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[RELEASE] Nuaj', the 3D clouds simulator

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Patapom, Dec 16, 2011.

  1. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    None of the above is a bloody good reason for why your product doesn't work. If you can't support a broken product, don't sell it.

    Give me back my money!
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2013
  2. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    Just because it's complex doesn't stop it from being broken. A bullshit update on the asset store that doesn't change a thing in the build itself is the work of a scam artist. Either fix your product so it can be useful or give us back our money. FIXING the BUG IS THE SUPPORT WE WANT!

    What are you going to do about this bug? Nothing? Because it sounds like you're going to do nothing. We don't care how much a pain in the ass it is to fix! That's your JOB! That's what you've been PAID money to do! FIX what you made!
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2013
  3. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    I'm not angry, just have some things I'd like to see, such as settings staying set when moving into game mode when they are set in the editor.
     
  4. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    I am angry. First he says it is his responsibility but then he tries to pass off the load onto everyone else by saying:

    01. He is too busy to fix his bugs and errors in getting Nuaj working.
    02. The only support he has give is that it's Unity's fault and he can't do anything about anything.
    03. He says he knows its his responsibility to get Nuaj working, but then he tries passing off the blame onto the users by saying he made everything customizable so that if something is broken: we ought fix it. We paid $100 him for something wasn't broken in the first place!
    04. He hasn't written a single line of code to fix what's broken with this package in months. MONTHS.
    05. He has also lied to plenty of people here saying that he was going to fix things when he never did. Then when people complained, he blamed Unity.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2013
  5. Patapom

    Patapom

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    ... Yup... Right...

    I'll come back when you've regained your temper.
     
  6. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    You've addressed NONE of the issues raised by Don Gray, sonicviz, jc_lvngstn, EiKON-Andy, or myself and what you're actually have the nerve to say you're going to take our money, ignore all our issues, and you come back to this some other time. This is not going away. I'm right on every issue I raised and the fact you choose to avoid responding to any of those issues is proof enough that he has no intent on fixing the problems facing this software.

    Either give me my money back or give us a timetable for when you will fix the issues and meet those timetables. If you'll not be fixing the issues, take your asset off the store and refund us.

    What is your next update on Nuaj? What improvements are you planning to make? None? Then give me back my money. Your S***'s broken.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2013
  7. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    This confused me a little...is this because of Nuaj Orchestrator script? I just turn it off if I don't want to use the canned themes, because that will change your settings.

    Patapom, I'm excited about Nuaj and think it's a great system. I do have some concerns (mostly about water reflection), and if that isn't resolved it really won't be usable for my project. But I do encourage you to continue to improve and support Nuaj, especially as it is still for sale on the Asset store.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2013
  8. sonicviz

    sonicviz

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    Apart from the Orchestrator make sure you "Break Prefab Object" on the Nuaj Game Object, as it can and will revert to prefab settings on play.
    This is an annoying bug which also caused me much lost time using iGui until the lightbulb went on.

    While I have my own issues with Nuaj for the moment I'm getting some results (under very constrained contexts and camera angles) so have not requested a refund as yet.

    Technically I can understand the issues he faces, but buyers buy things for a reason too.
    I hope he's able to continue development (open source may be an option at some point too)
     
  9. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    The thing is when he says "support" he doesn't really mean he is going to fix anything. What he means is that he'll get back to you.The problem is that when he gets back to you, ninety-nine percent of the time he'll say the problem is out of his hands and you're stuck with what you have.
     
  10. EiKON-Andy

    EiKON-Andy

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    I'm going to chime in here, mostly because my name was mentioned in the angry post above :)

    Personally, I think Nuaj is extraordinary. In my opinion, It's by far the most realistic sky system on the asset store right now and looks better than the sky in most AAA games out there (again, in my opinion).

    ...Which is why it pains me to say that, for the time being, I've had to remove it from our game. The bug reported here is just a show-stopper for us. We've had testers asking us why "the sky looks so crappy" when on my screen it looks glorious. It's so random and for now I just can't have it in there.

    I'm not at the point where I want my money back (yet) but I would be very interested to know what is being done to address this...
     
  11. daisySa

    daisySa

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    Same. This product is amazing and I agree it outshines virtually all AAA sky systems, but I can't use it due to the tree pixellation issue (which is helped considerably by selecting ACCURATE, but it's still visible). It's such a pity because the clouds are stunning - absolutely beautiful and entirely photo-realistic. They're beautiful to the point where I've seriously considered buying on Oculus Rift just so I could go into my game, lie down and look up at the sky (after disabling all the enemy spawners, of course). :)

    The other issue is that the frame rate drops on my machine from around 95fps to 60fps - and I have a very fast machine - so it's not going to be the most pragmatic choice for my target audience. Understandable though, it needs a lot of juice to power that magic.

    I think the author has created something really special here - it would be a real loss if it was not developed further.
     
  12. Patapom

    Patapom

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    I never said I would stop developing Nuaj'!
    I'm not abandoning anyone here, it's just a pain in the ass for me to find time to do things correctly.
    I can't fix difficult bugs by focusing only 1 hour a day, just to ship something that will get broken some place else right after the update because I rushed through things and made a lousy fix...

    It took 6 months to create Nuaj', I fixed so many bugs already and did it very carefully every time. At the time I was only concentrating on Nuaj', I had no other job.
    It's not my way of working to rush through things, I need time to do things right. Now that I work for 2 companies full time, it's difficult --if not impossible-- to find a long enough period of time during which I will concentrate only on Nuaj'.

    You really need to understand this...
     
  13. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Perhaps we have had a misunderstanding here: what I got from your first message was that the settings were reset when exiting game mode, which is a standard unity behavior.

    If the settings are also reset when ENTERING game mode, then you're right it's a bug and I'll look into it...
     
  14. ronan-thibaudau

    ronan-thibaudau

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    I think the guy who made triton had the same issue iirc in his thread and also thought it would be impossible to fix, but came back with a solution, the nuaj maker may want to ask him (however not sure he'd help as nuaj competes with silverlining). Also while i'm 100% positive someone fixed this issue (unity doesn't notify me on device lost) i'm not 100% sure it was in triton, i just think so, i could dig the info on the forum if needed but just wanted to state here at least 1 person fixed or worked around this so it is possible.
     
  15. Zen-Davis

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    None of this addresses one simple question: WHEN are you resolving these issues?

    Your response makes it pretty clear you simply do not have the time to address these issues. If that is the case, we all deserve a refund as Nuaj is a dead product.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2013
  16. LaneFox

    LaneFox

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    Worst post of the day award - right there.
     
  17. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Never the name "Zen" has been used so inappropriately... :)

    I'm working on the upsampling bug right now if you want to know...

    When will it be fixed? As with all difficult bugs, the answer is: I have no idea.

    If you seriously want a refund, just check this thread: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/144729/asset-store-refund-policy.html
    And stop calling me a liar and a thief, please!
     
  18. Zen-Davis

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    Couldn't care less.

    Patapom. Good to know that you're working on it. How about the issue with the vegetation? And how about getting particle effects visible on top of the clouds? Also how often do you plan on updating us with your progress?
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2013
  19. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Issue with vegetation is the upsampling problem I'm talking about.

    As for particles, I can't do much about that: you have to compose them in a special buffer with a dual camera setting that was discussed somewhere in this thread...
     
  20. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    Now that I hear you're working on it, I've removed all such comments. Understood about the particles, but can you update the thread every few days and talk about not necessarily the progress, but the attempts you've made to make improvements? That would go a long way.
     
  21. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Just a question there: do you have an orchestrator in the scene?

    Because when you hit play, the orchestrator is called every frame and sets its own values. Perhaps that's the reason your carefully set values get erased?
    The orchestrator is merely an example (already quite complex) to drive Nuaj' parameters from 2 simple sliders, that's typically something you want to code yourself for your specific needs in your game...
     
  22. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    Can you update the thread every few days about the progress you've made?
     
  23. Zen-Davis

    Zen-Davis

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    You're not working on it, are you?
     
  24. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Yes I am, I worked on it from last thursday to saturday, improving the edge problem with the help of a user.
    I'll try and find more time to also handle multiple camera settings but this week is crazy.

    Update is coming, don't worry.
     
  25. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Why, yes I did!
    Not sure how I (mis) understood that it also needed to be in the scene.
    Settings are now staying as I set them, thanks!

    :)

    What are some tips on reducing "God Ray" flickering?

    Must have missed your post five days ago.





     
  26. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Flickering is due to high frequency changes in the shadow map, which is difficult to get right since it covers quite a large area in the sky.
    You could try and increase the smooth blur radius in the shadow map settings of the volume cloud, at the risk of losing the interesting features that create the godrays...
     
  27. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Yeah, there are a lot of tweaking features and sometimes they can overpower one or another.
    Will have to spend more time with it, tweaking to see how things react, though I have spent a number of hours since buying this.
    Having the settings stick is for sure a real help.
    :)
    I have to say this is the most realistic sky/cloud/lighting I've seen, especially in real time.
    I think if you continue to refine it, it could get to the point of the hyper-realism many seek.
    There seem to be too many little things for now that cause the break in the sense of realism.
    But, at this point, guess one has to continue to make progress in the settings to find a balance.


    Please, continue to refine, thanks!

    :)
     
  28. Patapom

    Patapom

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    I have a much better, faster, stronger version running for PC now but it unfortunately requires the DX11 API at the very least so I'm quite limited in my options with the Unity version...

    Sometimes I find a cheap improvement suitable for DX9 and I apply it to the unity Nuaj' but that's becoming increasingly difficult, most of the improvements rely on heavy compute shaders now...
     
  29. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    I could wish you'd move strictly to DX11, but that would be selfish of me.


    :p
     
  30. Strip

    Strip

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    I am doing quite a bit of research on dynamic weather assets and Nuaj certainly has the potential to be the best. After reading this thread and some of the comments in the asset store I must say I am a little bit concerned about bugs and undesired behavior. I am mainly concerned with typical weather patterns and this is a day/night racing simulator. A bug affecting lightning strikes and rain will probably not affect me. This does place particular importance on day-night transitions, cloud formation, and how the weather looks from ground level.

    After reading the thread I see that many bugs have been fixed of the course of time and some have not. Can anyone summarize what bugs are currently present and what their affects might be?
     
  31. Patapom

    Patapom

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    It's not mine to say what's bothering users the most but the "last" big problem I'm currently facing is finding a way to correctly upsample the atmosphere rendering that is performed in a lower resolution than the screen's...
    This sometimes introduces artifacts on the edges if the parameters are badly tweaked...

    Also, I have had problems making the clouds work on some Mac configurations with ATI cards...

    Otherwise it's pretty stable I would say...
     
  32. Azaphrael

    Azaphrael

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    I'd also say that if it indeed helps with rendering and fixing the remaining issues, by all means, move it to DX11. It's 2013. Every half-decent PC gamer already has a DX11 card. And developers are bound to have the killer hardware anyways. With the next gen consoles around the corner, it'd be about time we got rid of old tech at last.

    Hell, I'd even consider giving Nuaj' a shot after all, once you got the last few problems solved. :cool:
     
  33. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I still have the issue of reflection not working, I believe you mentioned some additional changes needed to be made to the water script. I'm not aware of where to get these changes.
     
  34. Jaredu

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    Reading through the documentation now, I guess my last big concern prior to tossing down the $ on it would be that I plan on generating an atmosphere for a planet-(using a sphere, and a perlin noise generation algorithm) Is it possible to warp the Nuaj shaders into a spherical plane, to give a planet it's clouds/atmosphere or is it ?

    I'll be writing my own atmospheric scattering stuff and I understand I'll have to properly adjust the Tonemapping values in NuajManager for the Oculus Rift integration; Just curious how far I can push this in the end for multiple projects. It'll integrate seamlessly right now with my existing project; Just curious if I'll need to learn to code my own shader for a future more global project. :)
     
  35. Patapom

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    I'll try and post the changes I've made to the default water reflection script soon...
     
  36. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Nuaj' is already handling spherical layers of clouds and accounts for Earth's curvature...
    I'm not sure how it scales up to views from outer space though, I think some people did that and it looked quite okay but I don't know how they handled the noise tiling issue...

    So it's technically possible but I'm not sure how it looks! :p
     
  37. Jaredu

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    So long as it's technically possible that's all the confirmation I need :) I'll have different sized planets and whatnot eventually but I just needed to know haha :) If it was just an infinitely rendering plane then obv. that wouldn't work :p I have dreadful memories of working with Carrara 3D and it had infinite skies; but they were terrible lol.

    What kind of noise tiling are you referring to exactly ?
     
  38. ronan-thibaudau

    ronan-thibaudau

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    You mentioned a DX11 version, is that in unity or a separate soft? How hard would this be to integrate in a third party engine (your DX11 version)?
     
  39. elbows

    elbows

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    That rather ignores the needs of those wishing to develop on and/or target the mac though.

    However not wishing to get in the way of future developments, I would not be against having a 2nd version included that only runs on DX11, so long as any important fixes that can be applied to the non-DX11 version are still done.
     
  40. sonicviz

    sonicviz

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    This made me laugh and cry at the same time, then do a double facepalm;-/
     
  41. Patapom

    Patapom

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    Hi!

    Sorry for the late reply, I find it hard to connect to the forum lately (always showing error pages most of the time).

    I already answered about the difficulty of maintaining 2 different versions, one that would be compatible with DX9/OpenGL and another one that would only be DX11-specific.

    These are 2 different products really, at the moment the DX11 version is a standalone application, not involving Unity at all and I'm currently fighting to integrate it into 2 well-known 3D engines for 2 also well-known game companies...
    Making a Unity version would be an entire new product, perhaps Nuaj' 2.0 but that would cut me off from a much larger audience since Unity is after all made for developing multi-platform productions. And it's already difficult enough to make sure it's working everywhere! :p
     
  42. ronan-thibaudau

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    Do you have a demo of that non unity dx11 version? What are the licensing terms? Does it have a website? How hard is it to integrate etc? I could be interested
     
  43. Zen-Davis

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    Just make it DX11. There's no point in a DX9 version if Nuaj just doesn't work for DX9 users anyway. Make the DX11 version. Instead of killing yourself to make something broken work, use DX11 to make some working even better. Just like the TC Particles software. If you keep pushing yourself as the future of Unity, like TC Particles does, you'll get a lot more publicity when top-end projects adopt your cloud solution. Then you'll make more money and you can support Nuaj even more.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2013
  44. Patapom

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    "Making Nuaj DX11" won't solve the algorithmical problems I have with the rendering technique!
    It's not a miracle solution...
     
  45. ronan-thibaudau

    ronan-thibaudau

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    You keep missing my question (unrelated). What about the (current and NOT UNITY) DX11 version, is it for sale? How do i get it? How hard is it to integrate into a custom DX11 engine? Do you have a demo of it? I'm interested in it (NOT for use inside unity).
    Thanks!
     
  46. Azaphrael

    Azaphrael

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    Would you be so kind as to elaborate what exactly led you to such emotions?
     
  47. Patapom

    Patapom

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    I'm sorry, I was anwsering to Zen Davies.
    About the standalone DX11 implementation, it's more in the state of a demo (that I can provide if you like, message me at support2@nuaj.net instead) than an actual usable product like Nuaj' for Unity.
    The implementations of this demo I'm performing for the companies I mentioned earlier is really specific on the client's needs, some people don't even want the clouds but only atmosphere with fog, so it's really more on a case by case implementation I'm doing. It's not a simple SDK you just insert in your project and it's working magically...
     
  48. blackant

    blackant

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    i just tested the web player and the fps fall to 7 or around 6 ...

    is it better on Standalone or console ?
     
  49. Patapom

    Patapom

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    @Ronan: I can't reply to your mail. MAILER DAEMON undelivered blah blah...

    @Blackant: No, same in standalone version. What's your graphic card model?
     
  50. ronan-thibaudau

    ronan-thibaudau

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    are you sure you typed / copy pasted it right?
    This is my professional email i receive 20-50 emails a day on it without any problems.
    Can you retry please? If you still get an error can you copy paste that error to me in a private message?