Terrain Composer2 a next generation GPU powered terrain tool.

Hi Nathaniel,

its me again - and still struggling with the automatic object placement (and a few other struggles). Hope you can provide a leading hand.

First of all, in the manual on page 27 the object resolution is stated as based on world space. This means a value of 20 each 20meters an object is placed. I tested it with a simple sphere and when I increase the value to e.g. 100 I get far more objects generated (everything else in the object filter is untouched). Shouldn't it get less than?

Second: in the object filter I have selected 'prevent overlap'. If I use a sphere with scale 100 on each axis, I still get a lot of overlaps. How can I get ride of them?

In the 'Generate Settings' I have checked generate in 'Run in Background'. According to the manual, this would mean even if I change to the browser it should still generate the current output. But it only counts the time for generation after I switch back to unity - the progressbar in the meantime stands still.

In the manual there is a description to have multilayers (e.g. an object layer and below another object layer). How can I active this? I can't find it.

Thx and br
Wyl

 

Deciding if I should buy and I have a question. I want to be able to create terrain set pieces outside of unity that are handmade and use your terrain generator to create terrain to fill in between the handmade set pieces. Is that possible with your extension?

 

That's very specific and relies on your maps. Does your terrains are flattened to the sides? Then it'll be easier, but if, f.E. you have a mountain cut off I don't think you'll get good results.
You would do that with a Layer with any of your existing heightmaps as an input and of type 'change', with a mask specifying your terrain tile position in total terrain space. You would have to adjust scale and offset of your input heightmap to fit into your spot specified by the mask. Your mask should have faded edges to smooth out the transitions between your terrains. With that, your terrain tile will smoothly integrate into randomly generated terrain.

 

Does anyone who uses this asset know how to explain how to combine heightmap layers, I'm trying to do something like the examples but where I can have a ground and a mountain layer

 

Hi Nathaniel, and thanks for all the support .
I use mask with Ray Cast Mode ‘Hit’ to exclude grass placement on Roads with a collider. But grass still appears in roads , after generating.
What parameters i can use. I have Terrain 2000X2000 m. and roads width are 5 m.

Kostas.

 

Hey Nathaniel, great asset first of all
I was asking the following from Tom over in the RTP thread, and he said that it is apparently in your roadmap.. what i would love would be the ability to do the dx11 tessalation within the terrain composer window ( since you've done an incredible job an integrating the two systems.)
Right now, i guess I have to select each of my terrains and set it up separately ( which on a large number of terrains seems like a pain )

 

Yes it's a bit out of scope, what do you use this for if I may ask?

Nathaniel

 

Hello,

I dont know what i changed/done exactly, the grass is kinda double now, one that is fixed (no wind animation) and one animated but transparent lol, also sometimes the normal one (without animation) is dissapear leave the terrain with ghost like grass, any idea why please ?

Thanks,
Aouadi

 

I wanted to calculate speed map (texture where each pixel will have specified speed for player) for my terrain. Basically I have x raw heightmaps. Each one specifies opacity of some map symbol. And each symbol has defined speed.

So I wanted to calculate weighted mean of speeds/raw heightmaps
For example if forest has opacity 50% and speed 5. And road on that pixel will have opacity 50% and speed 10. Result speed will be 7.5 etc.

Still probably very specific usage. But if someone else needs weighted mean it would be nice feature except standard averate

 

Okay, so I've been looking at TerrainComposer, and it looks really impressive. However, the descriptions of its runtime features are a bit vague.
Is it possible to use TerrainComposer to procedurally create an "infinite" terrain around a moving player? Naturally using 2x2 or 3x3 terrains, and simply re-generating the old ones as the player progresses onwards. Is such functionality present?

 

Hello,
I have one feature request that will make configuration of TC more maintanable.

I really like ability to comment layers with Remarks feature. But I'm missing two things:

• ability to set specific color for Remarks
• Remarks on Filter and Masks level of hierarchy (I have layers with tens of masks, so it would be cool if I could add specific comments for specific mask or filter)

Regards
Peter

 

Can you generate grass and trees as gameobjects using AFS and TerrainComposer?
EDIT: Can it place gameobjects using generated maps?

 

How many draw calls, I plan to use on mobile platform. Can holes be added?
Can I use terrains I have created before?

Thanks

 

Hello,

I'm getting this error with unity 5.0.2f1 and the TC version 1.92.

Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(8340,31): BCE0004: Ambiguous reference 'TC': TC, TC.

It looks like it's related to Relief Terrain (on version 3.2).
Any idea why this is happening?

 

RTP has a solution for caves.

 

Just getting this error now with Unity beta 5.1.0f2 accompanied by the TC window going blank:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.
3. Parameter name: index
4. System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Boolean].get_Item (Int32 index) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:633)
5. TerrainComposer.draw_precolor_range (.precolor_range_class precolor_range, Int32 space, Boolean one_color, Int32 minimum, Color color_color_range1, Boolean display_swap, Boolean display_value, Boolean erase_button, Int32 call_from) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:13375)
6. TerrainComposer.draw_image (.image_class preimage, Int32 space, Color color_filter, Boolean draw_color_range, Int32 call_from) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:12557)
7. TerrainComposer.draw_subfilter (.prelayer_class prelayer, .filter_class current_filter, Color color_subfilter, Int32 space) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:12021)
8. TerrainComposer.draw_filter (.prelayer_class prelayer, .prefilter_class prefilter, System.Collections.Generic.List`1 filter, Int32 space, Color color_filter, Color color_subfilter, Int32 position_prefilter, Int32 current_number) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:11505)
9. TerrainComposer.draw_layer (.prelayer_class prelayer, Int32 layer_number, Int32 count_layer, Int32 count_description, Int32 space, System.String text, Int32 layer_minimum) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:11087)
10. TerrainComposer.draw_prelayer (.prelayer_class prelayer, Int32 prelayer_number, Int32 space, System.String text, Int32 layer_minimum) (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:8124)
11. TerrainComposer.Paint () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:3635)
12. TerrainComposer.OnGUI () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:919)
13. 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-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
14.  

What I did to cause this was clicking one of the + signs in the mask area. I think it was the + sign where you can choose a color to mask against, but am not 100% sure. Unfortunately TC will not run at all now on the scene so I can't do anything with it now. Restarting Unity just leaves the TC window blank and shows the error again.

The only way for me to continue work on the scene was to revert everything with SVN.

 

I've got a couple simple maps here for detail grass that have stopped working for some reason. Details are applying everywhere instead of in the green areas. Not sure why, I don't think this part has changed aside from the curve under color0 at the bottom which was previously a 0-1 upward constant slope. Doesn't work with that setting either though.

I had gotten myself into a bit of trouble by creating a new scene. After some shuffling of my file structure to accommodate more scenes and going back to this original scene that was fine, all the textures and meshes and so forth that were in TC before disappeared. The mask setup shown here remained (although I'm not sure if all settings are really the same as they were when it was working), so before I ran into today's problems, I was simply trying to restore everything.

I'm finding it really confusing, scary, if not dangerous, to try to work on more than one scene in a game using TC. I'm being more careful now, saving a TC prefab separately for each scene, but this kind of thing has got me really nervous. I would have thought all these settings were saved in the Terrain Composer Save object in the scene so you could just bounce back and forth between scenes, but it doesn't really appear to work that way. Very powerful stuff, I like WC and TC a lot, but it's quite confusing to me when working with multiple scenes.

Anyway, does anyone see a problem with my mask settings below? I should be getting grass in the green areas of my maps, but it's putting it everywhere instead now.

EDIT: Turns out that somehow two extra grass layers got inserted into all this. Don't know how, maybe it happened when switching scenes? One of the extra grass layers was putting the detail everywhere. I deleted the extra layer, but now I get no grass at all anywhere. Does anyone see something in my settings here that could be wrong? Maybe they were changed by whatever added the extra layers to begin with? Frustrating because I had this all working perfectly at one point. Started working on a second scene and now it's bunged up the old scene.

 

Hello Wyl,

The object resolution on meshes is based on world space. But for Unity terrain its the amount of objects in a row on a terrain. So object resolution 64 gives 64x64 = 4096 objects (with maximum strength).

For overlap this you can control in 2 ways, simple and advanced control. The simple control is to decrease the object resolution, e.g. if you terrain size is 1000 and your object size is 100, you can put object resolution to 10, and they will exactly fit (if random placement is disabled in object -> transform).




The advanced control is to use distance:

The running in background is a bug on Unity's side, and they fixed that in the latest Unity5.
If you want another object layer, just add one with the yellow '+' button . Multiple layer I use in many of my tutorial video's.
http://www.terraincomposer.com/tutorials

Nathaniel

 

Yes you can use TerrainComposer for that. What I recommend is to use Horizon[ON] around TerrainComposer to place you handmade terrain pieces, as Seneral suggests it would best if the outside of TerrainComposer terrain is flat and handmade terrains to need to have flat edges.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/31861

Nathaniel

 

You can use multiple heightmap layers, and they will be added to each other. So if heightmap0 results is 0.2, and heightmap1 result is 0.4 the total will be 0.6
It's possible to overpaint the previous heightmaps with filter output set to 'Change' and then level 'Layer', then you can use a mask for the amount you want to overpaint (0 is don't overpaint, 1 is fully overpaint).

Nathaniel

 

Hello Kostas,

You can find information on this in the TerrainComposer manual on page 31. If you need more help with it, let me know...

Nathaniel

 

Yes it's in my feature list and will make it in the next TC version.

Can you show screenshots of what happening? Do you use Advanced Foilage Shaders?

Hmmm interesting, yes it's very specific indeed.

This is possible, only the script for moving the terrains is not included. I will add this in the next update.

Sure I will add this for the next update.

Yes Terraincomposer had Object output where you can place GameObjects/Prefabs with advanced rules. This also works directly on meshes. You can see my post above where I show a screenshot of object placement.

Draw calls depend on the resolutions you use. TerrainComposer can also convert Unity terrains to objs, that can save on drawcalls if terrain is not too big. RTP supports caves, but RTP doesn't run on mobile. You can however use the converted obj terrains and make your own caves in a 3d program. Yes Unity terrains and obj's are saved in the project and can be used in any Scene.

It looks like there's a double script in there (the double one with the 1 added, needs to be deleted). TC works fine here in the latest Unity 5.1. You can check the folder TerrainComposer/Scripts.

Strange...I tested all the '+' button here for image in filter/mask, works all fine. If it happens again you can send me the prefab if the TerrainComposer object in your Hierarchy window and I can trace if there's a bug and can fix the TC project manually and send it back to you.

Nathaniel

 

It might have to do with your SVN, TerrainComposer is saved with a Scene (TerrainComposer GameObjects) and it's a normal Monobehaviour script that holds all the data and references. So if something happens to the TC gameobject and probably happens to all the other GameObjects you have in your hierarchy as well. You need to make sure you shuffle files from within Unity in your project window, if you do it outside Unity it will break references and meta files. So the saving of TC within as Scene is as reliable as the saving of other GameObjects in your Scene.

I see that you are using 2 images here, do you have 2 terrains? Also the Curve (Normal) is a flat line and that shouldn't be. It should go from 0.0-1,1.

Nathaniel

 

Yes im using AFS but i just import it thats it i didint applyed it to any mesh yet

 

Nathaniel, did you tested this with Unity 5.1? I've added TerrainComposer to my 5.1 project and I am getting a lot of wrong names, terrain name by example is 435345345345321 or something like that, and a lot other wrong names like this.

 

Hi, any lead on how we can create new terrains without loss of previous terrains?

 

Fixed: Put editor in Mixed mode, if you have "Forced Text", else some prefabs broke. Probable is a Unity problem translating prefabs from binary to text.

 

Yes, there are two terrains in this scene, hence the two maps. Masking works on neither of them now though.

Regarding curves: As I wrote before, it makes no difference what Curve(Normal) I use. I've tried every combination of options I can think of and simply can't get masking to work anymore on this scene. I am afraid to even try regenerating the trees now because I think it will just delete them all just as it did with my details placed with the masks.

This all happened some time after creating a second scene (before I had SVN installed) with a totally different terrain, then going back to the first scene. I had made the mistake of replacing the terrain with my new terrain (totally different location in WC) just to quickly test it. Since then I have separated the scenes and only do one location (set of terrains) in each, but somewhere in the middle of all this, TC's settings were messed up on the original scene. All the textures, objects, details, etc. disappeared from the TC window, but the masks and so on were the same as before with the exception that it added a couple more extra layers for whatever reason. I then added some the detail textures back into TC to regenerate the grass, but now when it generates I get no details at all if I am using those masks.

So I am kind of screwed now because I can't make changes to the original terrain I spent so much time on. I'm afraid to even try using TC on a second or third scene now because I don't know what will happen. This all has me very nervous.

I would have thought that all the TC window stuff (textures, objects, etc) was all saved in that TC game object in the scene, but it appears that's not really the case, or something there got changed when I made the mistake of using a different set of terrains in that same scene as a test. During this time I did not regenerate anything (the second set of terrains was WC only), so I thought it would not affect anything.

Anyway, it seems that I am now at the point where I simply can not use the masking feature on that original scene, and I'm afraid to even try regenerating the trees or anything else in that scene.

 

Yes, this is really the problem for me too. That and the TC window settings not seeming to keep the settings reliably when changing between scenes. I'm afraid to even use TC now that I'm adding scenes with new locations and terrains.

What would be helpful is a tutorial video where you create 2 scenes using different locations imported from WC, where you add something simple like details with a simple color mask to both using TC. Then switch back and forth between the scenes and show how the TC window changes properly between the two scenes. This seems like it works most of the time maybe, but per my previous post it seems possible to break it pretty easily. I'm sure I'm just not understanding how this all works properly. It's just not very intuitive with all the cross referencing that goes on in TC. It's too easy to get the wires crossed.

Don't get me wrong, this is all powerful stuff and I'm glad I bought both products and will continue to use them, but I am really finding them quite confusing and scary to work with even after watching all the tutorial videos. WC to me seems pretty safe, I don't have any problems when just using that, but when I throw TC into it, I get nervous.

I spend too much time trying to do what would seem like simple things like setting up a color mask to place terrain details. Maybe you could think about adding another QuickTool or something that could set up a basic mask and filter framework for the user automatically? Then all I have to do is drop in an image, choose a single color, and the masking will work. I keep finding myself wading back through hours of tutorial videos trying to find the parts where a simple color mask or something like that is explained, because with all the options I just can't seem to figure out how to do any of it myself. At the moment I can't even find the video I remember seeing the first time where I learned how to do the color mask.

 

Thanks for the answer. There's no double script at all in the folder :/ To be sure, i deleted TC and re-imported it but i still get the same error.

http://gyazo.com/2e49865b9afa221076f3d29823aed5af

Edit: Could it actually be the TC particles asset package somehow conflicting with Terrain Composer? (Possible similar name tag and all)

 

Thanks, that's good to hear. I'll keep an eye out for the time being then.

 

AFS is overwriting the Unity grass shaders, so you need to set it up according to its documentation, otherwise grass won't render correctly.

Yes this is a Unity import bug when having Unity Project Settings -> Editor -> Asset Serialization -> Force Text, which need to be on 'Mixed'.

Nathaniel

 

Hello,

Switching between Scenes just works fine with TerrainComposer and WorldComposer, it works for 2.5 years now since TC is out. I think it's best we do a skype screenshare (my account is Nathaniel.Doldersum) and you show me how switching between Scenes break TC to see what's going on and I can help you make your masks work again.

This is what I mean (a flat line will give 0 result, so needs to be changed to default linear line again).


As for the tutorial video about placing based on image colors is this one:
Help Video for placement based on image colors (New)
The video is only 10 minutes, so I don't understand why you need to search for hours, the name is clear enough I think . I will add this in the 'How to do's' page on my site this week.

Since TerrainComposer is a GameObject with a Monobehaviour script, it is totally depending on the prefab and GameObject handling of Unity, the only way to break it is to do things wrong with Unity. You said before that you reorganized your files in your project, but did you do this from inside the project window? If you references broke, you did not, and this probably caused all your troubles, and yes then everything will simply break...

This is a quote from the Unity Manual:

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ImportingAssets.html

When you are organizing your Project View, there is one very important thing to remember:

Never move any assets or organize this folder from the Explorer (Windows) or Finder (OS X). Always use the Project View

There is a lot of meta data stored about relationships between asset files within Unity. This data is all dependent on where Unity expects to find these assets. If you move an asset from within the Project View, these relationships are maintained. If you move them outside of Unity, these relationships are broken. You’ll then have to manually re-link lots of dependencies, which is something you probably don’t want to do.

So just remember to only save assets to the Assets folder from other applications, and never rename or move files outside of Unity. Always use Project View. You can safely open files for editing from anywhere, of course.

Nathaniel

 

Thanks. That wasn't the video I was referring to though. There was another shorter one I think where you had red/green/blue areas as masks that explained it really well.

As for the curves: Once again I'll say that I've tried every curve setting there including the one you posted and none of it is working on that scene anymore. The way it was originally set up was using the 0-1 curve like you posted. That didn't work anymore which is why I started fiddling with all the curves to get it working. Somewhere in the middle of that, I posted that screenshot. So that's not really the problem. I've tried every option there and the masking on details is just not working. Not sure how to make that any more clear.

Skype: I appreciate the offer, but it's not really an option now. I'd have to go back to the point where things broke in order to demonstrate TC not preserving everything. My 2 terrain scene was at one point showing 12 terrains in the output heightmap button, and all the textures for everything got removed, plus two extra grass layers got created somehow. I never created extra grass layers, but suddenly there were 4 where there was once 2. This is probably because I copied the set of terrains from one scene into the other scene. Maybe then TC doesn't know which set of terrains to work with. Anyway, it seems some wires can get crossed there somewhere. Lesson learned, I'll just avoid doing that in the future.

I'm still happy with the purchases and think in future scenes it will probably work fine just like it used to before I started the second scene and grabbed the second location and put it in the first scene. That was done by using a simple copy/paste of a parent game object (the terrains) from one scene to the other. I created the new scenes by doing "save as" or copy/pasting game objects in the hierarchy. I haven't been moving or copying files in Windows Explorer.

Anyway, since posting, I've written a couple simple scripts to do the detail masking a bit more easily, it hits every pixel in the maps so there's no need to tinker with the density settings. I should be able to use that to remap the detail on that scene where TC detail masking isn't working for me anymore.

Thanks again for your help.

 

Trying to create height images with the image heightmap tool; however, it seems to be stuck on one image. I can't replace the first image I made with a different one so I can make multiple height images.

 

Hello Nathaniel!

I'm looking for a tool that can apply 2 or more splat maps on a single terrain and blend the splat maps together for a smooth transition.Can i do this with TC?

Note: I'm using tiled terrain.Is it possible to apply the corresponding splatmaps for each terrain too?

 

We can still do a skype screenshare and I can help you get everything working again...

Nathaniel

 

You have to choose a different file name if you don't want the first image to be overwritten.

Nathaniel

 

Yes that's all possible. Do you use real splatmaps were the RGBA channel represent a splat texture each, or just want to paint colors in an image and use that for splat texturing. For real splatmaps if you use 8 splat textures you need to use 2 splatmaps, and they can be blended together.

Nathaniel

 

Thanks a lot for the answer!
Yes,i'm using real splatmaps,its good to know TC can do this!
I'll certainly purchase TC!

 

I think I'm just not understanding how the tool works. When trying to make a heightmap for any image, I simply need to select any photo and apply it to the image heightmap tool and then export it?

If that's the case, then my problem is, when I try to select any new image it doesn't seem to update the heightmap with the new image. Basically the heightmap image appears to be stuck on the first image I selected when using the tool.

This is what I'm getting:

It's stuck on this image.

Sorry if I'm not explaining myself very well.

 

Hi! Wanted to say thanks for such an in-depth and powerful tool. I'm enjoying learning how to make the most out of its features.

I am running into a bug, however. It seems that when I assign my terrains a parent object and/or when I change their save location to a subfolder within Assets, any height maps used only effect the left half of each terrain.

Using the default settings for terrain creation (no terrain gameobject parent and leaving level assets in the Assets folder) does not cause this issue. An example of what's happening:



This is just a tiled grey-scale circle that ought to be covering the entire map. No matter what sizing, strength, or offset adjustments I make, it only affects the left side of the terrain.

Thanks for looking into this!

 

Can anybody point me to (or provide) a complete idiot's step-by-step guide to creating a basic terrain with this? I watched the tutorial videos but they don't correspond in any way to the version of Terrain Composer that I have.

 

Look into the docs and the examples that come with TC.

Basically you just have to unfold the empty terrain slot, set your preferences and create one or more terrains.

Then you have to create several layers with perlin noise to get a basic terrain: Unfold the layer and it's filter , where you'll find two curves, normal (checked) and random. Check only random, and in it's dropdown choose perlin and somehow modify it's curve. Now, when you choose the height output at the top and generate: You'll see some basic perlin.

Play with the settings of the Perlin Noise Filter and the curve, stack some additional layers and you'll have a basic terrain

 

Thanks - that sort of helps, but with a couple of problems (I don't know if they're bugs or not).

First, the perlin curve is a flat zero by default - generating a terrain from that doesn't do anything. When I reset the curve it changes to flat 1 - only then do I get something actually happening on the terrain.

The other thing is, it doesn't seem to make any difference what I do to the curve - only the leftmost point appears to be making any difference to the terrain (it basically seems to only control the maximum terrain height).

I can't really look into it more just now as I'm on a laptop with 1366x768 max res, and the TC window takes up most of that. Be glad to get back to my dual screen desktop on Sunday and try it out some more.

 

Hi Nathaniel,

Me again - and a giant terrain.

I've got the height map in a 6 x 3 grid of 2048 tiles but based on a single 12288 x 6144 raw file. That works very well. Thanks for your help with this!

I'd like to apply a color map to this now. I have a 12288 x 6144 jpg of aerial imagery for my area (NAIP, not Google, so it's free to use, BTW). I'd like to stretch this across my entire set of 18 terrain tiles as a color map.

I've gone through your creating a colormap tutorial - but it ends when you create the final colormap .png (and I've had TC divide my original map into 16 2048x2048 tiles). What do you do with these pngs next? How do you assign them to the terrain?

Is it possible to have the colormap visible at distance but to fade to a splatmap at first-person point of view - say within 1000m of the camera?

Finally, where is the TC manual? When I click the manual button in the TC Help nothing happens.

Thanks very much again.

-- Anthony

 

Hi, why terrain textures size set to 128? I tried to change textures size to 1024 but it will back to 128 again.

 

Hi, First time using the plugin and I love the potential.

I have an issue with TC and RTP - hopefully you can point me to RTP if its not something under your purview.

If RTP shader is set to use tesselation, is there any way for the TC heightmap to automatically update that normal map RTP uses? If not, what's the best method to create it from the multi-terrains TC generates?

Don
have a great day

edit: Totally missed it the first time through the videos.

is a great explanation and exactly what I needed. Is there any chance of an index of videos / tutorials?

 

Hello,

Ah no this is not how the image heightmap tool works. It's actually for creating images. With the sliders and arrows you can customize the perlin noise and make an image. It's not for assigning images.

If you want to use one of your images

 

Hello,

Thank you . This is probably do to local area sliders not set to the max. If you go to the Local Area tab, you can click the 'Max' button (also <Set All> if you use more terrain tiles). That should fix your issue.

Nathaniel