[Released] Distingo - Terrain in Detail

You have to remove the static lighting, as described in the documentation.

 

Ahh, OK. I think I remember this now. Sorry. It's been a while since I used it.

[Edit]
So by making that change as described in the document doesn't make the error go away. But When I switch to a different terrain shader option then it works fine for me and I am good to go. So maybe just a problem with the default occlusion shader.

 

Odd, it only applies to the occlusion shaders, you need the light static off as it takes up another texture slot that it needs.

 

@NemoKrad Has anyone confirmed that calling up a few Tessellation Displacement Materials in the material slots actually works for them? I am hoping for this.. just as @tcz8 was asking about. I'd like to paint the Terrain/meshes and export the unified Tessellated Displacement splatmap eventually. I have two tessellation Shaders to try but I hope someone might be able to tell me if it works or not before doing a lot of work for nothing if it doesn't.

@magique I believe it states not to have your terrain set to static.

 

Yep, I turned that off and it still persists. But I don't need that occlusion shader anyway so I'm good to go.

 

No, don't think anyone has tried that. I think that could be a big overhead if you did that, it's another draw call per material on the game object (I am guessing you mean mesh based terrain in this case).

 

Yes it was for mesh based terrains. Have you dropped the development to add Tessellation Displacement to the package?

 

It is something I would like to do at some point, but it is not something I am working on now.

I have an idea for a new terrain system that I started, but that too is on hold now, as I spotted a tweet by Unity (can't find it now :/ ) stating that they are making changes to the Terrain system. I might still write my own as I would have total control over it then, rather than having to rely on the Unity Terrain Engine. Thing is, I don't want to be investing my time in developing stuff that might well be void in the end.

 

You are right. They've been working on a new terrain system for quite a while now. Here is the thread if you want to get up to date.

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/official-new-terrain-system.255232/

 

Hi, just imported Distingo, using Unity 5.4.2f2 and I have these errors:

Assets/Editor/ImageEffects/CreaseShadingEditor.cs(8,26): error CS0122: `UnityStandardAssets.ImageEffects.CreaseShading' is inaccessible due to its protection level

Assets/Editor/ImageEffects/CreaseShadingEditor.cs(8,6): error CS1502: The best overloaded method match for `UnityEditor.CustomEditor.CustomEditor(System.Type)' has some invalid arguments

Assets/Editor/ImageEffects/CreaseShadingEditor.cs(8,6): error CS1503: Argument `#1' cannot convert `object' expression to type `System.Type'

 

Hi @kermedia,

If you look back a few posts this has been reported before, it looks to be an inconsistency in the Unity Standard assets. I had hoped the last update I made would have fixed this, but it looks like it hasn't.

The Standard Assets that come with Distingo are there just for the demos and nothing else, Distingo it's self does not rely on them. To fix this you can either remove those assets or re import them from with in Unity, or when you import distingo, just don't import the Demo folder and the Standard Assets.

In the next minor update of Distingo, I am going to remove them as this is causing more issues now that it should be. It's a shame Unity can't keep the constancy, but we are where we are.

Sorry, you have experienced this issue, and hope my post has helped you resolve it.

 

For those interested my Heat Haze Effect asset is now available on the store too

You can find it here.

 

Hi, the new Distingo works good on tiled terrain!

I have ~10 terrain tiles, but only one of them has a Distingo component attached to it. It works well, but is it a normal situation? Should I attach Distingo to every of my 10 terrain tiles?

 

For each GameObject that is terrain, that you want to have Distingo manage the render on, then you need the Distingo script on that GameObject. If you have some third party software that has stitched them all together and they are all one terrain object, then one script should do.

Bottom line is, if you have an terrain object (Unity Terrain or Mesh) and you want Distingo to run on it, it will need an instance of the script.

 

It is clear and good supplement for my workflow.

But another question suddenly popped up, here is a screencast:

Try to describe. It seems to me that one instance of Distingo becomes a global control for other instances. In this video I tried to change parameters for Texture Channel 1 at one terrain gameObject and changes are propagated to other terrain. Maybe it is regular behavior for Distingo, I just need to know it for a certitude

 

Hmm, could be that the editor script is still using the active terrain, thought I had removed all of those in the latest version. Could also be that Unity caches the material Distingo creates, so it's getting applied to both, but I would get the first scenario is the issue.

As soon as I get time, ill see if I can re create that and get to the bottom of it

 

Hope Distingo get better and better! My lunar surface becomes awesome with Distingo )

 

I am doing my best

Post as many pretty pictures as you like, always nice to see what people are doing with it

 

With my pleasure, along the progress of my game )

 

Hello NemoKrad, Distingo does not seem to work properly with Unity 5.5. Can you check this? Thanks Mike

(Distingo 1.4.3)

 

Ok will do, not got 5.5 yet

 

And thanks for letting me know

 

Just created a new project on 5.5, installed the asset (all of it) and ran the Unity Terrain Demo scene, and it all seems to work fine

 

i've just upgraded to 5.5, and although everything looks fine in the edditor, when i compile (for pc, windows x86) and run the game, the terrain textures are just a featureless blur

that's the same for both my own main project, and a small test project that uses one of the distingo example scenes

 

I'll take a look in the new year, I am cooking Xmas dinner for 10 at the moment

 

worst. support. ever!


seriously though, the distingo problem can wait. cooking for ten sounds like a bit of a nightmare, hope it all goes well

 

Strange, I just purchased Distingo and imported it to a fresh project on 5.5.0f3 and UV blending seems completely broken to me.

I realize it's just after the holidays but can you take another look soon?

 

Ill try and get some time today.

 

OK, here is what I did:-

1. Create new Unity 5.5.03f Project
2. Imported Distingo from the Store (All of it) Clicked "Go Ahead, made a back up" (this must be for the standard assets)
3. Opened the "Unity Terrain Demo Scene" Demo Scene.
4. Played with the UV values, adjust Distance offset to see if both UV sets are used.
5. Ran it from the editor, played with UV values, adjust Distance offset to see if both UV sets are used.
6. Did a PC build, ran the EXE (After adding shaders to build, as described in the documentation)

And it all worked fine...

There is a known issue with multiple terrains where the script will affect just one of them or just the selected one. I have been working on a fix for this, and have it at 90%, seems Unity decides that some of the shader params are not passed in some cases (smoothness and metallic) and for the life of me I can't figure out why :/

 

Thanks for your response. Here's what I'm getting in a fresh project in the same demo scene, using the default settings, with Render Cutoff enabled:



As you can see, only the near texture is showing.



Changing the distance offset allows the far distance texture to show through but it responds linearly rather than according to distance.

I read through the documentation but I can't see that I'm doing anything wrong. Any help would be much appreciated

 

I don't think I am understanding your issue. The distance is based on the camera in the scene not the editor camera, maybe that's why it does not look right to you. As far as I can tell its all working as it should and has done in previous versions of Unity.

 

The problem occurs in editor, editor play mode, and standalone builds. My issue is that UV blending is not working. Texture size remains the same no matter what the distance from the camera is.



You can tell it's not working by the noticeable tiling on the far terrain. Also note that Render Cutoff is STILL turned on in this screenshot for debugging purposes, so you should be able to easily tell where it's UV blending by the green tint...in this case no UV blending is occurring.

Still using the default settings, except I turned the Near UV Multiplier up to exaggerate the tiling in the distance.

 

Ok, well Distingo can only do so much, you will have to tweak the uv values to get the best results, but even then, you may not remove the tiling 100%

As I say, this is no different to it running on previous versions of Unity.

 

I don't expect tiling to be removed 100%, but no UV blending is occurring whatsoever.

Take a look at your own Distingo Overview video. At 4:30 you enable Render Cutoff, and you can easily see where UV blending starts.

The screenshot I just posted is with Render Cutoff enabled, so you can clearly see that no UV blending is occurring. This is with the default settings. Tweaking the settings doesn't help, no matter what, there is no distance UV blending.

I'm not sure how to put it any more clearly than that!

 

All I can do is apologize for not understanding your issue :/

I hope to get some time tomorrow to look at this again. Have you seen different behavior when ran in an earlier version of Unity?

 

Just tested in 5.4.0f3 and everything works perfectly. At least we've nailed it down now that it's definitely a 5.5 issue

Thanks for taking another look at this. It's very strange to me that it's working just fine for seemingly everyone else but not for me in 5.5. If you cannot find the issue or figure out a solution do you offer refunds?

 

Thanks for taking the time to check this out. I am going to put a note on the store front about the issues and that they are being looked at.

If you would like a refund, contact me via the support email address in the documentation with your invoice number and I will start that process.

If I am honest, I am getting more and more frustrated with Unity, if this is an issue with 5.5 then this will be the third version of the code I will have to maintain in order to sell it. I may get to a point where I just stop support past a certain version, or start dropping lower versions off from Distingo.

Again, thank you for your time and patience.

 

No problem, thanks again for your support! I'll be using different terrain shaders for now. Hope you'll be able to locate the issue and get it fixed.

 

hi. hope your christmas meal went well

i was going to raise my exe issue again, but i noticed your reply to david55527, and thought "documenation! ah yes, i always meant to get round to reading it"

so i went off and added the shaders to the build (although i couldn't find all the ones mentioned in the doc), and recompiled, and lo! everything seems to be working fine now

it feels like there ought to be a slicker way of doing it, but i guess you only have to manually add them once to a project, and then forget about them


and, next time, i'll try reading the documentation FIRST

 

OK, it looks like I have a workaround for this now. It seems that Unity in 5.5 have decided to flip the depth, so I have to calculate it differently. Thankfully there is a "UNITY_REVERSED_Z" macro I can check for, so I should be able to put this in the 5.4 version and it will work in 5.5 rather than creating a branch just for 5.5

This work around, as well as a fix for using multiple Distingo scripts on multiple terrains in one scene should be in the 1.4.4 update. I may, thanks to an other helpful Asset developer have a workaround so you don't have to add the shaders to the build, and it will do it for you , not done that yet, so don't hold your breath in case it does not pan out.

 

Online document updated, and hoping to post to review tonight.

 

I have checked new version 1.4.4. Distingo works well: 1) independently on my terrain tiles 2) Distingo shaders automatically add to build. Thank you for support!

 

Just tried the latest version and pleased to say that it works very well. No more worries about including shaders and it's all working on Wii U nicely.

 

I am seeing an issue in the editor that is just a nuisance more than anything. Sometimes the editor view just shows the terrain with just colors for the terrain like you would see if you changed basemap distance and viewing far away terrain. Instead the entire terrain looks that way. I think switching to game view and then back fixes it or maybe moving the camera (I don't recall). But if the rendering could remain correct at all times in the editor then that would be nice.

 

Never seen that I don't think, what version of Unity, what global settings do you have set on Distingo?

I some times see render errors in unity when switching from scene to game window, not not seen it occur with Distingo before.

 

Unity 5.4.2f1. I have no idea what my global settings are but I can check next time I am working on the project. I'll also take a screen shot of the issue.

 

Hi there,

I just ran into a strange problem with Distingo. I have 10 textures on my terrain and distingo shows Texture channel 0 - 11. However, it refuses to show any texture beyond channel 4. In fact, the buttons for these channels will disappear. The only textures I can work with are channel 0 - 3. Is this normal or am I missing something?
I am using 5.4.2 and made sure absolutely nothing in my scene is using Lightmap Static.

 

Hi Woland,

No, that is correct, as stated in the documentation and on the store front, I have no way of knowing when the terrain engine is passing texture channel > 4 to the shader. Distingo will apply it's settings to the channels above 4 but it will apply them as it did to channels 0-3.

Actually Distingo should not be showing the channels after 3, as there is not point, I will have a look at this and correct it in the next update.

 

Thanks!
This explains a lot, I will order my textures in a better way so I can make full use of this.

 

Hi,

Just wondering why I'm seeing this behaviour when Distingo falls back to a distance > basemap: http://imgur.com/a/Vnu3F

As you can see, it falls back to the default Unity shader, which has a high reflection amount (hence the slight shinyness). I can't seem to get Distingo to also look like that in any way, and I don't want to set my basemap distance too high. Any suggestions?