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

Thank you for clarifying. I misinterpreted the "Next update will be meadow 2019 (FREE) with new features important for hd, lw and standard versions." in the 1.9 Release Notes as name change, so I apologize for making unwarranted assumptions.

I'm absolutely fine with paid upgrades for these changes, I was actually astonished that they were announced as free, as I'm aware that SRP support can be a lot of work.

And now I took more of your time away from the actual development. To at least put my money where my mouth is, I upgraded to R.A.M. 2019 a few seconds ago.

Thanks again for your explanation and your great work.

 

Great tool, adds some very compelling detail missing in scenes.

Couple points of feedback, as a user of the tool, the UV Flow Mapping is a nightmare. Please consider improving the interface beyond two sliders that you have to guess and test until you get it right, I spend way too much time trying to get the flow looking right and half the time I don't know why it doesn't. The tools for flow mapping are just a bit too confusing to use.

The other point of feedback I wanted to make is that I spend the other half my time on rivers just trying to blend a river into a lake, a lake into a river, or splitting a river and rejoining it. It would be really nice if there was a way to say, attach the beginning or end of a river to a specific polygon node of a lake and have it basically latch the two to make them blend. This could even go so far as to automatically update the lake flowmap depending on if it's the start or end of a river, and it could handle automatically blending between the two without having to spend 20 minutes with the vertex painter and "triangle size" adjusments trying to get it just right with the vertex density where it needs to be. That's another thing it could do, is focus some extra vertex density around these spots to make it easier to adjust the blending, but if it latches and auto blends that'd be the ultimate. This of course would only work for RAM lakes and rivers, if someone wanted to blend a RAM river into an Aquas lake they would still be at the mercy of their own blending efforts.

As a side note, I'm not sure how it could be done, but it would be nice if there was also an easier way to fork a river. I see you can split a river at a node, but that just cuts it in half. It would be really nice if RAM could have that same option for forking a river at a node, and have it take a river node for a starting to latch into the new fork (you'd have to place it close-ish yourself, but once connected it would get the auto blending ideas above).

Keep up the good work, I keep dumping money your way, I think I own most of your assets now

 

When I say about support time I mean updates for assets into latest lw and hd rp as they change twice for every released version. For example in 2019.1 you already have 5.7 and 5.13 and they don't co-work. The thing is that we have to update all stuff in all our dynamic nature tech so it's real pain

If you don't catch that enviro asset update will be free it means that we made mistake somehwere as you are not the first person that asking about that. So maybe we should try to clarify this somehow.

Ofc thanks for support us at all

Ummmm yeeees we also think about that but for other case - mostly for simulation. Simulation will give connected roads, rivers , lakes out of the box.

I have nice idea for flowmap aswell Anyway there will be updates and changes to give best workflow we use that system aswell and we also think we can improve many cases. We will release new asset soon then we will back to r.a.m changes again. We have many cool ideas which will show how powerfull this system is.

Thanks for support

 

Simulation auto connecting would be great as well, I was just hoping to get it close enough and then be able to connect it myself, I do a lot of tweaking after the simulation to reduce the nodes and optimize it a bit. But it certainly would make sense that simulation would auto connect too, glad to hear this is on the roadmap. Looking forward to the next RAM updates.

 

I have another piece of feedback or a feature request...
It would be nice if you could select a river, or a lake, and have a tool to create a collider mesh from it with a configurable depth. Basically, it takes the mesh of the river and extends it down some distance and produces a matching collider mesh that could then be used as a trigger volume for underwater effects. This is really hard to do manually right now for rivers, lakes aren't as problematic.
But if you supported both then perhaps this could lead into a secondary feature, some underwater effects like Aquas provides (or maybe it can be done by a shader, to avoid the whole postprocessing stack?)

I don't know that doing it as a normal mesh collider would be good, it could be really expensive. And rivers have curves that make primitive colliders hard to use. But maybe you have an idea that'll be performant and provide underwater detection for lakes and rivers somehow. Or is it possible I missed something that's already there?

Thanks for listening.

 

We added ideas to our development list we will see

 

Ok so I downloaded the latest version. Instead of 4 fps on mobile I now get 2-4 fps on mobile. Grab screen pass is off. Reflection/reflaction, all off. No terrain. I'm using a Samsung mediam price phone and the lowest quality river water I can think off. 4 fps?

Again, the community ocean shader, runs at almost 40 fps with full 3d waves, foam, reflections and so on the same phone. Something in there is just not right.

Here are the videos:

RAM on my phone

Community Ocean Shader on the same phone

It's the same scene. Exactly the same settings. I just disable one gameobject and enable the other depending on which one I want to test.

 

Sorry but we test it on our side at s6 and we gain alot above 60 fps.

If you can make test aswell would be awsome.

Btw please use latest drivers etc.

 

Hi @NatureManufacture , I've updated my existing project with the newest RAM 2019 and notice a drop off FPS as well on desktop configuration. Still investigating further but guess it has something to do with the meshes that are generated by the asset. This is clearly noticable on lakes, when switching to wireframe compared to the old RAM there are a lot more vertices in use. Any tips - tricks or hints to have somewhat the same vertex count as prior RAM 2019 versions? Maybe the default settings should be adapted to match more the 'old' situation?

 

Maybe you mean tesselation density setup?

 

Could indeed be the case.

 

If it's more dense it's for sure by this. As I remmeber I increase it a bit. You can change it in material property at the bottom.

 

Having issues with RAM 2019 under Lightweight render pipeline. Can you advise what I might be doing wrong? I had assumed it was an collision with some other asset I had imported, but don't seem to understand how

Created a new project containing nothing but RAM 2019, in Unity 2019.1.4f1 using LightWeight Render Pipeline version 5.7.2. (post processing 2.1.6 and Shader Graph version 5.7.2.)

• tried every Lightweight option that comes with Unity 2019.1 from Low to High Quality)
• .I had only requested RAM 2019 when creating the new project it also included Meadow Environment Dynamic Nature,
• there are a number of 'failed to compile' Nature Manufacture shaders ("Grass", "Road", "Standard Shaders" and "Trees")
• I have tried with and without the "Opaque Textures" options under the high quality light weight render pipeline turned on.

Imported custom package "LW SRP 5.7 Unity 2019.1 River Auto Material 2019".
Tried to open all the Demo Scenes from RAM and each one showed the purple 'not valid lightweight render' material color.
Ran upgrade all materials to "LightWeight Render Materials".
Reimported all the materials in RAM (which show as Pink in materials).

In the console these are the first several of the warning I received and the

Shader properties can't be added to this global property sheet. Trying to add _WaterGrab (type 3 count 1)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

Shader properties can't be added to this global property sheet. Trying to add _WaterGrab_ST (type 1 count 1)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

Shader properties can't be added to this global property sheet. Trying to add _WaterGrab_TexelSize (type 1 count 1)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

 

This errors shows when
a) you didnt import lw rp 5.7 compatibility pack (but you did)
b) you didnt create or apply lw rp project. You sure you have applied lw rp in render settings?

Do not upgrade any materials, just import ram asset from asset store and our compatiblitiy pack to lw rp. This pack will replace all shaders, materials, prefabs etc and force them to work out of the box.

About other thing
"there are a number of 'failed to compile' Nature Manufacture shaders ("Grass", "Road", "Standard Shaders" and "Trees""
You will get this until you will import lw rp compatibility pack for meadow, it's also inside the asset.

 

Was able to solve this, by importing the LW RP compatibility pack for Meadow and then importing again the RAM LW RP for 5.7.

I think that there is some kind of dependency between them and might make sense to advise on both (the manual only talks about the compatiblty pack for RAM and I have been working with Meadow in LW RP without issue for a long time, so did not expect that would be issue).

(Does RAM come with Meadow or did the Unity store download because I have purchased both)

 

We just uploaded LW RP 2019 fix for VR render.

 

Hi,

I don't have much experience with Unity, and I'm wondering if Aquas works with VR?
Thanks!

 

Hi
This is not aquas thread I have no idea.

 

Sorry, meant R.A.M. I've looking for a nice water solution for VR and R.A.M looks really nice

 

Yes it works with vr even lw rp

 

Hi, LWRP worked fine for me, but I'm trying to update to HDRP (5.16 now) and I get bunch of errors after changing shaders to HD SRP 5.7 .

All of them being the same but in all shaders :

Shader error in 'NatureManufacture Shaders/Water/Water River Mobile Flow': 'InitBuiltinData': cannot convert from 'float' to 'struct PositionInputs' at line 466 (on d3d11)

Compiling Vertex program with DECALS_OFF
Platform defines: UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_USE_DITHER_MASK_FOR_ALPHABLENDED_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF1 UNITY_SPECCUBE_BOX_PROJECTION UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING UNITY_ENABLE_DETAIL_NORMALMAP SHADER_API_DESKTOP UNITY_LIGHT_PROBE_PROXY_VOLUME UNITY_LIGHTMAP_FULL_HDR

 

It will not work with hd rp 5.16. They change version almost every week and its not possible to support all. Thats why we support only main versions official released with engine versions. Not all shaders are support in hd and lw versions for example lw dont have tesseled etc. So hmm change from lw to hd in 1 project is risky I suggest to use separate project and test it with 5.7 and check what is last version that they work

 

Yes, I was testing on a separate project Will keep LW for now, hoping to switch to HD in autumn Thanks

 

Hi,

I am very interested in your asset but before buy I have to know if RAM work with any orientation.
I am making a game with gravity mechanics and I want waterfalls/rivers going upside down and also on XY, ZY oriented plans. No need to change the orientations at runtime, just want to set them in a crazy way.

 

- Where is the Buoyancy script located? I can't find it.

- How do I double check what version of R.A.M. I have in my project?

 

It's called ram buoyancy. Check our video tutorial part where we talk about physics. We add it there and talk how to use. At YT video descirpion you got time points with main parts about system.

Ummm if you have our new UI with all new buttons like and you got whole panel for lake objects aswell it means you got latest r.a.m 2019 in your project.

Please more details. Yes river can go upside and down aswell. Remember that if river go down or up r.a.m will create waterfall.

 

Can I make rivers with and without waterfalls for all orientations in this type of environment ?

 

I didnt test in such config.

 

Will you test it ?
If not, I can buy RAM and test it. But if it doesn't work, I will ask for a refound.
As you wish.

 

I looked and looked, no script. I even re-imported RAM to a new project, again no script.

I finally did notice the RAM buttons for me do look different.

In the asset store, this is what I see.

I upgraded to the new version June 4th. I even paid the full $50, even though I already owned the previous version as well. (no discount.)

So what's going on here? Is the version I have on the asset store stuck on the old version somehow?

As a side note, It would be very convenient if you could simply add a text file in the root of your package that has the RAM version number in it.

 

Why did you pay without disscount? If you are log in and you should see upgrade price and got it for 15$
You didnt bought this? https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/145937 Send me invoice number etc so we will refund additional unncecesery asset.

Yeah you got right about r.a.m version number. We will add this in next update for sure.

 

Shader will not work, it will generate waterfalls in all angles above 20 degrees etc. You will have to paint waterfalls and clean water yourself via vertex color all the time at 0, 0 ,0 rotation and then rotate it into proper place. This will be painfull

 

You are right, I had the old version. I guess I didn't expect to even be able to purchase the old version after a new one is added. Or I didn't know it was a separate product entirely. Anyway, I guess that's my fault. But it's weird because I KNOW I purchased the old version previously because I was using it, but it does not show up in my purchase history. Meanwhile, I went to buy RAM 2019 and it discounted it to me for free. Maybe I failed to complete checking out previously? So, I don't understand what happened, but at least now I can move on.

 

Hi! Is it possible to create a half-iced river in the old version of R.A.M. or would I need 2019 for that? Basically my level is a big river in early spring when ice starts to break so there would be both water and ice on the surface and some rock meshes also so the player can hop around on them.

 

Hi, i have one problem regarding tree billboards and river automaterial, tree billboards are getting rendered after water but those trees are actually in front of water (second image).
What should we do in order to fix this, anyone else has this problem? We cannot increase start billboard distance due to the performance reasons and that is not a solution, need to fix it properly, any idea?
Thanks!

 

Sounds doable. Of course not as quick as used basically, but I guess that with a vertex paint tool it could be reasonable. Is there all the informations needed in the documentation to do that (wich vertex color to use for a specific effect, etc..) ?

I get that this it is for very specific use cases, but maybe that the ability to switch to object orientation instead of world orientation could make RAM usable in more senarios. And also maybe than some sort of point or sphere reference could make it usable for planets.

 

I though about such shader long time ago but its very rare Hmmm maybe you can try swamp shader with ice as detal albedo 1.

Any custom billboards? Play with render queue in water +/- 1 or a bit more.

Yes manual contain which color is used for what in which shader.

 

I saw your awesome winter level design video and had a thought as well, what if there were two RAM rivers, one using those ice textures (that seems to be a separate asset) and the other one more traditional and they were blended into each other like one would blend a river into a lake? Perhaps an iced-over lake and a river "running through" it? Or a swamp with ice yes.

 

Hi - Incredible work. Question - I haven't researched forum. I see some Spray in your Waterfall Vid's on Youtube. Have you thought of adding a "Waterfall Profile" ? We have Lake, River and Road. Thanks!

 

Waterfall profile? But waterfalls are setup in each profile aswell.

Im not sure what deth buffer will say, 1 layer -would have to have switched depth buffer write.

 

@NatureManufacture not a custom billboards, regular Unity trees from Asia environment pack, can't get it working, what ever i do regarding Render Queue of the shaders, always that problem. If i reduce that value too much then water become useless and ugly, not sure what to do...

 

Seams that unity tree creator trees are retarded in your project or you got any custom shader for them from any pack? Please test it at clean project aswell.. I didnt notice such effect before and it wans't raported before. The thing is that water is transparent shader while billboard is cutout so there cant be any colission between them.

About tree creator shaders... It's their last breath nobody update them since over year or more in unity. They are bugged in light and even more aspects. It's technology from unity3 - 2011? Make note also that your trees doesn't contain LOD''s ;/ as unity tree creator doesnt support it. You got LOD0 and billboard there.

 

@NatureManufacture Using LOD trees does solve billboarding issues (well no billboards anymore ) but i just encountered another problem, water is not affected by fog at all, have a look, used swamp shader,it is the same with other water. It is affected by Unity normal fog.
Our fog is from Enviro Sky, anyone has this issue and solution how to avoid it?

 

Please use 1 channel for support. I answer in discord - import enviro compatibility pack which is inside asset.

 

What if it was a waterfall? Like a fjord? A waterfall flowing into an iced over body of water? Could it work?

 

I think that swamp shader will handle that asit have separated water for flat area and waterfalls but...not in full option. It dont generate waterfalls it will flow water with heigher stronger normalmaps.

 

How do I create a flow like the floating island or the fountain. I tried copying the mesh from the floating island but it didn't work.

 

Use our vertex painter tool. Paint mesh black so it will be automatic waterfall behave. Also you can paint flowmap there aswell.

Tools ->naturemanufacture->vertex painter

 

Hi,

I have 4 errors all related to vegetation studio :

Assets\NatureManufacture Assets\Spline System\Scripts\LakePolygon\LakePolygon.cs(14,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'AwesomeTechnologies' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

This not occur on a blank project. Finally, I will not use vegetation studio. I had vegetation studio in my project, but I deleted the awsome technologies folder from my project before importing RAM and have nothing left in my scene related to vegetation studio.
Any idea where a reference to vegetation studio is hiding causing R.A.M. to ask for it ?
I hope that I can avoid a full reimport in a blank project...

 

You have to remove names which create vegettation stuido. When you import it into project in player settings it add names which assets like mine and other use to detect that it's in the project. You have to remove them and restart engine.
https://gyazo.com/b3e3eeaa18f2c21ca47f6597c960bce2 --> you have vegetation studio there.