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[Released] Vertex Tools Pro – Heightbased PBR Material Blending, Flowmapping and Mesh Deform

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by PitHeimes, Feb 12, 2016.

  1. ilusomu

    ilusomu

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    This looks amazing. You guys are doing stunning work. Any chance you might cover how the combined texture process works? You hint at doing it in a later tutorial, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
     
  2. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Hey @ilusomu,

    Vertex Tools Pro comes with a tool to do the packing for you. Just Drag&Drop the grayscaled textured (height, ao, smoothness, emission) into the tool and the combined map will automatically be generated :)
     
  3. ilusomu

    ilusomu

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    Awesome. One last question and this might be a silly one: do your shaders support deferred rendering?
     
  4. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Yes they do :)
     
    ilusomu likes this.
  5. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    @PitHeimes
    Will you make mobile version with lightweight shaders like
    blending diffuse ? diffuse specular ? diffuse normal map ?
    Or is your plugin intended for Desktop games mainly ?
     
  6. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Currently we are targeted for Desktop and console.
    Though the 2 Texture Blend works on mobile.

    We are still discussing lightweight shaders, as we are of course not quite happy with the visual quality.
    We try to tweak our 2 texture blend for mobile. That's the way we would like to go.
     
  7. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    It is not a real need, but it could be usefull for people to have a versatile plugin usable for Stylized lightweight Desktop games or mobile perhaps.
     
  8. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    I quite like the questions zengarden is asking as i fiddle a bit with Gear VR although for desktops the package is good stuff
     
  9. ilusomu

    ilusomu

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    Thanks! Probably going to buy this tomorrow
     
  10. Nateply

    Nateply

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    How's the VTP/Distingo shader integration going? Is it still a thing?
     
  11. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    It is :) just struggling with some quality issues. Not entirely happy with it. Want to offer the best possible experience when released :)
     
  12. magique

    magique

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    Does VTP only work with your custom shaders? What about compatibility with UBER?
     
  13. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    The Painter itself works with any shaders that Support Vertex Colors :) if that is what you meant? :)
     
    magique likes this.
  14. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    A thought I had which may or may not seem reasonable is the option to animate vertex position, particularly with the flow data calculated - particularly for animation using a texture or perlin or even a more complex algorithm, reason being being that this would make for an excellent tool for larger bodies of flowing water like rivers and streams. Adding the animation on top of any existing deformation could give a river a lot of character and make things like rapids quite approachable - I think this is a feature a lot of people would welcome hugely, sorry if already mentioned
     
  15. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Vertex position animation is on our roadmap for our Vertex Animator. :)
     
  16. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Some teaser of our upcoming update. :) (Beta available now, just send us your invoice id via pm)

    The wetness does not need any additional texture work or texture channel. :) Just paint it ahead :)


     
  17. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    Sometimes these features appear like you read my mind!
     
  18. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Thanks :) We try our best to assume your needs.
     
  19. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Update v1.1.1 with paintable wetness shader was just submitted

     
    nxrighthere and BackwoodsGaming like this.
  20. magique

    magique

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    I'm getting close to purchasing this, but I have one more important question. How does VTP handle the underlying materials for a mesh? For example, I have a dungeon corridor made up of modular segments and some of the segments are the same. So, these segments have the same material on them. If I start painting on one of the segments how does VTP handle this? Are both segments updated the same or does VTP created new materials for a painted segment so that they can be unique?
     
  21. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    That's the trick behind VTP, since it uses vertex colors.
    The blending information are stored on the vertices of the mesh.
    So you can paint every mesh - although they use the same material - totally individually. Because it uses the same material it is a huge performance increase (reducing the draw calls).

    That's the deal: Easy, fast, performant and unique painting of different meshes sharing the same material :)

    Take a look at our demoscene or screenshots at the store. All the houses share the same material. Nevertheless they look totally different :)
     
  22. magique

    magique

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    Whoa! That's awesome. I am definitely purchasing this then. Thanks for making such a fantastic tool. This is going to really bring my scenes to life.
     
  23. magique

    magique

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    What exactly is the the VTP/Distingo integration going to provide? I own Distingo and will have VTP this evening so I'm very curious. Does it mean we will be able to blend meshes with the terrain? If so, will it work with Distingo shaders on Unity terrain or just Distingo shaders on mesh terrain?
     
  24. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    It is currently in development and will bring VTP onto your terrains. So VTP Shader technique for terrains:)
     
  25. magique

    magique

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    Forgive me if I am still unsure, but does this mean we could blend meshes with the terrain?
     
  26. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Well you could paint the meshes according to the terrain and therefore create a blend effect.
    Basically it is to upgrade terrain to PBR Shading and to support heightbased blending, parallax occlusion mapping and wetness :)
     
    magique likes this.
  27. magique

    magique

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    Another question. In the docs for the Texture Assistant it says that for the Combined Map you need to drag in the height map, occlusion map, smoothness map, and emission map. Are all those maps necessary for it to work? I don't even know what a smoothness map is. Of those 4 textures, most of my stuff only has a height map.
     
  28. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    No it is not mandatory, those are optional. :)
     
  29. magique

    magique

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    OK, so then I just drag my Height Map and it generates a combined map that isn't actually combining anything? But it'll work?
     
  30. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Yes. The other maps are filled with pure white placeholders so you can just adjust smoothness and other PBR values with the slider in the Material. :)
     
  31. magique

    magique

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    OK, thanks.
     
  32. benthroop

    benthroop

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    Hey just curious if you know of people using this successfully with Unity on PS4...?
     
  33. benthroop

    benthroop

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    PS4 feedback: It appears to work properly with 2 textures, but not 3. When using the 3 texture variant, the shader comes up entirely black. This is with the v1.1
     
  34. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Well we did not had a chance to test on a PS4 :(
    Glad that the 2 Texture Blend seems to work without any problem.

    For the 3 Texture Blend we should get that fixed once we get our hands on the logs :)
     
  35. benthroop

    benthroop

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    What logs in particular are you interested in? At a glance I'm not seeing any errors on the regular PS4 output log.
     
  36. magique

    magique

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    I made the purchase today and I'll be testing this out tonight. I develop for the Wii U so hopefully there won't be any issues on that platform.
     
  37. magique

    magique

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    My initial tests on the Wii U are good. I ran 3 of the example scenes and they all run perfectly. I don't know about performance yet, but once I get something going in my game scene then I'll be able to see.
     
  38. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    No warnings or shader related logs on the PS4?

    Glad to hear that :)
     
  39. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Update v1.1.1 with paintable wetness was just released :)

     
    Arganth likes this.
  40. Arganth

    Arganth

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    this asset looks so sick ;)

    with the vertex deformation contruction of indoor cave areas should be no problem i guess?
     
  41. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Vertex Tools can of Course not replace modelling at all. But basically yeah, VTP will shorten developing time and greatly improve visual quality :)
     
  42. Mister-D

    Mister-D

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    looks really handy and professional made! great for adding that extra oomph to models.
    i dont have much experience with vertex painting but i assume those examples of blending textures is not just a single quad but a subdivided one? as a quad doesnt have much vertexes to blend...
     
  43. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    It is a standard unity plane :) But due to heightbased blending algorithm it also Looks great on lower poly models. :)
     
  44. Mister-D

    Mister-D

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    really? great news!
    ill buy it
     
  45. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Thanks a Lot :)
    We are always here in case of questions or suggestions of Course :)
     
  46. catjack

    catjack

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    Hi there!
    When we can see a "24 Hour Sale"? :)
     
  47. blackbird

    blackbird

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    does anybody know the performence on console and mobile is ?
     
  48. larskroll

    larskroll

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    this looks fantastic.

    Quick question: Does this play well together with Protools ? Especially probuilder and it's material painter ?
    Icould imagine there'd be collisions, but I'm *very *anxious to know.
     
  49. PitHeimes

    PitHeimes

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    Hey there, actually it is happening right now!


    There is no general answer to that, because we provide several options to tweak the performance in the shader. For example you can use VTP to save draw calls through shared materials, but something like parallax would be a very heavy effect. You can always refer to our documentation or FAQ for further information on what you can do to improve performance.
    Here are the links:
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/rard3f2u1irmp07/VTP_documentation_v1.1.0.pdf?dl=0
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/njq13zjcpuyozb2/VTP_FAQ.pdf?dl=0
    Important: at the moment mobile is limited to the 2 material blend shader.

    Thanks! There are some known bugs when using VTP with Probuilder. In some situations the editor is lagging. In general ProBuilder and VTP are not recommended together.
     
    TeagansDad, blackbird and chiapet1021 like this.
  50. knotFF

    knotFF

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    Hello.
    I could not find any specification regarding the 2 material blend shader in the documents.
    Could you clarify this a bit? What features does it have? (Wetness, parallax, etc)? In the videos you always show the 3 blend advanced, so I am just wandering if the 2 mat. blend has the same features but limited to 2 materials.
    Thanks