Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3 on AssetStore

One last question (for today at least), I'm having another issue with my sand texture where it appears really bright. I followed your video tutorial on youtube, but for some reason it's not looking quite right:

 

thanks for answering

 

@Robsy128 - Check your diffuse texture map's alpha channel. Should have a spec in there I believe, that's usually the problem. If it's not that try just lowering the specular levels in the alpha channel until you get what you want.

Quick question, with the news that unity 5 will support PBR OOTB textures is there any chance that RTP will get PBR? Or are the extra textures required too much for the shader? Do we know enough yet about how unity will handle PBR? Did I answer my own question?

 

Scroll back a page or two... PBR will be in RTP 3.1. No need to wait for Unity 5.

 

PBR has quite a large scope. I can't tell how PBR will be handled in Unity5. I believe (I' mean that's what I'd do if I were Unity ) they implement PBR lighting calculations in standard surface shaders output. They might work more on related issues like PBR in deferred, integration with dynamic GI right inside shader and so on (easy lighting in custom shaders - that's why they introduced surface shaders in current Unity).

All I can say is - RTP3.1 will already handle PBR. For direct lighting and HDRI (IBL based on HDR cubemaps encoded using RGBM like Skyshop).

If they implement PBR right inside surface shaders I'll have no reason to implement it custom way in RTP - at least if they will make it the same good, which is no question (I believe they hire best specialists in this field). So - for Unity5 RTP will either hold its own PBR (like now in RTP3.1) in case I decide it's better for users or I'll stop handling this leaving lighting part to Unity5. There is enough to do on terrains apart from lighting, but you can enjoy it right now not waiting for Unity5. For today I've decided to introduce PBR because it's demanded by more and more developers and simply it's trendy (not always makes that dramatic difference, but still - looks better, so PBR is for you, all visiophiles ).

To answer a question again - when RTP3.1 will be out ? Well, I feel pressure - believe me, but I'll answer Unity's way - when it's ready... To report what I'm working on right today is specularity antialiasing - very glossy surfaces with high frequency glossmap or high frequency bumpmap causes specular pixel spots jittering or damps specularity weird way. I know terrain materials are not that specular in most cases to make such problems, but I'd like to make it really hi-end with no compromise on quality. As I've been working 4 months on this update - waiting a day or two more is not that bad. I need to be sure you get best I can make...

@Robsy128 - it loks like strong lighting issues. The texture itself is bright comparing to another. You can try using linear lighting mode. RTp3.1 wyou'll have per layer brightness adjustement sliders.

Tom

 

To be clear, I'm talking about using albedo/microsurface/roughness/ao/reflectivity/whatever or at least diff/height/roughness/metallic PBR texture maps inside of RTP instead of the standard diffuse/spec/normal, not just the lighting model... that's a 3.1 thing? Sweet! I've had the beta and I didn't even notice.

 

As in RT3.1 per layer detail textures:
- Detail Diffuse (RGB) + A (glossiness, means inverted roughness), RTP3.0 has spec mask in A channel
- Normal
- Height

As for metallic - to make it this way we'd need separate spec color textures (metalic objects modifies reflected color, so specular white light reflected from gold surface becomes yellowish). As we run on constrained resources I had to solve this different way. First of all we can mask specular term by gloss map (this A channel), next we can mask spec term via diffuse brightness - it's often the case diffuse color (albedo) texture has AO baked in. So you can ask shader (by slider) to modulate output spec term this way and black cracks in rock texture won't be shiny (that would be very bad as cracks are just strongly AmbientOccluded holes, not a black shiny mirror).

To solve metalic problem - strong metalic materials (like gold in the screenshot above) lacks of lambertian diffuse term, anyway - we can skip it (even if gold is not fully polished like mirror). You can then use diffuse texture as tint for specular color. In real we've got it 0/1 logic (metal or not) but in RTP you can add just a tiny bit of specular color tinting taken from diffuse to make specular highlights more warm and saturated rather than cold white). To make pure gold metal - use diffuse gold color and damp layer brightness to 0. This way the layer will expose only specular term (damping brightness to 0 is also usefull when you'd like to "debug" specular term alone).

What I'm trying to achieve now is to bake necessary info into subsequent glossmap (diffuse A texture) MIP levels so we avoid spec issues mentioned in my previous post.

Tom

 

Thanks for the great explanation. I already know it looks great because of the beta, was just trying to think through the shift over to PBR textures project wide and not having to maintain separate assortments of texture files to match up with the inputs on separate shaders, since there appears to not really be a standard texture setup for PBR it must be frustrating, but it seems like one is emerging so that should help Looking forward to 3.1, no rush though, quality takes time.

 

I have a problem in my scene at night, when I use the fog and light (point and spot) to places where the two meet, they get a white square with a black band on the left side of the screen, when I turn off the light or turn off the fog, everything is right, someone already had this problem?

 

Known issue (for me) of additive light pass for custom fog in RTP3.0. Fixed in RTP3.1

Tom

 

ok, thanks for the reply, I have worked a lot in my final college work, which is this game so I'm sorry for not being able to use this plug-in now, but hopefully the update comes before I have to deliver my work.

 

Maybe you could chat with Lars from Lux to speed up the implementation of PBR shaders?

I'd like to start building my terrain now, would it be fine if I built my terrain using RTP 3.0 and then 3.1 just update the shaders? Or will I have to rebuild my entire terrain because of the update.

 

You won't need to rebuild, but you'll need to adjust new features, recompile shaders and tweak new parameters (which will be set to default after upgrade). About Lux - yes we cooperate with Lars on this, so RTP uses the same PBR calculations (apart fro fresnel strength parameter which in RTP is more Skyshop like). Additionaly installing Lux over RTP will allow to take good results in both forward and deferred (in RTP alone I didn't want to redefine internal lighting pass shader for deferred and lightin dynamic range is that big like in forward). About the issue I'm fighting against now, I follow Lux thread byt Lars haven't implemented this I believe (implemented so many other things you'll be able to use with RTP and Lux shaders though).

I know users wait a lot for new release. So I'll make it like this. If implementation would take too long I just skip it and submit RTP w/o as it's not necessary to have it (still good to improve hign frequency spec terms at farther distance when higher MIP levels of textures are used).

Tom

 

I'm currently trying to work with RTP, and the terrain shaders completely bug out when any spot light is added to the scene.

Here's a picture of what is happening:


The terrain displays correctly with a directional light, but will immediately error when a spot light is added to the scene. Considering our game will rely on using spot lights, this is an error that needs to be fixed.

The lighting error is present in both the editor mode as well as during active play.

 

hey there, for some reason i am not able to change the tile size of the texture tiling from the default amount (5) in rtp.... which looks really bad at far distances. i set it to something like 10 or 15, hit save, and when i play the scene it resets back to 5 again.

how can i prevent this from happening?

 

This is bug in RTP3.0 seen for both complementary lights and custom fog. It's corrected in RTP3.1. At this moment you can consider turning off complementary lights (using black color there) and turning off fog. Later you'll be able to restore it when update to RTp3.1

Tom

 

Where did you set tiling ? You should use RTp script - Settings/Main for it - only. You should also take into acount, RTp3 can not use different tiling for diefferent terrain tiles on the same scene. Also, if tiles are of different size you won't be able to set them separately 9they depends on each other). RTp3.1 brings option for independent tiling where terrain tiles doesnt share detail tiling settings but you set this for each terrain object separately.

Tom

 

Is there any estimate as to when the release of 3.1 might be? I mainly ask this because it makes level design much more difficult due to not being able to work with any lights besides directional lighting. Overall the Relief Terrain Pack has been a very excellent asset, and it would be a shame to have to work without it for an extended period.

 

yes, i go to the rtp script on the terrain (there are multiple terrains using terrain composer). when i set the tiling on one terrain, it auto sets them all to the same value.

so i save, and then press play, and they all get set back to 5 again

 

Easy, RTP3.1 is just on the way 1,2 days to submit for approval on AssetStore.

Sounds weird because I've never experianenced nor been reported about such behaiour , maybe TC sets this value under some circumstances. Could you ask Nathaniel ?

Tom

 

I asked over in the Terrain Composer thread

I was asking about a cave, he showed a really bad example in making a cave (it was a straight, hole, not even rough)

So I asked if he could do another example, he said he were working on a video about crafting caves with TC

That true?

 

hey, do you know why as shown in the picture, some of my textures on my terrains turn very white with global fog enabled....... ?



that's not a snow texture, that's the same dirt texture as shown in the foreground that just turns white when the fog hits it.

supposed to be grey like the other spots you can see, but a certain texture turns very white.

 

I can't tell exactly what Nat is acutaklly doing right now in TC, but crafting holes in RTp means you can get the hole shape of your wish. You just paint holes over terrain. Maybe there will be a tool in TC that will make holes automatically (not manually like in RTP). Anyway - a hole in terms of shader functionality used is just black value in aalpha channel of global colormap texture.

Tom

 

Global fog - do you mean fog used as postprocess effect or just fog ? In the second case it's a bug that I've addressed in RTP3.1. It happens when fog hits additional shader passes (like multiple directional lights in forward).

Tom

 

there's a global fog script that's controlling the fog that is set in the render settings in unity. It's just controlling the exponential fog from render settings.

that's being fixed in the update? which is available soon?

edit:
also there's only one directional light active in my scene at a time.

 

As far as I remember (when fixing this) - overbright fog can also occur with one directional light when you use 4+4 setup. Layers that belong to addpass ( 5-8 ) might be overbrighted. You can try it in different setup - 8 layers mode where we don't have addpass, or try in deferred - fog shouldn't be overbrighted then. Anyway - I fixed this hopefully for all situations (I mean - until somebody finds new problematic one ).

If only nothing dramatic happen tomorrow (this new problematic one situation I found dozens of already) RTP3.1 should be submitted tomorrow. I've just finished implementation of last feature planned. A few brief checks now ... and volia ! I'll be only waiting for AssetStore approval.

Tom

 

We planed to implement your asset into our game. But i have few questions: Will be asset supported for Unity5? How long could it take? Thx for your answer.
And btw i think you should make another vidio with all your improvements

 

lol..and that approval takes AGES from what I can tell.. pretty sad..


Looking forward to using the updated version of this asset with the updated Planetary Terrain asset.(still waiting for asset store approval for the Planetary Terrain asset submitted over a week ago....)

 

Hold it, skippy. Unity 5 isn't even out yet. How is he supposed to know if it's supported? Yes, though, I'm sure he intends to update it.

 

then to say that this week will already have the update to 3.1 the relief pack?, I'm very happy if this occurs since I love the application and I want to use in my game without having the problem with light and fog

 

I think we got a misunderstanding here. Tom made the video with the straigth hole, you can see a few pages back. And I also said Tom would make a video on how to do this as he posted this a few pages back. So Tom (Tomaszek) is the developer of RTP, and me Nathaniel is the developer of TerrainComposer...

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/206516-Relief-Terrain-Pack-(RTP)-v3-on-AssetStore/page41

Nathaniel

 

I believe he doesn't understand how piercing terrain works, that's misleading him to statements about "bad examples". I think I won't explain it anymore now. Things will be clear with video tutorial describing workflow and being made in near future.

ATB, Tom

 

Last time I assumed culprit as RTP addpass/fog bug, but as I tested this again today - the real issue is "No forward add" switch, which is default in RTP. Use deferred or recompile shader with switch turned off if you intend to use spot lights - Unity presents light culling issues for spherical harmonics then.

ATB, Tom

 

RTP3.1 has been just submitted for AssetStore aproval. This means that in some undefined near future will be available, and the same time - it's unpredictible how long surrent $65 price is valid.

When RTP3.1 is ready on AssetStore it will be $90. So - last change to grab it for lower price .

Tom

 

Hurry up, this plugin is essential

 

If you've read Tom's posts, he has submitted it.. From what I've read from other devs, sometimes it can take over a week for the asset store to approve a submission. So if he has submitted it, it is kind of out of his hands until the folks at Unity approves it..

 

one week: (
I expect 3.1 to use the linear fog in my project

 

Tom, is it possible that you'll create a prefab we can place anywhere on the terrain to make a whole ?

 

I'm not sure if I get your problem. Do you need to instantiate RTP shaded terrain from prefab or you need to make hole in terrain (with new RTP3.1 piercing functionality) dynamically ?

Tom

 

I think what he means is having a "tunnel entrance" prefab that you can place on terrain to make a hole in it. That would actually be pretty robust, especially in a situation when you export your color/splatmaps from an external tool like WorldMachine. +1 to that idea

 

Such prefab can't be done. To make hole you need to paint a hole in RTP (that will change global colormap alpha channel to black in areas where hole is present). Geometry of cave must be done manually and blended (to not have terrainvs cave enterance edges) with terrain using geom blend functionality. To solve entrace collisions you place collider trigger (like box - you'll see how it's done in example scene included in packager) and using a script for an object to resolve collisions (in most situations script will be attached to player game object).

Tom

 

Is there some way to controll the snow? I feel like the snow is very dirty, to much darker spots.

edit: nevermind I figured it out. A week of trying to fix it and 10 minutes after I ask, I figure it out

 

RTP 3.0 seems to be acting weird when I have Unity basic fog turned on. I have a different script that uses Linear fog and adjusts the near/far distances at runtime, but the terrain is always fogged very close compared to everything else. If I adjust anything in the RTP panel while it's running, the terrain fog will immediately snap into something else, either disappearing (like when I touched the snow slider) or turning a weird color (like turning blue when I touched the wetness slider). FYI I'm using 8-layers mode, DX11, Deferred rendering, linear lighting.

 

in the 3.0 fog and ligth is in trouble, after update ( que will be soon, because Tom already submited at the asset store) the problem may be fix, i'm with similar problem.

 

RTP3.0 has implemented exp2 fog only. Besides - it has some issues, I know... Hopefully new release is free of this.

Tom

 

Hello,
is it possible to show colormap at greater distance ? I haven´t found anything about this option. Our detail textures passes into the color map too early. There is also another problem. Perlin normal map affect only one terrain from my 4 ... Other things are OK except this option. Any ideas please ?

Thanks

 

Try to remove ReliefTerrain script from 3 problematic terrain tiles (they probably doesn't share the same reliefTerrainGlobalSettingsHolder object - you setup your terrain with TC, didn't you ?) and attach it back using Component/ReliefTerrain/... menu. Then all your tiles should react to perlin normalmap. Globalcolormap is shown at far distance only (you can use option to show only globalcolormap colormap at distance or mix it with detail colors - refer to docs). Far distance is set in perlin normalmap menu. Refer to docs.

Tom

 

Hi,
Are you currently planning on updating the shader for Unity 5 if needed?

 

As I've got no access to Unity5 (alpha, beta, any...) I've got nothing to plan yet... . When U5 i out I'll check RTP compatibility and make tweaks needed (hopefully no "hopeless" situation arise which would mean regresion or bugginess that makes RTP unable to upgrade to Unity5 - my strong hope is the opposite and for example Unity5 PBL rendering pipeline will just replace custom PBL solution introduced currently in RTP3.1).

Tom

 

Just downloaded 3.1 - finally! congratulations on the release!

http://www.allmystery.de/i/t1ba8ed_7bVFY.gif