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[NEW PATCH] uNature - GPU, Interactable Grass. Interactable Trees, MultiThreading and more!

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by ElroyUnity, Apr 29, 2016.

?

Pre-release Integrations

Poll closed Nov 29, 2016.
  1. TerrainComposer2

    43.1%
  2. GAIA

    54.9%
  3. GENA

    49.0%
  4. World Creator

    13.7%
  5. World Streamer

    37.3%
  6. Map Magic

    27.5%
  7. Landscape Builder

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  8. SkyMaster ( Weather )

    7.8%
  9. InfiniGrass, AFS, DX11 (Integration will provide built-in shader support)

    33.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Uhmm interesting, will look into that once the map magic fix is done. Note that there is a multi threaded method of doing it tho
     
  2. MarkusGod

    MarkusGod

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    well, you can split inetantiation between multiple frames with frametime limit.
     
  3. Salja

    Salja

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    Hey i buy uNature 5 Mins ago i install and have a error

    Screenshot_7.png
     
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  4. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Hey,
    Switch "Tuple" with "TupleSet" :)
     
  5. Salja

    Salja

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    Thanks and the error about the Plugin ? command out the using Plugins; ?
     
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  6. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Yep!
    Sorry for that, fixes are coming!
     
  7. Salja

    Salja

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    Thanks NP :D
     
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  8. MarkusGod

    MarkusGod

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    Hey one more brief question, there sould be nothing that prevents working uNature with Critias tree system, or any chances to get (Speed)Tree optimization in the next huge uNature update? (I have not tested yet just asking.)
     
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  9. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    No, should be just fine! :)

    Sorry probably not :/ probably will be in another big update (free update 99%) later on :)
     
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  10. Stormy102

    Stormy102

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    If you want SpeedTree optimisations, look into a material atlaser - there are some on the asset store. These will reduce STs from using 5 to 1. From all accounts it works very well (I haven't used any myself, but I know I will need to when I need to start grinding out those optimisations!)
     
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  11. MarkusGod

    MarkusGod

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    You mean combine ST atlases to one Big atlas?
     
  12. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Ok guys I have a test version ready for MapMagic. If you are interested message me with your invoice! :)
     
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  13. Stormy102

    Stormy102

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  14. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Just a bump regarding the MapMagic fix -> seems to work so far so well from the current testers feedback, i need more testers! if you owe uNature and MapMagic, feel free to message me with your uNature invoice and I will send it over. I will hopefully submit it to the asset store this week after verifying it works perfectly!
     
  15. AndyNeoman

    AndyNeoman

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    Hi Elroy,

    is there a way to do this for all prototypes like the global wind setting instead of having to loop through all prototypes?

    I am also trying to access the tint because I am having a problem with the grass colour staying the same at night and it sticks out in the scene.
     
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  16. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Uhmm not at the moment unfortunately :/.

    The tint would be FoliageCore_MainManager.instance.foliageGlobalTint :)
     
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  17. AndyNeoman

    AndyNeoman

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    Thanks for that, I was searching tint but for some reason it was not showing.

    I thought I had found global wind -

    uNature.Core.FoliageClasses.FoliageDB.instance.globalWindSettings.windSpeed is that something else?

    Thanks, found the tint. now for an algorithm to convert from unistorm time of day...
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2017
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  18. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Oh yea, you can change the wind globally but the rest are per prototype :)
     
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  19. AndyNeoman

    AndyNeoman

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    Brilliant :) btw my tint hack gives quite a good pbr approximation for the grass. It matches pretty well with the other foliage/trees I have in the scene. it will do until uNature 2.0 anyway :). I actually get the colour from the light (sun) unistorm.
     
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  20. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Thats awesome! Quite a good idea. Might make an unistorm integration for that in the new version of uNature :)
     
  21. ZoneOfTanks

    ZoneOfTanks

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    +1 vote ;)
    it shall be awesome!
     
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  22. helgarddebarros

    helgarddebarros

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    When I import uNature into my project I am getting this error, is it something I need to worry about?
     

    Attached Files:

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  23. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Uhmmm nope don't worry about it :)
     
  24. gecko

    gecko

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    Hi,
    I'm doing some initial tests with uNature to check performance. In my test scene, I painted three types of billboard grass in an area -- pretty dense, but some parts of my terrain will need that. I set detail distance at 100 and density at 1, ran it and took a screenshot. Then I set up uNature and converted the grass. Kept all the default settings except toggled off Touch Bending (might want it, but I understand it can affect performance). No shadow casting at all. Ran it and took a screenshot. Both of those are attached. I was surprised that uNature was notably worse than Unity grass, and the color was off as well. And the grass placement is a bit odd -- like in rows? (That was more noticeable when I slid the density slider down.)

    So I must be doing something wrong. Any ideas or suggestions?

    thanks
    Dave

    terrain unity.jpg terain unature no touch.jpg
     
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  25. ZoneOfTanks

    ZoneOfTanks

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    It looks like grass LODs. Actually LODs are not so good in current version.

    We did our internal tests and DirectX 11 Grass Shader asset - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/36335 - has 2-3x more FPS than this asset. But It needs to be hand painted on map, while this asset takes data from Unity terrain and does not require any additional work. In our test it works best if you are on the ground level or close to it. If you need to fly above ground it works about the same as Unity terrain in FPS.

    We like how this asset integrates with Unity terrain and terrain generation tools. And it delivers some extra FPS out of box. But in some cases FPS is very close to Unity standard terrain FPS since it does not use some mega advanced grass shader.

    We hope that author continue to develop this technology since it is the right way to go.
    All we need is some more optimisations and some extra FPS in new version.
    Also it shall be good to have option to use external vegetation shaders, for example from DirectX 11 Grass Shader asset or ability to create our own. Then this system really shall rock :)

    P.S.

    If somebody wants to try free alternative - Critias Grass System - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/97879 - works only with speedTree grass.
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2017
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  26. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Oh wow, thanks for your testing, will have a look at that. Good catch!
    Also, try to test on a standalone build too, might give more accurate results. [Also note that billboard grass is a lot cheaper than normal grass and looks worse in most cases, try to disable it)

    I almost have some stuff to show from the new uNature version, once I have most of the base features implemented I will do the same test with both unity terrain and the dx11 shader, will hopefully get some better results :)
     
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  27. theLittleSettler

    theLittleSettler

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    @gecko, you do see the difference in density there though. It looks like you set up unature to draw far more, at least if you go by verts, and the apparent scale of the billboards...?

    I assumed there is a setting for some random variance but never actually checked. Might be a good idea to default with something more organic (random, but distributed well).

    Elroy...did you find source of the vertex normal issue? I was going to wait for the big update before really using unature, but changed my mind.
     
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  28. gecko

    gecko

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    @theLittleSettler: I'm not sure if it's drawing too many or not -- it's default settings. And when I slide down the Density slider, I get fewer grasses--but they're very obviously in rows, looks pretty bad.It also seems to put several different grass objects at the same spot, which looks a lot weird and a lot worse than distributing them randomly.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2017
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  29. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Hey -> Could you remind me about it again? sorry :)
     
  30. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    It seems like you are -

    1) using a very small value for width and height on the prototype
    2) using a low density
    3) using very bad configured lods
    4) using a very small noise value

    If its non of the above, could you send me your testing project? I would like to take a look, there might be indeed an issue there :)
     
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  31. gecko

    gecko

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    I disabled LODs (hadn't set anything up for them) and increased the width noise -- that helped a lot visually, and that let me reduce Density to about .33, which increased performance a bit -- but still worse than the built-in grass shader. And the colors are overly bright, even though the healthy and dry colors are light gray. Is there something I can tweak on that, or do I need to open the textures in photoshop? And are there more things I can do for performance? I guess I can look into LODs...
     
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  32. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Well LODs are a big part of uNature, they improve performance by a huge amount. Without it its like the unity grass with some extra features (being a gpu grass)

    There are some issues with the colors for sure, figuring them out now and will submit them with the map magic integration fix in the next week or so (hopefully).

    Regarding the new uNature -> Made some good progress, I have a new algorithm for generating patches and its much faster (generation and rendering wise)

    Will keep working on it and show some pictures soon :)
     
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  33. ZoneOfTanks

    ZoneOfTanks

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    ;) awesome news!
    If you need a tester - I want to be! :)
     
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  34. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    hehe absolutely! I will start the beta phase in the next month hopefully when everything is working. I have so many stuff planned for this version :)
     
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  35. grujicbr

    grujicbr

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    Hi,

    I'm trying out unature and I think it is pretty awesome so far outside of one major issue. When the terrain is made, by default it is 20km * 20km large, but if the size of your unity terrain is actually not that large (lets sa 1km * 1km), it will actually create all these nodes and increase the size of your scene for no reason.

    What i'm seeing is my file size going from 0.5mb to 55mb from simply adding this to my scene. As far as generation goes, it should NOT create all these extra nodes if there is no data in them... its a total waste of space in the scene.

    Is it possible to receive a patch that actually addresses this?
     
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  36. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Ok so here's the situation ->
    The nodes that you are seeing are basically a grid, it provides the ability to populate the scene without using any components on your objects etc.
    Obviously as you've noted it has disadvantages. I have a patch that reduces the scene size but will require you to save the maps every time you change the grass (Was going to automate it but now working on the new reworked uNature which no longer uses that system and like you mentioned, it will be per-surface instead of grid based).

    Send me your invoice privately if you want the experimental fixed version. A bigger fix will come in the future with a much much better version of uNature ;)
     
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  37. grujicbr

    grujicbr

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    Sent, check your messaghes
     
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  38. ZoneOfTanks

    ZoneOfTanks

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    Too much promises too little actually to have.
    We all gonna die from old age before something new is out here :confused:
    What I found is new very promising foliage system - https://forum.unity.com/threads/wip-vegetation-studio.479244
    It seems like much more professional and awesome system than this.
     
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  39. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    The promised version is the same one I promised before, not much I can do against time unfortunately as it takes time to develop the system from scratch.

    From now on going to stop mentioning the new version until I have something to show as there's no point promising it all over again like you said. Thanks for your feedback :)
     
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  40. deglet

    deglet

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    I have a major problem with Unature; I deleted it from my project but I have this error appearing "the reference script on this behaviour(game object 'default chunck : 7168.0, 0.0) is missing!"
    I haven't any of those objects in my scene, nor i have any unature asset.
    What is it ? How I remove it ?
     
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  41. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Hey,
    On the old version the foliage manager was hidden, what version were you using?
     
  42. deglet

    deglet

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    Indeed, I think it's an old version (can't find which one). Do you know how i can remove this hidden foliage manager ?
     
  43. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Add this to your project: https://hastebin.com/colafuneki.cs and then click window/uNature/Helpers/Remove Manager.

    Let me know if it works!
     
  44. deglet

    deglet

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    Unfortunetly, it didn't...
     
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  45. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Try this: https://hastebin.com/jusebegowe.cs
    Just to make sure its clear, make sure to click on it while in the scene.
     
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  46. deglet

    deglet

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    It don't fix it, in my hierarchy "gameobject_ColliderCache" and "Spawned_Gameobjects" keep reapparing
     
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  47. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Those two are not from uNature as those names dont appear in the system, must be from a different one.
    Did the error about the chunk thing disappeared?
     
  48. deglet

    deglet

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    My mistake those two are something else, but i cant manage to fix the error even with the script. Is the foliage manager in my game files, can i delete it on the explorer ?
     
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  49. ElroyUnity

    ElroyUnity

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    Thats weird... those two scripts should have fixed it. Did you run it while being inside the "problematic" scene?
     
  50. deglet

    deglet

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    Yes, i amre-importing my project in a new unity project. I will lose one hour, but it will remove the problem. Thanks to you, you are great !
     
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