[Released] Vegetation Studio Pro

Ok, I managed to figure it out.

InstancedIndirect. This is quite buggy in edit mode.

The documentation available says:


"At release only". But does not explain what is supposed to happens in play mode inside the editor.

It started working just fine and, suddenly, it is not working anymore.

What is the supposed workflow to use Instanced Indirect??

 

I think when the instanced indirect is not configured correctly in the shader you will see some weird behavior. When I didn't have it configured correctly I didn't see the meshes in my in editor Game View, so while it says release only, I does seem like it tries to use instanced indirect in editor. Are you sure your shader is configured correctly to support Instanced Indirect?

 

Hi there, is anyone able to help me figure out what I'm missing?

I'm trying to paint on meshes. My meshes have the terrain scripts and mesh colliders on them and they have been added to VSP. I've created a vegetation package/biome and added my prefabs. Mesh and VSP layers are both set to default. When I try to hand paint on the meshes nothing appears. The VSP brush appears and "flows" correctly over the meshes but no prefabs get placed. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

Well.. they are assets from NatureManufacture, I really hope they are properly set up..

 

Does it say on the shader product page that they are configured to work with VSP instanced indirect? Because as I understand it, the shader must include some specific #pragmas/shader lines targeting VSP. Also VSP has changed the requirements for these shader lines, and that is not documented very well (for example, the tutorial on the VSP github page that explains how to add instanced indirect support to shaders is for an older version of VSP).

If you want to double check to make sure they are properly configured, search your VSP folder structure for a file called VSPro_Indirect.cginc or VSPro_HDIndirect.cginc (or possibly something else but similar).

This file may also be included in the same folder as your NatureManufacturer shader file.

Open your shader and look for a #include that references the .cginc file. If it's not there than the shader is not configured for vegetation studio. You can add it yourself. I use the absolute path of the file so that I don't need to make a duplicate of it.

#include "Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/Shaders/Resources/GrassShader/VSPro_HDIndirect.cginc"

You also need two #pragma linesl. Here are mine:

#pragma instancing_options procedural:setupVSPro nolightmap nolightprobe forwardadd renderinglayer assumeuniformscaling

#pragma multi_compile_instancing

everything after setupVSPro is optional, do a google search for instancing_options and you will find a list of what these mean. What's really important is that the name after procedural: (in this case setupVSPro) matches the name of the method in the .cginc file you found earlier, because from what I've seen, Lennart has changed the name of this method over time (previously it was just called setup).

 

Hello, I have hand-painted all my foliage using VSP on to meshes. I can't seem to be able to get them to occlusion cull.

All prefabs have Occlusion static enabled and Camera Culling mode is Frustum. Is anyone able to tell me what I may have missed? Cheers

C

 

Thanks man! I will try that and post the results soon !

 

HDRP WIND / INTERACTION PreSales Question
(Though I'm happy to hear from any experienced VSP user)

My Desired Use Case:
I am working in HDRP. I wish to adopt a tool (such as VSP) for implementing wind and touch interaction on custom vegetation meshes.

• My Question Relating To Working With Custom Meshes:
  
  • I've read that VSP requires custom meshes to be converted for compatibility with VSP wind & interaction. Is this conversion process built-in to Vegetation Studio Pro or does it require the use of an external DCC?
    
• My Question Relating To "Listed Compatible Vegetation Asset Packs"

• Your website hosts a list of mesh assets which are compatible with Vegetation Studio (Pro). Found here: https://www.awesometech.no/index.php/grass/
  
  Not all of these assets (i.e. SpeedTree products such as Desktop Ground Cover Package) is wind / interaction compatible within HDRP on their own. My question is this: Would Desktop Ground Cover Package be wind / touch interaction compatible when used within Vegetation Studio Pro?

​

Can Developer or any experienced VSP user provide insights into the workflow steps (and any limitations) that are inherent with VSP and HDRP wind / interaction when using custom vegetation meshes?

 

Hi,
I’m having issues with black billboards in Vegetation Studios Pro. I can increase the “Mesh Tree Distance” to get rid of them but it effects performance quite heavily especially on builds. Any solutions you can think of? Thanks!

 

I believe this occurs when the billboard generator can't find the image to use on the tree material because it's shader is using a non-standard property name for the main input image.
I renamed my tree material shader to use "_MainTex" from "_Albedo" for the main image input and now billboards are generated ok, because that's what the Unity standard shader calls the main texture input so VSP knows to look for that.

However, I think Lennart is adding more commonly used property names to the billboard creator code to get round this issue, but perhaps this hasn't made it into release yet, (or the property name for your shader isn't one of the ones added to the valid list).

 

Hi, first post here. Totally loving this asset.

I have a question regarding origin shift and vegetation altitude rules. I have my own origin shifter that is also shifting in the vertical and it seems that the altitude rules dont take that shift into account. Is there a way to get that working? I dont mind hacking away myself if necessary, any pointers where to start looking?

Update: Managed to get it working by adding a few lines. Happy to share the solution but its probably not ok to share VSP code snippets here?

Update 2: Actually got it working without any changes in code, just had to get the terrain extents right. If i figured it out right, i have to set the terrain area center to inverse of my origin shift.

 

It seem that when I'm using Instanced Rendering, things appear darker. It's the same prefab but one is created from a gameobject. I tried switching to Normal Rendering and it works, does anyone know why this happen? Thanks

 

Try turning off instancing for the rock and see if it fixes.
I know that I can't use instancing on everything, only certain objects that are set up for it. I have weird issues that come up when the object isn't set for instancing.

 

I've a similar problem to this with Amplify Impostors:
The trees get drawn, but the shadow is always at camera position and also moving with it.
When turning Instanced Indirect to Instanced, the impostors are showing as expected.
I've done the steps as you suggested:
- copied the VSPro_HDIndirect.cginc to the folder where the shaders are
- added the 3 lines to every Pass:

// compile directives
#include "VSPro_HDIndirect.cginc"
#pragma instancing_options procedural:setupVSPro
#pragma multi_compile_instancing

No errors shown, and Refreshed the prefab, but the shadows are still moving with the camera and get shown or not depending on the camera angle.
For all who would like testing, I've used the amplify OctahedronImpostor shader.

I'm thankful for any help.

 

Hi there!

Just want to know if there's a way to paint trees using a brush, like the default Unity system (or better: like UE4 where you can select many foliage to paint at the same time).

Also, is there any way to set a rule to control the space left between trees? In some cases, trees are spawning one inside other or too close.

I've read the documentation but dind't find anything that answer this

Thanks!

 

Not with this tool. You will still need to use a prefab painter to do that. Try YAPP, it's free. It can do multiple objects and place in groups as well as many other options.
Link in their forum.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/free-yapp-yet-another-prefab-painter-open-source-github.782483/

 

Does this work on Nintendo Switch?

 

Posted in discord, but also wanted to check with the community here. I recently upgraded my project from 2020.1.17 to 2020.3.13. After the upgrade, the performance tanked only on scenes that run VSP, it seems to be related to instance indirect or burst/jobs but only in builds, editor runs as expected. Was wondering if anyone else has upgraded and noticed a build degradation in performance?

 

VSP made this easy

It's just a single Biome with 2 trees, 2 plants and include texture rules on them for the 2 grassy textures.

 

@LennartJohansen Recently updated to the newest version of VSP and suddenly all of my references to VSP in other scripts no longer work and I haven't seen anything mentioning this in any documentation. None of them seem to be able to reference VSP anymore. Anyone else have this issue after updating?

I'm on Unity 2020.3 and hadn't had any issue prior so I hope I just missed something important or I'm just blind right now.

I'm guessing it's something related to this:

As I get an incompatibility error for both of these assemblies after updating:


Removing the constraints, obviously, also do not work either. I've also tried a fresh install of VSP and have had the same results.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

 

I had the same problem. I solved it by adding the value "VSP_PACKAGES" under "Edit -> Project Settings -> Player -> Scripting Define Symbols" with the plus button.

 

Hi whenever I add a vegetation mask I get a nullref

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationStudio.VegetationStudioManager.Instance_RemoveVegetationMask (AwesomeTechnologies.BaseMaskArea maskArea) (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/Manager/VegetationStudioManager_VegetationMasks.cs:52)
3. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationStudio.VegetationStudioManager.RemoveVegetationMask (AwesomeTechnologies.BaseMaskArea maskArea) (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/Manager/VegetationStudioManager_VegetationMasks.cs:20)
4. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationMaskArea.UpdateVegetationMask () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/VegetationMasks/VegetationMaskArea.cs:79)
5. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationMaskEditor.SetMaskDirty () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Editor/VegetationMasks/Editor/VegetationMaskEditor.cs:186)
6. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationMaskEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Editor/VegetationMasks/Editor/VegetationMaskEditor.cs:133)
7. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationMaskAreaEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Editor/VegetationMasks/Editor/VegetationMaskAreaEditor.cs:26)
8. UnityEditor.UIElements.InspectorElement+<>c__DisplayClass59_0.<CreateIMGUIInspectorFromEditor>b__0 () (at <0fdaf67e8e744beea25e77915c19f81b>:0)
9. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr, Boolean&)
10.  

basically it seem to be saying that the BillboardCellQuadTree is null.

I'm using Vegtation Studio Pro 1.45 and HDRP 10.2+
Worth noting is that I'm using MapMagic2 for spawning some of the vegetation indirectly instanced

EDIT:
Figured out the issue! I had to disable the original VSP that wasn't being used and hence hadn't setup the VegetationCellQuadTree.

I've ran into another issue now though.. I can mask my VSP runtime spawned grass but not my VSP trees which are spawned through MM2. (Both render modes are Instanced Indirect). Do you have a solution for it? I really need masks to work

 

Im getting a similar error:

Code (text):

1.  
2. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
3. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationStudio.VegetationStudioManager.Instance_RemoveBiomeMask (AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.Biomes.PolygonBiomeMask maskArea) (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/Manager/VegetationStudioManager_Biomes.cs:102)
4.  

I had to clear everything out of my Library because Unity was freezing on start, and then this started happening. I deleted the VS object hierarchy and recreated it, and it does the same thing. But now it also says this:

Code (text):

1.  
2. ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
3. Parameter name: shader
4. UnityEngine.Material..ctor (UnityEngine.Shader shader) (at <028e4d71153d4ed5ac6bee0dfc08aa3b>:0)
5. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.VegetationItemModelInfo.CreateBillboardMaterial () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/VegetationSystemPro/VegetationItemModelInfo.cs:619)
6. AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.VegetationItemModelInfo..ctor (AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.VegetationItemInfoPro vegetationItemInfo, AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.EnvironmentSettings environmentSettings, System.Collections.Generic.List`1[T] windSamplerList, System.Int32 cameraCount, AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.VegetationRenderSettings vegetationRenderSettings) (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/VegetationSystemPro/VegetationItemModelInfo.cs:485)
7.  

I have VSP Version 1.4.5（current）installed.

If I click on "Debug" in the VSP script, the editor panel totally breaks and becomes unusable.

BTW, the https://www.awesometech.no/index.php/home/vegetation-studio site is not up. I assume this is known.

Follow up: I deleted all the files and re-imported everything, and re-created the objects, and now it works.

 

So you're not going to explain how you got it working. You're just going to mention a video that you don't link. Very cool.

 

I'm planning to create a large terrain (around 20km * 20km) using the mountain environment asset by NatureManufacture for a VR game using URP. Before I buy this asset, reckon I can get a decent enough framerate? Obviously that depeneds on the specs, but looking for other people's experiences.

 

I think that in terms of frame performance it is the best there is currently. There are also other systems that are much more up-to-date, more up-to-date. This product seems "dead", there are no evolutions.

I have land of 72km * 72km and it renders fast. Of course ... you have to get the settings right.

I'm migrating to Nature Renderer and it seems to be doing well too. In addition to being more up-to-date, more up-to-date, and it is compatible with many other assets

And if you want to work with this product (VS) you have to use Discord. For this forum they do not attend.

 

Interesting. Have you tried your 72km * 72km project with Nature Renderer? Curious about any comparisons you might have!

 

Problem with tree colliders on Vege Studio Pro, version 1.4.5. Some colliders are created, some not:



Colliders are missing from trees in a biome mask. Trees not in a mask area have colliders. Trees in the mask don't have colliders.

I defined two biomes:



They mostly use the same prefabs. Boreal Forest has some extra stuff, and higher density settings. There are capsule colliders on the tree prefabs.

The biome mask uses the biome Boreal Forest. Grass with light trees is the default, used in the rest of the map.

The trees in the biomes use the same settings. Here are these collider settings:



Here are the settings for the biome mask:



Any ideas why the colliders are not showing for trees in the biome mask?

Thanks,
Kieran

 

For those of you that are doing a new install. Do not use Jobs ver 0.11 and use 0.8 instead.

or edit the NativeArrayExtentions.cs file and change

where T : struct

to

where T : unmanaged

 

Hi guys. Does TouchReact work correctly on version 2021.1.2? I have problems with this even in the demo scene (built-in)

 

This is a Teaser for an upcoming project continuing the Apollo's Dream series.

The video was made with Unity 2019 using the this assets.

 

any news about this bug?

 

Thanks @LennartJohansen! Without Enviro, Meadow Environment, Vegetation Studio Pro and the Black Dragon this wouldn't have been possible

 

I have had the same problem for awhile now, and across multiple Unity versions and render pipelines. It doesn't even give any errors... it just does nothing. Although I haven't tried to solve it because the feature is not hugely important to me.

 

was this ever done?

 

Also, this is still not fixed in v 1.4.7.0 on 2021.1.2 built-in. @LennartJohansen any ideas?

 

I am looking to gain any performance boosts I can get and I have started playing around with the persistent storage and baking of the vegetation. I did a bake of all the vegetation in my scene and the trees seem fine, however I am seeing some strangeness in the grasses. There is some flickering close to the camera and a bit further away there is some pulsing of some grass. no idea what is happening here. Has anyone has similar issues with baking vegetation? Have I done something wrong? It's hard to show the pulsing in a screenshot. but this grass looks dark like the grass around it but every second it will fade into this lighter grass and then fade back to the darker grass. I'm using Unity 2018. not sure if that makes a difference

 

Hi, Using Unity 2019.4.3, when I go to window > Awesopme Tech > Regenerate all Splatmaps... The splines on RAM rivers and Biome Masks dont regenerate. Is ther4e a way to get them to regenerate at the smae time?

Thanks

 

I'm just getting started with VSP and was struggling to add nodes to my first biome and found what could appear as a perceived bug.

I had the "VegetationSystemPro" gameobject locked in an inspector tab so I could easily change settings. And I also had another inspector tab added with the biome selected trying to add nodes. But the node handles do not show and you can't ctrl-click to add nodes. It gets stuck in this state until you unlock and deselect the "VegetationSystemPro" gameobject.

This seems like a bug to me because its a very common work flow to have several inspector tabs open and locked to objects or settings you need to change often.

Thanks.

 

Hoooha, VSPro is getting increasingly difficult to work with.

I am now getting the following errors in the compiler when I attempt to Generate Platmaps of a Biome Mask Area frm the Biome mask itself.

Any ideas of a fix? Thanks.


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationStudio.VegetationStudioManager.GenerateSplatMap () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Runtime/Manager/VegetationStudioManager_Biomes.cs:146)
AwesomeTechnologies.VegetationSystem.Biomes.VegetationMaskAreaEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudioPro/Editor/VegetationSystemPro/Biomes/Editor/BiomeMaskAreaEditor.cs:76)
UnityEditor.UIElements.InspectorElement+<>c__DisplayClass58_0.<CreateIMGUIInspectorFromEditor>b__0 () (at <785fa035f6c842aea795e821898770c6>:0)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

 

When I set some settings programatically run-time like this for example:
vegetationSystem.VegetationSettings.GrassDensity = value
There is no change in grass density.
How can I refresh vegetation at runtime ?

 

You have to call vegetationSystem.ClearCache() when doing this at run-time

 

Hi, I was using the non-pro version of vegetation studio and I would call this function to change the packages when seasons changed SetVegetationPackage in the VegetationSystem class. However this function doesn't seem to exist in Pro. Is there a different one I can use to achieve the same effect?

Thanks!

 

Hello,

We're evaluating VSP as a way to augment our standard terrain, and one of the things that would be a huge help would be the ability to import / transfer the existing trees (and even grass) from existing Unity terrain into VSP.

When I searched the forums I found mention of a tool that is suppose to do this, but I don't see it in the editor, nor can I find mention of it in the documentation. Unless I missed it!

Is there such a tool? Or is transferring data we need to do out selves?

Thanks!

 

I'm not sure about that in particular, but there are several tools that work with VSP. Although, that is a great idea, if it doesn't already exist.

Try this tool, it was made by @Rowlan and works wonderfully with VSP. And it is FREE- but you have to own VSP.
"https://forum.unity.com/threads/free-vegetation-studio-pro-extensions-open-source-github.808008/"

I think it has something like that, but I've never done that- but I remember seeing an option on his tool YAPP to add items to VSP, I think.
[FREE] YAPP - Yet Another Prefab Painter (Open Source, GitHub)

I bet if it can be done- @Rowlan would know. He does make some awesome tools.

Otherwise, you might can get an answer from the dev over in VSP's Discord channel.

 

Thank you

@TheRenalicious You can see example code in YAPP about how to move painted vegetation into the persistent storage of Vegetation Studio Pro. It's actually not that much to implement and I guess easy to understand. I didn't create a transfer from Unity's terrain details, but I guess that should be pretty much straightforward to map in a similar way.

 

@Rowlan Yes I've actually been doing just that; looking at YAPP to see how it's done

Even though everything seems to be getting injected into VSP properly, our trees are not showing up with persistent storage despite having thumbnail icons and instance counts in the "Stored Vegetation" tab. They work just fine when using the run-time spawners though, so it's something I'm still debugging to sort out. Whether it's our customized trees and their shaders, or if I'm not providing the right parameters for each instance.

BTW, great work on YAPP! We may end up evaluating it as well as it seems like quite the powerful tool!

 

Hi.
I get some
Shader error in 'AwesomeTechnologies/Release/Billboards/BetterShaders_GroupBillboards': undeclared identifier 'surfaceDescription' at line 4347 (on d3d11)

in Unity 2021.2.8,9,10 with 1.4.9.

Any idead what to do?
I regenaretd the billboards becaused it asked so.

 

I think your better off going on that abismal site discord, as the VS developer doesnt bother coming t Unity any more. Unless of course a user can help you. Good luck.

 

Hello, experiencing some issues with VSP recently regarding billboards, as they don't seem to work at all for some reason. I'm using URP, so do they just happen to not work with URP in any capacity? Thanks for any help.