capture is fixed, and gets painted on your terrain, so your own terrain shadows etc looks weird.

Its a nice approach, but I like to splat my terrains to save on bandwidth and also for ugly artifacts.

My code is based on this great open source terrain viewer - http://www.alpix.com/3d/TerrainViewer/

I'll go put it up on Unify wiki now.

 

I am having trouble getting onto Unify. Here is the core script.

//This will return a 2D array of int heights depending on the DEM file. You have to normalise the heights by dividing it by 700, then convert to float, before setting the heights for your terrain.
static public int[,] GetDEM()
{
int[,] output = new int[1201, 1201];

//Put here the address of the .bil file you downloaded from Earthexplorer
string bilFile = ".\\Assets\\Resources\\Terrains\\Bil\\n25_e032_3arc_v1.bil";
using (Stream s = File.OpenRead(bilFile))
{

int offset = 0;
byte[] tfBuffer = new byte[2884802];

if (s.Read(tfBuffer, 0, tfBuffer.Length) < tfBuffer.Length)
throw new IOException(string.Format("End of file error while reading file '{0}'.", bilFile));

for (y = 0; y < 1201; y++)
{
for (x = 0; x < 1201; x++)
{
int low = tfBuffer[offset++];
int hi = tfBuffer[offset];
offset++;

// Get 16bit altitude
int alt = (short)(hi << 8) + (int)low;

// Non permissible values
if (alt > 32767) alt = 65536 - alt;
if (alt == -32767)
{
alt = 100;
}
output[x, y] = alt;
}
}
return output;
}
}


To get the DEM file, go to earthexplorer.usgs.gov, select the location, in Data sources, select Digital Elevation -> Aster. Unzip the download, and copy the .bil file to your Resources folder and paste its address in the function.

 

Its a "(hi << 8 )", not 8)

And I am not trying to steal MegaTerrain's thunder. Their code is far superior to mine, and I was in fact inspired by them.

Still, I want to show the community how to achieve the basic function, esp if you need it immediately.

 

Any news ?
Have beta-testers beta-tested ?