World Building [RELEASED] CScape - advanced building generator

We'll see what you can come up with.

 

Working on a new city layout system. Also, working on a roof detials...

 

Ended up purchasing this asset. May I ask, would there be any plans to have a low poly themed city (bright colours and simple shapes). Would be great for mobile VR.

 

CScape is fully compatible with latest S8 and Gear VR. It can give you a perfect performance (from my tests, it behaves perfectly, even with a larger cityies). It already ha a low number of polygons, and when used with dynamic batching, occlusion baking and baked lightmaps, it can give you incredible performance.
I'm thinking of making a cartoon version (if it's that that you've meant). But it will come after 1'th wersion, and after SCI-Fi pack that is planned as first available pack. Also, righ't now I'm working on tools that will give you a possibility to add different texture sets.

 

Hi, very nice asset.
But i have questions.

1. I can´t build a scene with cscape. ( In Editor its working )
It says:
Assets/CScape/Scripts/CityRandomizer.cs(4,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSFoliageInstantiator.cs(5,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSInstantiator.cs(5,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?


2.How can i change the day time, day,night?

3. Is it possible to change the interior design with others textures?

Thank you
Claudio

 

When is the next version that includes the additions in the videos?

 

It will be available after Unity Europe 2017 (first days of a next month
If you wanna try it before, contact me via support E-mail with your invoice number.

 

I'm fairly impressed with how simple yet versatile this asset is even in it's current stage, great work !
Not only it's a few clicks to populate the scene, but the prefabs work by just drag and drop with full functionality, which is very nice to just add some touches to your existing scenes.

But this asset does indeed need some documentantion specially for the texturing array tools (does it work with UV ?), and how to implement our own models/custom textures.

I'm also having some troubles with the minium size of the separation between blocks (looks like anything smaller than 14 just freezes unity), maybe it has to do with the size of the models ?

Also it would be a nice feature to have a "strip all CScape scripts from scene" (like probuilder has).

I'm sending you the invoice to see how the progress of the asset is going, good luck !

EDIT: Seems like my latest 2 purchases from the asset store have a blank invoice number, weird.

 

Will you be showing the asset at Unite?

 

I don't mean to be rude or destructive, but 2 months without updates for an asset in the beta phase is a crawling pace and not indicative of a 5 star asset.

I think the 5 star rating is indicative of potential of a proven developer.

The state of the asset currently is not polished and not aesthetically pleasing enough for projects. I do request that more updates and improvements are committed otherwise it's not an asset that I can recommend as it's not worth the purchase even at USD39. The waiting time is too immense.

 

Maybe you should speak with the developers of MapMagic, TerrainComposer and Gaia for integration. Also a solution like what EasyRoads3d does by manipulating terrain near the road mesh might be helpful with options to set the range and intensity. With the tools mentioned above I know you can do something like stamp terrain just where every building is or the whole city layout.

 

Hello, I am having the same issue as @Refugio3D above, errors in scripts that are trying to use the UnityEditor namespace, but the scripts are not in an "Editor" folder.

Code (CSharp):

1. Assets/CScape/Scripts/CityRandomizer.cs(4,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
2.  
3. Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSFoliageInstantiator.cs(5,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
4.  
5. Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSInstantiator.cs(5,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `UnityEditor' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

This means it is not possible to build a project using CScape. Is a fix coming soon?

 

Great asset, looks fantastic and is easy to use. One suggestion is the reduce or split up the MaskDepthArray file as it's easy to get it over 100mb which wont' go into a git repo easily (without LFS). Or have a way to quickly recreate that file if one chooses not to include it in their repo. Keep up the great work!

 

Was the update submitted? I kinda want to play with it.

 

Yes, I was at Unite presenting CSape. Sorry to all for not responding here, but these were really busy days on Unite.

This will be done when CDK (content developement kit) gets fiished. Making those arrays require some procedures and special layouts - and this requires a serious documentation. But before writing any documentation, I have to standardize everything. As CScape changes on daily basis, and many features get added and changed constantly (also by help of people that are giving feedback) I will have to wait a release of a final, standardized and stable release. Nobody wants to spend a time to make those textures, and then find out that there are some changes that break them.

Yes, it is related to a size of models, and to a size of the streets and sidewalks. If you have a street that is 4 lanes, and sidewalks of 3 by each size it makes them use 10 cs units. then you have only 4 units for a building. a new version solves this problem with a new minimum sized building - and generally, controlls if a prefab can be inserted in that area. Also, now it will place many buildings in one area (and not as in a first version - one building per area).

This is already included in a new version. Later, I will add also some scripts for optimizing and grouping meshes for export. It should further drop the number of drawcalls and make scenes load faster.

I really don't know what to say to that, because this isn't a work that can be done in 2 weeks. This is something that requires huge amount of work, from creating textures, to programming behaviours, adding models, while keeping everything light and optimized. I also prefer not pushing unstable and partially developed things to assetstore (for this, you can always contact me, and I can send you a latest unstable release) There are some major updates coming.
On the other hand, if you don't like it and don't trust, you can contact me and we can arrange a refund. Then, if you want', you can buy it when it gets into a stable version.

Send me a mail from assetstore - and we will arrange this.

Fix is already available. But it will come soon on assetstore (submitting it this week).

It isn't possible to split it. But it will be possible to resize it with a simple click. Script will probably be included in a next version, or soon after that (with all necessary textures for rebuilding it).

 

Cool start, looks pretty promising. But when I changed the road texture, it still looked waaay off what it should, as in the colours were heavy "warm grey" tinted, really doesn't look much like the actual texture at all. Also modifying UV tiling on it had no effect.

Guess it's a WIP and on the way...

 

Road shading and textures are rewritten from scratch in a new version.

 

THANK YOU
Making my dreams of city building possible with such great work at an affordable price.

When I discovered that it littered the streets with manhole covers and grates I was thrilled. Its absolutely perfect for my post apocalyptic needs when replaced with trash. I am hoping this feature will be available in future releases

 

I had some hard time in tracking some issues. At the end, I had to rewrite most of th things to make Cscape compatible with IOS devices. I've used vertex colors for aditional information for shaders, where i had to write compressed data that would be read by shader - and found out that this wasn't a best way, as vertex color data is interpreted in several ways (dependent on platforms and cases - when using static batching those interpretations would go crazy, aalso, whilethey work on android devices, they wouldn't work correctly on IOS Metal). At last, I've finaly found that I can write UVs with full float precision - thus, avoiding rounding aproximations that lead to visual errors.
Two days lost in compiling and testing things for IOS.
But, at the end, I've used this time to test it also with a new Apple ARkit.

 

Thanks for the asset, looks very promising.

I bought it and tried for 2 days now to get something else than completely pitch black buildings. I know I have to wait for the Baking to finish (which I did - 8 hours for the demo scene, 1h for my scene below) : But every buildings and street are still pitch black afterward (Except folliage and light posts).



Same result with the demo scene provided with the asset :



Any idea what could cause this? What configuration my scene should have in terms of lighting?
I have Real time global illumination and Backed global illumination on. Thanks for your help !

 

Wow, the ARKit sample video looks great! Hope this means the update is coming soon...so anxious to play with it some more.

 

For your Baked GI mode, try using "Baked Indirect." I had similar issues when using the "Distance Shadowmask" mode.

 

Be sure that your card supports SM shader model 4. In unity, got to graphics emulation and select No Emulation or SM4. Also, be sure that you are using DX11.

 

Yes, it will be out as soon as assetstore team aprooves it. It was submitted to assetsore last night. There are many new things coming to it, and it features much better looks - and a compatibility with more platforms.
This is still WIP, but from now on, you can expect more frequent updates, and much more new features, better textures and models. A first stage of alpha is done - and this was a really tedious task, as I had to rewrite many things in a last stage and test them on cross-platforms.

 

I am excited to try all these new things out. I hope Unite went well for you and would love to hear your thoughts on your experiences there -- mainly what it was like having a booth and presenting, what you would do differently next time, etc.

Thank for the quick responses!

 

Is the price changing with this update? Or is it still in beta?

 

It can be considered still in beta No, the price hasn't and won't change in a next month. Afterwards, it will change gradually as a new major features gets introduced.

 

It was really a nice experience. It was my first time on Unite and I can say that it was great. Not counting the possibility to be a sponsor. I have met many people that I know from internet, but never had a chance to meet in real life. And also, I've met other great persons that I didn't know. Also, I can say that a whole organization was really perfect and grreat! Best of all was meeting people from unity, and having some nice conversations and dinners together. I went there to present my other plugin - VRPanorama, but at the end, I've finished at presenting more CScape, as there was much interest in this work. ( I won't spoil too much - but there will probably be some partnerships in integration of CScape and some other assets).
What would I do differently? As a sponsor I didn't have any time to follow many speaches. But' I can't see any solution to this

 

Good to know. I'm still trying to figure out what CScape is or will be.

 

A new version is out!

 

Will there be new videos or pictures to show what's new?

 

Probably next week.

 

Anyone have tested a new version? Please, feel free to let me know what you think.

 

I have been trying to build something for iOS and running into all sorts of issues. I just noticed above that your iOS ARKit video was made after you pushed 0.6.5, so I guess I will have to wait longer to do anything on iOS. Will let you know when I get back to my Windows project.

 

0.6.5 should be compatible with iOS. My demo was made with a version that preceeded the one on assetstore.
iOS had many issues (as I've mentioned before) due to a floating point interpretation. Those were hard to track,but a new version should work fine. Just be sure to build for 8.0 (I did it this way) but in theory, it should work also for iOS 7 (but this isn't something that I reccomand for that old devices). Settings for buildshould be:
IOS 8 (minimum), build for Metal (GLES 3 doesn't work for some reason unknown to me -as GLES work just fine on android). So, you should disable support for GLES on iOS (in player settings toggle off Automatic API, and then set as your API Metal) . Other than that, if I'm not wrong, you shouldn't do anything else.

 

Hi, I just updated to the latest version and get this error when I click generate city:
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
CSMaterialTools._gpu_scale (UnityEngine.Texture2D src, Int32 width, Int32 height, FilterMode fmode) (at Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSMaterialTools.cs:271)
CSMaterialTools.scaled (UnityEngine.Texture2D src, Int32 width, Int32 height, FilterMode mode) (at Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSMaterialTools.cs:240)
CSMaterialTools.CreateNormal () (at Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSMaterialTools.cs:75)
CSMaterialTools.Update () (at Assets/CScape/Scripts/CSMaterialTools.cs:35)

Also the demo scene city is all black, only the ads and light posts seem to be colored.

I tried deleting the entire CScape folder and importing again with the same result. I'm on Unity 5.6.2p2 and previous version worked without any issues.

 

Hi,
Errors are

Due to one utility script searching for files that doesn't exist (they are included as optional package in Cscape CDK folder). It is harmless, and to avoid this you should deactivate CS Materials Script (or open CDK unity package). Thanks for reporting this. It will be corrected ASAP.
For black shading issue, it was described here in forum: solution depends on your platform and building platform: for OSX be sure to select only Metal API in project settings if making IOS app. For OSX app, select OGL 4. For windows, be sure to build only to DX11 or greater (remove DX9 from API list). If all this doesn't work, be sure to control Shader Emulation settings. It should be set No Emulation or SM 4.

 

Thanks for reminding me about setting my new clean project to Metal only. I also set the Rendering to Linear, as I normally do for projects. That helped with some issues, but am still having others:

1. The Roof Detail objects have no textures. They are assigned a material called "Greeble" which uses a CSRooftops shader. the correct diffuse and normal textures ARE assigned as expected, but they don't show up for some reason. If I change the shader to a Standard shader and re-assign the _BaseMaterial_Albedo and _BaseMaterial_Normal textures, the roof details will then have their textures.

2. I noticed when adding the Foliage, only half the roads will have trees on them, and when I add Street Lights, I end up with two extra rows of street lights outside of the city.

3. The CSMaterialTools component on the CScape City object has "blindsArray" assigned to surfaceArray and nothing is assigned to blindsArray. I am not certain what the impact of this is -- have not looked into what this component does yet.

Anyway, I now have a sample with a third person character walking around on an iOS device and it looks GREAT, but the size ended up being >600mb and there's frame-dropping, so I am looking into optimizations next.

 

Are you using Unity 2017? I have noticed that this happens in a new unity. Not sure if it' a Unity bug or a change. I've made all neccessary modifications and uploaded them to assetstore. So a new version that corrects this issue will be soon online.

Trees get positioned in base of walkside widths (to avoid entering of folliage into buildings). Streetlights sometimes have some issues (I'm still trying to understand why) like you have described. It happens only in some cases, so It's hard to reproduce. It seems like it happens after saving file. If you create immediately a city and light, this shouldn't happen. I will be making some modifications to scripts to avoid this type of problem.

This is OK, this script doesn't yet have it's interface script to hide those variables. But thank's for reporting.

 

You have probably too many objects for mobile device. Filesize can be great if you have too many objects (as they are singular objects and not instanced, and they have to be written somewhere).

Reducing a size of a city should also reduce a build size. also,be sure that you rename Resources folder (in cscape folder) to some other name before making a final build.

Also, be sure to strip all scripts before building. As for framerate, you should prabably bake a Occlusion Culling solution.

 

The rooftops are working now on the newer version (using unity 2017.1).

Any tips on how to replace textures/models ?

 

The city size I have been testing with is a 4x4 city. I was able to reduce the app size to ~320mb by reducing the lightmapping resolution a bit and renaming the CScape/Resources folder as you suggested (I already have the CScape scripts stripped). I also was able to get reasonable frame rates by using Occlusion Culling.

 

May I suggest you to change a directionl light shadows to Baked? It seems that it is using here a realtime shadows (with a small distance)

 

Not for now. Reason is simple: I'm still making some structural changes that will probably break a compatibility of your textures/models with a future (final) version. But, if you want to try, now you can uncompress raw textures (you can find them in a folder CScape/CDK(ContendDevelopementKit)/CScape_CDK_Texture_Sources
When you doubleclick that file, it will unpack all source textures to Assets/Resources folder. So you can take a look at them and eventually modify some of them. Textures from 1-21 are faccade styles with windows, 22-31 are walls, and 31-34 are ground level faccades. Then, after modifying textures, you can pack them by running "CS materials tools" script.
if you want to see how models are made, you can open templates (in Modles folder) with 3d modelling package of your choice. Then reimport, and load into Building modifier (prefab configuration). There are many steps to follow, so this is only an idea where to start. Some things are self explaining, some other aren't. Ask me if you get stuck.

 

Thanks for this asset olix4242, it's a lot of fun.

And by the way, you fixed my pitch-black building problem with your suggestion: "Go to graphics emulation and select No Emulation". For some reason on my Mac Open GL ES 2.0 leads to pitch-black buildings, but everything looks gorgeous without emulation.

I am now trying to build my project for iOS8 within Unity and I get two compilation errors in CSBuildingShader:

Shader error in 'CSBuildingShader': Duplicate system value semantic definition: input semantic 'SV_POSITION' and input semantic 'VPOS' at line 248 (on metal)​

Compiling Fragment program with SHADOWS_DEPTH UNITY_PASS_SHADOWCASTER
Platform defines: UNITY_NO_DXT5nm UNITY_NO_RGBM UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_FRAMEBUFFER_FETCH_AVAILABLE UNITY_NO_SCREENSPACE_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF2 SHADER_API_MOBILE UNITY_HARDWARE_TIER3

Error building Player: Shader error in 'CSBuildingShader': Duplicate system value semantic definition: input semantic 'SV_POSITION' and input semantic 'VPOS' at line 248 (on metal)

Compiling Fragment program with SHADOWS_DEPTH UNITY_PASS_SHADOWCASTER
Platform defines: UNITY_NO_DXT5nm UNITY_NO_RGBM UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_FRAMEBUFFER_FETCH_AVAILABLE UNITY_NO_SCREENSPACE_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF2 SHADER_API_MOBILE UNITY_HARDWARE_TIER3​

Any ideas how I can fix this?
I didn't update with your lasted CScape version, still on the previous one. And I'm still on Unity 5.6.2f1. Happy to update if needed.

Thanks for your help, very appreciate it.

 

Hi, you have to update to a new version of cscape(that uses a new shader compilation tags that are compatible with Metal), toggle off any other shader api than Metal and set your editor to work with Metal (it can be done in unity 5.6 but not on a versions below).
Why?
Because it seems that apple dropped a support for new versions of OGL in 2015 and metal supports texture arrays only in a newer versions of shader model. This is pretty complicated thing to support, so I will have to find out hoe to support both systems withoit having you to change modes. But at the end, this problen affects nostly onlu unity 5.5 and not new versions that work in Metal.

 

Just bought the asset.
I ran into some issues with 5.6.1
1)I keep on getting null exceptions for the CS light control.
2)the city lights are too dark,unlike the youtube video where the city is completely lit.
3)Please make it OpenGl es 2.0 compatible.Why are you guys using such high graphic API.I am making a game that is compatible with old devices.
Conclusion,good asset.Please continue releasing source so at least I can go in and modify a few lines of codes.

 

Be sure that you have set some light in CSlight control (your direct light tnhat will be used to simulate sun). If you can provide a screenshot, i can tell you more

Unfortunately, thius can't be done for asimple reason - GLES2.0 simply doesn't support main functionality of texture arrays. And without this functionality there is no any way to make it work. Also, Shader model 2.0 can't run neccessary number of instructions. It's simply impossible to do. Be aware that SM2.0 is a technology that dates back to 2002.

 

I have fixed the CSLightning null issue. The shader doesnt work on my Galaxy s5 that runs on opengl es 3.0
1)Why dont you guys use Unitys Standard shader which is highly compatible for all devices?
I have to find a way to make this asset work with older devices.A lot of my players on android are using OpenGL Es 2.0
2)The low poly buildings are good for Mobile devices.

 

Be sure to correctly set API settings. You should turn off Automatic Api, and set ONLY GLES 3.0 in api list. Also, try building for Marshmallow.

Because CScape uses a procedural shader - it is completely different thing in respect to Standard shader. Something like this done with a standard shader would require probably few gigabytes of textures, and hundreds if not even thousands of different materials. That would mean - extreme number of drawcalls and extremely slow performance. You will end up with something that would slow even on a desktop system. Not to speeak about a simple thing that you can't do this type of shading with standard unity shader.