[RELEASED] UniStorm 5.2 - AAA Volumetric Clouds, URP Support, Weather, Sky, Atmospheric Fog, & More!

I've been looking at all the presets of cloudy to partly cloudy to clear sky and I would like the clear sky to look more blue and clear.
Also I would like some clouds to look like cumulus clouds with a slider for denser or liter cover.
see attached link for reference, thanks.

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/224/472321183_a52a138612_o.jpg

 

Yes, i have requested clear skies way back and its still high on my wish list. Current mostly clear don't look very realistic since the clouds are way to "stormy" and not really "good weather clouds". Also a weather type thats simply "clear" would be nice.

 

I guess if they could put a second cloud layer into the system with volume clouds that can resemble cumulus and have the dome thingy be the stratus cloud layer, that could make things more realistic looking. But the second layer would also have to follow a domed plane to make the horizon work.

 

Could the new zones be altered into different biomes? If not could you create a new Biomes option? I would like changing weather (such as snowy or dry) based on the location. Thanks.

 

Tornados. Mile-wide tornados.

 

Sand storm will be nice ,,

 

according to the day-night-time difference where you can easily trigger gameobjects on/off within the incpector (without coding anything) I would like to see this in a more wieder and customizable range.

e.g. NPC's with a behaviour cycle, between hour x and y respawening NPCs an a field doing field work (animations), going home when clock is going 4 pm and sitting near camp fire after 6 pm or something like this.

How is it dont right now? Can it be improved easily so none-coding-creators can just use the daytime in hrs to switch behaviour of NPCs?

more easier the aproach with Zones where ground fog is enabled at some hours a day or water is rising etc. like the ghost appearing stuff u know.

I think it would be great to invest mor time into this approach of puting stuff into the Inspector so we dont need to touch the code.

best regards,
Ray

 

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Please keep them up.

We will try to implement all of these including improved realism, more editor extensions such as; zone weather system and event system, improved performance, new features, and more.

Yes, we have been working an advanced Skyrim like demo. This demo will demonstrate AI using UniStorm's in game time keeping system to perform tasks and move to new destinations depending on the time and/or weather.

Our goal is to create an editor that allows you to create events based of UniStorm's time without having to touch any code. The editor will allow you to set the event type, time variation, or weather type that the event will occur.

 

What i would love to see is the bar that allows you to adjust the amount of time between the day and night.
In the middle of the bar is 50/50 the more to the left is longer nights and more to the right is longer days.

Its good for people who make their game in the area where night is much much longer than day, and so on.

It would be nice to have button advance under it with the ability to adjust such bar to every month of the year.
To make for example winter with longer nights and summer with much longer day.

 

That sounds awesome, just don't forget to release 1.6.5 with the already completed zone weather system in a timely fashion.

 

We will work on this.

 

Here's some new screenshots of the new UniStorm 1.6.5 demo. We have rewritten the cloud shader greatly enhancing realism, shading, and depth. Clouds will also now fade in and out when transitioning between other none precipitation weather types.

A demo video will be posted soon demonstrating AI using UniStorm to do tasks such as work, walk home, and sleep all using UniStorm's in-game time system.

AI using UniStorm's time to perform tasks such as working as a blacksmith during the day:


UniStorm's new cloud shader:

 

Some screenshots of a UniStorm thunder storm showing UniStorm's improved storm cloud shader. UniStorm's 1.6.5 storm clouds will be affected be lightning, have improved shading, realism, and have increased depth.

Some feedback on new shaders would be appreciated.

Evening Storm Shading:


Evening Storm with Lighting Strike:


Night Storm Shading:


Night Storm Shading with Lightning Stirkes:




Day Storm Shading:


Day Storm Shading with Lighting:

 

New lighting in pics above looks good, BHS.

 

Hi!

Im certain this has been asked before, (perhaps by me???) but I forget the answer.

Spawned Players??? I am Instanciating my player when I load my exterior scene (the one with UniStorm in. But as its a prefab, UniStorm loses all the references to the Snow/rain/butterfly shaders and the Camera.

How can I fix this?

Mark

PS: I need to do this because I have many buildings where the interiors are in other scenes. So when the Player comes out a particular door a global Var tels hime where to appear in the Exterior scene.

 

I solved this by starting unistorm paused, making an init function that did the setup of all the unistorm prefabs and put enable=true at the end. This function was then called when spawning the player

 

Thanks for the reply Virror. As I am no coder, or rather, do all my coding in PlayMaker, I will have to rethink your suggestion to that coding model. I think I can do it, As I CAN access all the vars from external scripts, such as UniStorm... Ill just have to be clever to make something that does like you suggest, a simple function that sets it all up, that I can call whenever...

I must say I thought there might be a cleverer way, something along the lines of simply making a prefab of the UNistorm editor that looked for the Player prefab that is spawned...and ... wait...
Could this work actually...?

Is it not just a simple matter of instanciating the Player BEFORE UniStorm? So that the prefabs exist when UniStorm looks for them? Maybe i just have to disable UNiStorm til the Player is in (I do a Black camera fade on scene change anyhow)???

Would this work? Dont have time to check now, day time is family time, night time is Unity!

Mark

 

MORE ON USING UNISTORM WITH A SPAWNED PLAYER

Could I chuck all the UniStorm Prefabs (that should follow the Player) including Camera into a new Game Object, this could remain in the scene, and NOT be spawned, use these to reference the UniStorm script, THEN on instanciation of the player character, move this Game Object to the location of the Player, and make it a child of the Player?

Would that work?

EDIT: I tried the above, and it didn't work due to PlayMaker not allowing me to make something a child of a Prefab, not sure if this is a PM limitation or a Unity one.. however...

For those that want to the same, I found a pretty good solution!
I went the opposite way. I still made a separate Game Object for the UniStorm Stuff that needs to be carried by your character, and named it UniStorm_Player_Stuff.
THEN instead of trying to make this a child of my player, I used the PlayMaker version (although its totally based on a standard Unity script) SmoothCameraFollow. Where instead of a camera I used the UniStorm_Player_Stuff Game object. I set all the lagging and smoothing to 0, and now that game object just follows the character like a 3rd person camera does!

So Although I think this is a good solution, I would just like to get the confirmation from BHS that its an OK thing to do... It may not be nesasary to use this script something simpler my suffice, but it works



cheers

Mark

 

Hi I don't know if this is already part of the package or if someone else has requested it,

I would like to have a function where I can allocate music themes / songs to specific weather, maybe even several per weather type that can randomly come on from a predefined list?
thanks again for your amazing asset.

 

If everything is working good then it is a good solution. Double check that there are no missing components.

This could be done now using a custom script and accessing UniStorm. We are working on an event script that will allow you to do all sorts of things based off time. You will simply set the event time and the event type and it will handle it accordingly. This is a feature coming with 1.6.5. Until then the example below will work. You will have to call UniStorm within the start function by looking for the UniStorm editor and script.

Something such as:

Code (csharp):

1. var uniStormSystem : GameObject;
2.  
3. function Start () {
4.  
5.   uniStormSystem = GameObject.Find("UniStormParent_JS/UniStormSystemEditor");
6.  
7. }
8.  
9. if (uniStormSystem.GetComponent(UniStormWeatherSystem_JS).hourCounter >= 8  uniStormSystem.GetComponent(UniStormWeatherSystem_JS).hourCounter <= 18)
10. {
11.      //Play song here
12. }

 

I'm experiencing a bug where I've made a duplicate Prefab of the UniStormPrefab_C#, and then when I add that copied prefab to my scene, when I hook up the Weather Effect Systems and the Camera Object in the Inspector to the UniStormWeatherSystem_C Script, upon pressing the play button all of the weather effects and the camera turn to "none" and then after I stop playing the fields are left as none again.

Any idea as to what's happening? It's unusla because the scene where I created the prefab doesn't get this error, but when I open up a new scene, drag my new UniStorm prefab into the scene and hook up my player prefab (the exact same player prefab as in the other scene), I get these errors. Basically UniStorm won't work in this new scene even though I hook up the player exactly the same.

The error in particular is:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. UnassignedReferenceException: The variable cameraThing of 'UniStormWeatherSystem_C' has not been assigned.
3. You probably need to assign the cameraThing variable of the UniStormWeatherSystem_C script in the inspector.
4. UniStormWeatherSystem_C.WeatherForecaster () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_C.cs:2918)
5. UniStormWeatherSystem_C.Update () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_C.cs:499)
6.  

I'm confident it has something to do with the Editor script but I have no idea what in particular.

 

It would seem that the simple act of draggin in the UniStormParent_C# prefab into my scene, re-naming it, and dragging it back into the Project Hierarchy view to create a new prefab of it breaks something in it's code. For instance, if I drag the UniStormParent_C# prefab into an empty scene, I can start the game in Day or Night or Evening and the system will start the scene at the time I specify. If I choose to "Break Prefab Instance" everything still works fine. But as soon as I drag that UniStormParent_C# scene object (it's broken still) into the Project Hierarchy to create a new prefab of it, I can no longer specify what time of day or night the game will start at. It just jumps to the same time every time (midnight). If I break prefab instance of my new UniStormParent_C#_new prefab that's in the scene, the Starting Time of Day can now be edited once again. Is this a known behaviour/bug? It seems silly that I cannot create a prefab of the weather system so that I can drag it (with it's changed values) into a new scene, or I can modify it and add things such as different cloud types, and then create a prefab of it to move into other scenes.

 

Im very interested in the answer to this too, as your method is/was the exact way I was planning to be able to change UniStorm Settings quickly, to jump from one weather/time of day setup to another!

Specifically, I start my game in the evening. after a pre-determined event has occurred (completion of a tutorial quest) the time runs till night, then stops (continuous night) this works fine..
BUT if I go inside a building (and load a scene for the interior that does NOT contain UniStorm) then leave the building to return to the exterior, I need the weather/Time of day to now be night-time. But UniStorm will start from the beginning again, of course.

I could SET all the settings, or I could NOT destroy UniStorm on loading the Interior, just keep it somewhere far away!!
But I thought a better way was to enable a prefab of UniStorm that already had all the correct settings, but now you say this doesnt work???

Whats the best way to do this BHS?

MArk

 

Hi BHS,

Thanks for UniStorm, and for your clearly attentive support. I've got a quick question.

I'm trying to modify various aspects of UniStorm to work with my set up, which has fast moving flying player (in first person). I'm largely having some luck, but am currently stuck trying to push the horizon out. As I fly around my landscape at altitude, the horizon is visible as a circle below my player's view. I was wondering how I could push that out to be closer to the 15,000 units distance that my camera is set to. I may need to change the height of the horizon too.

Cheers,
Bidds

 

To me, they do look more realistic. I would love to see a screenshot of the lightning in the clouds.

Any chance that the scripts (or unitypackage) from the AI demo you mentioned could be made available?

 

I was wondering whether there have been any further developments with the snow shader. If I remember correctly there were some issues with this before, and so I am wondering if this has been addressed since or is going to be in the 1.6.5 release?

 

I mentioned this before in this thread, I would like the clear or partly cloudy sky to look more vibrant in coloring, as of now it's all just "Skyrim like", ominous and dark.
As a reference of what I would like to achieve is here

 

Hello, I'm using the same terrain you're using in your youtube demos [medieval environment], but I cannot get it setup right. Everything is way too bright, and I can't get the horizon position correct. Also, does this interfere with the original skybox that's used? Do you have any tips, settings, that can be used for this particular environment?

 

I recently purchased Unistorm and when i import the assets into my project it gives me this error:

Assets/Standard Assets/Character Controllers/Sources/Scripts/FPSInputController.js(1,21): BCE0018: The name 'CharacterMotor_UniStorm' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.CharacterInfo'?

Any way to fix this?

EDIT: Nvm fixed it.

 

Love the screenshots of the new UniStorm cloud system. It looks so much better.

 

Well after fixing that one i ran into another problem, Whenever i start the runtime a bunch of errors appear in the console:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
UniStormWeatherSystem_JS.WeatherForecaster () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_JS.js:3029)
UniStormWeatherSystem_JS.Update () (at Assets/UniStorm/Scripts/UniStormWeatherSystem_JS.js:621)

Also the system causes alot of trouble for my UFPS setup and prevents it from turning into certain directions.

 

You have to break the prefab from within your scene after you have already placed it and it is in the hierarchy. Then set the settings to what you want and everything should be working. We have tested this and we can create custom prefabs just fine. Let us know if this works.

See above answer.

Use Unity's default scale tool to increase the distance of the horizon. You can also increase the fade so it's not so dark via the horizon color tools (use the bottom back and white bar to adjust the fade)

We have lightning screenshots. The second series of screenshots show the cloudy shading with and without lighting strikes.

We can make a tutorial video for setting up schedules like we have done.

For the AI system we used RAIN {Indie}. One of our NPCs consist of walking to and eating at their table (8am), walking to work and working (9am - 6pm), walking back to eating location and eating (7pm), then walking to their house to going to sleep (8pm). The hours are completely adjustable and the NPC repeats the schedule. This is similar to that of Oblivion or Skyrim. We plan on having several NPCs doing on different schedules all using UniStorm's in-game time.

We have a video demostrating this coming soon.

The only issues are that Unity doesn't really allow accessing the Unity terrain. This means we have to hack the original terrain shader by replacing it with a custom one. It's still too unstable to add to UniStorm.

Also, we aren't the developers of the terrain snow shader. We have tried contacting the developer about the problems and they never replied. What we do want to do is the snow shader support to items, everything but the terrain objects, so people can still have dynamic snow.

We're working on it.

If everything is too bright simply decrease the sun intensity in the UniStorm Editor setting. Also, make sure you only have our sun in your scene you don't need any other directional light sources. The horizon is preference really. We adjust it so it's slightly above our mountains or hills. It shouldn't be too high. We tend to level it with our terrains.

You need to add the Global Fog Image effect to your camera even if you don't have Unity Pro.

The developer of the UFPS system has supplied help on setting up UniStorm with their system. Look through their online documentation or Unity forum thread for help regarding that. We are using this exact system with our new demo and everything is working great.

 

Thank you for your reply! May I ask what causes the requirement to break the prefab once it is in the scene? I'm curious to learn the reason.

Thanks

 

Yeah sure I understand, I contacted the developer as well and they basically said what you just said before, so it's a performance thing I guess.

I have another question, is it possible to adjust the length of day and the length of night independently? For example if I want the day to be 1 hour, but the night to be only 30 mins; or if I wanted to have only day or only night all the time, is this possible?

 

Is the any tutorials on how to make events like the lights switching on/off?

 

It's a Unity thing. You can't break the prefab unless you're in the hierarchy. If you did it in the project tab you would be break the prefab itself.

Yes, they are already included in the current version of UniStorm. It's in the folders UniStorm>Demo>Example Scripts. The script name is InGameEventExample.

 

Thanks

 

I have another question, is it possible to adjust the length of day and the length of night independently? For example if I want the day to be 1 hour, but the night to be only 30 mins; or if I wanted to have only day or only night all the time, is this possible?

 

I already mention about this feature few pages back Hamesh81 .

 

You're right, I missed that. Hopefully it will be included

 

Yes i also hope it will be included it is important to me to simulate Winter and summer much more specifically and without time control over day and night it will be very hard.

 

MAKING UNISTORM POSSIBLE WITH INSTANCIATED PLAYERS

I have earlier in this thread talked about my need to instanciate my player character. Firstly its a multiplayer, secondly I go to other scenes when the player gos into buildings, scenes that dont contain UniStorm.

I THOUGHT I had it cracked, by putting all the UniStorm "player bits and bobs" including camera, into a seperate Game Object then, by using the "PlayMaker" version of the Unity smoothFollow script, I had this game object attatch its self to the instanciated player and follow it... good enough.

However, I really dont know what I did that time, I thought it was working, but now it isn't. Don't know if theres an error with the script, but the dummy game object immediately just rotates by 90degrees on play, and all the UniStorm bits are now NOT placed over the player, but on their side infront.. So it snows in front of me.. hmmm..

Anyway, this is a long way of asking, is there a better, simple way to do this? I need a small script that simply parents the player to the UniStormPlayerBits Game objects, and drags it around...
Im unfortunately not a programmer.

Mark

 

Why don't you post the "follower" script here so we can see how it works. The 90 degree rotate on play probably has nothing to do with UniStorm itself. Alternatively writing your own "follow me" script is super simple. Search for some tutorials and I'm sure you can find it.

 

Hey, been looking at UniSnow for a little while now. I like it's features and such but the one thing holding me of from buying is the fact that dynamic snow is disabled. Is there any kind of ETA on when you will bring it back?


Thanks

 

We will work on a script that can have UniStorm follow a player. For instantiated players you would simply find the camera, and the other gameobjects UniStorm uses, and apply them in the start function. We know several people who have done this just fine, but if you're not a programmer maybe we could provide you with an example when we have the time.

The dynamic snow shader for objects is coming back as of UniStorm version 1.7. This will shader none terrain objects like that of Skyrim. However, the terrain snow shader is still being worked. The terrain snow shader has to hack and replace the standard Unity terrain shader which causes problems for some. It has to be hacked because Unity doesn't really allow scripts to access the terrain system without hacking it. We also aren't the developers of the terrain snow shader. We have been trying to contact them for a fix but as of right now it's too unreliable.

With our new zone weather examples the terrain snow shader shouldn't be an issue because you will be able to trigger snow areas. For example, if your terrain has mountain areas that have snow textures on them. When the player walks into the snow area the zone area can change the temperature below freezing so it will snow, if there's precipitation happening at that time. If there isn't precipitation at that time, when there is, it will only snow not rain. This will eliminate the chance for rain in mountain zones. This is exactly how Skyrim does their weather.

 

Hi All,

Firstly, I'd like to thank BHS for making a fantastic product that I will definitely be using in my project. Frankly, I think it's potential is SO good that Unity should buy it and incorporate it--but that's another discussion.

Here's my issue (and my apologies if this has already been answered):

Heavy Cloud Fog Layer
Heavy Cloud Main
Heavy Clould Outter Layer

all have a nasty seam running directly overhead (at the apex). Is this an orientation problem, or a settings problem? Or perhaps is it because I'm not running the Pro version of Unity? The rest of the package is really, really well done, so I can't see this as purposefully left in.

Thanks in advance,
Jim

Edit: Actually...I just looked back a page and noticed that there's a new version in the works that may fix this issue. If so, you can ignore this post. Thanks again.

 

It's just that the texture isn't painted perfectly seamless. If you open it in any image editing program and apply a canvas offset you can see that it's not perfect. You could clean it up for yourself or wait to see if it gets updated with a new release.

 

Thanks, glad you like UniStorm.

This isn't an issue, I'll explain:

I think your cloud domes are too high, move all of them down more. The cloud domes should be centered in the midle of your terrain so the bottom part is under your terrain. This should if you issue. Also test the demo and make sure it works ok.

 

Spot-on. My CloudParent was way too high. Thanks for the fast and accurate response...and do keep up the good work.

 

That would be GREAT!

Please bare in mind that instanciated players, will often get a name assigned them, one can make a guess at it (First Person Controller (clone) for example).

Regards

Mark