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

We did tons of changes 2 weeks and it will be online

Sure just move the points. Umm render type is only corelated with material settings to be honest its just a power or colors and noise texture nothing more.

 

Does the new version include the runtime placement of river?

 

We really like RAM and we're adding direct support in Landscape Builder 2.0. However, we have a couple of small issues.

1. Upgrading RAM to 1.2 breaks all the materials (the shader variables must have changed - we assume)
2. In the shader, there is no "easy" way to change the direction of flow. The user would need to set all the speed vector3 properties to -ve. We'd suggest a simple int (show as bool) next to UV direction value. We "could" add an option in LB but that may break every time you change your shader properties.

Stephen
Landscape Builder Team

 

Suggestion: Would it be possible to add some kind of height heat map on the river for debugging? I think it could be a nice and helpful addition. I created a terrain and added a river only to notice that I did my terrain a bit wrong. Parts of the river run upwards and after that downwards. So I have to adjust the terrain now and that kind of heat map would be really helpful. River must always go downstream. It's hardly noticable in the attached image because I already adjusted it a bit, but the blurry part in the background is lower height-wise than the river in front, my mistake of course, but I still have to fine-tune it. Basically it'd be just a helpful visualization of the water level. Just a suggestion

 

I'm clicking on it, but can't see to make the points appear? If its in the manual I'll get serious and do some reading, just thought this would be a quick question. Really like this asset, very cool.

 

They only appear when you hit the move/resize button.

 

Outside objects are affecting the river shader. Is there a way to avoid this? Check out the river water around the dragon's neck, it's blue and distorted:

 

AQUAS does the same sort of thing. I just got R.A.M. too so I hope this is fixable.

 

Little bit off topic but what system are you using for your grass and trees. Can you detail your fps and card? Your scene looks very nice, Spyro the dragon style.

 

Thanks. Actually it's not offtopic at all. I was inspired by @NatureManufacture's video here:

In the video he's using R.A.M., his Advanced Foliage Pack (still on sale for a few hours!) and Vegetation Studio. The poppies and reed I use are from another asset developer (I don't know if it's allowed to post the competition's name, so I leave that out). But Advanced Foliage Pack can be used as well, basically I bought it blinfold because it has vegetation studio support in the description, still have to try it myself. I bought too many assets during the sale, so little time Oh, and I'm using Lighting Box 2 for postprocessing. fps are around 100, but my system is high end cpu and gfx card wise (1080TI).

 

100fps on a $1000 card for such a simple scene is not good. What exactly is eating up all your fps?
Otherwise it really does look amazing!

 

Im not sure. This is how distortion works at transparent shaders.

 

I only drag in all of the assets I bought during the sale to see what works and what not (eg Enviro 2 is also running in the background, trees waving etc), don't currently consider anything else as long as I get smooth fps during the tests.

In the above example I tried out R.A.M. in addition to all else. And it works and looks great. A very good addition to environment.

 

I noticed that the custom "Ram Spline (Script)" editor in the inspector gets collapsed to non-usability once the inspector panels below it fill up the screen. Reproduction: just open the shader editor.



Also, please would it be possible to not have such a big logo there? It wastes a lot of space for no reason to the user

 

I just noticed that when my dragon breathes fire (particle system), the ram spline is overlapping the fire. Any idea how to address this? Looks like this:



Edit: here's the same with a simple particle system:

 

yeah same here.

 

I just tried with the plain R.A.M. scene that comes with the asset. Seems to be a general issue. I figured if you change the Render Queue of the shader you can get it to work. But no idea what other things that might cause. So I rather wait for a proper solution.

 

Yes it will be fixed in next version. I also use ram so yeah this make me angry too;D

Change render queue in river or fire. Probably in fire it should be adjusted a litle. Its always a matter of this. Everyone use different queue to avoid, fix something. In our shader its public you could do this there but... I would rather advice to move a bit particles.

 

The river is the exception, everything else doesn't overlap. Is it safe to change the render queue for the river? I'm fine with that as well.

 

It must be transparent or transparent+

 

That will work, thanks!

Another question: Do you have any hint how one could make something flow / swim on the river?

 

hey, it seems i missed the sale
anyway, i saw someone asking about mobile performance but there was no follow up on the result. Any chances we can get an android apk to download for testing on the device before purchasing? I wonder how nice it looks on mobile and how fast it is.

 

Hi! New version is almost ready, it will be published after holidays.
Upcomming v1.3changes:
- particle effects you could check them here (done/work in progress)
- paralel/multiple rivers connection like in movie (done)
- more cool noise control over the river (done)
- better spline mesh, much more optimised (done)
- enviro compatibility pdf (done and works even now)
- mesh shape manager (done)
- slider fix in ui (done)
- new, clear UI (done)
- better tesselation effect (done)
- new additional realistic texture pack (work in progress)
​

 

Ohh sounds very exciting I can't wait! Did you have any luck getting stylized textures?

 

New particules effect are pretty neat!

Any progress on the procedural spline?

 

Not yet but... it will have to be done because of secret reson.

In update after this i promis it.

 

Oh oh! my wish would be a badass ocean plane. Am I close?

 

Ask santa

 

What do you think with such setup? Waterfall textures were changed (we added alternative version):



Dynamic View:
https://gyazo.com/d255f3780150059088acc9ef0b28cd9e

 

looks good, why is it double sided though? isn't it a waste of rendering?

 

Because waterfall often is visible from both side. Some users will add underwater effect and swim around etc.

 

Ah finally I understand. Your waterfall texture is too blue to exist in real life. It's the color of a deep blue ocean which is not natural so it looks wrong compared to the terrain.

Most waterfalls and rivers are transparent color that copies the background terrain.
It's actually mostly white texture for the foam and shore effects.


This is why the forest is green and so is the water. The white foam is the only thing that has a white texture and is always white.

The best way is to have a separate layer/texture slot for the water color and the white foam.
This way we will be able to control it with a stylized texture or leave it transparent to blend with terrain background texture like it does in real life.

The hard way to make the water blend is to do some advanced math the sample the background terrain texture but the easy and better way is to just let the user choose the color of the water edge, outer and middle colors and let them get a good estimate.

 

You have this on sliders. You could make it more transparent and move shalow and deep water into deeper values etc.

 

Create River Spline isn't showing up under create 3d object Any idea why?

 

@NatureManufacture Used your asset to create this river. I'm really a fan of RAM, it can even look better if I adjust the lighting.

 

Everything is compiled correctly? All scripts? No errors at console?

You didnt adjust the spline I see wrong direction in many places. You also could increate it's resolution.

We added PBR and non pbr particles. This cost us a lot of time to support PBR particles and unity particle system options. We still have few issues with spline so we need to delay 1-2 days release for this version.

https://gyazo.com/93c4c55f70f628fe8b864810da9166eb
https://gyazo.com/369f603299f9bac5abf5411e8db1ffb5

 

I agree this can be better.

I can fix this particular segment but that's one trouble I have, its easy for uniform width rivers but it's harder when the river has changing width when it is asymmetrical , because the edge cannot flow away from the tapering bank.

How do I increase resolution?

 

You could scale each part. Check our tuts

 

Reporting this from Alexander as Im having the same issue:

Hi! @NatureManufacture i can't add points by the spline tool, when i press the ctrl + left click another object has be selected on the scene .. what im doing wrong?

 

You hold ctr ? Even at blank project ?

 

Today we upload this:



6 synced rivers In, out etc.

 

Wow! Cannot wait.

 

Nice... needed this

 

I know I also create demo with particles and many splines thats why it took so long. New doc left, everything else is done.

 

As we love to make suprices list of features is much longer! We add more things that we mention before

v1.3 (online):
HUGE changes. You have to refresh old splines, we refresh and rebuild it.
- particle effects pbr and non pbr setup,
- paralel/multiple rivers connection now you could connect few rivers (IN/OUT)
- more cool noise control over the river
- transparent control at waterfalls (useful at fountains and big waterfalls)
- better spline mesh, much more optimised
- mesh shape curves (spline could be road or anything else)
- spline point rotation XYZ (By Z you could create cascade at flat area)
- enviro compatibility (we will add compiled shaders in minor update)
- mesh terrain snapping for streams or roads or...haha you will see soon!
- slider fix in UI
- new, clear UI with tips
- better tesselation effect (more regular)
- new additional realistic texture pack and material
- new demo scene

 

Yea just tried in a new project too. Is there something I need to have selected first in order to do this? I may just be doing something silly. Ctrl+left click does its standard function of selecting multiple object

 

Hmmm do you have terrain or something in background? This is raycasting so it need to hit collider to setup point.

Anyway catch me at skype dahrrrr tomorow.

 

We tried in the example scene, the one that is in your video and it doesnt work there. Terrain is in the background though.

 

The new realistic texture and particles effects are really great! Also the grounder of spline work well.

Two room of improvement in my view:

- a button with add particule to a waterfall
- a profile to change texture to the new one (yeah, I am lazy)

My two cents.

 

1- no i mean i dont know how to do this proceduraly as in most case user must adjust lenght of it
2 - we must add this yes... but profile will contain more data