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Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3 on AssetStore

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by tomaszek, Oct 22, 2013.

  1. Tryz

    Tryz

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    Skyshop integration...

    I've been through the documentation a lot, but I'm still getting stuck.

    I have a Skyshop sky setup and it looks great. in the LODManager, if I check or uncheck the 'Use skyshop global cubemap' or 'skyshop cubemaps rotation', I don't notice a difference. Either way, if I rotate the sky (which rotates the directional light), I see some terrain lighting and shading.

    The problem is that the shading doesn't always makes sense. For example, when the sun is low to the 'east', lighting and shaded areas on the terrain look great. If I rotate the sky so the sun is low to the 'west', I'd expect the lighting and shading on the terrain to rotate...like in real life. However, there is no light or shade. The terrain looks like it all has a low ambient light. Almost like the sun was turned off.

    I thought I might also need to choose 'IBL diffuse cubemap', but anytime I have that selected and rebuild the shaders, the terrain is black and the near area is pink. The error 'Material doesn't have a color property '_Color' shows up.

    I am looking at the global ambient emissive map, but since I had Skyshop, I thought this would be easier.

    I'm sure I'm missing something simple. Do I need to assign the Skyshop cubemaps somewhere? Any suggestions?

    Thanks.

    PS... other than this, the terrain looks awesome!!
     
  2. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Look at new docs available (the same link as always). I updated them today so they are %95 complete (only advaced global colormap blending is not described, new geom blend features and new standalone bonus shaders present, like this dedicated for Planetary Terrain).

    My PDF now extensively describes all PBL/IBL features. I try to not make it "text based" only, but include tons of nice looking illustrations which might be inspiring for non RTP users even as knowledge base (which means - just go and look at this !!! I work on them so hard...).

    Skyshop integration means that IBL spec/diffuse cubemaps will be automatically grabbed from Sky object and when (optionally) you rotate Sky object, it's also visible for RTP shaded objects. With intergration off you'll be able to set your custom cubemaps in RTP's Settings/Main tab.

    You definitely need to know that checking integration switch LOD manager doesn't mean that IBL features will be actually available. This is controlled per pass. You need to enable this in First Pass and/or Add Pass IBL / Reflection features section of LOD manager.

    Rotating Sky object doesn't influence any realtime directionlaight in the scene. It's up to you to sync their positions. And the opposite - rotating realtime directional light in the scene doesn't affect Skybox cubemaps orientation.

    As for error - could you give me shader name that gives it ? All these 'material doesn't....' messages are only additional junk in console dump. Look for actual error message in shader compilation. Then give me exactly your LOD manager setup so I can try the same set of features enabled and recompile shaders. Then I can tell which option causes problems.

    ATB, Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2014
  3. Luis_Calvo

    Luis_Calvo

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    About spot lights: I've made some changes in RTP_LOD, and now it's working properly. when I figure it out I tell you.
    Anyways thanks for your dedication on us, sometimes I fell bad taking too much of your time, I'll help whenever I can.
    Thanks Tom!
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2014
  4. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Good word is always welcome. Also - good review and some nice screenshots that might convince more people to try RTP, too ! :)

    Tom

    P.S. spotlights doesn't work when noforwardadd is checked in LOD manager. I wrote about it a few posts before, but I'm not sure if that was an issue in your case.
     
  5. GXMark

    GXMark

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    Hi Tom, I've been experimenting with RTP 3.0 and was wondering if you support more than 4 splat textures for use with IBL Skyshop. I know you supported 8 textures on your RTP 3.0 shaders. The beta skyshop terrain shader only supports 4 texture layers and a base layer. The base layer is not much use to me since i want access to splat texture selection using the unity terrain editing features.

    Basically i need Sand, Sand/Grass, Grass, Grass/Pebble, RockFace, FaceUpperFace which is 6 splats for my game.

    What are the main advantages over the RTP IBL version over Skyshop?
     
  6. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Advantages ? IBL is not the only, maybe not even most important factor for terrain shading... Advantages list is long... as you've got everything Skyshop terrain shader has (IBL diffuse+IBLspecular), in addition:

    1. 4, 8 or 12 layers usable
    2. parallax shading
    3. triplanar shading
    4. 4 types of global maps (global color, global normal - that's whats in Skyshop + global amb emissive map, pixel trees map)
    5. dynamic snow
    6. dynamic water
    7. vertical texturing
    8. many enhancing techniques - perlin normalmap, UV blend
    9. geom blend
    10. holes in terran for caves, overhags, tunnels

    Should I enlarge the list (half features not listed above) ? RTP implements PBL (physical based lighting), not only IBL which is what Skyshop basically does. Skyshop shaders are more standard BlinnPhong approach with the difference it normalize specular term (which is essential for PBL though).

    Tom

    P.S. When you experimented with official version bought from AssetStore (RTP3.0) you should have no problem just downloading RTP3.1 and give it a try.
     
  7. Tryz

    Tryz

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    Hey Tom,

    Checking out the documentation now.

    As for the error, I'm getting this as soon as I check the 'IBL diffuse cubemap' checkbox (and recompile). There isn't a warning before hand like I've seen before. I did try cutting down other options, but it never helped.

    -----
    Shader error in 'Relief Pack/ReliefTerrain-FirstPass': Program 'frag_surf', Sampler limit exceeded; more than 16 samplers needed to compile program at line 34
    Keywords: RTP_PM_SHADING, POINT_COOKIE, SHADOWS_CUBE
    -----

    LOD Setup: http://www.ootii.com/Images/ScreenShots/RTP_LOD_01.png



    I'm happy that I can finally come with a solution too instead of a problem. :)

    As far as the shading not respecting the rotation of the directional light, it ended up being a problem with my imported global normal map. It gets created by World Machine, but when it was imported by Unity it was set as a 'Texture' and not as a 'Normal Map'. In addition, the 'Create from Grayscale' check box was automatically checked. Once I fixed those two things, the shading followed the directional light as expected.

    Thanks,
    Tim
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2014
  8. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Complete PDF docs are available.
     
  9. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    I overlooked one thing - spot/point light cookies that also need 2 texture samplers. There are three possible solutions:

    1. tick noforwardadd (drawback - point lights and spotlighs will be rendered using SH lighting and for terrain they are screwed then...), or

    2. if you use deferred only - add exclude_path:forward directive to shaders (FirstPass and FarOnly in your case) - in line that begins with #pragma surface

    3. removing fullforwardshadows directive from mentioned shaders

    Then shader will compile, using solution 1 or 2 you'll be able to enable even one feature more (which needs dedicated texture). I'll include shader compilation warning in LOD manager in next RTP update.

    Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2014
  10. omgeric

    omgeric

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    maybe I misread but is it possible in 3.1 to tile layers separately?
     
  11. sixto1972

    sixto1972

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    if you mean have each splat layer have a different tiling size... then no. I cant find a way to do that, I think Tom does not allow that for performance reasons.
     
  12. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Independent tiling can be actually set for far distance using UV blend (mix/replace) functionality - use scale slider in UV blend section of per layer settings. For close-ups where I need to render expensinve parallax effects I disallow it.

    Tom
     
  13. sundance

    sundance

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    Hi, question about two terrains in scene. Can we use relief terrain script on second terrain with different textures?
     
  14. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    You could do this tweaking a bit ReliefTerrainScript in 2 places. Then terrain objects (as far as they use materials !) can use independent settings. But you're not the first one asking about this. I guess I just have to solve it this way - all terrains that share parent object has the same globalSettingsHolder, thus can be independent.

    1. You'll need to setup params separately for independent tiles set (use presets that can be saved now to disk)
    2. Will work with materials only (with 2 terrains using materials is obvious)

    I'll try to come up with solution for this ASAP.

    Tom
     
  15. sundance

    sundance

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    Why do you not use crossheight blending with 12 or more textures?
     
  16. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Crosspass heightblending in case of 12 layers (8+4) uses too many textures and is not practical. We can't use more 12 layers in RTP.
    Anyway I'd not recommend using 12 layers anyway - this will be slow, better use 8 (either as 8 layers in one pass or 4+4 setup in case you need more features that need textures) and for additional surface decoration use sticked geom blend.

    Tom
     
  17. sundance

    sundance

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    So we have problem. We need high detailed location 1x1 km with more than 8 textures. But crossheight blend should works too:)
     
  18. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    All these more than 8 textures used on this 1x1 km area ? Try to use sticked geom blend then. I'm working now on making independent settings ( textures) for those terrains that belongs to different anchors (this way you can group them), but you need to know all terrains in your whole scene need to use the same number of layers (in your demanding case this will be probably 8 ).

    Tom
     
  19. sundance

    sundance

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    A lot of meshes for this resolution will have a big number of triangles. Meshes don't not have LODs, its bad for performance.
    Can I ask you an indiscreet question as soon as you finish independent settings?
     
  20. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    I wish I finish it soon (maybe days), but there are many side effects of treating terrains independent way. BTW - how many terrain tiles you've got on scene ? If more than 20 you'll have performance problems using materials (which is necessary for their independence), because Unity does something weird and hit CPU with samera culling then.

    Tom
     
  21. rockvider83

    rockvider83

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    I can't get shadows to work in the planet shader on forward mode, is it not supported?
     
  22. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Do you try this shader on example scene included or when you use it in PlanetaryTerrain mesh ?

    Tom
     
  23. rockvider83

    rockvider83

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    Both, I've also attached an image of an object placed over the demo terrain mesh with shadows turned on.

    $PlanetShadows.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2014
  24. sundance

    sundance

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    We have two tiles. In the future may be more.
     
  25. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Open ReliefTerrainTriplanarPlanet.shader and at the very end change:

    Fallback Off

    to

    Fallback "Diffuse"

    I forgot that fallbacks handle shadows caster/receiver passes.

    Tom
     
  26. Fat Cat

    Fat Cat

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    Hi Tom,

    I've been learning how to use RTP3 for a few weeks now and recently upgraded to 3.1
    In 3.1 I've yet to be able to get blending between textures working properly. Where should I look to fix this?

    $BlendingProblem.png
     
  27. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Could you give me more info about your RTp setup (LOD manager settings). How many passes, their features. Is it forward or deferred ? What is setup of this problematic snow texture. It looks like there is an issue with detail heightmaps.

    Tom
     
  28. Fat Cat

    Fat Cat

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    Hi Tom,

    Sorry for not giving any information. I've actually used many different set ups to try to get the desired results.
    For this screenshot my setup is:
    Forward Rendering
    POM LOD Level
    4 Textures first pass and first pass add
    crosspass height blend on first pass add


    Also got snow turned on but with strength of 0.
    All my textures are 1024 and heightmap with alpha8 Format in Unity
    I've tried playing with the height maps as well and no effect on the blending.

    On an additional note. I'm using Terrain Composer as well but I don't think it has any effect on the height blending problem.

    $TextureSetup.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2014
  29. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Sure you can, in SIMPLE LOD mode (no parallax + some other options off like flowing water and superdetail, but can be actually restored via some minor custom tweak in shader code) you've got pure tex2D calls which means full aniso for detail textures (color/normalmaps). Heightblend (here sand vs stone wall texture) works fine in SIMPLE mode by default. Moreover - w/o parallax I don't need to sample it additionaly for far distance to blend with no aniso texture fetches - in simple mode shader doesn't need to do anything (thus faster, however aniso filtering costs a bit on GPU texture calls anyway).

    Here you've got comparison screenshots. I intentionally turned off detiling techniques (UV blend, perlin normal, global maps) for you to see how filtered patterns look like:


    Aniso on


    Aniso off


    Aniso on


    Aniso off

    (Rightclick for to view in full resolution).

    ATB, Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2014
  30. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Do you use triplanar ? Could you try different set of textures, this sand reminds me problems I had with specular lighting ind eferred (however as you said you use forward). Do you've got 8 layers mode UNCHECKED in lod manager (you've got only 4 layers) ? All this looks very odd to me. BTW - I'd like to ask you about example TerrainScene in RTP3.1. Have you tried it (after recompiling saders to handle 8 layers) ?

    In presence of 4 layers there is no add pass which would realize crosspass heightblending.

    Tom

    P.S. There is first pass (4 or 8 layers depending on mode set in LOD manager) and add pass (4 layers), so I'm not sure if I know what you mean by "first pass add".
     
  31. BloodOmen

    BloodOmen

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    I'm trying to use RTP shader with mesh, which it support fine, but I wish you had a painter tool to create the splatmap. I've tried to find a unity store one without any luck and creating one manually otherwise is quite painful on a medium to large mesh. I saw the vertex paint solution you give in your documentation but I'm not using the shader standalone and it would require too many vertices.

    Also, would be nice to get a couple of screenshot for the update of 3.1 on the first page for the IBL, emissive stuff.

    Thank you so much.
    Patrick
     
  32. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Yes, coverage control map you can't paint by hand in case of custom meshes. The only solution this moment would be working with both - Unity terrain (I assume your mesh is mapped the same as Unity - topplanar) and your mesh, and every time you would like to update controlmaps for mesh, you would save then as pngs.

    Tom

    P.S. Yes, I need to refresh a bit first page and put there some IBL/PBL attracting images. First I'd like to comeup with RTP3.1b fixes and solutions needed this moment.
     
  33. sundance

    sundance

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    Tomas, do you think about drawing on the mesh with rtp script? When you make independent textures for different terrains, it will be great for pocedural terrain (mesh) generating with many tiles. It's in perspective:)
     
  34. Fat Cat

    Fat Cat

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    Hi Tom,

    I've managed to fix the problem you've been helping me with. First I didn't realise that 'add pass' didn't work for 4 Textures so sorry for giving false information. Secondly the problem seemed to actually be caused by Terrain Composer and not RTP3.1. I fixed it in the Splat Textures option for TerrainComposer by using <Get> <Set> commands. I don't know why this fixed the issue but I guess it might have had something to do with my textures being setup wrong (and TerrainComposer changing their setup).

    Thanks for the fast replies Tom and also thanks for creating such an amazing asset.

    For anyone who is interested this is what the fixed terrains look like with RTP3.1 snow.
    $BlendingProblemFixed.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
  35. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Ah, you've made my day (was worrying bout your issue, so I'm glad it wasn't RTP related in the end) ! Your screenshot is quite good one, because I'm missing snow screenshots here on the forum that could convice people on how it actually works on slopes using detail normaplmaps (places where we don't have snow in your screenshot is good example). I'd be quite curious how your snow could look like with a spice of IBL specular term :).

    Tom
     
  36. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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  37. Montreseur

    Montreseur

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    I am having a problem getting my color map to work. It is a RGBA png, Whenever I try to apply it, there is no changes made to my terrain,even when adjusting the near, mid, and close planes for the colormap. What am I doing wrong. I am following the first steps tutorial video exactly.
     
  38. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Things to check:
    1. Select terrain object that has ReliefTerrain attached (I assume you haven't disbaled by hand colormap feature in shader yourself)
    2. Go to Settings/Global maps - check if global color texture is there (maybe try to attach some obvious one like pure red)
    3. As you play with all blending parameters in Settings ...
    4. ... go to a layer settings which is present at certain terrain part...
    5. and check global colormap slider that is set _per layer_

    That might be a problem - your global colormap application might be dialed down to zero in layers properties.
    Refer to pdf docs for more info and let me know you overcame the problem.

    ATB, Tom
     
  39. Montreseur

    Montreseur

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    Excellent, I think that will work. My other question is about splat map coverage. When I set the layers as active can I use a regular rgb splatmap or does it have to be the black/white mask exported from world machine?
     
  40. sixto1972

    sixto1972

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    A splat map is essentially an RGBA map. So you can import the map and in each texture coverage slot tell it to use the appropriate channel. I personally have not figured out how to get to unitys splat maps but i import my own from world machine.
     
  41. Montreseur

    Montreseur

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    Ah yes that is exactly what I tried. It just blacked out my whole terrain .
     
  42. Tryz

    Tryz

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    I purchased Nuaj today and it's working well with RTP. Lots of settings between the two, but they're looking good.
     
  43. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Sometimes you need to check if your texture selected for coverage actually has a channel. This is the case when you've got Alpha8 texture type and you try to access color (R G or B) channel. In opposite when texture is DXT1 compressed A channel has A channel set to 1 when accessed.

    Tom
     
  44. lazygunn

    lazygunn

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    Nuaj works works lovely with rtp

    Doesn't really show RTP's strengths here, which are many and best enjoyed close up rather than pretty much just the global colormap viewable, but here it is working at a very large scale with nuaj and world composer-grabbed terrain from Mt Rainier national park in northwest US

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0K8ybs2Hos

    (Hope you dont mind me bogging up your thread with vids tomas)

    I'm about to give RTP a final much needed workout with the rest of my recently gained 'big name' unity graphics shinies, skyshop and candela principally, but also with, hopefully providing decent support with these, environment gator for skies and atmosphere, the suimono beta for fancy water and a selection of decent terrain bits and pieces, i'm hoping for good things, now i'm finally getting the hang, mostly, of this PBR stuff
     
  45. Fat Cat

    Fat Cat

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    Here's what the blending looks like after playing with IBL.
    First one is without IBL.
    Second is with IBL and the result I've gone with.
    Last is exaggerated IBL.

    $BlendingWithoutIBL.png $BlendingWithIBL.png $BlendingWithExageratedIBL.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2014
  46. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Hi,

    Thank you for screenshots, but in your particular case snow looks exactly the same (pure white) :). I was rather thinking about a bit reflecting snow in some less lit area. Using IBL can be tricky in terms of energy conservation - applying more IBL terms require to diminish direct light influence. You can balance this using layer brightness slider (for snow it's just snow color).

    BTW - do you use cubemaps that fit your skybox ?

    ATB, Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2014
  47. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    Dear RTP users,

    I would like to thank everyone for the support. Especially those who up-voted the package on AssetStore and those who posted materials on the RTP threads. This is quite important to me this month. Since the beginning of April RTP3.1 is officialy on AssetStore. I raised the price as being announced before. This probably was the reason my sales dropped and I can understand that for many users it's not easy to spend $90 lightly. That's why I thank you for trusting my product and my services. Any possitive feadback (and constructive criticism, too !) and visual proofs of concept that can convince people to buy RTP is mostly appreciated :).

    I still believe current price isn't overestimated for the value being included in the package. Simply it's so wide range that this is even hard to explain every feature and opportunity briefly as pdf docs is now 110 pages... Anyway I strongly recommend going thru docs - there is everything explained in almost tiny detail. I still plan to submit more videos that might be more convinient form of learning RTP, but it's quite time consuming so I'm asking for patience (I've got family, stacked jobs other than RTP as this exhausted my time resources completely in previous months, new demos, updates of additional products, new releases...).

    Happy news, RTP3.1b update is ready ! Fixes and features:

    1. Fixed new RTP shaders (zipped, that's why not encuntered when getting package) in Bonus and GeomBlendCompliant folders

    2. RGBM2RGB - new tool in Window/Relief Tools - you can turn exr lightmap from beast (dual - near) into RGB (LDR) for usage as global emissive (use the other tool to merge AO/shadows in A channel).

    3. New fog controler script (added automatically to _LOD_manager game object). This will update global fog for RTP when it changes in RenderSettings. This was the most requested feaure as many of you use packages that modifies fog runtime (UniStorm for example)

    4. Terrain objects grouping. Turn on materials when compiling in LOD manager (this implies feature is unusable for very large setups as we can't use materials for performance reasons). Then group your terrain objects in different anchors (different parent transforms in scene hierarchy). Then apply RTP script for your terrains. Every terrain group will use different globalSettingsHolder that implies all settings will be independent now for the group. This will basically allow you to use different set of detail textures for each terrain group (but the same number of of layers !). This was 2nd most requested feature that I realized is quite important for many users and can be even fun breaker when not present... Little drawback is that every param (we know there are plenty of) in RTP you'll need to set separately. Godsend will be probably using presets than can be saved to disk. Simply setup one terrain group parameters, save its preset to disk and restore for other groups. Do it once you agree terrain features and param. Then differentiate detail textures for groups while holding the same params (for terrain groups visually match).

    5. fixed compilation issues - fullforwardshadows directive available in lod manager. When you don't mark "no forward add" RTP3.1 resisted to compile (this just badly calculated available texture samplers).

    6. fixed problem with advanced global colormap feature (couldn't be turned on via lod mamanger)

    7. more minor fixes

    8. New RTP3.1b docs is available (includes above list changes) on its usual location here.


    At the end even better news. I realized updating service directly from my server and you wouldn't believe how painful it was to implement with my hosting company... That's why I had to split package into pieces of rar archive (sorry, but I guess it's not that hard to extract it into one unitypackage file using free tools that can be downloaded, winrar or total commander as evaluation for example). I'll also submit this on AssetStore, but this takes week (sometimes even 2-3 weeks) to approve while I'd like to serve updates as soon as they are ready.

    Updater link

    Enjoy !

    Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2014
  48. Teila

    Teila

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    Thank you, Tom.

    Hope you don't mind a little constructive criticism from a user that is not overly familiar with shaders.

    The manual is very detailed. However, it is missing step by step instructions that would make the process so much easier. I did find videos that helped, mostly videos created for Terrain Composer users that also showed how to use RTP. Even if you don't do videos, please give us step by step instructions. I don't think it is as hard as it looks but there is a great deal of detail!

    Also, I tried to print the manual so I could use it while using RTP on my computer and it came out gibberish. I don't know if this was intentional to keep people from sharing the manual but it is very annoying to have to go back and forth between Unity and my pdf reader. Please allow us to print out the manual! At the very least, give us some cheat sheets for setting things up and let us print that out.

    Thank you! The results are worth the time it takes to learn to use the plug-in. :)
     
  49. tomaszek

    tomaszek

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    3,862
    Hi,

    Step by step setups is neat idea, however it all depends what would you like your terrain to look like :). That's why docs seem to be scattered puzzle. Every piece is somewhere over here, but it's up to you sort it out... As for videos - I'll definitely need to make more (in time).

    Why pdf couldn't be printed ? I thought it was one of the main advantages of acrobat (making printable, standarised documents). However browser pdf reader will probably open when you click link. I've noticed standalone reader is much better (fonts look better for me, browser version makes bigger fonts ugly outlined, I don't know why). When you right click (Win) and save target as standalone pdf file you can share it (spread it where you need, no problem at all - send it to the moon even :) ). Every pdf can be printed. Cheatsheets - that's what you won't find in my docs, but the main advantage of electronic version over printed one is hyperlinking. You can go to table of contents quickly and go from one place to another which is refered in first place. For example when I'm describind a feature which needs to be enabled in LOD manager, I'm giving a link to its LOD manager section in most cases then, and so on.

    Anyway - thank you for the constructive feedback. Appreciated !

    ATB, Tom
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2014
  50. lazygunn

    lazygunn

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2011
    Posts:
    2,749
    I think the step by step instructions is a good idea, i'm pretty familiar with it now but upon telling fellows that a terrain shader i recommend is excellent but quite a lot to take in i realise it could be a little more friendly

    Rather than base it on what they want their terrain to look like right now you could go through each layer of the process or grades of complexity in a beginner, intermediate and hard sort of structure, where in beginner you explain the most basic steps to getting a 4/8 layer terrain set up with no ibl and no other fancy lighting options so they have their 8 terrain detail layers viewable on the terrain, via splatmap coverage you walk them through, composed, tonally, to be a typical rich saturated contrasty colour - perhaps even offering tutorial assets with these settings applied

    Intermediate might be to ask them to generate their own splatmaps, or most of them, introduce the more advanced lighting effects and some of the more esoteric options in lod manager

    Advanced walking them through how to tune the terrain for ibl, very specific features like zero alpha for cutting, emissive map and editing the RTP_Base.cginc etc to customise their workflow entirely. Might take a while and be a pain in the arse but it really is an enormous system and I remember at the start talking large amounts of time trying to work out why one thing wasnt looking as expected and misunderstanding the meaning and effect of a feature - for newcomers that can be an intimidating prospect when to be fair they could fully understand it with familiarity and a guiding hand taking them from point to point where, at each point, there is a recognisable satisfying result that puts each of the options in perspective

    I think i'm getting quite aquainted but not everyone has all day every day to puzzle something out, unlike me in my particular circumstances, so definitely a graded tutorial of sorts where each part ends in a recognisably accomplished result would be extremely helpful and would mean i wouldnt say 'might take a bit of learning' to someone on recommending it, 'follow the tutorial assets and you'll be getting amazing results' sounds a lot better, and then that could pretty rationally result in wider recognition and take-up, as it would be easy to recommend to anyone, whatever their familiarity with the many concepts the shader covers