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[Released] R.A.M River Auto Material.

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by NatureManufacture, Oct 13, 2017.

  1. lo-94

    lo-94

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    Just curious what techniques people currently use regarding getting the shader to blend into a body of water from a river. Just looking for tips. Do you use the provided shaders or have ya'll had any like getting positive results using RAM with one of the other available Unity water assets.

    Also a side question, do you guys have any tutorials on how to use the flowmap painter? Idk why but I feel like there's something I'm not understanding cause I'm having a rough time getting good results
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2018
  2. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Alpha chanel at vertex painting is used to blend water with any other.Yes we used it with aquas.

    We upgraded it 2 moths ago - fixed debug shader. You got the last version? The thing is that flowmap need a bit more verts because each vert store flowmap direction and speed data. Nice blend need some verts.

    Soon there will be few tutorials which we will make in co-op with unity team.
     
  3. GamePyro-com

    GamePyro-com

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    Yes will check

    Yes but when Mesh collider at RAM is not set convex then it cant be used as trigger because the is trigger cant be set . so how ?

    also at vegetaion studi i use your advanced foilage pack 1 but with the your grass etc plans etc preferbs the touchbend not work why ?
     
  4. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    We didnt add touchbend but... in next update we will, as this shaders will be base for assets which we will release with VS developer.

    Ummm yeah you got right about trigger.
    So:
    - place boxes along the river or
    - wait for our update we will handle this.
    - last r.a.m version have ability to store river as object with multiple smaller meshes, you could check convex for them and.. it should be acurate, probably not for all waterfalls or big curved waterfalls (check split object into parts).
     
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  5. amateurd

    amateurd

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    Hi thanks for reply, sorry I'm not sure what to do here. Do you think there's a setting I could change which would make it work? I can't see an option for AO but very happy to try whatever you recommend.
     
  6. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Import post process stack 2.0. I will try to force depth buffer by shader in next version to avoid this.
     
  7. GamePyro-com

    GamePyro-com

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    ok when you think the advanced foilage update comes out ?

    yeah with boxes we will not be ready in 10 years :)

    i try with last option. for now

    or wait when you think update comes for RAM ?

    regards
     
  8. amateurd

    amateurd

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    Hi downloaded the one from the asset store, turned on two checkboxes and it has worked for me.

    Is there an advantage using version 2 from GitHub? Also, I notice build times much slower as it compiles thousands more shader variants. Should this concern me?

    Thanks for the responses.
     
  9. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    3-4 weeks I hope. We have few features to end.
     
  10. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Why what variants of which shaders? I always use this from package manager inside unity. This option is available at 2018.+ unity,
     
  11. GamePyro-com

    GamePyro-com

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    for both


    or for RAM or for Advanced Foilage Pack 1


    regards
     
  12. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    The hot key to create river points really needs to be changed from control to shift. Using the control key is causing a ton of issues for me. I hold down control and alt to move around the map.
    Also lets say you are creating points around a corner i have to deselect the river component rotate the map and then select it again other wise I'll create points I don't want to create.

    Easy Roads uses shift to create points. Works wonders.
    I'm a bit surprised this hasn't been brought up.

    Also is there a way to show point dots for each point to show all the time? At least when you have the river component selected. Sorry to compare it to easy roads but I've been using easy roads for a week now and it be a massive improvement for this river asset :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2018
  13. Necka_

    Necka_

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    Hello,

    I have an issue with the Enviro integration (tagging @Vondox as well)

    upload_2018-9-15_18-36-48.png

    I bumped the Fog in Enviro to make the issue obvious
    The ocean (on the left which isn't really visible) is from another asset to which the dev applied the Enviro integration to his shader.

    The R.A.M river/waterfall isn't affected by the fog. I followed the latest instruction to integrate it but I'm using the Stylized shader (instructions are for the other regular shaders)

    upload_2018-9-15_18-38-52.png

    I noticed that I couldn't follow the instruction precisely as one of the line doesn't exist in the same way. So I guess my issue is here (I prefer not to copy code here as I don't know how far it is protected)

    Could I get instructions to apply to the Stylized water as well (Tess and non tess is possible)

    thank you
     
  14. Vondox

    Vondox

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    Thanks for report! I will have a look into stylized shader later and contact you. :)
     
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  15. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    Why is it that sometimes the river never moves unless im moving the scene view camera around?


    here is a video showing this issue. Seems the river stops when I turn the scene camera and never starts again unless I move it back to that one angle.


     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2018
  16. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Turn on image effect in scene view :) There is small button at scene view window with picture. Click on it.
     
  17. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Shift is used to speed up move camera and thats why I hate this at easy road. I'm level designer too and I almost lose all hairs with shift button problems when I work with easyroad;p
    I will try to do quick this foliage.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2018
  18. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    Maybe a suggestion would be to make this a user setting, let the end-user define their workflow (shift, ctrl) they are most familiar with (just my 2 cents on this).
     
  19. riverlin

    riverlin

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    Hi, would like to know when will it support HDR? Any specific date? We would need this function available...pls advise, thanks.
     
  20. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Yes, in next up. I will also mention that tesselation will be not available for hd srp unity will clarify it. So first release will be probably without tess for hd srp.
     
  21. GamePyro-com

    GamePyro-com

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    also will touchbend work also at the plants then? at the fern etc ? like for example gta has.
     
  22. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Grass and all stuff that use grass shader.
     
  23. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    Thanks for the help. I didn't even know shift speeded up camera movement lol.
    Shift plus clicking though? What does holding shift and clicking do to speeding up movement?
    I just held down shift and left clicked and it does nothing lol? I don't understand how that disrupts ya.
    Thats what gets me is holding control and doing a left click.

    Another issue I have is rocks. Is there a good asset in the store or something for rock placement for river beds and river banks etc.. Takes so much time doing that by hand.
    I own Gaia. I don't think it can do that though.
     
  24. Mark_01

    Mark_01

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    Maybe you should check out GeNa https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/127636
     
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  25. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    No worries we slowly move into that way too.
     
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  26. kilian277

    kilian277

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    Hi,

    I while back i purchased your asset and today i upgraded my projec to the latest unity3D 2018.2.8 and the rivers became blank , and i cannot seem to find the problem.

     
  27. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Restart unity etc. I used R.a.m with 2018.2.7 and it works for sure. Any errors?
     
  28. kilian277

    kilian277

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    Restarting unity didn't do anything, and there are no errors whatsover , so this is kinda weird :)
     
  29. kilian277

    kilian277

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    Okay so ignore my previous post , i restarted unity a couple of times again , and now it suddenly works :p
     
  30. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Sometimes not all scripts and shaders are compiled out of the box. When i sit into srp for example I had to restart unity 3 times to compile its own srp library:) I feel like upper unity versions have small problems with that.
     
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  31. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Mark_01 likes this.
  32. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    how do i handle the mouth of a river? The line that exists? Is there some way to fade the line?
    was gonna hide it with rocks but doubt i could hide it well enough with just rocks.

     
  33. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Look at our tutorial demo scenes. There is label that you should use vertex color inside spline and fade water by alpha color. Also you have to change in material render queue. from 2999 into 2998 etc.When river have render queue 2999 lake or sea should have 2998 This 2 steps basically. Check tutorial scene where river met sea:) Bez tytułu.jpg

    Also floating island have such connection - and there is tip too.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2018
  34. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    Thanks man.
    Trying to join rivers together but having nothing but problems. I watched the video seems simple enough.
    Add the new River to the ending spline of the other river and done?
    Or the other way around or does it matter? Do they both need to be set.
    The beginning being set on one and the ending being set on the other river?

    The largest issue is the errors im getting hit with

    Code (csharp):
    1.  
    2. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
    3. RamSpline.GenerateMesh (UnityEngine.Mesh& mesh) (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/RamSpline.cs:998)
    4. RamSpline.GenerateSpline (System.Collections.Generic.List`1 generatedSplines) (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/RamSpline.cs:467)
    5. RamSplineEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/Editor/RamSplineEditor.cs:280)
    6. UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor[] editors, Int32 editorIndex, Boolean rebuildOptimizedGUIBlock, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:1367)
    7. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)
    8.  
    9.  

    Now it seems anything I click on in the inspector for the river I get hit with an error even after removing the river connection.
    For an example just simply clicking show debug gizmos it gives a error.
    These errors start after I create a connection.
    I can't even move points around.
    Seems the entire river is messed up now.

     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2018
  35. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    So i decided to just create some new rivers just like you do in your video and there is no issue.

    Created two rivers and created a connection and everything works. No errors and it creates the connection just fine.

    So idk why my original rivers don't work. I did see some array index out of range errors earlier.
    The only difference from the new rivers and my old river is I've been editing it and removing and adding points.

    here is the out of range error
    It happen as soon as I created a connection to my old river just now


    Code (csharp):
    1.  
    2. ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
    3. Parameter name: index
    4. System.Collections.Generic.List`1[UnityEngine.Vector3].get_Item (Int32 index) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:633)
    5. RamSpline.GenerateMesh (UnityEngine.Mesh& mesh) (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/RamSpline.cs:847)
    6. RamSpline.GenerateSpline (System.Collections.Generic.List`1 generatedSplines) (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/RamSpline.cs:467)
    7. RamSplineEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/NatureManufacture Assets/Spline System/Scripts/Editor/RamSplineEditor.cs:451)
    8. UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor[] editors, Int32 editorIndex, Boolean rebuildOptimizedGUIBlock, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:1367)
    9. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)
    10.  

    Edit: Might be related to hitting the undo add Point in the editor. With out using remove Point button in the inspector. Its only a theory atm.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2018
  36. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    I'm having a hard time getting this to look correctly using a connection. Ignore the UV material issue. Not talking about that.
    Seems a connection works best if the River V's off. So a Y shape. This section is more of a T though.
    Requires super sharp turn left and right.
    Been trying for a few hours and just seem to get it to look right with a connection. Unless I want a skinny split off.
    Seems the best way for me to handle this is to make it all one river and just connect one river to the side.
    I saw on your video I can paint the direction of water.
    so maybe with using that i can do a water merge.
    I really wanted a big body of water in the middle.


     
  37. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    I would say T is unnatural river connection:) Remmeber that you have to rotate UV flow map everything into new direction. Thats why T connection will not work properly.

    I will suggest to:
    - put water plane (rather grid with more verts) in the middle and put 3 rivers on it. Blend them by vertex paint.
    - paint flow on the plane by vertex painter tool in Tools section. Paint river directions so you will get natural look.
    - ofc change render queue to 2998 from 2999 at plane - do it on material coppy
    https://gyazo.com/1b2a85497ccb22f038c2cda14989d98e

    In this construction you dont have to care aboutin out UV rivers.

    Our tools are very flexible and you could merge everything in few different ways to handle all problems
     
  38. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    Thanks man ya that vertex paint is crazy good. I notice when I'm painting though it seems there is a to large of paint grid going on. Is that a resolution thing? like I have to paint to much of an area just to edit a small part that i want.
    Its all blocky and crap.

    I don't understand why my water fall is looking like this. what causes that?

     
  39. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    It looks like low tilling for big cascades. Did you modify material in this area? or texture have ultra low res setup

    Edit: if its mobile shading turn off compression for texture. We use b channel there which is destroyed by compression.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2018
  40. mkgame

    mkgame

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    I was trying to build a river in R.A.M. again, but the water quality compared to aquas is still bad:
    - If the sun lies deep, then the normal map is strongly visible on the water, that doesn't looks like water anymore.
    - Specular burns in the eyes, could not lower it just by lower it by specular threshold, that makes the water too bright.
    - A control for water transparency (shore and deep water) is missing.

    Even if I'm close to that what I want to have, if the sun lies deep the water looks very bad. No luck with this asset yet...

    Additionally the spline tool is hard to use, I miss the feature that the points are dropped to a layer (move the point to the layer!). However, because the spline tool I would not complain, but for the quality of the water.

    Specular:

    bandicam 2018-10-06 23-39-35-711.jpg

    Specular threshhold leads to bright water:
    bandicam 2018-10-06 23-39-46-813.jpg

    Directional light has a very low angle to the terrain 'Sun lies deep':
    bandicam 2018-10-06 23-40-04-942.jpg

    The water looks okay without the specular (image 1), R.A.M. is pretty fast, but in my case I cannot use it.

    This image is from AQUAS, that I would like to have with R.A.M.:

    bandicam 2018-10-06 23-53-41-517.jpg
     
  41. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Aquas is sea or big plane water surface intend system. It's totaly different idea and usage. This also give it plane reflection support which doesnt work on curved surface like rivers etc or would be totaly expensive.. Thats why we like to use both systems and blend them by our vertex alpha painters. Aquas is more expensive but it contain advanced water simulation calculations.

    As we know with Aquas publisher very well, we try to make the systems complete not competitive. We share ideas together.

    Transparency setup you have in material as:
    - border falloff (transparency on borders)
    - shallow falloff (betwen 2 shallow colors)
    - water depth (betwen transparend and 1st shallow color)
    - foam falloff and color (because border foam could affect border transparency), you change water transparency but foam transparency is separated. We give full controll over transparency there.

    About Specular:
    Its always mix of smoothness and specular, this 2 values are connected. Try to adjust them together.
    About normalmap:
    It's common that surface with low light angle increase normalmap power - low angle increase normal power at every surface in engine. Ofc Aquas is calculated totaly different but you pay for this in performance. Be sure that more advanced water simulations take more gpu:). Huge amount of users use our stuff for river and Aquas for sea and big water surfaces. Specialy when they could simply paint via vertex alpha and blend them in 10 seconds.

    About layers:
    https://gyazo.com/e4d4239ada830ece435d8938a7793628
    You got option there to put points on layers.

    About spline:
    What is hard there?

    From your image I see you should change water depth so it will more look like aquas - transparency effect.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2018
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  42. eaque

    eaque

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    HI,
    I have ram but never went into it, so sorry if my question is stupid.
    Can i use RAM to create a mesh shaped like a terrain zone in order to create a navmesh?

    I have an openworld and i would like to bake nav mesh only for some zones of my terrain. Hope i'm clear?:confused::p
    Like scanning a zone by drawing river on the terrain without carving it and using the mesh without rendering it??..
     
  43. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Yes, why not.
     
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  44. eaque

    eaque

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    so it's possible to draw over the terrain without carving it? It's like the road feature?
    Great news!!!:);)
     
  45. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Checkbox snap to the terrain:) also there is road option even road example.
     
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  46. protopop

    protopop

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    Wonderful Asset:) 2 questions:

    • I create a new River Spline, and when i CTRL click on the terrain, the new point appears not where i clicked but offset somewhere else on the terrain. Its like its showing up a few hundred meters to the left and top of where i click. Im using Unity 5.6
    • I'm also trying to find the button to auto find the best river path down a terrain, like in this video:
    I attached a screenshot of my panel but i dont see it.

    Screen Shot 2018-10-18 at 4.54.36 PM.png
     
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  47. protopop

    protopop

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    A bit more info - when i click the terrain to add pints, the amount of offset depends on how far in or out i am zoomed away from the terrain in the scene view. So if i zoom out and click the terrain, the point is offset by a lot. But if i zoom almost to the surface of the terrain, the offset is a lot less. Its like for some reason the raycast that is detecting the mouse position on the terrain is offset depending on the scene view height position.
     
  48. txarly

    txarly

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    I am using the road material and can see that the road gets like a blur effect in front of the player at some distance.Is possible to increase the distance for this blur effect somehow? thanks
     
  49. NatureManufacture

    NatureManufacture

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    Latest features are in 2017+. 5.6 don't have simulation etc.

    It's image effect or no anisotropy setup in project.
     
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  50. txarly

    txarly

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    anisotropy setup, thanks!!
     
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