3D Rocky Hills Environment Pack - Development Thread

I just wonder if it is possible to make this scene with this asset and get at least 60 fps at max setting? https://benchmark.unigine.com/valley Push F2 so you can see the mesh. It have colliders on every tree.
A video here showing it running at 60 fps:

 

I think it is possible! I haven't made the most optimal choices when making this asset at first but there are things that can be done to optimise it and keep the high quality. As I mentioned before in previous posts the biggest problem with my pack is the mesh grass. You would need a third party grass solution unfortunately. You can get more optimisation by removing the reflection probes from the scene and the mesh grass, using terrain grass instead. Tbh the thing that takes away the most FPS in Unity is the sun light and shadows in particular. If you turn it off you get a bust in FPS. If only there was another way to get direct lighting! Anyway you could try HDRP or LWRP, there are support packages for the CTI shaders inside but you would have to do most of the conversion yourself.

I remember Unigine, it really impressed me back in the day and it still stands.

 

Have some problems to place this flowers:

 

I don't think you can use the flowers as trees. The issue might be because of the shader or because the flowers have no trunk. You should use a mesh brush instead and paint them as meshes because they have lod vanishing. I'll take a look at this tomorrow and tell you how to add the flowers as terrain objects if it works.
... or it could be anything because those small leaves work as trees, kinda weird.

 

It looks like other flowers work :

 

I figured it out, going to tell you why in a moment!

 

Haha you figured it out!!

Yah that looks great, I'm really surprised you can use flowers as trees like that, what's the fps on it? It's something I'll have to look into because I was expecting that to work in the detail layer. Unity terrain is so confusing to me! If you want more performance you can use the terrain vegetation, you just have to use the wind bending from the terrain, not the wind emitter for that, that's why they bend weird like that.

Anyway here's to the flower patches don't work, it's because if you look in the prefab it's not made like a tree but a collection of more plants so you can't use it in the terrain system. I forgot about that. I didn't expect people try to use it that way.



Unity terrain only works with tree objects, not random prefabs.
I made a test tow, the flowers on their own work just fine. So, do you get any performance issues?

 

Doing some tests on a 4000 x 4000 terrain. The 2D flowers have a much highter framerate than the 3D flowers, so best to use 2D on this terrain.

 

I see, so the performance on the flowers is pretty bad. What if we use unity's speed tree shader instead or simply them? As I suspected the ground plants need a third party solution or something to have good performance. Thank you for the valuable insight!!
--------

Non-related announcement but my friend just released his pack for who's interested!
Hazy Hills - Conifer Forest

 

I keep getting thousands of warnings at runtime with the summer scene as follows:

The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'BeecthTree01Summer') is missing!
The referenced script (Unknown) on this Behaviour is missing!
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'GenericGrasShort_ClumpA') is missing!
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'FlowersA_Summer_ClumpB') is missing!
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'RHE_RockDetailsB') is missing!
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'RHE_RockDetailsE') is missing!

And so on. Usually when I see this I check the objects and look for missing scripts, but I see none. I have no idea why this is happening.. Any ideas?

I am on Unity 2019.3.8f1.

 

Usually this is something Unity does when you remove a script and the objects that were connected to it get stuck with some leftovers. It's nothing major, it just a bit annoying before you hit play. When you build those should be gone I think. There reason behind it is because I used a mesh brush from the Unity asset store to paint my mesh on the terrain and I removed the script from my package. Note this only affects "scene objects" in the specific scene. Despite removing it from the meshes they still got corrupted. I tried a few methods but didn't work for me. Try copy-pasting the entire scene in a new empty one. Try looking in this tread two: https://forum.unity.com/threads/solved-the-referenced-script-on-this-behaviour-is-missing.381611/

 

Ok so I'm finally getting in to it now. I found out how to improve the quality of the 2k blurry textures of the cliffs by adding a detail texture. This was just experimental today so I made some fast phone pics. This is great because I can atlas all my rocks and get better performance.

In other news a buyer tested the pack in Vegetation studio and it just works easily but not sure if I'll support Vegetation studio and make biomes.

 

Just reminding people that purchased this pack that switching CTI over to URP is pretty easy and it works well. Thanks to the two of my clients for confirming this!

Just install the packages provided for URP/LWRP

Setup example:

 

Good news I figured out how to make my terrain grass and plants work with the terrain and the fps is really good, 60fps with the expensive shaders. I'm learning more. I am also working on batching my rocks and cliffs.

 

So here's the detailed texture that fixes the 2k blurry textures of what should be large scale models. While I'm working on atlas the rocks I plan to make more models.

 

And proof that my grass is working as terrain grass with a small cost of 6-10 fps. Of course, I know how to break up the repetition pattern of the grass and plants as well. The crossfading of the lod is the main culprit here, it dorps fps down to 30. I can't believe how bad it can be but it looks good tow and it's a shame.

 

And finished batching the small rocks first. I don't have snapshots of all of them but this should od for now. Remade all the textures, this is version 2.0

 

Unity Snapshot!

 

did you make these all by yourself? really cool work!

 

Dungeons?

 

Thanks, yes I'm working alone, I'm one person.

I'm still working on the dungeon but I had to give this a bit of attention as well. Progress will be systematic on everything.

 

I'm announcing that updates will be on hold or really slow and scarce for an undetermined amount of time! I'm managing my assets and backing up all my work to get myself ready to immigrate to the UK before the end of the year. I just need to get some stuff done but I'll get back to work as soon as my backups are all dealt with.

 

I'm back! Texture Atlasing rock meshes are going well. I even took and merged some of the meshes that were made out of different sub-meshes and made it unique. The performance increases exponentially. This was one of the uglier meshes and I have room on the atlases to add new better rocks that I'll be doing.



I also fixed the foliage of the generic trees by taking the time to make proper gloss, reflectivity, translucency maps for them, and Umping up the normals to make it look thicker.

 

The ugly rocks looking better now.

 

Huge news! Finally figured out how to get crazy performance on the CTI grass!!
I was making my grass wrong, remade the patches and corrected the prefabs and the performance is pretty decent. Turning off shadow cast on the grass makes crazy optimization also.

 

Re-sculpted the dead bark in Zbrush. I might make two more of them. I got some hols but Ițll uses them to my advantage.

 

I made two more models and already started to give the first texture layer.

 

Finished the stumps!

 

• Roadmap Update 6/16/2020❃

• Performance and features

• Vegetation Studio Pro vegetation packages/biomes (probably not)
• HDRP - URP package ready content
• Work on improving performance - In Progress (90%)
• Batch atlas all 2k rocks into 4k atlases (Improve performance of the rocks)
• Attempt making more optimized grass (90%)
• Add Upload to Unity 2019
• As an addition, convert all trees to terrain trees
• Write PDF
• Remove real-time reflection probes (70%)
• Make tree grass (70%)
• Optimized Billboards (stuck)

• Art aesthetics

• Fix PBR textures v3 (90%)
• Fix Prefabs (89%)
• Remake bigger cliff textures into 4k
• Make more realistic and optimized flat rocks and cliffs using detail maps
• Remake dead stump models
• Add additional stumps
• Add more splats
• Make more merged rocks and props
• Add CTI bottom detail bark material on the generic beech trees (found workaround)

(This will probably be the last update!)
*The price may or may not increase to 50$ or higher!

 

Adding more rocks that makes the terrain look better. These are 2 rock models merged 6 times.

 

• Roadmap Update 6/22/2020❃

• Performance and features

• Vegetation Studio Pro vegetation packages/biomes (probably not)
• HDRP - URP package ready content
• Work on improving performance - In Progress (90%)
• Batch atlas all 2k rocks into 4k atlases (Improve performance of the rocks)
• Attempt making more optimized grass (90%)
• Add Upload to Unity 2019
• As an addition, convert all trees to terrain trees
• Write PDF
• Remove real-time reflection probes (70%)
• Make tree grass (70%)
• Optimized Billboards (stuck)

• Art aesthetics

• Fix PBR textures v3 (90%)
• Fix Prefabs (89%)
• Remake bigger cliff textures into 4k
• Make more realistic and optimized flat rocks and cliffs using detail maps
• Remake dead stump models
• Add additional stumps
• Add more splats - In Progress (96%)
• Make more merged rocks and props - In Progress (96%)
• Add CTI bottom detail bark material on the generic beech trees (found workaround)

(This will probably be the last update!)
*The price may or may not increase to 50$ or higher!

 

Almost done, adding additional ground plants now. I won't post much for a while until I'm finished but I think this is the last thing I'll be adding. Also just reaffirming this will be the last asset update this pack will ever have excluding mandatory version maintenance.

Performance and visuals increased successfully!

 

• Roadmap Update 7/06/2020❃

• Performance and features

• Vegetation Studio Pro vegetation packages/biomes (probably not)
• HDRP - URP package ready content
• Work on improving performance - In Progress (98%)
• Batch atlas all 2k rocks into 4k atlases (Improve performance of the rocks)
• Attempt making more optimized grass (99%)
• Add Upload to Unity 2019
• As an addition, convert all trees to terrain trees
• Write PDF
• Remove real-time reflection probes (70%)
• Make tree grass (99%)
• Optimized Billboards (stuck)

• Art aesthetics

• Fix PBR textures v3 (98%)
• Fix Prefabs (99%)
• Remake bigger cliff textures into 4k
• Make more realistic and optimized flat rocks and cliffs using detail maps
• Remake dead stump models
• Add additional stumps
• Add more splats - In Progress (98%)
• Make more merged rocks and props - In Progress (96%)
• Add CTI bottom detail bark material on the generic beech trees (found workaround)
• Buy Amplify Shader Editor
• Make new snow shader
• Finish new flowers and plants (76%)
• Make new biomes
• Make cliff strips

(This will probably be the last update!)
*The price may or may not increase to 50$ or higher!

 

Just modeling a few more ground plants and flowers. Nothing to fancy but much-needed content to make the terrain look a bit richer.

 

Just bought the packs, stunning. As I will use them with URP (yes, some manuel shader changes for dev time)m I was wondering, what is your schedule as you mentioned URP ready packages already in roadmap.
Best, keep up the good work.

 

Thanks, lots for the purchase! If you need any tips or help with the installation feel free to ask!
My latest update will be even better with more stuff and the best I could do as far as optimization goes. If you mean in what order I'll be tackling the road map, it's pretty much random but making it HDRP and URP ready will be last after I finished the new assets and main optimization. At the moment you'll just have to use the URP pack provided in the "CTI" folder and go with that but if you need it faster I could make the proper texture for URP after I finish my flowers. Just PM me!

 

Not finished but just wanted to test out the unfinished high poly mesh in the terrain. It will look good!

 

And this is the finished flowers! It's all on a baked plane. Now I just need to make the purple ones.

 

Purples...

 

Hopefully, this should bring lots of improvements to the terrain. Next, I'll make some merged bushes and clumps out of them. I also managed to fix the wind so they don't bend weird at wind "1". Will have to fix the old bushes two but you should not have such strong wind unless you want a storm. Working hard to get everything on the scale and physically correct/better.



• Roadmap Update 7/31/2020❃
UPDATED!

• Performance and features

• Vegetation Studio Pro vegetation packages/biomes (probably not)
• HDRP - URP package ready content
• Work on improving performance - In Progress (98.9%)
• Batch atlas all 2k rocks into 4k atlases (Improve performance of the rocks) DONE!
• Attempt making more optimized grass DONE!
• Add Upload to Unity 2019
• As an addition, convert all trees to terrain trees
• Write PDF
• Remove real-time reflection probes (70%)
• Make tree grass DONE!
• Optimized Billboards (stuck)
• Remake some scenes - In Progress
• Fix wind on old bushes DONE!
• Fix wind on new flowers

• Art aesthetics

• Fix PBR textures v3 (99%)
• Fix Prefabs (99%)
• Remake bigger cliff textures into 4k DONE!
• Make more realistic and optimized flat rocks and cliffs using detail maps DONE!
• Remake dead stump models DONE!
• Add additional stumps DONE!
• Add more splats - In Progress (98%)
• Make more merged rocks and props - In Progress (96%)
• Add CTI bottom detail bark material on the generic beech trees (found workaround) DONE!
• Buy Amplify Shader Editor
• Make new snow shader
• Finish new flowers and plants (99%)
• Make new biomes
• Make cliff strips DONE!

(This will probably be the last update!)
*The price may or may not increase to 50$ or higher!
-----

I'll be back with more snapshots!

 

I made a few videos showing the performance of the new terrain vegetation. First two videos are with screen space ray tracing and ao so the fps will be under 50 to 40 and the last one is just Unity with post -processing, 60fps at all times. if the fps drops in the video it must be because recording.

Unity with lighting hacks

Regula Unity with post processing

 

I'll make a better video later, now I'm working on fixing the wind on the bushes and meshes.

 

Finished fixing all my bushes and I added the cliff stips, they match with the other rocks just fine. I might have a few more things to adjust. I'm also making more merged prefabs to make worldbuilding easier.

 

Hei just wanted to confirm it's more than possible in Unity with CTI. My new update will make it possible! Scrap everything I said about trees and plants!!!

 

It's really looking great!

 

This is great news! I was hoping to use this asset but found it was too heavy on the CPU. Hopefully with the update I can use them in my VR game. I would still plan to use them selectively.

 

Thanks!

Hopefully, now it won't be as heavy as before! We have optimized merge meshes which means fewer objects rendered on the map and optimized foliage so I'm hoping it will perform fine in VR. I also took out the speedtree billboard fading which was causing a lot of performance loss. I'm curious to know how it works for you after the update

Here are some more updates, made more prefab cliffs, and added lichens by changing the color of the moss. Also updated an old ugly tile, now all tiles are AAA quality.

 

I'm doing the best possible I can regarding optimization. Now I'm adding capsule colliders for the terrain version of the trees, It's the only way the work with the terrain, unfortunately.

I would say that everything is more or less done, all that's left is making a snow shader in Amplify and making the new terrains and HDRP/URP.

 

Capsule colliders are fine. You definitely don't want mesh colliders in a big forest, only for the occasional feature tree. I'll probably even delete everything but the trunk collider.