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

Really, really cool. I bet that's super engaging to play.

Callum, I've done a reinstall of Unity and trueSky on a different computer, and I have it working perfectly there. I believe my issue is due to a weird install on the initial machine, so stop scratching your head if you're still worried about possible bugs.

 

Quick question - Fog seems to use a min radial distance which is quite harsh with visible banding - Is this fog near distance exposed anywhere to tweak? (I know we can tweak visibility and haze/fog however this radius seems to be constant/defined elsewhere? ) I would like bring the fog radius much closer to camera and ideally reduce the banding. Any thoughts/suggestions welcome

 

I've seen the same thing happen with rain, especially at that angle. Unsure if we are ever getting right up and close to rain/clouds/fog or if it's some other issue.

 

I have the same issue and request. Wondered for quite a while if there was a setting to tweak the falloff and just ended up setting a higher meters/unit scale. But it feels rather hacky.

 

Unfortunately the error still exists in version 183.


With another skybox or with version 148 it looks "normal".


Marko

 

Anybody tried trueSKY in Unity 5.5 beta?
I tried it but skybox is black without errors.


I think it caused by Z-buffer float inverted.
https://docs.unity3d.com/550/Documentation/Manual/UpgradeGuide55.html

@callum_simul Could you fix it?

 

I'm checking out the trueSKY trial at the moment - it's looking pretty impressive! A very good chance I'll be sending some money your way in the next few days.

I do have one issue to ask about, though. When I set up trueSKY in my scene using your wizard, it correctly detects that there is only one directional light, but then it adds the SimulSun component to some other light (a point light) instead. If I remove it from there and put it on my directional light instead it doesn't seem to do anything. So I've got awesome looking sky, but no effect on the scene's lighting.

Unity 5.40, not sure of the trueSKY plugin version - I'll check.
trueSKY 5.4-4.1.183, as best I can tell. That's the latest installer I've downloaded, and I'm not seeing a version number shown in the Editor.

I notice that the SimulSun light object is being rotated, it's just not getting a colour. Looking at the SimulSun script, getSunColour(pos) is always returning zeroes.

 

Alrighty, on my other computer and re-did the integration from the start, and this time it's worked. It still picked the wrong light when setting up, but I manually put it on my sun instead and... success.

I haven't upgraded from Unity 5.40 to 5.42 here, I'll try to remember to pop back and say whether or not that makes a difference. (Pretty sure I had the same results pre-update on my main PC, though.)

 

So it's working excellently in my Editor now on both dev machines. Sweet. But builds just have no sky or clouds - it's black.

Is there a step I'm missing? I've made sure it's running in DX11 mode, I don't see anything relevant in the Unity or troubleshooting section of the docs, and I saw no relevant errors in the output log.

This is no longer a trial, by the way.

Edit: Ahh, I haven't set my build to be x86_64, which is probably the issue.
Edit2: Yep, that was it.

 

OMG I haven't been able to build for ages, can't believe this was the reason. Thanks so much!
Would this mean the game wouldn't have sky on a non 64bit system?

Have also been having the following issues, unsure if anyone else has encountered these:
- Black/darkened regions in skybox. I've been getting long lines and geometric black shapes.
- Occasional (can't replicate regularly) red cast to the fog and sky, as if I've set ambient light to red (it isn't as far as I can see)

Both in 5.4-4.1.18x

 

Lighting artefacts or patterns in the skybox seem to occur when there's too much change at once. I definitely see a lot of them if I run at high time multipliers. Maybe also changing the CPU/GPU level sliders could help - I haven't experimented.

With the download I'm using from their website, yes. Noticing that it was listed as 64bit is what made me realise my error.

 

That's definitely not my problem as I'm running at a 1 time multi. Will try the sliders and see. I was gonna ask how you knew to try 64bit, wish I'd thought of that! Thanks again.

 

When the red fog bug occurs, the sequence asset doesn't change from what I set it to, however if I pause, then change the sequence asset to anything else, then change back again, the problem resolves. I'm not setting sequences in code or anything like that.

 

Are there any news on support for single-pass stereo rendering (SPSR) and PS4 support?

 

I'm trying to debug what's happening with my sky going red on scene changes, so have made a new project to narrow down the problem. Funnily enough, now on scene change, I can't seem to get the sequence to change. I have scene 1 with sequence A and scene 2 with sequence B. When I unload scene 1 and load scene 2, scene 2 is now somehow using sequence A for some reason. Now I'm trying to set the sequence using a script but that isn't working either.

Here's the code:
simul.trueSKY ts = simul.trueSKY.GetTrueSky();
ts.sequence.Load("2");

I just have that "2" sequence in my root assets folder. Couldn't find anything about loading them in the documentation either.

Would love to hear from anyone successfully (or not) unloading/loading scenes and sequences!
Using 5.4.1f1 and trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.3-4.1.199-Win32_x64 (the latest one I believe)

*edit: the 'red bug' I was getting I'm pretty sure was down to using a sky sequence that was old, or used in multiple versions and was potentially broken, I'm not 100% sure. It may have also been related to a Unity reflection probe bug. Fixed now anyway.

 

Anyone had a go with Unity 5.5 yet?

Edit: Had a quick go and it looks like the reversed depth buffer causes issues, as I get a black sky where clouds only show up "through" objects that are occluding them.

 

It looks like there is a new version which runs on 5.5 (haven^t tested it yet thoroughly) unfortunately no VR support yet (still the same shifting issue since 5.4)

 

Just had a play myself. No thorough testing yet, but the new 5.5 version seems solid on an initial look.

 

Version 4.1.222 works great (Unity 5.4.3p3), but with all later versions the black skybox is back for me. Tried it also with a clean project without success. Or is there a solution for the black skybox?



Marko

EDIT: Also with the newest version 4.1.230.

 

Yeah, Unity flipped the depth buffer in 5.5, so you need to use the right version of trueSKY for the version of Unity you're running. On the download page they're listed under what version of Unity they're for. (Maybe the trueSKY team added an option - haven't checked since I haven't needed it.)

 

I don't use Unity 5.5. I still use 5.4.3p3 and downloaded the right version from the Simul website. But I can't get working the newest version 230 of trueSky. Version 136 and 122 works good, were the last two versions that worked properly for me.

 

Hi, version 231 works fine with Unity 5.5. But I have an issue with the clouds rendering. In version 136 the representation of clouds are very smooth with nice looking soft edges. I can't get back these smooth looking clouds in the new version. I tried to change the Downscale factor and cloud steps without success.

Clouds with trueSky version 136.


Clouds with version 231.

 

Is simul still active on this thread/forum?

 

The forums occasionally drop notifications to the thread owners, so they may be unaware of recent posts. You might try either PMing @callum_simul or - better yet - sending an email to their support address / website.

 

This is what I've been doing, and I've been getting solid and prompt responses.

 

To me this looks like the clouds you're seeing are the ones sampled to the skybox rather than the 3D rendered ones. I was fixing this for someone just yesterday, and the issue was a DLL not being updated in version control since they're ignored by default. Re-importing the Unity package for trueSKY fixed it (and clearly the DLLs in the VCS need updating too).

 

Thank you for the hint angrypenguin. I tried to re-import trueSky. But how to make sure, that the VCS files are also updated?

 

"VCS" = "version control system". In our case the issue was that I'd done an update but not pushed the new DLLs into our repository, because DLLs are ignored by default. Explicitly pushing them is going to depend on what version control system you're using.

 

I have checked the files, all files are up to date.

 

Obviously not at the moment. I did send them a reminder to check the forum via email, including a link.

But as hopeful and angrypenguin suggested, using email to communicate with them works really well. I usually get an answer within 24 hours, often much quicker.

So now I know that Single-Pass Stereo Rendering is finally working. I haven't tested it, yet, but am hopeful

 

Can anyone else still download the packages from the site? I'm getting a redirect that does not redirect and tried several download links - none of the worked. I was able to download the packages before (have an account and my invoice number submitted), last time I did that was mid November.

 

Unfortunately no, download links are gone.

EDIT: Download links are back..

 

Is anyone using the current version with Unity 5.4.3p3? So I downloaded trueSKYAlpha-Unity5.4-4.1.233-Win32_x64.unitypackage and imported it to my project. The result being that I'm getting several error messages in the console:

"Thread::CurrentThreadIsMainThread()"

Those were not there before I upgraded trueSky and they also appear in a completely new project where I only import trueSky.

What's worse: The demo scene only has empty-name, disabled objects. Not sure what went wrong there but it seems to me that this version is completely broken.

I also tried 232 and 231. Same thing. Still had 199 on my harddisk - that one still has a functional "demo"-scene.

The 233-version for Unity 5.5 seems to not have this issue. But I cannot upgrade my project to Unity 5.5, yet. Also, while at least finally, Single-Pass Stereo Rendering seems to be working in 5.5 (it did not work in 5.4.3 even after the upgrade to 233), the clouds look pretty terrible in VR (left/right eye get more or less unrelated images with strange distortions).

This is using OpenVR, I don't have an Oculus Rift attached to this computer so I don't know if that would be any better.

I'm starting to get really frustrated with trueSky.

 

Unless Simul built something in to detect what version of Unity you're running and flip depth calcs accordingly I don't think this will work. As far as I understand:

I've no idea about anything VR related, though.

I slightly agree on the frustration front. This is way better than plenty of things I've worked with, and considering what we're getting for the price I'm certainly not going to raise a fuss, but some improved documentation wouldn't go astray. The package itself seems reasonably solid and functional, but a couple of times I've had to figure things out for myself that I think should have been covered in the manual, FAQ, or load and clear error messages.

 

They have versions to download specifically for 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5. It seems like the version for 5.4 has issues, so I'm not sure what exactly is specific for 5.4 there. The issue with the demo scene I encountered at least might be a scene opened and saved in Unity 5.5, which might cause this kind of thing when opened in 5.4. But then, they probably shouldn't offer a download for 5.4.

 

With the latest version, the smooth clouds are back for me. And the lighting of the scene looks really nice. Great work so far.



The only problem I still have, is that the precipitation does not work.

 

UPDATE
It turns out that I needed to set the wind speed in the Sequencer to something greater than 0. I was only changing the speed on the Prefab that was generated on my hierarchy. That worked in earlier versions.
____________

I downloaded TrueSky 5.5.4.1 and imported it into Unity 5.5.0f3. I set up a scene, ran the Initialize TrueSKY, selected the Demo_sq, and played my scene. It shows clouds, but they don't move. I increased the speed to 50, and still nothing. I added my user name and invoice number within the Sky Sequencer, and it says "ok".

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

Does that sequence have wind? And are the clouds close enough for you to notice the effects of the wind from moment to moment?

In my game I want unrealistically dramatic cloud motion. For that I've got my clouds low and fairly dense with significant wind, and run trueSKY in accelerated time at 50x or 75x (though this is also because I want a shortened day/night cycle).

 

I believe this was to me... I updated my post above. Thanks though.

 

Is this now compatible with OSX? If not, any eta? thanks.

 

Is anybody using truesky with VR? Does it require some special defines?

 

@callum_simul
Unity 5.5.1 p4 , TrueSky 4.1.259 (22 Feb) , Oculus Rift CV1, demo scene, TrueSkyCamera.cs VR Headset = 1;
Have strange behavior, every object in scene (even a terrain) become some sort of transparency and a black shadow offset: To replicate the issue move objects in the editor.

 

Better send them an email.

 

VR problem is still exists in 4.1.260 (24 Feb)

 

Btw, I humbly & polite requesting update of TrySky for Unity features video - that one on Asset store page is almost 2.5 years old and not so eye-catching ...

 

Konst are you using single pass? multi pass isn't supported

 

@RemexChris , Thanks! Single Pass fixed the issue!

 

Asset store page of TrueSky is deprecated: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/17304 - so, no TrueSky for Unity now?

 

What is the status on it right now? Does it work?

 

Do we get our money back?

You can't just take peoples money then advise them to find an alternative, thats called robbery