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

I have problems with the TrueSky Version 3.9.0.148.

- no ambient light (solved!)
- no 2D Clouds anymore (like in Version 3.9.0.80)

Does anyone have the same problems, someone has a solution?

Thanks.

 

Something seems to be broke at the latest Unity version, at least 'Show in Edit mode' button does not work for sure

 

Dear @rvkennedy I like Truesky Alpha but can you think a new product. I mean with Unity "spirit" no dll and other order of cost. In particular that do not run in a separate camera, in a separate rendering, full c#, no dll, no extra windows so that we can import it and integrate it well in the game. I do not mean that is not possible to do this now but is not the same. If you are afraid of realizing the know how I understand. Just sell it in the asset store with other price. Because in long terms we need more interaction from an asset. We need to be able to resolve bugs, to improve the asset itself. To understand it. And if the asset go away we need to make it fit in time. We need to make it fit in the game requirements and in a simple standard known way. This let you be shore that your work is not lost in long terms time. I think if you do so Alpha Truesky can be integrated in much more games than now. Just think about please. You just started a new sky revolution. Place make it became true. Regards, Alan.

 

Hi Support

I have downloaded the latest version of true sky, now it doesn't work for me anymore. I am not a programmer, but i got this message:

Assets/Simul/TrueSkyCamera.cs(127,29): error CS1061: Type `UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer' does not contain a definition for `IssuePluginEvent' and no extension method `IssuePluginEvent' of type `UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Any idea what this could be ? Empty project just with True sky. I am running version Alpha 8 with unity 5,20b3 and windows 8

Thanks

Norby

 

Is it just me or is this broken with forward rendering with 3.9.0.148 and unity 5.3.1f? It could also be older versions.. I haven't tried for a while.

If I simply create a new project and import the Truesky package, then open the demo and switch the camera to Forward, the sky is flipped upside down. If I have 'Show Compositing' enabled (which doesn't work.. just black/red boxes, then toggling the 'flipped view' property on the camera just moves the red box to the top/bottom, but does nothing to the camera view either way.

Stepping through the code looks like the Flipped View toggle is changing whether 'FlippedDepthShader' or 'DeferredDepthShader' is returned from PrepareDepthMaterial in TrueSkyCamera.cs, however the flippedView switch does nothing in ViewMatrixToTrueSkyFormat in TrueSkyCameraBase.cs because the if statement is:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. if (flippedView && (renderStyle& RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED)!=RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED)
3.  

and renderStyle comes from

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.             if (this.GetComponent<Camera>().actualRenderingPath != RenderingPath.DeferredLighting)
3.             {
4.                 if (flippedView)
5.                     renderStyle = RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED;
6.                 else
7.                     renderStyle = RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_FORWARD;
8.             }
9.  

which means renderStyle will never be Forward when flippedView is ticked.

If I change the if statement to simply if(flippedView) then it does flip the clouds so they're the right way up, BUT it's still using an upside down depth buffer (so the wrong parts are occluded).

Looking at the FlippedDepthShader code, it doesn't actually flip the depth buffer, so if I add o.uv.y = 1-o.uv.y, then it's almost there, except
a. depth buffer isn't aligned quite right.
b. weird shadow effects on nearby objects.
c. ground flickers black at certain angles.

Image is below. Does anyone know how to get this working?

 

Doing some testing on the Cubemap issue that appears to be off, and it looks like the cubemap and cubemap probe are both flipped in the vertical axis.

In this scene I've setup Truesky for a dawn setting where the sun can be seen reflecting over the ocean (Ceto).



Now if I activate the Camera Cubemap it should create an identical skymap as in the first image, but as can be seen its a flipped sky image.



Now if I activate the sky cubemap probe that I use with ceto to take the sky reflection and use it in its ocean reflection system.
I get the following both the sky and reflections are flipped on the vertical axis (Neither are lined up with the sun).



With only the cubemap probe for reflections so Truesky is correct but Ceto now has incorrect flipped reflections.



The problem I'm sure is within theTrueSkyCameraCubemap script, but I've been unable to figure out the camera matrix system to flip the camera along the vertical.

I image it has something to do with this part???

Code (CSharp):

1. public float[] ViewMatrixToTrueSkyCubemapFormat(RenderStyle renderStyle)
2.         {
3.             Matrix4x4 m=GetComponent<Camera>().worldToCameraMatrix;
4.                 // transpose the matrix, and swap the two middle rows:
5.             float[] b= { -m.m02, m.m12,-m.m22,-m.m32
6.                         ,-m.m00, m.m10,-m.m20,-m.m30
7.                         , m.m01,-m.m11, m.m21, m.m31
8.                         , m.m03,-m.m13, m.m23, m.m33};
9.             return b;
10.         }
11.         protected float[] ProjMatrixToTrueSkyCubemapFormat(RenderStyle renderStyle)
12.         {
13.             Matrix4x4 m=GetComponent<Camera>().projectionMatrix;
14.             if(renderStyle==RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED)
15.             {
16.                 float[] a= { m.m00,m.m01,m.m02,m.m03
17.                    ,m.m10,-m.m11,m.m12,m.m13
18.                    ,m.m20,m.m21,m.m22,m.m23
19.                    ,m.m30,m.m31,m.m32,m.m33};
20.                 return a;
21.             }
22.             else
23.             {
24.                 float[] a= { m.m00,m.m01,m.m02,m.m03
25.                    ,m.m10,m.m11,m.m12,m.m13
26.                    ,m.m20,m.m21,m.m22,m.m23
27.                    ,m.m30,m.m31,m.m32,m.m33};
28.                 return a;
29.             }

 

Further testing shows that its not off by 90 degrees but the whole cubemap is mirrored:



As can be seen when diagnostics are enable the markings are mirrored on the cubemap.
Which may also be controlled from the matrix in TrueSkyCameraBase

Code (CSharp):

1. static public void ViewMatrixToTrueSkyFormat(RenderStyle renderStyle, bool flippedView,Matrix4x4 m,float[] view)
2.         {
3.         // transform?
4.             if (trueSKY.GetTrueSky() == null)
5.                 return;
6.             Quaternion rotation = Quaternion.Euler(0,trueSKY.GetTrueSky().worldRotation, 0);
7.             Matrix4x4 transform = Matrix4x4.TRS (new Vector3 (0, 0, 0), rotation, new Vector3 (1.0F, 1.0F, 1.0F));
8.             m = m * transform;
9.             if (flippedView && (renderStyle& RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED)!=RenderStyle.UNITY_STYLE_DEFERRED)
10.             {
11.         // transpose the matrix, and swap the two middle rows:
12.                 view[00] =    -m.m02;
13.                 view[01] =     m.m12;
14.                 view[02] =    -m.m22;
15.                 view[03] =    -m.m32;
16.                  
17.                 view[04] =    -m.m00;
18.                 view[05] =     m.m10;
19.                 view[06] =    -m.m20;
20.                 view[07] =    -m.m30;
21.                  
22.                 view[08] =     m.m01;
23.                 view[09] =    -m.m11;
24.                 view[10] =     m.m21;
25.                 view[11] =     m.m31;
26.                  
27.                 view[12] =     m.m03;
28.                 view[13] =    -m.m13;
29.                 view[14] =     m.m23;
30.                 view[15] =     m.m33;
31.             }
32.             else
33.             {
34.              
35.                 // transpose the matrix; and swap the two middle rows:
36.                 view[00] =    m.m00;
37.                 view[01] =    m.m10;
38.                 view[02] =    m.m20;
39.                 view[03] =    m.m30;
40.  
41.                 view[04] =    m.m02;
42.                 view[05] =    m.m12;
43.                 view[06] =    m.m22;
44.                 view[07] =    m.m32;
45.  
46.                 view[08] =    m.m01;
47.                 view[09] =    m.m11;
48.                 view[10] =    m.m21;
49.                 view[11] =    m.m31;
50.  
51.                 view[12] =    m.m03;
52.                 view[13] =    m.m13;
53.                 view[14] =    m.m23;
54.                 view[15] =    m.m33;
55.             }
56.             view[01]*=-1.0F;
57.             view[05]*=-1.0F;
58.             view[09]*=-1.0F;
59.             view[13]*=-1.0F;
60.  
61.         }

Can not understand how matrix works or how to flip the images, all my messing has got me nowhere as of yet.

 

Hi

I have quick question about particles (I tried looking but could find anything).

How well does TrySky Alpha work with particles. I have a scene I am making where the plane flies through some clouds and I want the particle systems on the plane to be seen properly (when you see the plane from outside).

I have tried other volumetric cloud packages and particle rendering is a real pain. Any ideas on TrySky Alpha?

Thanks

Tony

 

Particles do work with Truesky, though one thing I noticed but didn't really look into was, in a scene where I had particle smoke from a ship at sea.
The smoke was visible thru the Clouds when viewed from above the clouds. (So particles are rendering above the volumetric clouds).
May be an easy ordering fix, but didn't look into it.

 

What version was this on? I think there was a transparency ordering injection thingo update recently, and before that there was the truesky transparency script you attached to a camera to resolve it.

The only particles I used were the jet engine effects from one of the Unity examples, but you had to set the particle system to a different layer at the time when using the TS Trans script.

 

Ok Thanks

I just bought TrueSky Alpha, will try out the particles.... I saw something about the 5.3 providing access to the rendering pipeline so hopefully that will allow the right order for particle rendering.

Thanks

Tony

 

Hopefully it works for you.

One thing that you will probably want to do is save this:
http://docs.simul.co/unity/
as a bookmark in your web browser. If you mess around with it long enough, you'll probably want to have a dig through these every now and then.

 

Thank for that, very handy

 

Good news all, the issues with Cubemap reflections and Forward camera rendering have all been fixed thanks to Roderick.
You can get latest version trueSKYAlpha-Unity5-4.0.1.264.unitypackage from the Simul website.

 

It seems the current build (266) has issues with matrix calculations as the Z axis is tied to the Y axis in TrueSky. I'm assuming this will get fixed in a future update but I thought it is worth reporting just in case this was a yet unknown mishap.

 

Hello i want to buy this asset . it looks amazing but before i do that i want to know ?
What are the requirements to run it ?
Can i play a demo to see the clouds in real time and see my fps ?
Will this asset get a discount ?

 

Hi,

Maybe somebody can help me regarding transparency. In the latest versions of the package (I am now on trueSKYAlpha-Unity5-4.0.2.286) there is no longer the transparency component for the camera. (Unity Version is 5.3.2p2) I am afraid that I simply don't understand how to make transparent objects render correctly any more.

My scene is set up very simply to replicate the issue. One single sided unity plane as my glass object with a standard material setup with transparency on. Deferred rendering in Linear space
I simply ran the wizard (which incidentally still has an option to add the transparency component on even though the script does not exist). I have tried tagging the glass object as transparentfx and tried without.

Here is a screenshot - you can see the glass is rendering over the top of solid geometry. Any help or a fix would be greatly appreciated. Interestingly the speed tree renders fine - we have had big issues with glass and naturepack vegetation. I think I must just be missing something obvious.

Nick

 

Hi,

below is a screenshot showing a bug I am encountering in the current version (4.0.2.286 with 5.3.2f1 as well as 5.3.1f1). The overlay generated by trueSky is rendered in reference to Unity's output-window rather than the actual output canvas, so it is always a couple of pixels too high. This happens only in the editor and only with forward rendering. Other renderings paths work fine and also forward rendering itself does work when first building and then running the built game.



The screenshot also shows that transparent objects are affected by this too (probably because of the way trueSky messes with Unity's rendering queue).

As you can see, I also encounter the bug described by Nick in the previous post - transparent objects are rendered above everything else now. It doesn't seem to help if the transparent shaders write to the Z buffer. Any help on this is highly appreciated, as this is currently a blocking issue for me.

Two more minor things:

• It seems when I change the resolution the whole rendering output turns black. The game itself is still running and takes inputs, just the rendering is dead. This only happens in the build, not in the editor.
• According to the manual trueSky.SetCloudFloat("CloudWidth", floatValue) expects values im km. In my tests so far I had the impression it is rather to be input in meters.

 

Some more tests.

Deferred, Linear space with Truesky, Playway water and speed trees with a small standard material transparent sphere.


Forward, Linear space with Truesky, Playway water and speed trees with a small standard material transparent sphere.




EDIT: Rolling back to version trueSKY Alpha 4 Unity 5 4.0.1.270 the problem has gone.

 

We also have a problem with truesky not rendering (ie black) on Windows 10 on several different computers when the project is published. We solved in by installing directx sdk (june 2010) redist - but this does not seem like a very good idea to me. Should we be doing this?

 

Hi,

I've been playing around with the new version (4.0.3.289), and not much has changed. I did find a couple of new issues, but I guess they were in earlier versions as well:

• Transparent objects still get rendered on top of everything else (see TekHK's and my own eaerlier postings).
• Additional information for my other earlier post #368: This does NOT happen in the editor when rendering in VR mode (Oculus Rift DK2).
• Whenever I change things (sun/moon position, sky- and cloud-keyframe settings) programmatically, for a brief moment (maybe 0.3-0.5s) a strange "checkerboard"/"godray" effect will be seen along with the sky-color "flickering":
  
  I do suspect that this might be related to spikes in CPU load, as it sometimes also happens when just running the game and not really changing anything. However, I modify the sun's position on every frame after all...
• At certain times-of-day (sun angle?) and with certain combinations of haze settings, some calculation seems to "stumble" and very wrong colors are rendered
  
  
  In the video it is just brief moments, as I am moving time back and forth to demonstrate. However, it is possible to find and lock a time where the effect is permanent until time is changed to another value again.
• trueSky always used to crash my Unity editor now and then, but since 289 this happens extremely often. I have to shut down Unity (only possible via TaskManager when it happens) and restart almost every second "play" of the game. Frankly, it is borderline unusable right now.

Also minor issues:

• Sun and moon positions for a certain day and time are not correct. I fixed this this by writing my own code for that, so that's minor for me at least.
• "Render in Edit Mode" from the trueSKY script doesn't do anything.

Lastly a question to the community: Did anybody find out how the vrHeadset setting works? I'm developing for Oculus Rift so I'm always interested in optimizing for that. However, leaving the value at 0 everything works fine (except for the issues mentioned of course). However, if I set it to any other value the output not only is completely weird (best way to describe it), but also much slower (takes more than half of my fps).

 

@Paul Alexandrow

When you say the time of day is incorrect - can you tell us what you observed? Pretty important that this is right in our Sims.

 

Well, the position is just not correct for any(?) day/time/lat/lon setting. I can also confirm it is not just a timezone issue. At least in the higher latitudes where my Sim is located, this is the case. I first found out when the simulation's sunset would occur much later than expected. You can easily test it yourself using http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/ and comparing it to the output of trueSky.getSunRotation().

However, In my case I had to do the calculation myself anyways, as I am offering a standard skybox as fallback for weaker computers. With Wikipedia's help it can be done in a couple of hours

 

@Paul Alexandrow

Are you sure your setting up Truesky correctly, while it was true when Truesky was released that the celestial computation were way off these have been corrected by Roderick.
I worked with Roderick for months testing the celestial bodies of tresky to get them physically accurate as I needed 100% accurate heavenly bodies for Sextant Navigation with my own game.

I have downloaded the latest 4.0.3.289 to test if this has broken that aspect of the package with my own Sextant WIP Tool and can confirm that that it is working correctly.


Here is the setup using the website you linked:


Notice the Sun is at 163.68 / 24.41 pretty much bang on that I got in my sextant take.

This is also backed up by AstroNavigation which I use for Celestial Navigation



Are you sure you are setting up Truesky's Sequence Correctly???
Its important to set up Date, Latitude and Longitude here to test correctly.

 

I am pretty sure that I had set up everything correctly. You never know of course. However, I didn't use the sequencer at all, but put everything into truesky programmatically. Maybe the problem was there! I found that unfortunately the sequencer actually does a few things that can't be accessed programmatically, but I don't think any of them is related to the positioning of celestial bodies.

If it is of any help, here is what I tested with:

• 49.41853, 13.32224 (Chaloupky, Czech Republic)
• For example, Jan 1st 2016, Timezone UTC+1: It should be pretty "twilighty" by 16:30loc and dark by 17:30loc. Using truesky's built in calculations that happend about 1.5 hours later (if I remember correctly).

If you don't get my results here, I guess you can safely disregard that issue altogether.

Btw: My last tests of this were in version 270 - after that I already had my own solution. So maybe things got fixed in the meantime.

 

Yes the issue is with not setting the Date and coordinates via the Sequencer.
Just tested with version 270 and latest version both are showing correct using the above example.

Getting sunrise at 8.03am and sunset at 4.18PM both within http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/ and TreueSky Sequencer.

I would say the issue was with passing in the coordinates and time via script.
Have yet to try this so will test and see if there is an issue there.

 

Is the trial version lacking features from the release version? I can't see where you're setting stuff like co-ordinates, sun/moon size, ozone, etc. Btw, is it unwise to have your license details in that screen?

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble hearing anything back from the developer over email, so maybe you guys can help out. It's not all that promising for an expensive plugin to have non-existent support when there are so many issues (that I'm having at least). Or maybe Roderick is on holidays, I don't know.

Here's a list of things I've emailed him over the past 2 weeks:
- Generally lacking documentation
- Visual artifacts in sky (black blocks and strips of mirrored looking sky). These appear and disappear if you move the camera around, like a depth buffer that needed clearing or something.

- Lose 'focus' on sequencer window when dragging sliders around when mouse ends up off window.
- Sequencer window often pops up when you don't want it to, like when hitting play, or just doesn't minimize at all with Unity
- Dragging the storm position around in sequencer is v difficult (imprecise, impossible to control position)
- Can't seem to get rain happening (particles/streaks). I sometimes see them once I start the game, but then they disappear instantly. Changing speed to 0.0001 doesn't make it stick around longer. No matter what settings I change or try I can't get rain. I have seen some lightning before, though.
- Need some kinda check if you turn off truesky and run unity. It almost crashed my whole computer. Could hardly use mouse/click anything to close unity.
- I routinely get "Succeeded(hr)" errors in the console coinciding with windows memory errors/unity crashes. I'm not certain this is truesky.
- Generally unclear on how trueSky works with Unity's probes and skyboxes
- Flying inside clouds doesn't seem to have much "depth", ie my player object is definitely inside clouds, yet is not concealed by them, and it's almost like close clouds completely disappear.
- There are bright "outlines" around terrain and reflective objects.

- General questions regarding how much I can alter trueSky to, for example, simulate alien skies, different cloud patterns, multiple suns, etc. Also whether its possible to setup trueSky to handle a close camera + distant camera that render close and far terrain separately.

Thanks for any help, I know there's a lot here!
Regards,
Jay

 

Thank you all for the feedback, bug reports and suggestions and apologies for any delays in communication. We are looking into everything mentioned in the last few pages of this thread, so even if I haven't tagged you or your issue directly below, don't worry, we have either fixed the issue or are working on it! If there are any other problems or questions then please let us know in the thread or alternatively, my email is callum@simul.co (just mention that you're using the Unity plugin).



@John G. -- Thank you for helping other users on the forum, but please take care with showing your license key! Also the way lightning works is intentional, but you'll be glad to know user customisation in this area is something we're working on!

@Paul Alexandrow -- With regards to the issue shown in your Youtube video, could you provide some information to help us reproduce this bug? For example, some of the haze settings and times of day you were using when the bug appeared.

@XaneFeather -- Could you expand on this? When you say "issues with matrix calculations", do you have any specific examples which could help us understand and reproduce the problem? Thanks!

@brave_mike -- Are you still having issues with 2D clouds? If so, can you update to the latest version -- if you haven't already -- and let us know if that fixes the problem? Please see below for how best to update ***

@norby -- Are you still having the "CS1061" error? If so then could you update to the latest version if you haven't already. Please see below for how best to update ***

@Font8 -- The ambient light issues should be solved, so an update to a newer version of trueSKY should fix it for you. Please see below for how best to update ***

@Unreal Vision -- Unfortunately the Unity plugin only works with DX11. There are no plans to support prior versions to DX11 in the plugin.

@NightmarexGR -- Hi, you can download a trial version at http://simul.co/download/. You will need to make a Simul account first however, to access this page. The only real requirement is a DirectX 11 compliant graphics card. And there are currently no plans for any sales; this is down to Unity and not ourselves, unfortunately!

@nomax5 -- There is no right or wrong way to do it -- this is up to you. Generally you may want multiple scenes which you can switch between when needed, but if you'd rather alter values in code then you can do that too. We will be adding functionality soon to make it easier to switch between scenes, and this will hopefully streamline the process for you.

@Exbleative --

1) The issue with visual artifacts as shown in your screenshots is something that we're aware of, that should be fixed in the next version of the plugin. I can message you when this is out but otherwise just keep an eye on the Simul download page (see below ***)

2) I think the Succeeded(hr) errors are to do with DirectX 11 and Unity itself. Your machine/graphics card may not be configured or able to run DX11 properly. Unfortunately the current version of the trueSKY plugin requires DX11.

3) Could you elaborate on the "Lose 'focus' on sequencer window when dragging sliders around when mouse ends up off window" issue? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

4) With regards to not seeing rain enough, try turning up the rain strength and the cloudiness.

5) The trial version has exactly the same features as the normal version. I think what you're referring to is a third party website John has used to test some values, and not part of the actual trueSKY software.

6) With regards to the "There are bright "outlines" around terrain and reflective objects" issue you mentioned, can I ask if you've updated to the latest version? This should be fixed now. Please see below for how best to update ***


*** To anyone updating, the download link on the Simul page will have the very latest version of the plugin. Unfortunately Unity can be a bit slow updating the asset store, so the versions on here may not be up to date. Just put your invoice number on your Simul account page to access the Unity downloads.

 

Hi @callum_simul

As a long standing user of Truesky, I've asked Roderick this before but not got much intel back - what is the status with PS4 support in Unity with Truesky?

 

Welcome @callum_simul, thanks for all the feedback. Will you be representing Simul here on the forums from now on?
I've amended the above post to remove the slight brain fart I had in showing my license, will reupload the image with the details removed later on.
Will be great to finally get the thunder sounds into the current lightning system.
Hope Roderick is making good progress on the Ceto transparent prefab with Truesky integration, really love both these systems.

 

Here are some settings that I could produce the flashes with:

Day: May 21st 2016
Time: 0.78-0.79 (Timezone 0)

Latitude 49.41853
Longitude 13.32224

Haze base 0.4443069
Haze scale 0.1430511
Haze 6.18532

Camera position (192.9826,769.5251,-30.86138)
Camera rotation (7.125094,293.2006 , 0)

Here are two screenshots, one with the flash, one right after.



Interestingly, there isn't even a constant pattern of how the flashes look. Sometimes only the sky is affected (like here), somtimes the whole screen, sometimes the whole screen but you can still see some other objects in front (like trees), but those in wrong colors. Mostly the flashing colors seem to be full values of a combination of channels (full white, yellow, red, magenta, ...).
Also generally speaking, these things seem "easier" to reproduce with higher haze settings, rather than lower ones.

As said before, I am not using the sequencer but setting everything directly in the script.

HTH, and just let me know, if I can provide anything else.

 

Great to hear some feedback/support, thanks very much!

Great!

My machine isn't old, and I have a GTX780 so I doubt it, but I'll certainly look into it

If I click/hold on a slider, and drag it off the sequencer window onto another window, sequencer disappears.

Rain str is already 1, cloudiness just set to max, still no rain. I've always seen the streaks off in the distance, just not individual, close-up rain drops.

I'm referring to this screen, of which I have none of these variables/sliders for moon/sun size, ozone level, atmosphere etc:

I'm actually having trouble updating, see image below:


Thanks!
Best Regards,
Jay

 

@Exbleative those settings are in the sequencer.
If you click on Sky, 3dClouds or 2dClouds you will bring up the relevant settings screens.

It's not very obvious maybe it's something @callum_simul could look at changing for future releases.
Maybe make them look like buttons with mouse over highlights or even like the tabs that are present already in the sequencer.


As for the update issue Truesky will not allow update if you have a previous version already installed due to that dll file.
I always delete the Simul folder from project and import in the new updated version of Truesky.

 

LOL, first I thought to myself "omg, of course I know that you can click on the keyframes, John, I'm not an idiot". Then realised I can click the 'categories' to the left. These need to look more like buttons, absolutely no doubt!! Not sure if I missed this like an idiot or there's again not enough documentation. Wow, so many new buttons to press and tinker with now, amazing! haha

Thanks re the update, I'll try that.

 

Updated to latest version - seems overly difficult to update. I had to delete the folder outside of Unity then run the update package to stop it from reimporting or running into the same dll error. Glad its possible though and I'm on the latest version now Thanks again John.

An update:

- Rain seems to be fixed now, perhaps it was as simple as rain size not being set high enough(?).

- Sequencer still disappears often while dragging sliders around (not just by click dragging outside of the window).
It also appears every time I go to play, possibly because the plugin is checking license details?

- Outlines around terrain where it meets sky is gone, woohoo!

- Vertical, mirrored looking slices also seem to be gone? Pretty sure confirmed they're gone on v289

- Can see god rays now as well, I forgot to mention those were broken!

- I'm seeing the same odd patterns in the sky that Paul mentioned above, and lighting 'flashes'.

- With the sun up, sometimes it seems the rain REALLY takes on the sunlight, it looks like the rain is on fire, with some really strong additive.

- Having transparent object problems as described by others

- Can't change cubemap probe resolution without getting console errors:
RenderTexture.Create failed: cube maps must be power of two and width must match height
UnityEngine.Camera:RenderToCubemap(RenderTexture, Int32)
simul.TrueSkyCubemapProbe:Update() (at Assets/Simul/TrueSkyCubemapProbe.cs:83)
The above will occur the instant you type "1", if you try and enter 128 for example.

- Unity seems to run slower the longer I leave it open, takes longer to load the game etc. Can't confirm this is truesky, though.

Thanks for your time,
Regards,
Jay

 

@hippocoder

Hi, it's on its way but unfortunately we're still waiting on some support from the Unity developers. Stay tuned!


@John G.

Hi John, I'm an addition to the team rather than a replacement! One of my duties is to help manage bugs and the reporting of said bugs, with an aim to improve feedback and communication with you guys. Again, thank you for helping users on the forum!


@Paul Alexandrow

Thank you for the information and screenshots. We will take a look at this ASAP.


@Exbleative

We are aware that the sequencer can be a bit buggy and are working on this. I have found that deselecting the sequencer in the project window, before pressing play, should stop it popping up when you play your game. Obviously this isn't an ideal or complete fix, but hopefully it helps somewhat in the mean time! I have also noted the suggestions to make the sequencer more intuitive, re: the Sky/2D/3D Cloud options on the left.

I have looked into and fixed the cubemap problem you were having. Basically Unity was reading the value from the inspector too quickly, setting an invalid value (e.g. anything that isn't a power of 2) and then crashing. Now whatever you enter in the inspector will be ignored and overwritten by the default (32) unless it is valid (a power of 2, and additionally between 8 and 512, to keep the sizes reasonable). This should be in the next update but in the mean time, if you paste the value you want straight into the field this will also work.



@Paul Alexandrow & @RyuMaster -- The "Render in Edit Mode" option will stop trueSKY rendering in your editor, not when you play the game, in case that is confusing. That is all it is supposed to do.
Please see the screens below:



I have tested this in the editor and by changing the value in a script (though I'm not sure why one would want to do this!) and it seems to be working fine. If either of you are sure it's not working as intended (above) then do let me know and I can try and look into it further.

 

Getting a bug in the last few version regarding Displaying Celestial data in debug mode



The orbital paths and Azimuth degree bar are duplicated are mirrored.
Appears the camera Matrix for the debug display is messed up.

 

@callum_simul

Hi,

I was aware that "render in edit mode" would only affect the editor, not the running game. However, it actually does nothing at all on my system - TrueSKY is only rendering when running the game (in the Game Window). In the editor (window) I just see my scene's skybox. Did I miss a setting maybe?

Further, if that's of any help, the "render in edit mode" always checks "itself", even if I turned it off manually. I haven't found out when that happens though.

I am on the free version of Unity 5.3.2 btw.

 

This is with Game view, not Scene view, right? Scene view doesn't do post fx by default.

 

Ok, thanks hippocoder, this explains everything to me now! I was confused by callum_simul's screenshot, but I guess that's just a cubemap in the scene view there...

So what remains is, that the "render in edit mode" checbox turns itself(?) "on" occasionally, but that's a very minor issue if course.

 

I will look into this and get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!

Apologies for any confusion, but yes, it's working if it renders in the game view when checked. I've just tested it myself and it seems running the game re-checks the box if it was unchecked, so thanks for pointing that out. I'll have a look into it. (UPDATE: This has now been fixed, so again stay tuned for the next update!)

With regards to the issue in your Youtube video (the flashing), I have tried to reproduce it with the settings you supplied. Unfortunately I haven't managed to do so, so could I ask you what video card you're using?

Additionally, can I confirm that you are still having issues with crashes and the black screen issue in builds?

Lastly, thanks for pointing out your issues with CloudWidth and km/m values. I've amended the code and the documentation; now any use of "CloudWidth" (or "CloudWidthKm") in the script defaults to km, but you can specify "CloudWidthMetres" to get/set the value in Metres instead.

 

@callum

I just installed the latest version and the transparency issue is still not really fixed. Transparent objects render over the top of everything - like glass or water.
This does not happen in version trueSKY Alpha 4 Unity 5 4.0.1.270

We also are having a problem with Playway Water ignoring fog totally which may also be a part of the transparency issue, but I would dearly like to see this problem solved!

 

Hi TekHK,

We are aware of both of these issues and are working on them as we speak. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Thanks,
Callum

 

@callum_simul

Im currently testing on a GTX780. I will maybe have my hands on a 980 tomorrow - if so, I'll let you know if that changes anything.

And yes, frequent crashes as well as black screens still ocur using truesky 291.

 

Okay well I doubt that is the problem then as that's DX11 compliant. Thank you for letting me know.

We will look into both issues.

Thanks,
Callum

 

Regarding black screens - we just installed an app on a 75" 4k touchscreen running at 60hz using an HDMI to ethernet adapter which can intermittently drop it's signal (although the change is almost imperceptible visually we can hear windows sounds to tell us it has dropped and reconnected) - this has caused black screens requiring an app restart.

It is possible, however remote that the black screen problem could be the monitor cable.

Hope this info helps to pinpoint the problem

 

Hi,

I did some testing with 304 and have some feedback:

• Issue with trueSky being offset from scene window in editor when fwd rendering fixed - yay!
• Issue where trueSky was flipped when MSAA was off and another post processing shader was used fixed - yay!
  
• Issue where transparency rendered above other objects is fixed.
  One question: Now again, transparent objects are rendered above everything else, including trueSky, and thus will not be affected by haze and clouds. I do know why technically that this is a tricky issue and why there is no on-size-fits-all solution, but could you please clarify whether the current state of rendering transparencies is considered to be the final solution, or if you guys are still working on this. In the former case (which would be totally fine with me), I would implement my own solution for my own special case, in the latter I would wait.
• There is now a problem where clouds get rendered in front small mountains at shallow angles, even though they are much farther away.
  
• In general, I feel that when looking at clouds from above they are much more transparent than when looking at them from below or from the side, revealing too much of the terrain. What setting would be the appropriate one to tweak in regards to that? I had some success with DirectLight, but then again the clouds looked much too bright from below.
• Cloud position based on wind seems to be updated only every second or so, resulting in clouds "jumping around", especially when setting higher values for windspeed (still very much within realistic bounds).
  Maybe a hint: I am setting wind via script on the only cloud keyframe in the scene.
• A maybe related question: Using "WindOverride" works as expected, so that I can not set the wind as mentioned before anymore. However, how am I supposed to set the wind then? The (Unity) API does not seem to expose anything "global" for that. Also I would like to ask, which of these two options would result in higher performance (I guess the latter, because there is no interpolation involved)?

Yesterday I also had the opportunity to test on different machines, with some very strange findings:

• Issue with temporary "checkerboard" artifacts emanating from the sun:
  • GTX780 (my own system): frequently, especially when modifying keyframe values via code
    
  • GTX960: sometimes, but not very often
    
  • GTX980Ti: never
• Issue with the sky flashing (as shown in my video some days ago):
  • GTX780: frequently
  • GTX960: sometimes, but not very often
  • GTX980Ti: never
• Issue with either the whole screen or the sky only turning completely black or rendering in variations of fully saturated channels (and happening more often but not exclusively with higher haze values):
  • GTX780: frequently
  • GTX960: never
  • GTX980Ti: never

I guess you can see the pattern here. It seems that almost all the glitches I am experiencing are somehow related to processing power. I believe there is quite some asynchronous stuff going on in trueSky? Maybe something's not "ready" while Unity already goes to the next frame? All just wild guessing of course, but maybe any of the above can help.

I also had my hands on a GTX980 (non TI) based system, where trueSky didn't render anything in any setting. However, that was just a built of my game and not in Editor, so unfortunately I can't tell you anything about log messages. The game was running perfectly with the fallback skybox though, so I'm pretty sure it was some kind of issue in trueSky.

Generally, 304 is a big step forward and I really love the results so far. Thank you, and keep up the good work!

 

Hmmm was just downloading 304 when it dissapeared, it just got re-uploaded there so dated 21 February 2016 17:49 compared to 19 February of the original.

Might have some more fixes included.


UPDATE after testing V304

Well it seems that V304 for me is becoming very unstable for me.
Clouds/environmental are becoming blocky and very low-res in appearance and suffer a lot of tearing.
(Where the clouds are rendered in front of Terrain - Possible low resolution Render Texture is the culprit).
I've made a short video showing some of the problems that are currently hitting me. Running a Nvidia GTX 670.

The camera is suffering tearing while panning and clods appear to be rendering in front of terrain/3d and my models as can be seen during lightning flashes in front of Ship.
Also 3d models are fading in/out in front of clouds.

This is happening in all Modes Forward/Deferred, Gamma/Linear.

UPDATE 2
Appears that V304 hadnt installed correctly. Reimported and most of those issues are gone.
But truesky is only working with a cubemap attached to the camera that makes the whole sky low res as its using a 32x32 cude texture.

 

Small hint:

There is an error in http://docs.simul.co/unity/Clouds.html: parameters are cloudBase and cloudHeight rather than cloudBaseKm and cloudHeightKm.

 

Hi, I'm having some problems with truesky that I hope you can help with:

I've noticed on the unity profiler that after a little bit of runtime, there's an giant number of renderTextures acumulating which result in the app increasing its memory use.

From the profiler it seems these rendertextures are related to the truesky, is this a normal behaviour?