MapMagic 2 - infinite procedural land generator

I don't believe there is a limit on unity terrain textures. The built in shader just draws the terrain once for every 4 texture sets on the terrain (regardless of if they are used or not), so it will draw as many as you like, just getting slower and more memory intensive (for the uncompressed splat maps) every 4 textures.

 

@Wright get well!

 

@jbooth thanks for the clarification. That code I posted does seem to fix that index out of bounds I was getting with the microsplat node generator though. Any idea if that is correct?

@Wright hope you feel better!

 

Hope you are on the mend and feeling better soon.

 

Does anyone know why this weird greenish blueish coloring happens at distant pinned tiles?
Seems to only happen when using microsplat node too.

 

For everyone having issues using MicroSplat and MapMagic 2 together (including manually painting the terrain with MicroSplat layers. I did a quick video on the solution:

 

Hi, quick question. I want to create a biome set with polar, temperate, desert, temperate, polar. and i'm having difficulties. How would i go about it anyone pls?

 

When i build my project MM2 not generate next tiles...its just white tiles without anything...i can see only pined tiles ...rest is just flat white spots...how to fix?

 

Found something in the doc's that explained it. Now im curious how to increrase the size of the temperate/desert band on larger maps

 

Make sure architecture is x86_64 in the build settings.

 

Ive found that if you use the whittaker node, and with your precipitation noise, add contrast node to the precipitation, it will generate wider areas of non precipitation areas..like deserts..see my screenshot (this works for me):



This is working really nice for me.

 

Hi Denis, hope you are feeling better, I found an index of out of bounds bug with vegetation studio that happens quite frequently with the 2.0.5 version of map magic, to fix it, I did this:

In the VegetationStudioTile class:
See the 'START - Bug Fix 1' and 'START - Bug Fix 2' comments below:

Code (CSharp):

1. public static void FlushObjects ( Rect terrainRect, bool clearCache = true ) {
2.             VegetationSystemPro system = GameObject.FindObjectOfType<VegetationSystemPro>();
3.             if ( system == null )
4.                 return;
5.  
6.             PersistentVegetationStorage storage = system.PersistentVegetationStorage;
7.  
8.             PersistentVegetationStoragePackage storagePackage = system.PersistentVegetationStorage.PersistentVegetationStoragePackage;
9.             if ( storagePackage == null )
10.                 return;
11.  
12.             List<VegetationCell> overlapCellList = new List<VegetationCell>();
13.  
14.                 // START - Bug fix 1:
15. QuadTree<VegetationCell> vegetationCellQuadTree = system.VegetationCellQuadTree;
16.             if ( vegetationCellQuadTree  != null) {
17.                 vegetationCellQuadTree.Query(terrainRect, overlapCellList);
18.             }
19.                 // END - Bug fix 1
20.  
21.                 int cellCount = storagePackage.PersistentVegetationCellList.Count;
22.             for ( int i = 0; i < overlapCellList.Count; i++ ) {
23.                 int cellIndex = overlapCellList[i].Index;
24.  
25.                 //storagePackage.PersistentVegetationCellList[cellIndex].ClearCell();
26.  
27.                 // START - Bug fix 2:
28.                 // Check IOB exception.
29.                 if ( cellIndex < 0 || cellIndex >= cellCount ) {
30.                     continue;
31.                 }
32.                 // END - Bug fix 2
33.  
34.                 var infoList = storagePackage.PersistentVegetationCellList[cellIndex].PersistentVegetationInfoList;
35.                 for ( int j = 0; j < infoList.Count; j++ ) {
36.                     var itemList = infoList[j].VegetationItemList;
37.  
38.                     for ( int k = itemList.Count - 1; k >= 0; k-- ) {
39.                         Vector3 pos = itemList[k].Position + system.VegetationSystemPosition;
40.                         Vector2 pos2 = pos.V2();
41.  
42.                         if ( terrainRect.Contains(pos2) ) {
43.                             itemList.RemoveAt(k);
44.                             //storage.RemoveVegetationItemInstance(infoList[j].VegetationItemID, pos, 1, clearCellCache:false);
45.                         }
46.                     }
47.                 }
48.  
49.                 //VegetationItemIndexes indexes = VegetationSystemPro.GetVegetationItemIndexes(vegetationItemID);                
50.                 //system.ClearCache(overlapCellList[i],indexes.VegetationPackageIndex,indexes.VegetationItemIndex);
51.  
52.  
53.             }
54.  
55.             //if (clearCache)
56.             //{
57.             //    for (int i=0; i<system.VegetationCellList.Count; i++)
58.             //        system.VegetationCellList[i].ClearCache();
59.             //}
60.  
61.             system.RefreshBillboards();
62.         }

 

Unity 2020 has been released. I have not been tested right-click menu with the release version yet (while in hospital), but if it has any problem - try enabling the experimental new-style right-click menu. It's enabled by turning on Experimental Features in Window - MapMagic - Settings (since ver.2.0.3). I'm going to expand it with some advanced features like search string and make it default in Unity 2020 or later, but now you've got to turn it on yourself - sorry for that.

jimmygladfelter, thanks! Will look into it a bit later!

 

Hi, I decided to have a first try at Biomes, this is the result when I run the tutorial demo that comes with the module. Any ideas why? Using Unity 2019.4.4f1Personal.

 

Make sure the heightmap (default 256) is the same for all your maps. Use a curve instead to regulate the height.

 

I'm also trying to build a Whittaker biome map but the names on the node don't match the names in any Whittaker diagrams online. The count is also different. Can you please share where you got these names from so they can be matched?

 

I had a similar issue when I tried to determine what the outputs were (mainly the difference between tropical rainforests and tropical forests and the difference between mild rainforests and mild forests. So I ended up combining the outputs of tropical rainforest and tropical forest and combined mild rainforest and mild forests. I made a google doc (converted it to pdf and attached it here) of my findings...maybe it would be of use to you.

 

Rainforests are composed of evergreen trees but Forests are composed of deciduous trees. That's the main difference between those two biome types.

One problem I'm running into is the biome often called "grassland/cold desert". Other diagrams online mix up even more biomes. The closest I've found so far is the link below but I have no idea if it matches the MapMagic node classifications.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Whittaker-Biome-Diagram-derivation-Whittaker-1975_fig3_330811543

Edit: That's a good pdf, thanks. I've added it to my reference.

 

How do i create a shoreline with no plants below it? pls help

 

I bought MapMagic 2 Objects -module to use with Vegetation Studio Pro but when I import the package to my project, it lacks of VsProObjectOuts.cs which is in package description in Asset Store. What I am missing?

EDIT. With the helpful people from the discord-channel I managed to get it working. I removed mm2 asset store package from unity appdata cache and redownloaded them. Now I see vegetation studio pro -folder. so issue solved lol

 

Also make sure you use contrast to tweak the strenght of the texture, the better the contrast, the less bleeding from other textures, the better the vegetation masking

 

Hi Denis, hope your are feeling better.

I was wondering if you had some trick that could help me to set the textures based on the height?
Example:
Sand texture below the sea level
More snow above X level etc.
Thank you!

 

It would be really nice if the VSProMaps node could be used with more than just one package. I wasn't aware of this until I started to create a function for a different biome. I added an initial biome (grassland package) and all was fine and then I added my new biome VSPro package (savanna)...and saw that my VSProMaps node that referenced my grassland package now references my savanna package. Seems I will have to combine a ton of objects into one package which is pretty hard to manage. Just an fyi..both packages had separate texture masks where vegetation of that area occurs.

 

I actually was able to implement this myself by modifying the VSPro nodes of MapMagic. Added a global setting for enabling global package (current MM version) or multi package support. Also got rid of some IOOB exceptions and optimized setting the mask textures as well so that there is not a texture set unless there actually is something to mask for the different mask groups of each vspro package.

Added these:


And now my project can have multiple vspro packages/biomes now:
BTW, I did this for the VSPro objects as well.


Also added the ability to turn off VSPro node logic for draft tiles. In my case I like to pin a bunch of tiles to see where I'm at sometimes and with VSPro nodes running, it bogged down the experience so I added a global variable here to deal with that when I want to disable it for draft tiles.

Its been pretty reliable for me so far, need do some more testing. I can post the code or give to Denis/@Wright if he likes!

 

When I use CTS with MapMagic, MapMagic no longer generates new terrain tiles. In the editor I can generate new ones but I have to generate it twice and errors occur. Unfortunately there is still no documentation about the CTS node.

 

Nice job! I'm still staying on MM 1 especially for those reasons (lack of multiple biomes etc). I find MM2 + VSPro a bit hard to setup compared to MM1.

 

So I wanted tall mountains with mostly flat land in between, but i wanted to give the land inbetween the mountains some small hills, is there a way i can add another flatter perlin noise node that doesnt affect the initial noise node?

 

Don't you play around with the curve node?

 

thanks, i love you

 

Thanks. Im going to look into making it work with infinite worlds and have no flicker when new terrains are added or removed. This would be a VSPro implementation though. Will be much harder to do. But if I implement a good solution I will share it.

 

is there a way i can set an area in a draft terrain to a certain height then lock it, then click pin new tile and generate everything around the locked area?

My other problem is, is that i sometimes get floating objects from previous seeds when i do a new seed

 

I was able to get full infinite vegetation for infinite terrain in VSPro by copying a 'source' vegetation studio system to each tile as its loaded into view. So each tile has its own vegetation studio system game object. This prevents the flickering when automatic calculation is checked for VSPro system and new terrains are added and also prevents the interface from being super laggy when you enter really large coordinates for total area as well.


I further optimized the scene by not adding VSPro integration until a tile has been generated (not draft) while in play mode.

I can share my solution if Denis would like.

 

Thanks everyone for discussing MM! I'm going to get back to work at least for half a hour a day. Sorry for not being able to review all the posts, so if you need my attention feel free to post them again and mention Wright.

Could not reproduce it with the standard trees, is it VSPro or something?

Looks really interesting. Not sure I will make that for 2.0.6., but I will try to make it once since it really can solve the lags problem, especially when applying drafts.Thanks for idea, this one seems really good one!

 

It’s not just the trees it’s the rocks too, im using nature manufacture trees and rocks

my main problem is not the floating rocks/trees it’s that i would like to make a starting area that is flat prior pinning a new terrain and populating the terrain.

Is there a way i can lock the draft terrain to a certain height then populate the surrounding areas?

 

my trees are are objects and not using the tree node because they have scripts to them, however even the rock objects float that do not have scripts attached to them. The floating objects only occur when i take a current seed and make a new seed.

 

@Wright can I email you my solution for VSPro? It has multi package support and this infinite streaming thing as well. Its just updates to your existing classes for VSPro compatibiity. If so, where should I upload it or what email address should I send it to? My email is jimmy.gladfelter@gmail.com just an fyi.

EDIT: I started a private conversation with you that has my code changes and a description of what i did:

Summary:
1. Added VSPro multi-package support
2. Optimized texture mask writing to VSPro packages.
3. Added a flag to disable rendering VSPro maps for draft tiles for when you have to pin a bunch of tiles.
4. Added infinite terrain solution for VSPro
https://forum.unity.com/conversations/map-magic-vspro-changes-i-made.558144/

P.S. The reason I started a private conversation was because I uploaded a few code files and didnt want to infringe on your IP.

 

@Wright I still have this problem. Do you have any suggestion?

 

Hi all,

I am having an odd problem, and I am not sure if I am terribly missing something

I am using Map Magic2 together with Microsplat, and I have a few textures that appear too big. I therefore would change the tiling value for these textures. With the normal texture output this is no problem, but with microsplat and the microsplat output node, I cannot find the setting.

Who knows a solution..?

 

It should be on the per texture setting (at the bottom) of the microsplat material you created, its not on the node. Change UV scale there

 

Hope you're feeling better, dude. Take it easy.

 

Thanks! I will look into it after a while!

Yep. And don't forget to enable Set Component and assign propdata (should be created by MicroSplat). This should be made if you are changing any of the MicroSplat's per-texture properties.

For me any time I change the seed MM generates from scratch, placing both trees and objects where they should. So I'm missing something to reproduce this issue. Could you please describe the exact steps I should follow?

I have not looked into this asset and not made MM compatible with it. Just mention that the grass is not an object - it's not a prefab placed on the terrain, but a part of Unity terrain engine. That's why it might not seemed by this asset.

Trying to keep it up, thanks!

 

Does this help with the floating objects?

 

Try deleting the tree child objects in the tile gameobject and run the object placement again. You may have made some changes to the objects and the old objects weren't cleared.

 

ya some of the objects stay from the previous seed. Maybe i can just delete the object parent each time for each tile and the generate The tile?

 

Yes, that's what it was. The manual didn't make that clear at all, and the way it's supposed to work is to place the grass as trees.
I assume, that doing it that way would not cause any unforeseen problems with MM right?

 

I have been trying MM2 with Unity 2020, the experimental feature help to solve the problem with the nodes, but unfortunately it is impossible to add a layer on any node (experimental or not)

 

Following up on my problem above. when I try to open the demo's graph I get this error



NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
MapMagic.Nodes.GUI.GraphWindow.GetNodesCenter (MapMagic.Nodes.Graph graph) (at Assets/MapMagic/Nodes/Editor/GraphWindow.cs:520)
MapMagic.Nodes.GUI.GraphWindow.ScrollZoomOnOpen () (at Assets/MapMagic/Nodes/Editor/GraphWindow.cs:826)
MapMagic.Nodes.GUI.GraphWindow.OpenRoot (MapMagic.Nodes.Graph graph) (at Assets/MapMagic/Nodes/Editor/GraphWindow.cs:766)
MapMagic.Nodes.GUI.GraphWindow.Show (MapMagic.Nodes.Graph graph) (at Assets/MapMagic/Nodes/Editor/GraphWindow.cs:690)
MapMagic.Core.GUI.MapMagicInspector.DrawGUI () (at Assets/MapMagic/Core/Editor/MapMagicInspector.cs:124)
Den.Tools.GUI.UI.Draw (System.Action drawAction, Den.Tools.GUI.UI+RectSelector rectSelector, System.Boolean offsetAfterDraw) (at Assets/MapMagic/Tools/GUI/Editor/UI.cs:218)
MapMagic.Core.GUI.MapMagicInspector.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/MapMagic/Core/Editor/MapMagicInspector.cs:98)
UnityEditor.UIElements.InspectorElement+<>c__DisplayClass58_0.<CreateIMGUIInspectorFromEditor>b__0 () (at <b17f35b08b864a3ca09a7032b437596e>:0)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr, Boolean&)

 

I think the objects only stay if you change one of them in the editor. Try clearing them, regenerate the tile, and then change the seed. Changing the seed should work fine and none of the objects will float as long as you don't edit the objects. Before you release the game, remember to delete the objects in the pinned tiles and regenerate.

 

Thank you!