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

4.1 Stable

 

I've been doing some profiling of trueSky lately, I'm curious to know if others have experienced anything similar - when using simuls profiling (alt shift P) it seems to be taking only 1ms per frame (I've got a fair bit of amortization happening). At the same time, Unity's profiling says conflicting things, sometimes I see the same (around 1ms), others I see around 25ms every frame.

Specifically, what is taking the time (according to Unity) is:
Camera.Render > TrueSkyCamera.OnPreRender() > TrueSkyCamera.PrepareMatrices() > RenderTextureHolder.GetNative > Texture.GetNativeTexturePtr() for up to 25ms a frame.

I can reset Unity or restart and re-profile, and then Simul's profiler will say Time spent waiting for queries is 9ms, while Unity says only 0.3ms a frame.

Obviously there's a fairly big difference between 1 and 25ms a frame, so would be nice to confirm I'm not running 25x slower than I should be

 

Hey everyone, I'm having some shadows flickering problems, which seem to stop if I put truesky speed at 0. Any ideas?

I'll leave a video here:

Cheers!

 

Looks like a shadow bias issue, try adjusting your shadow options of the main light, also could be related to your camera near/far clip settings.

 

Apologies for the late response. I will take a look into this.

Have you noticed any pattern between when you see the same and when you see a difference?

Did @John-G 's suggestion help at all?

 

No, was mostly just keeping my eye on the profiler. Doesn't seem to be anything like, "I was always in cloud" or often doing something in particular.

I wonder if Simul or anyone here is having issues building with the latest versions (4.1 stable) of trueSky? I get a completely black scene + occasional random colors (!) that cover my terrain. Mostly pure black everything, though. Editor is fine.

If I remove trueSky and rebuild, scene draws normally with just ambient lighting (and of course missing sky).

 

I will look into both of these problems. Thanks for letting us know.

 

Hi, I'm wondering if it's possible to manually place clouds. For example, if I want to have clouds surrounding a mountain or alone a canyon. Is there any like a texture map that we can edit? Thanks.

 

Hi hermit_purple (great username!)

Currently, no. But this is what the map feature of the sequencer should/will do, to a degree. So you'll be able to select a region for the clouds. This will hopefully be ready by Simul 4.2 (the next version).

 

Would I be able to use the map feature in the stand alone sequencer and copy/paste into unity?
I don't see a download link to the sequencer on the download page. Is that because I'm using evaluation license?

 

Sequences made in the sequencer should be copy/pasteable into the Unity plugin, I think.

The sequencer is part of the main SDK.

 

I've installed both the 32 and 64 version of the main SDK. I still can't find the sequencer inside. The manual say it should be under Start Menu, but I can't find it there either. I'm on windows 10, still using eval version of the unity plugin.

 

Hi,
I'm currently trying to switch from unity 5.3 to 5.4 for our VR experience. In 5.3 everything worked fine.

But in 5.4 I'm currently seeing some mismatching visual with cloud of the trueSKY-plugin. Its looks like the clouds are not in the correct distance or have a different scaling(?).
It's especially noticeable when objects are front of the clouds. (it sometimes looks like the cloud are in front of the objects even when they should be behind. But they are "cut-out" correctly.

I'm using in 5.4 the built in VR support.
I tried using the master / 4.1 and 4.2 versions of the trueSKY-Plugin, but all have the same behavior.

 

Apologies, you shouldn't need the SDK and you should be able to download the sequencer as a standalone download. However the link has gone AWOL!

We'll get the link back up ASAP, and then just download that.

Hi,

Is this visual mismatching only when you're using a VR headset?

 

Yes, its something that is only visible in the VR headset.
As i think the offset between the right and left eye is for the clouds not correct. Its especially noticeable when clouds are behind an object that is far away (like a mountain). Curiously it looks like its an vertical offset on one eye. I took some screenshots (sorry the cropping is not exactly the same, but it shows the problem):


and the same next to each other:

hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the images, that's very helpful. We will take a look into this.

When you say you've switched from Unity 5.3 to 5.4, is that all? Have you changed which trueSKY branch you're on or updated to a newer version? Or are you using the same trueSKY version?

 

Initially I had to switch to a newer version, as the version i worked with didn't work with unity 5.4. But as I didn't switch completely yet, I have never tried it again, with the our main project.

For testing I'm using now an empty project with just the truesky plugin to test unity 5.4. I tested multiple Versions since the 5.4beta and always had the problem.
But is we're not working productive on 5.4 I've never bothered really. But as we plan to switch to 5.4 in the next months I'm more into that now.

Unity 5.4 + trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.4-4.1.166-Win32_x64 = bug/problem
Unity 5.3.4p6 + SteamVRPlugin 1.1.1 + trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.3-4.1.166-Win32_x64 version = works fine.

 

Hi there,

We've been having issues for the last couple of weeks running trueSky on AMD GPU's, any attempt to run the build causes it to crash.

Tested Systems:

Summarised Dump:

Are you aware of this issue, and do you have a recommended fix?

Any help would be appreciated.

Best,

Ben

 

Thanks for the information. I will take a look into this.

Hi Ben,

That is strange. Have you tried any non AMD CPUs as a comparison? If you have any of course. I'm wondering whether or not that's a red herring.

What version(s) of trueSKY have you tested? I.e. 4.1, 4.0, Master.

Thanks

 

Thanks for the fast reply.

Unfortunately not, the systems listed are the only reported specs we have confirming the issue.

We're currently running version 4.1.146

Thanks,

Ben

 

No problem. I misread GPU as CPU so I might be able to test out an AMD GPU actually, to see if that may be a cause, though I would be surprised.

Thanks for making us aware anyway. Does everything play fine in the editor? It's just when you're running builds?

 

Hi,

I have a problem with the new version of Truesky and Ceto.

This is the scene with Ceto and Truesky 4.1.148.

http://imageshack.com/a/img921/9739/08xrKh.jpg

And this is the same scene with same settings with Ceto and Truesky 4.1.173.

http://imageshack.com/a/img922/7532/InrThn.jpg

The lighting of the Ceto water is too dark and there are also no cloud reflections visible on the water.

Marko

 

The sequencer link is back up by the way

That is strange. Has Ceto been updated or just trueSKY?

There shouldn't have been any change on our end but I will test out the latest version with Ceto and have a look.

Out of interest what kind of water are you using here?

 

I'm using PlayWay Water System and truesky cloud is rendered below the water. There was some discussion about this a while ago and seems like there is a solution for Ceto. But is there a solution for PlayWay?

 

Here are some videos that I've made, and feature TrueSky:

 

Everything runs fine in the editor, however all development machines are non AMD. Because of this we've not been able to test to see whether it crashes in the editor also.

 

I only updated trueSky. I'm using Ceto Version 1.1.3. And I have downgraded trueSky to Version 4.1.148 and everything works fine.

Marko

 

As of yet I don't think we've had much luck with getting the two to work together completely. But what do you mean when you say it's rendered under the water? Do you mean if you're underwater you can still see cloud?

Wow! That looks awesome

I am getting an issue with builds not working at the moment, though I've not seen crashes, but if we remedy this then hopefully the crashes will go away too. I will keep you updated.

Okay. I will take a look into this for you.

 

The camera is very high above the clouds and the water is still rendering on top of the clouds. The water is always rendering on top of the clouds. I think it's just the render order in command buffer that needs to change, but I'm not sure how to do that. Shader is not my area of expertise.

In the screen shot with command buffer, you can see the order of how truesky and playway water are rendered

I've also try putting playway water's camera on another camera and render behind truesky. But it doesn't show up at all behind the sky.

 

No news on the console front?

 

Marko, I think Scrawk was thinking this was his bug, and perhaps not a bug but simply a need to re-tweak parameters to suit changes in Unity.

tone

 

If you change to a pure opaque setup it'll work. Ie, no seeing through water, no edge blending. Pretty sure Ceto works with transparency, though.

Here's a bit from a convo I had with @zuzzu, which I'm fairly confident he'd be ok with me sharing:
"All issues may be temporarily fixed by disabling refraction and blend edges on the water and switching to "Default queue" render mode on your water camera, if you use water beta. At least, this worked for my simple tests.

Sadly, it seems to be not fixable for full refractive shader. However, it probably may be fixed on TrueSky side, by modifying their execution order very slightly."

 

I don't have access to Playway at the moment but I believe it didn't work in the same way CETO did (with an easily accessible queue tag which could be changed to put trueSKY above -- not a nice fix but an okay temporary workaround).

Does any of @Exbleative's post help?

We are working on PS4 support for Unity right now. Hopefully won't be long.

 

I'm having Similar Issues with missmatch, and weird translation / rotation issues in VR, and I'm also having issues with the version of the sky working fine in the editor, and then turning black, and refusing to work when compiled into an executable.

 

I am aware of the issue with builds, we will get on it ASAP

 

Just a PSA: I've posted a fix for the rain for anyone who was struggling to see the rain rendering. This should be in the next 4.1 binary. Do let me know if there are any issues you can tell with it. Also if you struggle to see the rain (and have sufficient cloudiness and rain strength set) then try increasing the rain drop size (in the 3D cloud layer).

 

Cool great to see the rain issue resolved. Won't be able to test for another month or so.

 

I'm experiencing the same issue with trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.4-4.1.182-Win32_x64 - it seems to me like the trueSKYSkybox Material just stays black. If i select another Skybox in the Environment Lighting Settings, then Ceto looks "normal" again.

 

Thx for the hint, yes after selecting the default Skybox Ceto looks normal. And also the Skybox in the Editor looks "normal" not black.

 

Yes but then we don't have the dynamic truesky skybox

 

Just registered and downloaded trueSky to play around with. I'm really new to Unity, on 5.4.1f1, and when I import the trueSky package and go to the demo scene, I get a series of "Failed to load" errors:

I don't know nearly enough to tell why it's happening, but the .dll is in the folder it's looking for, and as far as I can tell, all the dependencies are in their folders with it.

Possibly related, there are two missing prefabs in the Head Tilt gameObject. Not sure if it's relevant though.

 

A lot of the time you have to download and install the Major Version on Simul Sky, before you install a minor revision, in your case download and install 4.0 I believe, before you install 4.11 or whatever is newest.

 

Which trueSKY binary are you using? 4.1?

I can understand the confusion but this should not be the case. 4.1 alone should work.

 

The Unity package version is 4.1.182.

 

It seems there may be issues with the demo scene. Are you able to use trueSKY in a normal scene though?

If you use an existing scene, or make and save a new one, and then import trueSKY (Game Object -> Initialise truesky in scene), can you see the sky/clouds okay?

 

From starting a new Unity project in 5.4.1f1, saving a scene, importing trueSKY 4.1.182, and then using the wizard, I still get .dll errors and no clouds in game view.

 

Strange.

If you navigate, in your project folder, to Assets\Simul\Plugins, what do you see in the x86 and x86_64 folders?

 

Thank you for the assistance. It's really appreciated.

 

@callum_simul

Hello,

I want to report some problems with the latest versionof TrueSky and updated Unity.

I've updated Unity to 5.4.2 and TrueSky to trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.4-4.1.182-Win32_x64

I've noticed two issues.

TrueSky cubemap probe is not working. The cubemap that is created is almost black but the bottom part of it is white.

I'm not sure if it would help but here is an error that is generated when I'm deactivating the script.

Another issue is that Downscale Factor is probably not working as it should (it's possible that it wasn't working with in previous versions too). I can't notice any difference in rendered sky (it was significant when it worked) and in the performance.

Please let me know what do you think.

Thank you,

 

This experience:

was done with help from Simul-Sky, and we're excited to see what cool new experiences we can create with this awesome plugin ! Couldn't have done it without you Callum !