Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3 on AssetStore

I would like to show what World Machine + RTP + Terrain Composer can do. Those are the terrains i am working on for Ashes Of Mankind.

Ashes of Mankind is a PvP-oriented MMOFPS set in a rich sci-fi environment, moulding violence and politics alongside typical sandbox elements to give it a unique flair. Our aim at Black Ice Studios is to create an online experience in which players are not forced to farm or grind for experience and loot. So, we have focused our efforts on key aspects such as: deep character skills, abilities and equipment customization, completely player-controlled politics and economies, an expansive construction system, and large-scale Syndicate warfare, to name a few.

16 Terrains ; 4000 view Distance ; no more than 120 drawcalls, thanks to RTP Tessellation.

 

Andy, hmm, you seem to be correct. I wrongly assumed things were working correctly because it works for the snow, but now if I want the water/wetness to refresh I am having to click the terrain object and then click off to something else. I agree with you, RefreshAll is too slow to use at run time which is why I changed my code over to refresh globalsettings, which does work for the snow, but apparently not the water.

Sorry I can't be of any help, maybe the author will chime in with a solution for us both!

 

Thanks anyway.
I did make it work but only by doing a trick I read on the forum. What I do is

Material terrainMat = IReliefTerrain.materialTemplate; // The terrain component
terrainMat.SetFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", ICurrentReliefWetness);
IReliefTerrain.materialTemplate = null;
IReliefTerrain.materialTemplate = terrainMat;

This works because setting terrain material to null forces it to refresh it, but it's a bad solution since it spikes the CPU usage for "assigning a new material". I hope there's a better solution than that

 

For you previous problems (AddPass has no vertex shader defined on build) - I've been reported by one user that some of my cginc files could possibly have a few garbage UTF characters that makes compiler unable to do build for xboxone. Sympthoms were exactly the same. It was CustomLighting.cginc files and simple fix was to save it as UTF-8 without BOM. I wonder what it could be.

For 16 sampler limit exceeded - it's another problem when you request number of features that can't be compiled/. By definition AddPass uses more textures because of crosspass heightblending. It's esp. nasty in Unity5.4beta before beta10. It was virtually impossible to use any feature becaue Unity "eats" 3 additional texture samplers. It's fixed in beta10 and above, but still - only for DX11 which can reuse samplers. To get rid of exeeded sampler problem use less features in addpass or use optional color atlasing (will save you 3 textures) - it's an option in LOD manager.

Other than this - in RTP3.3 I restored functionality of using first/add passes upclose and "faronly" shader version beyond distance limit set in RTP/Settings/Main. It should work and all shaders should be able to get compiled.

Tom

 

It's properties block commented out in FirstPass shader. But I strongly recommend to go for RTP3.3 (you need Unity5.3.2 for it though). Generally it produces less hassle and is less prone to refreshing problems.

in deferred we can't effectively blend addpass - that's why we need to go for 8 layers in first pass

Not sooner that in RTP4 (no release date available, I'll announce when at least alpha will be available)

If current RTP version works for you I guess you're safe, but keep in mind that upgrading to U5.4 might introduce problems that I'm not yet aware (as subsequent 5.4 betas appears) . I will try to keep an eye on it. At this point RTP3.3d should work decent on U5.4, only standard geomblend shader - while it works might present different behaviour comparing to U5.4 standard shader, because it misses new "big objects" tex3d lighting (instead of single SH probe). It's not any major issue as you could probably lightmap your geom blend objects so they are "statis" and don't use lightprobes anyway.

 

What is the shader do you use for rocky plant ? Is it RTP one ?

When you render in forward it's necessary to check "fullshadow pass" in LOD manager in tessellation section. It's adised to do so anyway - your terrain could give strange acne shadow problems otherwise.

Tom

 

You are not supposed to use 9 terrain detail layers. Reduce your setup to 8 per terrain. You can use grouping if you need more textures over the scene, but placed on different terrain tiles. Look at my responses above if you experience additional problems.

I believe Unity reported to fix this issue, so maybe upgrading to certain higher Unity version might help. Check Unity release notes. I am not sure but probably they put an info about this issue fixed somewhere.

Tom

 

Hi,

When using RTP during a build (I am using SECTr also) when I build my game I have a popup on every scene (and have about 250 scenes) _RTP_LODmanager object added to the scene. Its script handles LOD properties for RTP shaders. So I need to stay in front of PC clicking "Ok" for every scene. Can I comment out the line in the code somewhere or disable the Popup in any way?

Thanks in advance,

JSChasle

 

ReliefTerrainGlobalSettingsHolder.cs, look for such line of code:

Code (csharp):

1. EditorUtility.DisplayDialog("RTP Notification", "_RTP_LODmanager object added to the scene.\nIts script handles LOD properties of RTP shaders.","OK");

You can comment this out. It's only a notification.

Tom

 

tomaszek ,
I am running into a problem with the scene i made for Ashes of Mankind since today.
I did not change anything to the settings, nor RTP_LODmanager.
I opened Unity and switched the view in editor to "Wireframe", and i got two error messages :

My LOD Manager Settings :


What is going on ?

Edit : i tried to remove the dynamic snow, and it s now working again. Is there any way i can have : 8 layers in first pass + snow + vertical texture ? ( with tessellation )

 

hmm wondering too, usually it should work if i am remembering the manual: 8 layer in first pass + 1 "extra"
and in the case of "no lightmapping" there should be 1 extra too


which settings did you have for the gorgeous pictues you posted above?

 

Apparently going to wireframe forced Unity to prepare (compile "on demand" basis) another variant of shader which uses some texture resources internally. It depends also on lighting path - forward eats resources. What's the unity version do you use ? I might give you a hacky trick to get rid of cubemap blending to save one texture. Download built-in cginc file from Unity site - the one that's compatible with your Unity version. It's UnityShaderVariables.cginc and put there:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. #ifdef UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING
3. #undef UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING
4. #define UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING 0
5. #else
6. #define UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING 0
7. #endif
8.  

Put this tweaked cginc file everywhere you've got RTP shader to compile and recompile it.

Tom

 

Thanks tomas, i m gonna give that a try as soon as i come back home.

 

I'm just thinking - if you could accept globalised wetness values - simply remove material property in all RTP shaders (first,add,far only + internal/ - underlying shaders). It can be set then using SetGlobalFloat() and should work - material property won't "hide" (override) it then.

Tom

 

@tomaszek Have been having problems with tessellation. I purchased a pretty amazing Displacement texture pack from Allegorithmic's website RDT (Real displacement textures) these are mostly 8k Scanned terrains that i want to be able to use with RTP. The tessellation demo video of yours I've seen is about clamped textures for a world splat texture but haven't seen the use of the 4 Tessellation slots. Also your tessellation has some re-size option which is ok if you don't already have displacement maps but i was wondering if you might just be able to let the tessellation area include a spot where you tell it the size of your terrain and then the area where the texture color, normal and height include the slider to adjust the displacement depth for each texture. https://store.allegorithmic.com/shops/3

 

Changing what exactly?
To me it already looks to be a global variable.

Do you mean removing these blocks?
[RTP_MaterialProp] TERRAIN_GlobalWetness("Global wetness", Range(0, 1)) = 1

 

Yep - comment them out and TERRAIN_GlobalWetness you'd be able to set using SetGlobalFlot

Tom

 

I commented all those out, but setting Shader.SetGlobalFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", value); doesn't bring any changes onto the terrain.

 

Have you done this on every RTP shader that's possibly used ? Try to restart unity even maybe. I'm not sure why it's not accepted by shader - some material props seems to still override it

To be honest - I have no clue what you're trying to do.

Tom

 

Yes, everywhere. I reimported the shaders, restarted Unity. Nope, doesn't change it.

 

Are you sure something else (like globalSettingsHolder of RTP) doesn't interfere ? When any of refresh ( RefreshAll() ) is called your setglobalfloat will be overriden

Tom

 

@tomaszek about tessellation, I want to be able to paint/sculpt on a terrain (Voxeland or World Creator) while using the 4 max tessellation slots available each tiled sized around 15. It's displacement rather than smoothing that I want to use. I did try another Asset -free (DX11 Tessellation PBS) that works great on adding a single displacement image to a surface and AAA Terrain by Anio worked good on a Terrain using 4 for displacement textures but I would like to use RTP only to have snow and potentially wetness.

 

Yes. I only do this for example:

terrain.globalSettingsHolder.TERRAIN_GlobalWetness = 0f;
Shader.SetGlobalFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", 0f);

Note: I'm using 2 terrains with separate parents in my scene to use different layer settings. But that shouldn't cause any issues.

 

Andy made it working:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/re...-v3-on-assetstore.206516/page-94#post-2581607

can you try it as well (using materials though) ? In RTp3.3 I use globals for snow and it works w/o problems I see no reason wetness can't be controlled the same way when we'vw got no material property that overrides it.

Tom

 

You can use detail displacement. In 4 layers mode it works fine, but still - it's tessellation so you need to provide RTP with terrain height&normals texture (shown in my yt video). displacement detail textures you place as detail heightmaps on each RTP layer. Take care they are of the same size. It will produce one combined RGBA texture (out of 4 detail heightmaps). Level of displacement you control like parallax - in RTP/Settings/POM. Make sure you detail heightmaps have alpha channel - RTP uses _only_ this channel.

Tom

 

Thanks Tomas, I'll try fixing the Height map - I don't believe it had an Alpha channel -I thought since it worked with other Tessellation shaders that nothing was wrong with it.. Thanks

@tomaszek ok just for clariety when you say it creates one combined RGBA texture (out of 4 detail heightmaps) does this mean that I can't paint with it basically one texture created by 4 (asumed clamped) just covers the whole terrain? if this is true then I can't use it. I was hoping to use textures that repeat so I can paint the tessellated textures -If this is the video you are talking about

I don't see you painting with Tessellation.
I'll show you what I mean in a few hours, I'll make a demo video.. I've painted with tessellation with another asset, but I'd like to use RTP and get snow coverage etc.

 

Thanks Andy, I will try this out myself.

 

@tomaszek @snair692: Did you guys read that Andy mentioned this "trick" comes with a CPU spike? That's not really desired and I don't consider this a solution.

 

Well yes, but I didn't want to be rude about it because RTP is a great asset and the Developer has spent a ton of time so that I can have a beautiful looking game with relative ease. Obviously since the developer has just posted to us all, if he had a better solution he would give it to us, and since he didn't I can only assume the best we have right now is Andy's solution. Perhaps we can hope for something in a future release

 

Nobody was rude. Sometimes it's better to say the things as they are, objectively. If something is not a desired solution, that should be said so the developer knows how the situation is for us using his work, so it can then be improved.
I just wanted to remind Tom that this trick is not a good solution in any scenario.

Or even better, snair692, maybe you can try out what I did in your own setup? Then we have confirmation that the global wetness value doesn't work.

 

I have verified that commenting out "[RTP_MaterialProp] TERRAIN_GlobalWetness("Global wetness", Range(0, 1)) = 1" from the RTP Shaders and using
terrain.globalSettingsHolder.TERRAIN_GlobalWetness = 0f;
Shader.SetGlobalFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", 0f);

Does not resolve the issue.

 

Hey @tomaszek
the little hackfix for wireframe view worked. Thanks !

Unfortunatly, i am running into one "small" issue, and i can t find ways round it beside cranking up the Terrain pixel error ( not my goal with tesselation ) :



I am using 16 terrain tiles, each terrain being 1000/1000.

Is there a way to not get this "apparent line" between each terrain ?
I do not get that line if i use pixel error 1, so the terrain are properly stiched together for sure.
Also, using the standard Shader does not produce that. It really is it seems using both RTP and tesselation. Like the LOD level between the two terrains is not being " calculated properly, even if i made sure that all my terrains are under the same parent.

What am i am missing please ?

EDIT : Another 2 shot that might help someone to point me in the right direction, something like the LOD not working properly may be ?


same view, 2 meters on the right



Another shot showing more clearly the issue :

 

I have also just Verified that Andy's solution does work at least for me, I am running profiler and I am not noticing the CPU spike he is referring to. In any event his solution works for me for now because Refresh.All caused visible screen lag and Andy's solution is not causing that.

 

Here you go:
http://prntscr.com/aok6g6

 

Working on new terrain for Scraps, RTP is looking good.

 

Real nice !

If you do not mind me asking :
- What kind of fog are you using ? ToD atmospeheric scattering ?
- I guess you are using tessellation ( unless you shot down pixel error to keep that LOD , for the purpose ) : Are you using SSAO ? i can t get ine to work properly, seems like the camera is not clearing depth properly...
- Multi terrain tiles Or one single terrain ?

 

It's way simpler than you might think. Tricks!

Fog is default Unity fog, but this is the terrain:


And this is the skybox:


Combined!


Basically instead of making my fog the colour of the atmosphere, I'm colouring it more like a first row of mountains, and just drawing in fake background ones.

I am using multiple terrains, though I disable terrains that are out of camera view since they seem to still use a lot of CPU even when invisible. There's a little bit of a second terrain visible in that screenshot.

No tesselation, no post-processing, just standard 4x MSAA. But I'm using a lot of RTP's perlin normal maps and UV blending. It's not as high detail as it might look - pixel error is on 10.

 

Thank you ! really cleaver

 

hI !!
Can i use different "RTP_LODmanager" setting in different scene ?
Thx!

 

I purachased RTP v3.3 from the asset store hoping to use it with Terrain Composer and World Composer. I have been trying to get it to work for a couple of days, but RTP seems to be screwing up my terrain import from World Composer. In world Composer, when I create a terrain with Satellite images included, the first terrain plane is imported into the correct position but all subsequent terrain planes are imported at 0,0,0, stacked on top of each other with no satellite image applied.

I have tried importing RTP into my project first and then world composer and terrain composer. I have tried turning on and off as many settings as I can find. The only thing that I have found that does anything at all is to uncheck the Satellite Images radio button in World Composer on the Create Terrain dialog. When I uncheck it, the terrain planes are all imported into the correct locations but the planes are all black even after I add a light to my scene. I'm at a loss. Has anyone else experienced this issue? Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this problem?


Here is the NullReferenceException that I get when each terrain plane is imported into Terrain Composer from World Composer while using RTP.

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
Boo.Lang.Runtime.RuntimeServices.GetDispatcher (System.Object target, System.String cacheKeyName, System.Type[] cacheKeyTypes, Boo.Lang.Runtime.DynamicDispatching.DispatcherFactory factory)
Boo.Lang.Runtime.RuntimeServices.GetDispatcher (System.Object target, System.Object[] args, System.String cacheKeyName, Boo.Lang.Runtime.DynamicDispatching.DispatcherFactory factory)
Boo.Lang.Runtime.RuntimeServices.SetProperty (System.Object target, System.String name, System.Object value)
Map_tc.set_terrainArea_splat_textures (.terrain_area_class terrainArea1, Int32 count_terrain) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:5841)
Map_tc.create_terrain (.terrain_area_class terrainArea1, .terrain_class2 preterrain, System.String terrain_path, UnityEngine.Transform terrain_parent) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:5694)
Map_tc.Update () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:3614)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:232)
System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:115)
UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName, System.Object obj) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:187)
UnityEditor.HostView.Invoke (System.String methodName) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:180)
UnityEditor.HostView.SendUpdate () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/HostView.cs:245)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication.Internal_CallUpdateFunctions () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/editor/EditorApplicationBindings.gen.cs:217)

Thanks

James

 

Hello James,

You are right . Tom and me looked into it. I have the fix for WorldComposer. I will upload it to the Asset Store today.
Also you need to get the latest RTP to have a colormap on all terrains.

http://www.stobierski.pl/unity/RTPUpdate.php

Nathaniel

 

Hi Tom, I'm having an issue where different terrains with the same materials and seemingly identical settings are looking very different. In this screenshot, the terrain on the left is working as expected. I've compared the settings of the ReliefTerrain script in the inspector using debug mode and I couldn't see any differences.

Any ideas? I'm using forward rendering 8 passes no overlap.
Thanks, Joe

 

Is the terrain on the left smaller than the right? I've had this issue with different UV sizes on meshes.. not sure how unity terrains differ from sizes but it could be worth checking

 

i just started testing using mesh as my terrain. but
how do you guys paint texture to mesh using rtp?
what is ur workflow when using mesh as terrain? are u making your terrain editing and make it mesh after or what?

thank you

 

I've checked this today. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but actually the reason it does not refresh is enigmatic to me. Terrain shaders seems to not hold TERRAIN_GlobalWetness property so they don't hide it. It's only case for standalone shaders. If you'd like to them to be controlled globally - comment out this property in their property block. For terrain this works for me - I put this script on the terrain object (so I have an access to globalSettingsHolder):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.   ReliefTerrain rtp = GetComponent<ReliefTerrain>();
3.   rtp.globalSettingsHolder.TERRAIN_GlobalWetness = wetness;
4.   rtp.globalSettingsHolder.Refresh();
5.  

but that's slow indeed. The way to speed it up is using Shader.SetGlobalFloat like I said before, but it doesn't work unless I commentout this 2 lines in ReliefTerrainGlobalSettingsHolder.cs:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. SetShaderParam("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", TERRAIN_GlobalWetness);
3. Shader.SetGlobalFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", TERRAIN_GlobalWetness);
4.  

Weird, but seems to be necessary. I'd need to dig more and try to hunt down the case when it's called (and intereferes).

Then you can use such code to control global wetness (note that this will make you unable to control it via RTP script inspector):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.   ReliefTerrain rtp = GetComponent<ReliefTerrain>();
3.   rtp.globalSettingsHolder.TERRAIN_GlobalWetness = wetness;
4.   Shader.SetGlobalFloat("TERRAIN_GlobalWetness", wetness);
5.  

Tom

 

Do you use
SetNeighbour function for adjanced terrains ?

http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Terrain.SetNeighbors.html

3rd party tools like TerrainComposer can do it for you. It's necessary to remove the seam between terrains and in your case it looks like the issue as you adjanced terrains have different tessellation at problematic edge.

Tom

 

Nope. But if you really need it you could make a hack - compile one shader set using LOD_manager, then copy them (ReliefTerrain-FirstPass.shader + addpass + faronly). Then rename them (inside) and set proper references in copied firstpass shader (to refer to copied addpass and faronly shader). When you use such firstpass shader as shader for terrain amterial (Unity.terrain settings tab - material) you can make it independent.

Tom

 

When I made mesh example I used terrain - painted it, then exported as mesh. Coverage control maps can be saved from RTP script. RTP doesn't have functionality to paint. There wast4m package available on AssetStore but I've been reported it's obsolete and probably not maintained anymore by its publisher - I might be worng though - ccheck it !.

Tom

 

If you use RTP3.3c from AssetStore it has a bug. There is RTp3.3d available from my server (multipart zip archive):

http://www.stobierski.pl/unity/RTPUpdate.php

Tom

 

I merged 3.3d already so I already have the fix in RefreshControlMaps

Code (CSharp):

1. if (true)
2.              //!terrainComp || globalSettingsHolder.numTiles<=1 || mat)

Is there anything else I could try or look into? It looks like the terrain on the right has parallax heights added and dark pixels but no highlights where the sunlight should hit it. Thanks