[RELEASED] trueSKY Alpha for Unity Pro - Volumetric Skies, Clouds, and Time-of-Day

I'm happy to announce that trueSKY Alpha for Unity is now available in the Unity Asset Store.

Buy trueSKY Alpha for Unity in the Asset Store

Price: $250

For the next two days, we will hold at the launch price of $50. After that, it will be $150 until the end of August.

Preview Video:

Executable Demo: trueSkyAlphaDemo.zip

Support: contact@simul.co

Description
trueSKY is a complete, fast, and visually stunning realtime environment renderer. In use in triple-A games and simulators, trueSKY has won awards for its cutting-edge volumetric rendering. trueSKY Alpha brings the power of trueSKY to the individual developer and indie teams.

Features
Editor Extension: Edit trueSKY sequence timelines with the built-in controls.
Live preview: See changes instantly
Ephemeris model: Accurate lighting based on date, time and location.
Volumetric Atmospherics: GPU-generated real-time atmospherics at any time, position and altitude, incorporating Rayleigh and Mie scattering, and ozone absorption. Haze and fog.
Volumetric clouds: GPU-generated, rendered at high speeds, and blended with scene depth.
Weather effects: Define local areas of rain and snow, visible as fall streaks in the distance, and as particles up close.
Lighting: Update Unity lighting from trueSKY.

Requirements
trueSKY Alpha requires Unity PRO 4.5 and above, and DirectX 11. It works with deferred or forward rendering.

Screenshots

 

I really like it but DX11-only is a deal breaker for me. Unfortunately I have to support people still running 5+ year old hardware.

 

How will this system work with other packages like Skyshop, SpectraGI or Jove2?

 

Should work great with Jove and Skyshop. I can't tell much about SpectraGl, but wouldn't foresee any issues.

 

I quite understand - I'd love to know what the numbers are for DX9 usage still; we have some great (mothballed) DX9 code, but not the manpower to support it right now.

 

Looks really cool -absolutely gorgeous. I've been looking for a system like this for a while. I'd really like to grab a look at a demo but I'm on OSX. Correct me if I'm wrong but DX11 is windows only, correct?

If this is true, are there any plans for osx?

 

Well, people often Confuse the DX11 setting in windows as DX11 only, actually from what I understand it's DX10+.
(Yes windows only).
Then depending on the shader MODEL set with a #pragma (4.0 is DX10.1 I think), 5.0 is DX11+ !

Alot of the assets that write DX11 only often mean DX10.1+...

So, does this actually use tessellation or simply the compute shader?

 

Just bought this and having some questions.

According to the documentation 'The camera must have the DepthCamera.cs script, and "Depth to Texture Material" in this script's properties must be set to DepthMaterial.mat.', however there is no DepthCamera.cs in the package. Is this redundant?
I also tried to add a directional light (to cast shadows) and assigned the simulsun script to it (also set the reference to the truesky gameobject) but I notice while the scene looks great using no directional light, the terrain is now over exposed and isn't affected by the weather.

What is catching the eye in this scene (the scene provided in the package and simply added a directional light) is the lack of shadows casted on the terrain by the clouds.

The real selling point of this asset (aside the great introduction price ) was the youtube video showing the asset, it would have been great if that scene was provided inside the package as well.

Nevertheless the most realistic sky asset I noticed in the Unity asset store but needs some tweaking to be really great.

Keep up the good work.

 

Shadows, moon and stars are fixed in next update, waiting on asset store to update.
Dev has said in the wip thread to email him for updated package if required.

 

You may want to adjust the multiplier in the SimulSun script - the default could be too high in this case.

Thank you! Here's the link to the updated documentation, it should explain things better: TrueSkyUnity.html

Cloud shadows are in the pending update, but message us at contact@simul.co if you want it sooner and I'll send you a unityPackage. I'll dig out the example from the video and post it also.

 

No tesselation, just compute, and it's DX11.0 rather than 11.1. We do have some 5.0 shaders though, so I would hold off if you are targeting DX10 hardware.

 

Hi Roderick, loving the system so far.
Clouds are simply amazing, will be adding feedback after I try out the update.
Speaking if which, does the update allow script integration to the latitude/longitude and time zone parameters of the sequence?

 

As John says, DX11 is Windows. It's equivalent, roughly, to OpenGL 4, and on our GL code we target 4.3. We are planning an OSX version but need to hire an external developer (Xcode, C++, OpenGL) for this or it will be a couple of months before we can look at it.

The one I'm sending you today doesn't, but I'll add that for the next version - mid next week I'd say.

 

Dang, that's too bad! I picked it up anyways but osx support would make this perfect. I'm waiting eagerly

 

At this price, a wise investment

@Roderick, did you send updates out? Didn't receive it if so. Thanks for lat/long fix in next weeks update.

EDIT: Not sure lightning is working correct, the lightning strikes appear to only go between clouds, don't see any strikes to ground???

PS, Thanks for update, Sun, Moon, clouds and stars are working

 

Hi,
I bought trueSKY and I must say this is a very awesome asset! (And all for 50$ introduction price )
I just played around to get a feeling for the settings. As this is a very complex subject I hardly miss some better documentation to get most out of this asset.

Great work!!!

 

Have to say, I couldn't resist either, even though I'm geared mostly for OS X dev. I figure it was worth purchasing now and waiting for the OS X support to be included later. Sadly, I don't have a native install of Windows, just VM, so can't test it for now. Considering a native install JUST so I can try it out, but the thought just sends shivers down my spine.

Btw rvkennedy, I'd recommend placing a link to your asset or forum in you signature. Just a thought.

 

Question: Would it be possible to use the volumetrics part of the system on it's own? To render for example, fog volumes or clouds near the ground (think smoke)?

I'd actually be interested in that as a separate asset even.

 

no source code?

 

Yes if you wish to pay....

So quite the bargain without the source code.

 

Well not so much...

Pasted from the JOVE 2 Thread:

JOVE 2 is it's own rendering system that replaces the UNITY lighting and rendering system.

Could this be something you and Aieth could work out?

 

Showing up black sky on me, while my gfx card supports dx11,
, how to fix this?

On log :

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. DllNotFoundException: C:/Users/Public/Documents/Unity Projects/Test/Assets/Plugins/x86/TrueSkyPluginRender_MT.dll
3. TrueSkyCamera.OnPostRender () (at Assets/Simul/TrueSkyCamera.cs:117)
4. System.DllNotFoundException: C:/Users/Public/Documents/Unity Projects/Test/Assets/Plugins/x86/TrueSkyPluginRender_MT.dll
5.   at (wrapper managed-to-native) SimulImports:StaticPushPath (string,string)
6.   at SimulImports.Init () [0x00011] in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Unity Projects\Test\Assets\Simul\trueSKY.cs:71
7.   at trueSKY.Init () [0x00017] in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Unity Projects\Test\Assets\Simul\trueSKY.cs:592
8. UnityEngine.MonoBehaviour:print(Object)
9.  
10.  

While that dll exist on that mentioned path.

 

What time do you have in your trueSKY component? Perhaps you are at night?

 

As above check if your time is set to around 0.5 midday also I see you don't have a directional light in the scene.
Add one and attach the TrueSky sun script to it.

One more thing I dont see stars rendered, are you running the asset store version, if so email dev with receipt for latest version.

Another thing you could try is a new project, I had a dll not found error before when using it with a demo of triton ocean while testing it.

 

Is this Oculus Rift compatible ?

 

Started fresh with clean project still causing the same behaviour, yup time already at 0.5. Running asset store version.

 

Just to be clear, Jove 2 is very different from Jove. Jove 2 has not been released yet, though you can get an alpha version from the developer.

 

@Licarell I have emailed rvkennedy about this. I will let you know how I get on.

 

Hi,
can't open sequencer , got this error :

DllNotFoundException: G:/Works/RDDV unity/Assets/Plugins/x86/TrueSkyUI_MD.dll
SequenceEditor.ShowSequencer () (at Assets/Simul/Editor/SequenceEditor.cs:293)
SequenceEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/Simul/Editor/SequenceEditor.cs:266)
UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor editor, Int32 editorIndex, Boolean forceDirty, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect, Boolean eyeDropperDirty) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:1124)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

have also try in a fresh new project, but still got error...
hope you can help

 

Looks fantastic!! Wish I could afford UnityPro so I could get this :-(

 

Much appreciated... just trying to be the squeaky wheel...

 

Anyone experienced the same problems

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. DllNotFoundException: C:/Users/Public/Documents/Unity Projects/Test/Assets/Plugins/x86/TrueSkyPluginRender_MT.dll

@rvkennedy any fix for this?

 

Looks great. One feature request though. It seems that none of the realtime cloud renderers out there are able to render realistic cumulus clouds with hard edges (which are fluffy close up), like this:



If you would crack that nut, it would be truly awesome!

 

Hi there! I can fix this for you, I think - mail me at contact@simul.co and I'll send you a download.

 

Working on it! But we always have to keep a balance with framerate; at SIGGRAPH we had a lot of requests for a non-realtime version, or at least interactive framerates, for MAYA etc. And it's more likely that we'll get this kind of high-quality rendering into that sort of thing, then realtime will follow some time later, when the hardware becomes more powerful.

 

The nice thing about clouds is that they are generally very big and far away and in a simulation environment, it is not possible to fly around them very quickly. Perhaps a semi realtime imposter system would do the trick? Make sure it works with VR though.

I just gave it a try but I found several issues with it (tested with Unity 2.5.2):

-Editor warning:
Terrain splat 0 is null.
Terrain splat 1 is null.

-The manual states:

But no information is provided how to do this and it doesn't seem to be necessary either.

-The manual states:

But this script is not added to the camera in the example scene.

-After running the "Initialize trueSKY in Scene" script, there are the following errors:
MissingComponentException: There is no 'Light' attached to the "Sunlight" game object, but a script is trying to access it.

-Error while scrolling through the sequencer:
InvalidOperationException: Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object
System.Collections.Stack.Peek () (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections/Stack.cs:321)

-It does not work with the Oculus Rift (black screen). This is is a deal breaker.

Rain in distance sometimes shows banding:


Feature requests:

-Make it work with Sonic Ether Bloom Shader:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/se-natural-bloom-dirty-lens.243430/

-Oculus Rift support.

-I understand that light shafts (godrays) are supported, but not sure how to get that to work:

 

Hello rvKennedy, I have to say this looks absolutely gorgeous! So I tried the trueSkyAlphaDemo.zip and I noticed a couple of small problems:

- Sometimes the light is so strong it burns almost all the clouds to white and their soft ethereal aspect becomes flat and harsh. I hope this is because it's an automated demo that hasn't been manually tweaked to look beautiful all throughout...

- When some gray and darker clouds pass overhead they feel like they're also passing over the horizon (in a 2d kind of way) before quickly disappearing.

- Sometimes the tiling on the clouds becomes very visible as their alignment creates an artificial straight perspective line that stays synchronized as it moves.

- Finally the banding effect on the rain was already brought up in this thread.

Do you feel like those points are fixable by the user? Or are those known limitations you're still working on? Thanks!

 

Yes, I'd say so - everything is HDR.

Can you elaborate/ post screens?

This is true - making the cloud volume larger will fix it, but if enough people find it to be an issue we'll add some offsetting to break them up.

I think the rain banding gets better with more cloud slices, but we'll investigate further. I wouldn't say any of these is a hard limitation that can't be overcome, be it on our side or yours.

 

You'll find the up-to-date docs from the "TrueSKY Documentation..." option in the Help menu, we can also supply you with an update that fixes the issues above.

I submitted our new version to Unity more than a week and a half ago, and they haven't posted it yet or responded. But then, we changed the price back from the sale price with that update, so it is still only $50!

We're investigating this - try increasing the cloud slice count (in the trueSKY game object).

We're looking into Oculus/Unity now. I'll post a tutorial on godrays in the docs when there's time, but the overall idea is the clouds need to be quite high up, the Sky's Overcast Effect Strength must be quite high, and the cloud keyframe's Godrays setting needs to be activated.

 

Which features are not in the Alpha release which are included in the full AAA version?

 

is this compatible with UFPS i wonder

 

Mainly: source code. The professional development houses generally won't license external software without full source, so that's how we differentiate the products. Additional features (not currently in the feature list) may be added to the AAA product in the future, and in that case those licensees would get the new stuff automatically, whereas those would go in a future "trueSKY Alpha 2" release, while "trueSKY Alpha" will continue to get bug-fixes and performance updates.

 

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be!

 

May I suggest a slight name change? Alpha is usually a synonym for "not ready yet, not even a beta". That was the first thing which came to my mind as well.

People might hold of buying it until trueSky is out of beta...

Maybe "trueSky Indy", or "trueSky Basic" is a better idea?

 

Humm, yes, well I was aware it was in alpha status as it stands in Unity, but the idea of buying an Alpha 2 seems to create uncomfortable dissonance, probably worth considering a name change as suggested

A fine man has this somewhat playing with Jove, if it goes in well enough sometime soon (hope he's feelin it) it'll be in my second little Jove learning exercise if he will share, i think the results could be really quite compelling (on the technical side rather than my efforts)

 

The name of the product is TrueSKY Alpha, it's not "in alpha testing", it's just an awesome name.

As part of the next update, we're providing full script control of the sky keyframes and properties. All the details are here, and once again, as we're still waiting on Unity to post the update - email contact@simul.co to get the new version.

 

Hi rvkennedy,

I noticed a lack of shadows displaying on the terrain when using a normal asset. For instance when you place a box on the terrain (which is shadowed by the clouds) the shadow casted by that box isn't drawn on the terrain. Any idea on how to get this working? I must be missing something although I already tried all lighting settings (forward rendering, deffered rendering, all shadows types on the directional lights) none of them seems to work.

 

Ahh no, i know, that was why I commented. It is a cool name and i'm aware it is intended, it's just confusing currently. The fact I thought the name meant exactly that it was an early adopter alpha stage kind of venture was proof in the pudding so to speak. No criticism anyways, just an observation based on my own initial impression, it's a really nice cloud system, and I think I either own or have used all the main Unity ones. As someone who only considers non-dx11 stuff worthwhile if i'm aiming for mobile or web with Unity involved, at least until they step up a bit with OpenCL, i definitely think the dx10/11 volumetric approaches have offered the most convincing output

 

I also have to say that the name causes a bit of confusion. There are so many assets on the Assetstore that are released already as Beta so I thought this product is in some pre-release state at the moment. As an early adopter I honestly must say that the first version has a couple of bugs that leads me to the impression that I'm a bit of a beta tester. Neverthess I really like this asset and I'm very impressed about the current state of this product.

 

Well thank you; perhaps if people expect something pre-release they'll have a nice surprise, but if confusion persists, we'll change the name to something less cool!