Graphics [HDRP-UPR ✅] Sky Master ULTIMATE-Physical skybox-Volume clouds-Weather FX-Ocean-Realtime GI-Mobile

The current shader uses only one calculation direction, for performance and SM2.0 compatibility. This means that i can have moon glow only after sun calcs are done, this is why i fade out the sun and smootly bring in the moon glow. The effect is smoother in a normal day cycle speed, in the fast mode seems to glow suddenly indeed, but it can be regulated to do a smoother transition in the fast speed as well if needed.

The idea was that the moon glow wont come into play until the sun ambience is gone, so it would make sense to optimize this way.

I will add a shader version that will calculate both sun and moon glow at the same time and optimize for SM2.0 in the next version, so they can work independently.

Also i will try to regulate the glow appearence/dissapearence better for the faster cycle too. Maybe it needs some extra tweaking in the timing and speed of the sun effect fade and moon glow appearence to get it better synchronized.

 

How did you make to fade between the different skyboxes?

 

I lerp the sky rendering values, there is always one skybox. These lerps and the target values for each setting are set in presets that can be expanded or altered in the SkyMasterManager.cs code (in Unity 5 area, search for preset == 0 to 5 to check out how it is done).

 

A note on volume fog, the system does not cast fog on clouds (because they use transparency). This will be handled in the next version, if possible directly in the image effect. In the mean time the standard fog can be used to fog the distant clouds, along with the volume one.

The issue to using volume and standard fog together, is that i disable the standard fog in the Terrain Manager script when volume fog is used, so the disable code in the fog preset must be removed.

If both standard and volume fogs are required:

Check for "if(SkyManager.Weather == SkyMasterManager.Weather_types.Foggy" in SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER.cs script (attached to terrain).

Remove this whole if-else check completly, so when Foggy weather is used, wont disable standard fog.

Search for "SkyFog.FogSky = false;" lines and remove them all as well.

This should allow to enable both volume and standard fog at all cases. Note that standard fog will add up to volume one, so the volume fog preset numbers will have to be altered to lower the intensity a bit to compensate for that.

Next version will have an option to use both fogs and auto-adjustment depending on the case.

 

I have found a solution to the cloud volume fog interaction. The trick is to remove the [ImageEffectOpaque] from the GlobalFogSkyMaster.cs script. This will allow the fog to blend with transparency.

There are still some issues in the interface between clouds and objects behind them (they seems to be additively blended for some reason), but this should work nicely for most cases.

I will provide a globalized way to control this setting (basically add another script for transparency fog and switch with an option in SeasonalTerrain manager), in the next version 2.1. I will keep both options so they can switched based on the case.

I post some examples and settings with [ImageEffectOpaque] disabled. Clouds fogged look super cool and open up many more options for various looks and effects.

 

Since Sky Master works great with Orthographic cameras, the next version will also contain presets for fog and sky that are specific to Ortho camera and 2D - 2.5D style games.

 

Before and after Orthographic mode control

While making some pics with Orthographic camera, i realized i had only put ortho controls in my temp project and they were not passed to the v2.0 release. These controls will arrive in v2.1 as a priority and include an automated system to set the stretch parameter based on aspect ratio used.

I can also send the fixed shader immediately to anyone interested in using the system in Ortho mode.

 

UPDATE:

A quick follow up about the particle clouds and volume fog interaction. I found out that transparency does not work well with the height fog effect due to the fact that transparent objects dont write to Z buffer correctly.

The only solution is to use the [ImageEffectOpaque] directive in the GlobalFogSkyMaster.cs script to bring the transparent objects in front of the fog (that is how it currently works).

This means that to have clouds fogged, either the fog has to be emulated in shader directly on the clouds (very restictive since the biggest perk of the system is the ease of customization with multiple shaders and textures, plus would need a lot of tweaking and addition of extra complexity to handle it) or used in a controlled way with some limitations. I will be exploring the latter solution first, the effect becomes odd when you see fogged objects through the clouds, but from the ground seems nice (like in the pics above).

I have a height based solution where i eliminate the fog as the camera goes higher, this does create a transition though, so i will post a demo and see opinions on the effect to decide whether i should keep it as a possible option or not.

Note that standard fog does work with the clouds, so the next version will allow to use both fogs together (with or without volume fog in clouds) and also provide presets specifically for that effect.

 

Darker cloud base (in this sample cloud motion is updated every 0.35 secs and calcs spread over frames, for performance on my old laptop and clouds are in a time lapse motion. The normal slower cloud motion will work great with this slow update rate)

Day time study, WIP on more presets for the next Sky Master ULTIMATE version

 

UPDATE:

The next update WIP for v2.0.1 will offer some fixes and new functionality

- Add option to use standard fog together with the new volumetric image effect based fog, with "use_both_fogs" parameter in SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER.cs script.
- Add option to correct sun/sky aspect ratio in Orthographic camera mode, "use_ortho" parameter will control the squeeze factor for complete control over the vertical axis scaling.
- Move presets to a function and add it to start(), so there is no longer need to match the preset parameters in the script.
- Add a speed parameter to control sky effect transition speed, maybe othe controls as well.

Also a few notes on the speed of sky effects:
- The system is regulated to work in a normal day cycle and if used in the time lapse mode of the demo will seem to have a sudden appearence of some of the effects (like the moon halo appearence). This speed and timings can be regulated at the presets code if another day cycle speed is needed.
- The volumetric clouds for demo purposes are set in a higher than needed update rate, so if the clouds are used in a normal day cycle, the spread to frames and update factors can be set much higher for extreme optimization.

Also i would love to see more suggestions and requests for any other functionality or enchancement that would be desirable.

 

Some more WIP on the volumetric clouds.

 

New presets WIP

 

New presets WIP


A quick note about the preset pics above.

All the presets shown above for v2.1 are possible to recreate with the current Sky Master 2 ULTIMATE system in Unity 5, there was no extra functionality added to achieve them, only texture and settings tweaking.

 

Presets WIP for v2.1, using more detailed textures for the clouds

 

UPDATE:

New volumetric lit particle shader will be included in the next version, for more realistic fire and smoke effects. The effect is working ready and is SM2.0, so globally compatible. Also has some optimization tricks for the shadow casting.

 

A bit more refined Volumetric Heavy Storm for V2.1 presets. Few tweaks in lightning and shadows.

Also the old particle Lightning Storm is now reworked with the new lightning system that is better suited to clouds.

The new presets are available on request immediately, for everyone that wants to use them before v2.1 is released.

 

Sky Master ULTIMATE v2.0.1 is ready for release and will be submitted tomorrow (extending the manual will take a bit longer):

Fixes and enchancement in v2.0.1

- Added option to use standard fog together with the new volumetric image effect based fog, with "use_both_fogs" parameter in SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER.cs script.

- Added option to correct sun/sky aspect ratio in Orthographic camera mode, "use_ortho" parameter controls the squeeze factor for complete control over the vertical axis scaling.

- Presets have been move in a separate function and was added to start(), so there is no longer need to match the preset parameters in the script. Presets will be initialized at start of game without a lerp from the editor defined script parameters.

- Added a parameter to shift dawn time for earlier dawn control.

- Added Sun intensity controls for day and night time, with maximum reach speed control for easy adjustement.

- Fixed an issue with Night sun color parameter, now it is properly handled. Also note that this should be set to black for the general case.

- Changed the moon material to a Unity 5 one, for better look and fix of a strange glow in the moon middle due to the old shader transparency mode.

- Fixed issue with sun light still active at night from the ground side.

- Added a Day cycle speed factor to sun light coloration lerping, so it will behave better at higher day cycle speeds than "1".

- Added sample scene with tweaked volumetric heavy storm and Lightning Storm that uses the new line renderer based lightning.

- Added scene that showcases the orthographic camera mode use.

This version is also available as a hotfix for the current v2.0, so there is no need to wait for the store review time, anyone interested may contact me in artengame@yahoo.com with the invoice and i will send the hotfix link immedately.

 

A few more additions before submission:

- The image effects will now grab their shaders properly when inserted from the menus. The shaders had to be inserted in the inspector defaults of the scripts.

- Image effect Sun and SkyManager properties are now auto-assigned by the SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER script, for easier setup

- New preset for volumetric fog that will work best with the "Use_both_fogs" option (that is, when Untiy standard fog is also used in combination)

 

A sample of the new cloud shader for volumetric clouds, included with a sample setup in the upcoming v2.0.1.

This is the first version and the shader will be extended and branched in various versions to best emulate each cloud motion and type.

The new shader based motion is the next step in the volumetric system and will enable all new kinds of cool effects and cloud styles.

 

Using volumetric and standard fog together in v2.0.1

 

More testing with the new dual fog mode.

The standard Unity fog needs some tweaking to get perfect, so it covers only a fraction of the clouds for example. This can be handled in the Sky Master Manager per day time and season fog density and coloration options.

 

More work on the new presets for v2.1

 

Dual sun and planets samples

 

Features planned for v2.1 (updated)

- Weather ULTIMATE, a module for visually arranging weather patterns and scheduling during the year. It will be based on the Weather On Demand transition system and offer a higher level control for weather automation.
- Shader based cloud dome, for higher clouds (above the volumetric ones).
- Configurator Editor with a big preset library for visual preview of sky/cloud settings and Particle Scaler
- Dual (or more) suns/moons shader option and main script handlers.
- Tweaks to dusk lighting/coloration, or option to adjust the time dusk coloration will be applied
- More advanced shaders for volume clouds (inner motion, noise, scattering and more)
- New detailed textures for volume clouds
- Volumetric shadowed particles for smoke (SM2.0 for global compatibility)
- More image effects integrated (e.g. bloom)
- Mikley Way texture option for night sky (if i can get the proper texture)
- Planets showing through atmopshere, big collection planned with various styles
- Volume cloud interaction with terrain, for rolling over mountains
- Aurora effect
- Rainbow effect

Please remember to review/score the pack !!!, every good review allows me to extend the pack with all kind of cool new features much faster.

The Configurator editor with the big visual library will be a big undertaking to create, but will offer one of the most spectacular ways to create a sky/clouds arrangements, and reviews will help a huge lot while making this system !!! and all other updates to the pack.

Thanks a lot in advance for any reviews.

 

Asteroid field WIP

 

WIP for dual screen / 3D support. The control for sun beams / fog are not yet in synch in left/right camera, so this does not represent the final look.




Planets, dynamic asteroid fields around own or space orbiting planets, special effects and blends and much more coming to the Space Module in v2.1 of Sky (and Space) Master







More goodies are added for the next (v.2.1) update - stereoscopic mode support (cardboard setup - also open to other suggestions) and dynamic asteroid fields (integrated to the main system, pics above)
.

 

Features planned for v2.1 (updated)

- Weather ULTIMATE, a module for visually arranging weather patterns and scheduling during the year. It will be based on the Weather On Demand transition system and offer a higher level control for weather automation.
- Shader based cloud dome, for higher clouds (above the volumetric ones).
- Configurator Editor with a big preset library for visual preview of sky/cloud settings and Particle Scaler
- Dual (or more) suns/moons shader option and main script handlers.
- Tweaks to dusk lighting/coloration, or option to adjust the time dusk coloration will be applied
- More advanced shaders for volume clouds (inner motion, noise, scattering and more)
- New detailed textures for volume clouds
- Volumetric shadowed particles for smoke (SM2.0 for global compatibility)
- More image effects integrated (e.g. bloom)
- Mikley Way texture option for night sky (if i can get the proper texture)
- Planets showing through atmopshere, big collection planned with various styles
- Volume cloud interaction with terrain, for rolling over mountains
- Aurora effect
- Rainbow effect
- Dynamic Asteroid field effect
- Dynamic comet effects, with spectacular fly over the atmosphere effects
- Moon phases and sun eclipses
- Stereoscopic mode support (cardboard setup as reference)
- Time of Day related effects (lights go out in day time, start at night etc)
- Speed tree wind regulation integration, affected by weather and season.

Please remember to review/score the pack !!!, every good review allows me to extend the pack with all kind of cool new features much faster.

The Configurator editor with the big visual library will be a big undertaking to create, but will offer one of the most easy and spectacular ways to create custom sky/clouds arrangements, and reviews will help a huge lot while making this system !!! and all other updates to the pack.

Thanks a lot in advance for any reviews and all the amazing support for the pack so far that helped shaping it to its current state.

 

More features added to the list

- Local cloud accumulation around centers (using a divider of the overall cloud number)
- More moon light control through the Sky Manager
- Screen space rain drops (for emulating drops on a window or camera glass etc)
- Anime style clouds and rain drops, particles etc for an overall anime style scene sample and presets (extra bonus for every 5 star review of the pack)

Thanks a lot everyone for the suggestions

 

Some more features to be added

- Handle underwater (regulate volume fog for that purpose)
- Wind control over SpeedTree trees, for auto regulation based on season and current weather

 

Anime style clouds WIP for the new complete scene (Anime Countryside pack, soon at the store)
UPDATE:

The anime style scene is currently WIP and will be a free bonus to 5 star reviews of the pack on demand (the offer will be for a limited time, so write your reviews early and put up a request for the free pack here) !!!!

A whole new anime specific set of presets, volume cloud textures-controller and scene with trees, stones, grass etc will be created for that purpose.

This scene will also be a separate $70 pack and integrate with Sky Master, Particle Dynamic Magic, Toon Effects Maker and InfiniTREE for all kind of optimizations and dynamic effects. The integration to the other packs will also be a free bonus for all the 5 star reviews of the relevant packs.

 

UPDATE:

The Dual Sun has now been integrated to Sky Master manager and a preset has also been added for the dual sun use.

Anime stage WIP video

 

UPDATE:
Playing with Anime style moods, sky presets and fog options and slowly crafting the world.

These also use Particle Dynamic Magic 2.0 Dynamic Grass shader and InfiniTREE (InfiniGRASS module) for the batching and LOD of grass for endless grass placement.

Now i will also implement the tree chopping and a few cool fire effects, create the presets and a ANIMEManager to blend them and then focus on making the stage as beautiful as possible.

The scene will be a free download for all 5 star written reviews of Sky Master ULTIMATE for a limited time !!! Also all the other pack integrations for the respetive owners/reviewers of these packs will be available on demand.

 

More WIP on the Anime stage

 

WIP on the new Sky Master - anime stage integration. More presets added for sky and fog.

 

Here is a small video of the anime stage WIP, there is a huge ammount of work to be done over that of course, but it is starting to take a first shape . Finished with a first version of the fence model as well and now doing some cool 3D flowers for the scene.

Also added multiple optimizations with a controller to disable all unessesary modules that instantiate grass etc at game start and now works super fast. A LOD system has also been added for Particle Dynamic Magic 2 grass.

Sky Master is fully integrated with the water as well (not show in the below video) and the controller will allow the initiation of the scene with various weather types and moods. For example it will be possible to start the scene at a heavy storm, with all asset behaving accordingly or in a summer day with vivid colors and day light and everything in between.

I also plan to support seasons, but this will be more tricky as the whole terrain will have to be affected for winter for example. This will probably come in an update of the Anime Countryside pack later.

The anime stages will be sold separately for $70, but will also be a free download for all 5 star written reviews of Sky Master ULTIMATE on demand. The offer will last for a limited time.

The scene integration with the volume grass will also be a free download for all Particle Dynamic Magic 5 star written reviews and similar for InfiniTREE.

 

New video of the WIP. Red poppies added and more work on filters.

 

UPDATE:

While making the anime scene i discovered a bug at the sun placement at certain angles in the Start() method, where at the game start, the sun would rotate to its opposite position. This is due to not locking the Y and Z rotation (this is ok in the update method, was only neglected to be changed in the start method)

The fix will be included in the next update.

For everyone that has the sun change position at game start and does not want to wait for the update, here is a quick fix.

Line 651 at SkyMasterManager.cs script:

Change to:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. SunSystem.transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3 (28.1412f - (Current_Time - 20.50f)*15 + Shift_dawn * 15, Rot_Sun_Y, Rot_Sun_Z);
3.  

Line 653 at SkyMasterManager.cs script

Change to:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. SunSystem.transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3 (Mathf.Abs((360*2)+28.1412f - (Current_Time - 20.50f)*15), Rot_Sun_Y, Rot_Sun_Z);
3.  

NOTE: The horizontal factor parameters in SkyMasterManager must be zero before starting the game, as they are now used only for play time adjustment.

To that end also add in line 649:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Horizontal_factor =0; Horizontal_factor_prev=0;//v2.1
3.  

An update with the fix and dual sun support will be submitted to the store tomorrow, after some extra testing.

 

Sky Master Version 2.1 WIP - Planets and Dual Sun

 

hi nasos,
i try to dig into your asset a bit, and wonder how did you change the color of the tree into red in one of your demo, cant find that option anywhere. do i miss something? same goes for the grass
cheers

 

Hi toto2003,

The grass and trees must have the relevant shaders/materials inserted into the SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER script, that is attached to the Unity terrain. The materials should have a color property (both SpeedTree and Unity trees standard materials have)

In the case of SpeedTree trees, you enter all the LOD materials of the leaves into the Materials array in the script and it will change the color depending on the season (so you must put season 3 for autumn in the SkyMasterManager)

The grass is changed by the tint color on the terrain and the Unity trees are changed when tagged as SkyMasterTree (the system will auto find the material and change its colors when it contains "Leaf" or leaves keywords).

You can also set these colors per season in the SkyMasterManager script. e.h Autumn tree color parameter

Let me know for any other questions / details

 

awesome will try that tonight, any news on the vr update? will you add it on the next update or it would take longer?

 

Actually the VR would be ready, as everything works, the only problem is the image effects that should move to the left/right cameras and need a bit of testing to make sure it works perfectly as an option in the main scripts and with all components.

This will take a while longer to perfect and test, but i will try to have it in v2.2 soon. I decided to split the releases this time, as the accumulated features are way too many for one release. So i will have the dual suns and planets in v2.1 (plus a fix on sun rotation at game start and at refractive rain when used in depth texture mode) and the 3D setup in v2.2 and the harder ones like the configurator in next versions.

Let me know for anything else that comes up during the setup of seasonal color changes.

 

I managed to sqeeze time and make the stereo mode handling and a new gradient per fog preset automation, both will come very handy in their respective use situations.

Stereo mode works by copying the GlobalFogSkyMaster and SunShaftsSkyMaster components from the main camera to the left/right cameras and then insert the cameras in the SeasonalTerrainSKYMASTER script, then the system will handle and update the presets for fog and sun shafts for the stereo cameras, when Stereo mode is activated in the script.

The gradients per preset works by defining a gradient in a deactivated GlobalFogSkyMaster script and then adding its reference to the GradientHolders list, where each item corresponds to the similar number preset (say add one component to the list, this will be used to copy the custom gradient when preset 0 is used etc). Changing the gradient in the deactivated source object will also update the gradient in real time, for any number of cool effects.

Bloom has also been added to the overall scene effects.

The planets scene has a special setup/trick where planets have self illumination and then their color is controlled by the volumetric fog for emulating light from the sun. The planet materials should have lowered the self illumination for use outside the specific setup. The planet textures are used for looking at the planets from the ground and not all are meant for a full 3D rotation around the planet (for example some have a visible seam in the back side).

These will now come in v2.1 as well

 

UPDATE:

One more feature has been added to the v2.2 and beyond, gradual snow accumulation with local option. The goal is to offer two methods, one by applying spacial shader and the other by locally changing the snow growth.

 

More anime clouds WIP
UPDATE:

Sky Master v2.1 is ready for release and will be submitted soon.

Updated upcoming features list (after v2.1)

- Weather ULTIMATE, a module for visually arranging weather patterns and scheduling during the year. It will be based on the Weather On Demand transition system and offer a higher level control for weather automation.
- Shader based cloud dome, for higher clouds (above the volumetric ones).
- Configurator Editor with a big preset library for visual preview of sky/cloud settings and Particle Scaler
- More controls and options for Dual suns/moons
- Tweaks to dusk lighting/coloration, or option to adjust the time dusk coloration will be applied
- More advanced shaders for volume clouds (inner motion, noise, scattering and more)
- New detailed textures for volume clouds
- Volumetric shadowed particles for smoke (SM2.0 for global compatibility)
- Mikley Way texture option for night sky (if i can get the proper texture)
- More Planets and space assets
- Volume cloud interaction with terrain, for rolling over mountains
- Aurora effect
- Rainbow effect
- Dynamic Asteroid field effect
- Dynamic comet effects, with spectacular fly over the atmosphere effects
- Moon phases and sun eclipses
- Time of Day related effects (lights go out in day time, start at night etc)
- Underwater handling (regulate volume fog for that purpose)
- Wind control over SpeedTree trees, for auto regulation based on season and current weather
- Local volume cloud accumulation around centers (using a divider of the overall cloud number)
- Volume cloud shaping, for precise placement and formations
- More moon light controls through the Sky Manager
- Screen space rain drops (for emulating drops on a window or camera glass etc)
- Anime style clouds and rain drops, particles etc for an overall anime style scene sample and presets (extra bonus for every review that supports the pack growth)
- Gradual snow accumulation with local growth / melt option

 

UPDATE:

I just found out that the Cardboard setup in Unity has the left and right eye in alternate positions, probably to enable the correct output. But that does not work when trying to view the 3D in pics by cross eye method.

I post above a sample of the correct image to use for cross eye 3D view.

 

thanks for the update and cardboard support.

 

I am glad the stereo support was mentioned and i integrated it , since it is trully a whole other kind of epic in 3D

Especially the new planets scene and the refractive rain can be the base of some very cool demos i have in mind, that will give this super sense of depth in this mode.

Remember to install cardboard as well with the pack import, so the sample scene functions properly.

 

Sky Master ULTIMATE v2.1 has been submitted to the store and is pending review !!!!

 

Sky Master v2.2 WIP

Some WIP pics of the upcoming Rain streaks and Snow accumulation systems.