[Released] Cascade - Rivers, Lakes, Waterfall and more ..

Cool. and Thanks

 

Can reflections on any water surface use a baked reflection probe instead of real time reflections? It would be nice to scale up or down depending on what is needed per water surface.

 

@jbooth

 

There is no specific reflection code; it uses whatever your scene is using; reflection probes, baked or real-time, SSR, etc.

 

Great thanks for the responses guys. I'll be buying Cascade and trying it out later this week and will report back on my findings in vr and single pass.

 

Suggest you update the links in your signature...you've moved things around a bit.

 

after the new update, the refraction issue still exists.

 

You want to change the draw order so the characters and other objects get drawn after the water, as the water does a grabpass in order to create the refraction effect..

 

the actor in the video is permanent vertex painted, using mesh based twolayered and no macro megasplat generated shader , in my entire project i use only megasplat shaders.

if the solution you suggesting is editing the shaders.

 

i further used a standard material at a cylinder and changed it's renderqueue value some time above and below the lake shader queue "Tags {"Queue" = "Geometry+110"}"

the result was the same.

 

You don't have to edit the shaders, you can write a small script which sets the renderQueue value on the material to whatever you want, which will override the shaders settings for that material.

Refraction does a grab pass so it can sample the terrain behind it- if your objects have already been rendered when this happens, then they will be refracted in the water.

 

i don't think your suggestion to edit the Render queue was a solution in any way.

i just did as you said created a tiny script to control the RQ on the Cylinder
when the value was above 2500 the bottom half of the cylinder vanished but the ghost reflection was in the false perspective.


i could suggest that the proper refraction need a proper camera perspective calculation or a complete dedicated camera in that case.

 

Ok, I'll attempt to reproduce this- are you running forward or deferred?

 

deferred

 

Ah, that might explain it. I'm not sure what grabpass does in deferred, since it has to finish rendering all solid rendering and resolve the lighting before you can grab a buffer, unlike in forward which you can get the final color buffer at any moment. Hmm.. I'd prefer to avoid any solutions that involve multiple cameras, because that is crazy expensive..

 

for the sake of clarity , both have almost identical results , in the picture below

i agree that thing is expensive, i hope you find a better alternative, because the current refraction option, in my opinion, should be obsolete.

 

What about Terrain Composer and World Creator?

 

no matter if forward or deferred: usually you would do a grabpass + depth test of the pixel you grab the "already on screen content" from: if the depth at the refracted uv is < the depth of the water plane then use the unrefracted uvs: using the unrefracted uvs of course is not so nice but better than refracting things that actually are in front of the water/glass/whatsoever.
i do not recommend to change the render queue. especially as the character might be inside the water with his feet while most of the legs and the body are not. doing a depth test will easily handle this.

 

yes, we will support. All are unity default terrain, so not a challenge.

 

Excellent! I have both of those tools and prefer one or the other for different situations. For some reason, when it comes to terrain and water assets, I like a fairly broad toolbox rather than just using one tool all the time.

 

I'm using unity 2017.3.1p2 forward renderer in linear with oculus OVR player in single pass vr.

Is there anyway to make the edges that hit the terrain to look softer? The edges need that soft water feel and look. I tried all the settings what am I missing to make the edges get that soft water look. Really looking forward to using this asset in vr thx for creating it.

Also keep getting this null reference on play.
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
JBooth.River.CameraTrackingRefraction.CreateCommandBuffer () (at Assets/EarthShaping/Cascade/ShaderGenerator/CameraTrackingRefraction.cs:61)
JBooth.River.CameraTrackingRefraction.SetIsNeededThisFrame () (at Assets/EarthShaping/Cascade/ShaderGenerator/CameraTrackingRefraction.cs:27)
JBooth.River.RiverRenderer.OnWillRenderObject () (at Assets/EarthShaping/Cascade/ShaderGenerator/RiverRenderer.cs:53)

 

FYI - I'm getting an error trying to import the package from the asset store:

Failed to import package with error: Couldn't decompress package
UnityEditor.Web.JSProxyMgroTasks()

Someone before reported the same error on the old thread, and that it had to do with the filename having a space before the extension:

"Cascade - Rivers Lakes Waterfalls and more .unitypackage"

Removing the space before ".unitypackage" and reloading the asset store tab allows it to import.

 

Just want to thank Lars for helping out with this! I fixed this up and it should be in the next patch whenever @antoripa releases it..

 

Hi @antoripa I've been using cascade for a few days now, I am using a similar size terrain as @SonGoK10uc , 16000 x 16000 and a 1025 heightmap( changed mine to 4097 with better results). I arrived at the same conculsion as him and to quote his words "Can we get independent from the heightmap resolution of the terrain by creating a mesh for the river and making holes into the terrain". Having thought it over a misdirection solution may be simpler to implement it the short term.

The jagged river edges could be camoflaged with vegetation, to make this possible it would reguire changes to how the vegetation mask is generated, currently the mask is the same width as the river surface( pain to edit manually) and does not hide the edges, change it to a user definable width. The river bed also becomes jagged at this terrain resolution, consider implementing a optional flase river bottom, this could be a duplication of the river surface mesh but with a user definable depth and material.

Cheers, fantastic work.

 

Hey . thanks a lot. Been working on few improvements so nice get your feedback at this stage.
I am in favor of the meshed river bed as @SonGoK10uc and now you are suggesting. and I am already on that point.
And that is what you see in design mode. I am just improving that to handle higher resolution without impacting performance ..
I will delivery as beta after Easter as I would get a feedback from users before delivery to asset store.

 

G'day @jbooth , Placed a FPS controller in the "01 Demo Large River and Lake" stood on the rock in river had a quick look around and thought WTF?.

regards.

 

mindblowing water, can't wait to drink it all.

 

Hey folks ...
we added a new mode to the Vegetation Studio Integration Mask.
You will get in next update planned for this week
You have to mode :
1) Single: one single mask area along your water surface
2) Segment: multiple mask area for a better setting and faster workflow in the editor

Cascade evolves every day and quickly thanks to users feedback and our continuous effort and commitment making better and faster

https://gyazo.com/1d7cd556470d98953f066ead3cf8343a

 

This looks great. Are there any special shader version or shader feature requirements for this? I would like to try for the Wii U, but a bit leery of it working or performing well. Do you have metrics to compare this versus AQUAS mobile shaders? Thanks in advance.

 

Cascade 1.0.3 rev.0 -- has been submitted to the Asset Store for the review!!
In this version, we release v.2.0.0 for terrain holder that is the cache used by the carving engine.b
So if you have to upgrade a project I would recommend the following steps

1) Undo, if any, your conform task restoring the terrain to original heightmap. You can do from the toolbar in the scene view



2) Before proceeding with project upgrade I would suggest deleting Cascade and Framework v1.0 folders
I always suggest to backup your project before any upgrade.
3) Remove old cache files deleting all the folders "EearthShapingTerrainCache"
4) Install the latest version from asset store 1.0.3 rev.0

We also fix few bugs in the shader. All the scenes are upgraded

Thanks a lot for your support and enjoy Cascade

 

hmmm. I can't install the new Cascade. It hangs at "Writing Package items..." after it installed everything and then my used RAM goes slowly to the maximum without a reason. :-/ Tried it several times, downloaded the asset again, removed everything that Cascade created, but everytime with the same result: The used RAM goes higher and higher and nothing happens.

 

sent you a pm. please test and let me know

 

OK. After some trys to find the needle in the haystack with the help from antoripa, we found the problem. There still was another cache folder somewhere hidden in my RWT folder. This caused so many problems.
So. Everyone should really look after the cache folders and delete them. ^^

 

I would only mention that this procedure is ONLY FOR THIS UPDATE.
From next update, you will keep the cache as is.

 

TerraPainter + Cascade .. 3.2Km river

https://i.gyazo.com/cb50f726bbe05630efa10b64be0879b6.mp4

 

Hi, I'm wondering if roads will be added at some point?

 

Sentieri is the asset for roads. It has an advanced mesh engine that allows creating more than a simple road ( bridges, tunnel, intersections, etc )
Anyway with Cascade, you can already create roads: just use the right material. .and conform your terrain ..

 

Yeah

Yeah Ive been looking for Sentieri!! Has it been Released? I thought it was going to be apart of cascade at some point.

 

Not yet release. I thought to a different asset organization allowing a lower price and more focused features.release is planned in summer

 

How is boring put rocks in your water and setup wetness manually or paint the mesh for that ..
With Cascade will be not anymore ...

https://i.gyazo.com/5c8d649245a46b0cfce4b9ffc5f8ead0.mp4

https://i.gyazo.com/e1325eea1bc02ed1e24f973643620d44.mp4

 

adding a small new feature to support a faster workflow to build your rivers ...

 

Introducing a new unique and amazing feature

 

that is super cool!

 

Hey. working on twitch channel .. still work in progress but feel free to join ... we will stream all assets and tools to create your amazing landscape .... here the link ... https://www.twitch.tv/earthshaping

 

Hi guys !
With a simple 2 points river, iI got an error message as soon as I click conform :

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException
2. UnityEngine.TerrainData.GetHeights (Int32 xBase, Int32 yBase, Int32 width, Int32 height) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Modules/Terrain/Public/TerrainData.bindings.cs:241)
3. com.earthshaping.Terrains.TerrainHolderData.GetHeightMap ()
4. com.earthshaping.Cascade.RiverPath.StampRiverBed () (at Assets/EarthShaping/Cascade/WaterPathTool/Scripts/RiverPath.cs:1634)
5. CascadeWindow.BtnConformSelected () (at Assets/EarthShaping/Cascade/WaterPathTool/Scripts/Editor/CascadeWindow.cs:230)
6. com.earthshaping.EditorUI.ESButton.DoShow ()
7. com.earthshaping.EditorUI.ESButton.Show ()
8. com.earthshaping.EditorUI.ESToolbar.DrawToolbar (Int32 id)
9. UnityEngine.GUI.CallWindowDelegate (UnityEngine.WindowFunction func, Int32 id, Int32 instanceID, UnityEngine.GUISkin _skin, Int32 forceRect, Single width, Single height, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Runtime/IMGUI/Managed/GUI.cs:1675)
10. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

Any idea ?

 

Is your terrain into Project folder ? . Or just created with tools like Map Magic ?

 

My terrain path is something like : Assets/Myproject/Terrain/

 

Ok. So I assume that your terrain in that folder.
In same location you will see another folder "EearthShapingTerrainCache",
Inside there is the cache file. If your terrain into the folder is "Terrain1", the cache file will be like "Terrain1_Holder_9db44794e688b1e40b2c64ce71be0912" . So make a backup of the cache file and after delete from the project. That should fix your issue.

 

allright, it fixed the issue Thank you for the ultra fast answer !