[RELEASED] Vegetation Studio

I did the changes, will be in the next beta.

Lennart

 

Hi, in my game I have 17 Level Scenes and 1 persistent Master Scene where camera+UI are. Should I have an instance of Vegetation Studio in each scene and camera auto-assigns, what is the standard approach?? Every Level scene contains only 1 terrain

 

I would have a Vegetation Studio setup in each scene. They can all share vegetation packages if wanted for updating rules only one place.

Lennart

 

Thanks a lot! I was about to do this too but wanted to be sure.

 

Not much to go on but I see this error some times.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
3. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.GenerateBillboardCell (AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardCell billboardCell) (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:804)
4. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.PreloadPotentialBillboardCells () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:333)
5. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.SetupBillboards () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:364)
6. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.CreateBillboards () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:354)
7. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.Init () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:192)
8. AwesomeTechnologies.Billboards.BillboardSystem.OnEnable () (at Assets/AwesomeTechnologies/VegetationStudio/BillboardSystem/BillboardSystem.cs:78)
9. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)
10.  

 

After the Run Game, can I spawn some new trees at some time?

 

Hi. If you change the spawing rules or seed and clear the cache, vegetation will respawn.
Or you can add or remove trees with the persistent storage API

Lennart

 

Thanks. I will look at it.

Lennart

 

Beta update.

Hi. There is a new Vegetation Studio Pro beta available for download.

Lennart

 

How can I spawn different trees/grass on the different parts of my terrain? If there is a way, is there a guide that explains it in detail?

 

Also I noticed today that wind is only working in scene view.
Doesn't work on camera during and non during runtime.
Only have one camera on this scene.

 

Hi @LennartJohansen, just wanted to say thanks for making out of Vegetation Studio Pro such a big improvement when dealing with multi tile terrains. Currently testing the latest beta and it brings a smile on my face because of the ease of use. Nice work!

 

What are the benefits of Vegetation Studio over the new Terrain Features in the latest Unity Beta 2018.3 (https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/10/10/2018-3-terrain-update-getting-started/)?

 

Hi.

The new 2018.3 terrain changes is about making a faster dynamic terrain mesh. It lowers the CPU use and reduces the drawcalls with the new instanced render mode. There is no new changes that affect vegetation or tree rendering.

Vegetation Studio replaces the tree and detail system of the terrain but uses unitys terrain mesh. This way the 2018.3 will benefit you when using Vegetation Studio also.

These changes are great and does not reduce any benefits of using Vegetation Studio for rendering.

Lennart

 

Could you send me a pm with some info on the scene. What trees and shaders etc. All shaders have their own wind implementation and do work a bit different.

Lennart

 

Depending on your workflow you can use terrain texture rules, make custom texture masks that defines areas you want to spawn.

The new Vegetation Studio Pro beta also have a dedicated biome system for this. To define areas that each have a separate vegetation package.

Lennart

 

Thank you

Any timeframe for the Pro-Version?

And if I buy the Standard version right now, can I upgrade to Pro on the AssetStore with a discount or will I've to buy it on your website to get a discount for upgrading to Pro?

 

Hi. Vegetation Studio Pro will be available on the asset store in the beginning of November. Vegetation Studio users can get access to the beta now. It is stable and getting close to release state.

There will be an upgrade path for Vegetation Studio users on the asset store. You only pay the difference in price. There is no extra cost of buying Vegetation Studio now and upgrading compared to getting Vegetation Studio Pro direct later.

Lennart

 

Signed up for it! By using the beta, does that essentially mean we are now upgraded to pro and can keep using as is for the foreseeable future?

 

That sounds great! Thank you

 

The beta downloads on the website will be updated and available until I submit Vegetation Studio Pro to Asset Store in a couple of weeks. All updates after that will be on the asset store only.

If you want to continue using Vegetation Studio Pro after the beta period you can upgrade from standard Vegetation Studio to Pro on Asset Store.

Lennart

 

Hi @LennardJohansen, I have relatively large Vegetation Mask Area (4000x4000).
Whenever I try to move a node it lags and freezes for about 10 seconds. If I select the mask, change the inspector to debug view, and change the nodes position adjusting the vector3 data, it updates instantly without any lag. Are you aware of this issue? I hope it helps you to nail this.
Also: These systems you created are top notch! Thanks for sharing it with us!

 

When you change in debug mode the event to clear the cache for the changed are is not called and no vegetation would change before you enter playmode. But I see the need for something for huge masks. I will add a disable updates setting that allows you to move the masks without respawning for every node change.

Lennart

 

Hey @LennardJohansen thanks for your reply!
In another topic, I noticed the vegetation painting and precision painting doesn't take into account the vegetation scale. Am I doing something wrong or is there a fundamental reason for the precision painting not use vegetation scale?



Edit 1:
I think I found out why.. When you paint using these tools, it samples the simple vegetation scale, however, I'm using the advenced vegetation scale to make some of them not only bigger, but also wider.

Edit 1 update: I've temporarily added to my project a conditional in PersistentVegetationStorageEditor.cs (AddVegetaitonItem method ~ line 1130) where I check vegetationItemInfo.VegetationScaleType, and adds a proper lerp between MinVectorScale and MaxVectorScale. Similar to VegetationCell.cs:903

Edit 2:
Also found out that the position is not being randomized when vegetations "randomize distribution" toggle is ticked.

Edit 2 update: I've also added to my source file a conditional, checking vegetationItemInfo.RandomizePosition, and adding a random value using the same logic used in VegetationCell.cs:608.

Edit3: And now it works as excepted

 

Biome packages

Hi. Here is a small preview of the first of a series of pre configured biomes/vegetation packages assets we are making together with NatureManufacture. It works with the new biome system in Vegetation Studio Pro.

 

looks great .. is it rendered in HDRP ?

looking forward this pack and the ones to come

 

Hi Lennart,

First, VegetationStudio is awesome. It works, and works well. Anyway, here's my problem:

I have the vegetation in my scene baked into persistent storage. I want to hide trees/objects when they are between my player object and the camera. I can identify them easily via raycast with the collider system. However I can't identify a way to hide a particular instance. If the items weren't persistent I could mask them easily enough (VegetationItemInstanceInfo has a handy MaskVegetationItem())... but since they are persistent items masking doesn't work on them.

Is there some simple way to temporarily not render a single instance?

 

Hi Lennart and Community,

We are working on our first game and we have the situation where we a more or less, open world. 9 terrains as one where we have, assets and many Vegetation Studio. Now, I'm trying to optimize the scene and I customize the shaders to use all of them as Instance Indirect, it goes great and the culling from vegetation is amazing.
With all this, I'm searching on the profiler and I can see we have many mseg invested on the Vegetation System scripts. Is there any way to optimize it? I try to bake the assets and it's worse.

I attach an image to show which is the challenge usign a simple scene with one terrain and one tree with 2 shaders (bark and foliage).

Thanks in advance

 

Hello Lennart,

upon changing vegetation distance at runtime, for a few frames all vegetation items disappear. And that's a problem for me as I would really like to change distance i.e. while exiting a meadow and entering the forest to gain some frames. Can this be done seamlessly some other way than changing SetVegetationDistance? If not can this issue be addressed in future updates?

 

Can you tell us what types of Biome assets the NM package will include?

 

This is standard Unity rendering. The SRPs are still in early preview. To much changes every release. I will begin to look at it when it gets a bit more stable.

Lennart

 

Hi. Do you mind joining the Discord server and send me a message there? It is much easier to debug with a text chat.
The link is in my signature.

Lennart

 

How it reacts depends a bit on when in the frame you set the distance. Internally there is cullingGroup used to to the cell culling used for loading. When you set a new distance it has to be re-initialized with new distanced bands distances to load the correct vegetation for the cells.

If you do this late in the frame after the rendering is done you should be able to do this with no "blinking"
The vegetation system has a scriptorder of 100 and render in LateUpdate.

Set a scriptorder higher than this on your code and set the new distance in LateUpdate. I think that should work. If not, send me a message or talk to me on discord and we look at it.

Lennart

 

The first biome package will be the "Meadow Biome" it will contain 2 configured vegetation packages for a meadow and a light forest area as seen in the video. They have grass, plants, rocks, trees and terrain textures.

We will post a bit more detailed info in a few days.

Lennart

 

nice .. the shadows are very soft

 

I have this weird dark issue that pops up. It used to do it every 10 run times in the editor but now its doing it always. Its not that cliff shadowing the land. It tints the grass in a weird color too only if I point my character/camera in that direction


https://i.postimg.cc/7Y4CP77q/wierd-darkness.png

 

I have wind during Run time now. idk what was going on before.

 

Hello! I want to change the seed for the Perlin noise on my vegetation, but neither the global random vegetation seed setting nor the position seed setting seem to have any effect on the Perlin - is there a way to change that Perlin pattern?

 

Hi. Perlin noise itsef does not have a seed value. Changing the pattern is done by offsetting the sample value.
There is a vector2 Offset value exposed on the perlin noise rule you can change.

Lennart

 

Got your message also.

Lennart

 

Ahhh, thanks, I think I see now... So the Perlin noise is a pre-calculated texture already, and If I wanted variety that goes beyond the offset and scale options available (that scale and offset that fixed texture), I would define my own Perlin function, and then use that to overwrite the existing texture, right?

 

Perlin is calculated, not a texture. But perlin noise only takes a vector2. in this case position that is modified by scale and offset.

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Mathf.PerlinNoise.html

Lennart

 

Can't wait for the new Pro to go live with the new NM packages!

 

Aha, okay - great, thanks for the clarification!

 

@LennartJohansen is there a private repository where I can submit pull requests?
I've added some features here and I think a pull request would be a good way to show you the implementation so you can decide if it makes sense to add them to your pack.

 

Hi. I do have a git repo. Do you mind joining the discord server and send me a message there? Easier with a text chat.

Lennart

 

Is it still possible to get a copy of the Beta for VSPro?

 

Yes. Just sign up on the website

Lennart

 

Thanks!

 

Next week VS Pro releases?