[ON $20 FIXED PRICE SALE!✅]Sky Master ULTIMATE: Sky, Ocean, Volume Clouds-lighting, Weather, RTGI

Hi Nasos,

Oh, that's fantastic! I've been waiting for that a long time. Linear Color Space supporting is very welcome!
Because I felt difficulty for do that because this system has developed mainly for gamma space color to make compatible to a lot of smart phones.


By the way, I have a request about demo or template.
I want a scene for that "Ready to use in real game". "real" is not mean to realistic but meaning that playable game.

As you know, demo scene is made for demonstrate to showing customers like me what can we do by using this asset.
That caused that too many thunders in storm weather, too bright night, and so on. And there are too a lot of variable for configuration to make it ready to use in game when I start building scene from scratch.

It will be help for me if you make templates like "Elder scrolls" or "Witcher" style day-night cycle and weather system.
In addition, sample scene that ready to use combining assets you developed is of course welcome, too.

Thanks for developing this amazing tool!

Ryuichi

 

Hi Ryuichi,

That is actually a great idea, i can create prefabs for various styles and linear and have them ready for drop in scene like the main prefab, this would allow direct sampling of the systems easilly. Also i would add a section in the SkyMaster configurator to insert those prefabs instead of the main one (so would be one extra step to choose style first then create the SkyMasterManager system)

I will evaluate all for the coming v4.0, also will make sure all new v4.0 systems are Linear color ready and with presets so there will not require any manual work to tweak for this. Generally i got the look in Linear by tweaking colors and brightnesses, so it is possible to get the same without any modification on the system core, so i will provide the presets to have those tweaks ready for direct use as a first step.

 

UPDATE:

The shadowing system for the new clouds is now 100% complete and takes into account both the noise and global mask texture for the extra cloud shaping control. The first demo will be released soon and remains only to tie the main system parameters to the reflection and shadows sub systems.

Also WIP is a global snow shader for snow on all surfaces in one go, without changing shaders.

 

Nice!

That snow shader sounds awasome!

 

Update on volume clouds:

The reflections and shadow layer parameters passing and automation is now done. Also finalized the lightning system (will post a video soon)

Remains only a few things like automate the background blending for Galaxy and moon (auto create background camera and assign layers and layer masks) and regulating the coloration at night time for enhanced effect for the moon (will be adjustable to be very bright or mild based on moon intensity and an offset variable).

 

Dawn time:


Day time:





UPDATE:

The new clouds have a very big number of customization parameters to tweak everything, the bottom for example depends on 5 parameters, some are physically dependent, others are tint colors etc

I post a few examples of possible underside colorations with whiter coloration, those are also in normal day time and not dusk or dawn where there is full proper under (and inner) lighting from the sun. Also post one pic when sun is under (dawn) with some artistic coloration possibilities.

 

Looking really smart. Eveything looking top class for this and infinigrass 2 Nasos. Can't wait to see the finished products!

 

Thanks

I am very close to both releases now, all the little details and vast to do list are almost handled and i should have some cool demos soon as well.

 

Volume clouds in dusk time

 

WIP on soft shadows system for Sky Master ULTIMATE v4.0. The system ties with the new volume clouds, the volumetric lighting and the shadowing system of the new clouds.

 

Items copied in the new scene to use water as standalone (WATER and Reflection camera)


Directly changing water properties in the material:

UPDATE on using the water as standalone​

As first step the main prefab can be imported in the scene and then the "WATER" object can be copied and used as standalone in any other scene (and be itself made as prefab to drag to any scene directly as well). Also it is good to copy the water reflection camera alone (although this can be recreated in the new scene)

Three details on reflections and standalone usage:
1. To use the water controller a SkyMasterManager script must be referenced in the script, otherwise wont affect the water. If sky is not needed at all, it is good practice to copy the water material and assign the copy to the water planes and water scripts (water base script) in order to avoid overriding the material (as the base material is referenced in all demo scenes etc)

If used without sky, the material can be directly changed as shown in the above pics to get any effect.

2. to create the reflection camera (if not copied from t he prefab scene), the main camera euler angles must be different than total zero, then the camera will be auto created

3. In the reflect script there is a list of materials ("Assing cubemap mats") the reflection can be applied to, the copied material (if a copy is used) can be applied there to receive the reflection.

 

UPDATE:

I have created a bare-bone version of the system (Sky Master ULTIMATE v3.4.10), for everyone interested in the system without any of the demos. The unity package is 63MB and i can send a Google Drive download on PM request.

 

WIP on soft shadowing system, i made the first build and tweaks and seems to work great.

 

WIP on volume clouds (InfiniGRASS v2.0 on the foliage creation & optimization)

Sky Master ULTIMATE is on lower price for a limited time !!!

$59 vs $90

Enjoy ​

 

WIP on volume clouds (InfiniGRASS v2.0 on the foliage creation & optimization)

 

Would this work in a 2D game?

 

Hi

I have already adapted the system for a client that had a 2D game case and worked great and blended amazingly well with the 2D backdrops. I had to also adapt the refraction shader to the 2D case, which was trivial. The sky is already supporting 2D corrections, e.g. correction of the sun aspect ratio (which was a problem in ortho camera in Unity's skybox shader) so that aspect is generally covered as well.

The grass system is also working in 2D case (for the client i also adapted the shader for transparency to blend some layers of foreground vegetation that swayed in the wind with my wind system)

 

I attach a sample pic of the new clouds used in orthographic camera.

I still have to sort out a few scaling issues (for example the camera size must be about same as the camera view distance to work, i have to create a regulation variable to adjust this aspect for any camera size) and various other small things (like adapt to 2d reflections, that will have in my new upcoming 2D package shown also in the pic)

 

I have tested the system and adapted the clouds to the ortho camera fully, so now can cover any camera size by adjusting an extra variable to scale the clouds to the desired value. I will do some further testing on this and other subsystems on 2D and get back as well.

 

Maybe it would be easier to load the various settings from a ScriptableObject, instead of many prefabs?

 

That is another approach, which is partly done now with the various subsystems like the clouds that have various presets. I may add one global section that affect everything for example.

 

WIP on volume clouds (InfiniGRASS v2.0 on the foliage creation & optimization)

 

Hi! I'm having issues with the speedtree shader for the snow. I just can't get it to work. I'm using SkyMaster v3.4 on Unity 2017.3 and the tree is a really high quality one, so Unity had to subdivide it into several meshes. For some reason, when I apply the shader the way it's supposed to be applied, black and white squares appear on top of the leaves. Any help would be appreciated

 

Hi

I have not tested in unity 2017. I will do a test asap and get back today

If you can post a picture of the problem it may also help pinpoint the problem.

 

I have check out the 2017 implementation of the same code and seems that they have removed some dithering related lines in 2017 version.

In SpeedTreeSM35Common.cginc find the lines

"UNITY_DITHER_CROSSFADE_COORDS"
"UNITY_TRANSFER_DITHER_CROSSFADE(OUT, IN.vertex)"
"UNITY_APPLY_DITHER_CROSSFADE(IN)"

and comment them out. This seems to solve the issue.

Also make sure to download the latest version of the shader below:
New version of the Dynamic Snow shader for SpeedTree (Sky Master ULTIMATE v3.4) is available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-QCdE1dswQBR0kyTnZhM0JzVlk/view?usp=sharing

 

WIP on lightning for the new volume clouds in v4.0

 

Thanks, will try that and see if it works

 

Clouds look great! My only thing would be to lighten them up a bit more there always so dark. Can we get a video of them alot brighter and not so dark looking to see what that can look like to.

 

Sure, i have configured them with the light options and posted pics a bit above in the thread:

Link:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/low...r-gi-speed-mobile.280612/page-32#post-3374699

I dont have a video, but i will record one and post it asap

 

Sorry I didn't see your response until now. Wow! it looks pretty good. I'll purchase and try out.

Thanks again for getting back about the 2D.

 

np , i am glad you like the new system.

In 2D the best thing is that my 3rd optimization method (the others are downscaling and raycasting parameters regulation) will work wonders in 2D and can be maximized in its potential, thus giving it even faster performance than the 3D case (where it does give a huge boost already).

 

So, I've installed Sky Master Ultimate into a test scene, it's not immediately obvious as to what needs to be done to setup the scene in 2D. The first few steps in the PDF point to setting up Terrains... but, usually 2D environments don't use terrains.

On the other hand WOW, there seems to be an infinite amount of options to choose from... a little overwhelming right at first. But, in the end I'm a huge fan of tweaking and perfecting.

 

The terrain script handles Sun shafts and volume fog presents so you can set it up in a object and not terrain it also supports meshes etc. The system has a aspect ratio correction factor as well for 2d for the sun so it is not stretched like in unity default skybox

Also I have adapted the refractive rain for 2d and I can send that version if needed and you use ortho camera.

I can also send the new clouds wip to test with those as are the best looking I expect to have it ready next week

 

I'm happy to wait till the update... There is so much to this asset, I think I need to work on just getting my ducks in a row and understanding the full power of the asset. I'm doubting that much will change as far as the layout of the inspector during now and then.

I would suggest adding a prefab specifically geared towards 2D (and specific guide for 2D or a note pointing out which parts of the setup manual are crucial to the 2D setup), currently I'm working on trying find all of the parts that I need to turn on/off. not quite clear what will be geared only toward the 3D right now (again, overwhelmed with the plethora of objects and fields). It might be easier to incorporate and understand for that environment.

I'm very excited to see this asset work in a 2D environment.

Shortly after I wrote my last message I found the mesh setup.

 

I agree, i will try to provide a ready to use prefab for 2D, will be nice to have in the asset.

Most of my 2D work came from a client that wanted it for a 2D game and i worked on the clouds and shaders to make sure all work with Ortho and was a good challenge. Now i added also the last step that allows to regulate the new clouds for any camera size, which was crucial to cover all possible cases.

 

I'm interested in your package for my project which is in VR. I want to use mainly clouds, rain, snow.

1. How is the performance and can it be adjusted (quality vs speed).
2. Does it work in single pass rendering?

 

Hi,

The performance is super fast in general as most things are done in shaders. It is also very adjustable in various ways, e.g. may choose what features to use and what not, if they are more expensive.

The weather is based on Shuriken (performance is that of Shuriken and adjustable with a severity factor and max particle counts variables, this system will be replaced by my upcoming GPu particles, which are planned for v4.x cycle of the system), so this should be directly compatible with VR of Unity, but i dont know more details. The sky shading is super fast, so there is no real need to do single pass (if it is needed at all in skyboxes, i am not aware of that) for that aspect.

The upcoming volumetric clouds are not single pass enabled yet, but i will work on that for the next versions.

 

WIP on volumetric clouds

 

WIP on the fly through mode for the v4.x clouds. This mode may come in v4.0 or soon after the initial release in v4.x cycle.

The initial focus is on delivering the extreme performance mode first for v4.0, which is now very close to completion (mainly doing some GUI and setup work, all core items are done, like shadows, local lighting, ground shadows, volume light integration etc).

 

We too have our VR project set to Single Pass (have to for performance in our case) but also am interested in this asset. Has anyone tested this in Single Pass mode to know if it works? I have other sky assets that do not work in Single Pass so looking for a solution. Thanks!

 

Interested in the asset, does it work in Single Pass for VR?

 

Hi,

I have not coded for single pass, so only the default single pass ready things of Unity will work (e.g. particles, if supported by Unity, i am not sure on that)

I plan to do work on single pass, after the initial v4.0 release to cover this case as well.

 

WIP Demo of the InfiniCLOUD system:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OfuJK920JuHDnvu8mtgdt_rtbt9c7PbL

InfiniGRASS is used for the foliage optimization.

Sky Master ULTIMATE is on lower price for a limited time !!!
$59 vs $90
Enjoy
​

 

Hi @nasos_333 any projection on when the new skymaster will be released? It looks good, can't wait to upgrade.

 

I plan the clouds Beta very soon, since the system is done 100% now, needs more setup and GUI work to be fully user friendly though as it has so many aspects that cover everything (custom soft shadows, backlayer camera, optimizations, water reflections setup etc)

Those of course all work now too, but i have added functions to set them up easilly and directly and now i am testing them and creating the GUI that will run them (because now are just a boolean that activates and runs the function for example)

So, clouds with custom soft shadows are very close. The rest like FFT water etc are a bit under evaluation, while the CPU version is running fine, i am looking at also providing a GPU version and a Projection Grid, plus a system to separate image effects in water line, so i have the full feature set of other water only assets. I have the base of all those, but could take a bit to finilize. If i see taking long, i may release the FFT water and new shader first though and the rest come as bonus a bit later.

 

New Sky Master ULTIMATE v4.0 - InfiniGRASS v2.0 extreme stress demo.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ihSFl1ZUJUaxu9p3A_4R9JE4V9e-U1VZ

The demo has enabled reflections, custom soft shadows, volumetric lighting and water.

 

Sky Master ULTIMATE is on lower price for a limited time !!!​

$59 vs $90​

Enjoy ​

 

WIP Demo of the InfiniCLOUD system:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OfuJK920JuHDnvu8mtgdt_rtbt9c7PbL

InfiniGRASS is used for the foliage optimization.

 

Sky Master ULTIMATE is on lower price for a limited time !!! Last day !!!​

$59 vs $90​

Enjoy ​

 

A Unity 2018 version is ready for download, for everyone that may use the Beta.

Let me know in a PM if the 2018 version is needed.​