Terrain Composer2 a next generation GPU powered terrain tool.

I am still not getting it to work. The order/selection of colors (0/1/2/3/4/4/4/4) was just testing. Even if I am using 0/1/2/3/4/5/6/7 TC paints only 3 textures. Now I have been able solve this by having multiple Splat layers. Anyway, it seems that there is something wrong in TC because I have tested it also with empty projects without any other Assets that could cause problems.

 

All the tools like smoothing/stitching/slicing/mesh convert is in Quick Tools foldout:

That is a good idea . I added it in the ActivateTerrainSelection unityPackage. Can just import it and it should work. If you alt click the 'A' button above in the TC terrain list it automatically activates the terrains that are selected in the Hierarchy window (It works with single and multi selection).

Basically I just improved the GUI a bit instead of having too many in buttons there. So some buttons I hided in popup menu's. Like the layer menu button, now need to right click a layer to get the menu. The changes I describe on page 8 of the TC manual.

The tutorials I recommend to watch are these:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/tutorials/
TerrainComposer Getting Started (New)
Walkthrough the TerrainComposer interface (New)
TerrainComposer tutorial about filters, masks and curves (New)

Your images don't show so I'm not sure what you refer to. Can you send them to me in an email to Nathaniel_Doldersum@hotmail.com

Nathaniel

 

Ah yes it only works well if your previous splat values are normalized. I added the feature to be able to normalize each splat layer. So then you can keep it as you have now and would need to normalize the splat layer before the layer were you apply to rock debris, and the rock debris itself should not be normalized, then it gets the exact value you put. The normalize toggle is in each splat layer. You need to import the NormalizeSplatLayer package and it should work.

Nathaniel

 

If you switch in splat layer the slider more to 'One' does it work then? Yes I have older versions of TerrainComposer.

Nathaniel

 

You can just export your Unity terraindata's from your project as Unity package (right click on them). As Unity terrains are saved as TerrainData's in your project. You can get there by clicking on a terrain and then on TerrainData in the TerrainCollider script or in TC terrain list -> Settings -> TerrainData...

Nathaniel

 

Having trouble adding a tree.

I click +1 to the tree pane to create a "Tree (1) (No trees defined)" with see a small square saying "not assigned", but there is no indication of how I assign a tree to this entry. Clicking the large square or dragging and dropping a tree asset there does nothing, and the help video shows a different interface where a familiar drag-and-drop target well and small bullseye is presented. I don't see how to make the UI I have received work for me.

Love the focused help video links, but they need to be redone to keep up with the UI, maybe.

Sorry if this has been answered here, but without a "search within thread" feature, it would be hard to find out.

tone

 

as with splats as well, you need to add them to the terrain first, which is above the layer section of the TC window. Expand the first terrain, click on the Trees buttons under Size and add a tree there. This will become number 0 that you can then use in tree layers. Any layer can use just one, or only some, or all of the trees available, but they need to be made available by adding them to the terrain first.

 

Heyo Nathaniel,
Thanks again for such a great product! My game wouldn't be half as awesome without it!

A note for future updates. I'm noticing that the runtime terrains do not seem to input the saved grass settings. I haven't closely examined all the settings, so there may be others, but the grass is very obvious. I have the speed/size/bend set to 0.12/0.2/0.12 yet on runtime they all go back to 0.5/0.5/0.5 I'll hack around it for now, but thought you would like to know.

Cheers.

 

Thanks... this worked to get the tree (just using Standard Assets/Terrain Assets/Palm for now), but I am unable to get any trees generated by pressing "Generate" or "Auto". My terrain heights range from 1 to 60 units according to the measure tool.

tone

 

This is because you have a mask (the green color) with input on height, that is all fine if you want to exclude trees on the higher parts of the terrain but you need to invert the perlin curve. So click on the 'Curve' button and choose -> Line -> Invert.

I recommend to watch this tutorial video to understand masks and filters:
Walkthrough the TerrainComposer interface (New)

A filter is for choosing which item from the layer to place (this case trees) and a mask is for the density. So filter with 1 tree it doesn't matter what input/output and other values it has, it will always select the 1 tree in the layer.

Nathaniel

 

Can anyone explain why my terrains are looking like and doing this when you get close to them? They're pretty large terrains, and the black spots kinda dance around. Any ideas?

 

Hi,

When I Import Terrain Composer in Unity 5.2.3 I have two errors :

Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/Utility scripts/CombineChildren.cs(11,14); error CS101 : the namespace 'global ::' already contains a definition for ' CombineChildren'

Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/Utility scripts/MeshCombineUtility.cs(11,14); error CS101 : the namespace 'global ::' already contains a definition for ' MeshCOmbineUtility'

Could you help me ?

Cscompo.

 

those are standard asset scripts that Unity provides, unless the author has altered them, I don't think so though, you could look at them yourself. You only need one. There error is just telling you there are two trying to claim the same global name

 

Thanks,

Yes it's seems it's that. I just delete the "double" and it's works.

 

Ive done as you said, the outcome is as follows, please advise.

 

What is causing this fog over terrain unless you zoom in, using TC and RTP.

 

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/script-GlobalFog.html
?

 

More strange Effects, also this is Unity 5.3.0f4 (64-bit).

 

Ah I'll bet your RTP settings are messed up. RTP switches to different methods of rendering for near and far. It looks likes you far settings have almost no saturation. Ask in the RTP thread for help from the creator, I'm not very knowledgeable with it. Perhaps the shader you're building in it doesn't mix with your computer very well or...? Have you tried messing with the RTP layer settings?

 

Can you show screenshots of your splat layers where I can see the settings?

Yes this is a terrain shader issue. Ask Tom about this in the RTP thread. What he told me is that RTP need some updating to be able to work well with Unity 5.3 (in Unity 5.2 everything should work fine).

Nathaniel

 

This is probably a terrain shader issue. Do you use any terrain shader like RTP or Ats colormap? What Unity version do you use?

Nathaniel

 

I am using base shaders, I think i've narrowed it down to having to deal with the camera's clipping plane though. I am currently using Unity 5.3.0f4. The terrains are particularly large.

 

Nathaniel, Thank you so much for going beyond TC and into RTP to find the answer to my question.
I will continue on with the latest version of Unity and work around the shader until RTP is updated.

Again thank you, MJ Trottier
Developer of AtoC
One day others will join me in the future but for now I walk alone.

 

Here you go, thank you for your patience. My last 2 images show the rock layer with normalize on and off, similar effect is shown.

 

Having a small issue with multiple planes tied together in 5.2

[/IMG]

 

Does terrain height affect performance? I assumed it did, but thinking about it, its just the max of a float at each point no matter the max... right?

add: does seem that way.

 

Hey there, I have a question. I may have asked this before but it's been a while.

I intend to make a game where, in the beginning, the user sets a few parameters, maybe only just a simple "seed" value, and based on that a terrain or series of terrains is generated. Do you have a tutorial somewhere that lists how to do this (mainly calling all of the values from TC for the user to adjust, which are then put back in and then the terrain is generated at runtime)?

 

Hi Nathanial,

I want to purchase your product at your low price. I had just bought GIA and was wondering about the difference?

I want to make great 3D landscapes, apparently you have a number of products that need to be used together?

First, why would you also recommend RTP? It looks cool, but would it help with your Terrain Creator?

Also, what about clouds and atmosphere?
If you need a third party app for that from the asset store, which one would you recomend?

Also, you have Terrain Creator, World Creator, Horizon Creator, do I need them all?

The underwater scenes in your demo look terrific, are there any other assets needed for that kind of terrain?

Thank you,
Scott

 

Is Nathaniel or anyone good with dynamic batching?

I've got 8,500 rocks and 15,000 bushes in a 5km x 5km terrain system that are making around 10,000 batch calls depending on where I'm looking. I still get around 60fps on my mediocre machine but I spent a few hours here trying to get them to batch together with no luck. I even put all their scales to 1.1.1 and manually made sure they were sharing the same mat, but I don't see the saved by batching call go up at all.... I suppose combining the rocks into a fewer meshes could help, but not extremely...

not a real problem at 60fps, and I don't have pro yet to be playing with static batching, just would be great to have the randomized objects batching on their own.

 

Yes it could be the Scene camera far clipping plane. The best way is to test it in runtime.

What I can see is that in your second screenshot you have filter output to change, but position is on 0, which won't overwrite anything. If you put position to 1 it would do something. The overlay is calculated with position value * strength.

If that doesn't help, think it's best if we do a skype screenshare to get it the way you want it. My account is Nathaniel.Doldersum

Its in the same post at the end .

Strange indeed. Do you use any additional terrain shader like RTP?

The shape of the terrain does affects performance I think, because if you switch to wireframe and select a terrain you can see Unity's terrain lod system making less triangles on flat surfaces.

Yes it's possible and I have an example package for this with example script in C# and Unity script. Can download it here:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/runtime/

I actually have only made 2 products. TerrainComposer and WorldComposer. These don't have to be used together but they can. TerrainComposer is for creating terrains -> heightmaps/texturing/colormaps/normal maps/placing trees, grass and objects. WorldComposer is for creating terrain from real world data -> satellite images and heightmaps. So for WorldComposer terrain TerrainComposer can be used to place trees based on the green colors of the satellite images, splat texturing, etc.

Then my 2 friends...Tom made RTP3 terrain shader (and uber shader), it's a shader so it improves the look of any Unity terrain by using various shader techniques like uv-blending, Pom, Global color and normal map, etc. All things that Unity standard terrain shader doesn't have.

Horizon[On] is made by Peter (Tom helped a bit on the shaders) and is great for extending the outer area of terrains, and make the terrains look huge. As the issue with Unity terrain is that it is square and it doesn't blend nicely with the Horizon, there's always a sharp line. Horizon is a great and fast solution for this. Me, Tom and Peter and 2 other friends are working on a game and we use Horizon. Here's 2 screenshot from our terrain with and without Horizon[ON].





TerrainComposer has been around and updated for the last 3 years, Gaia was released some months ago. I think Gaia and TC are great addition to each other, they can be both used on Unity terrain. Gaia is a simplistic tool and great for stamping heightmaps. Me personally think TC is more powerful for texturing and placement, or importing from other outside Unity terrain tools like WorldMachine. With TC you are even able to lower the height/colors of trees based on any rules like height. So trees at on elevation would get smaller, which is realistic. Also TC has many more features included which Gaia doesn't have (yet). A list of some features that TC has, but Gaia doesn't:
- Creating color maps, normal maps, export splatmaps.
- Works on multi terrain tiles.
- Auto assign colormap/normal maps for multi terrain tiles.
- Stitch multiple terrain tile heightmap together if they don't fit.
- Convert Unity terrain to meshes.
- Split terrain(s) into multiple terrain tiles.

For clouds/atmosphere I recommend to use Time Of Day, we also use it in our game and is in the above screenshots as well.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/7316

Nathaniel

 

As for batching you can read about it in the Unity manual:
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/DrawCallBatching.html

Dynamic Batching only works on very light objects with no more then 900 vertices. Static batching should work, only objects have to be marked as static for it to work.

Nathaniel

 

So I have a simple problem. After last closing my Unity project, I guess it bugged out and the layout had to be reset to default. So now I only have the inspector tab. I set my layout to how I had it before, but when I went to open Terrain Composer under the 'Window' tab, I found that the option wasn't there. I then tried to import it again through the asset store but it won't import. I still have it in my assets folder, it's there and the functions it applied are still present, but I simply cannot open the user interface.

 

Hi Nathaniel! Just checkin' in to see how 2.0 is coming along? Did you have a good Christmas? Mine was lovely.

 

Yes I am using RTP shaders but this is drawing a plus symbol across each peices dead center

 

This happens if you have an error in the Unity console (not related to TerrainComposer). If you fix the error, Unity will recompile and TerrainComposer should be back.

Nathaniel

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

Nathaniel, I'm too very interested in 2.0... When will it be out?
And, besides the C# conversion, I've a question - Will anything in the structure change? It would be very important to me that the Window GUI and System would be split, so I can use TC in another way than the given Window. Don't understand me wrong, it's great, but I'd like to create a wrapper around it in my Node Editor, but as of now it seems it's pretty much bound to the Window and closed to modifications...
Thanks!

 

just as a side note... I use c# so I track TerrainComposer with a javascript listener that accepts commands from the javascript using sendmessage. I use the runtime scripts, so it's important for me to know when a terrain has been created. After that I can watch the terrains in realtime so I don't need it, but there are ways to get javascript and c# to talk if that's what anyone needs.

 

Does this support GeoTIFF?

 

I have been just testing Terrain Composer out. I created a terrain and added trees from the Mobile Enivornment Pack asset. When I set up baked lights the terrain casts a shadow on itself, but none of the trees generated from Terrain Composer have shadows.

The tree prefab is set to static and cast shadows. I tried manually adding the tree prefab to the scene and it bakes shadows properly.

I have attached a picture which shows how the manually placed prefab is the only one casting a shadow. Is there something else I need to set for the trees to work in Terrain Composer?

 

I have a very poor understanding of lighting, but... TC adds trees to the terrain so they actually become the terrain the way that unity terrains work. Maybe you have a setting on the terrain (not tc) such as the "Bake Light Probes for Trees" option set wrong?
Or try creating a new terrain and adding the same tree with the terrain tree brush instead of TC and see what happens. I wouldn't think it's TC related, rather unity related. Dragging a tree in manually makes it a GameObject which is very different.
I'm not very smart with shadows and stuff though, sorry if that doesn't help =3

 

Thanks for the reply. I had "Bake Light Probes for Trees" turned on and I just tried it with the option turned off without seeing a difference for shadows. I have tried playing with several other options like changing the terrain material from standard to legacy with no luck.

I tried using the standard terrain tools for placing the trees and they aren't casting shadows either, so it looks like Terrain Composer isn't involved. I tried baking lightmaps with trees from both Mobile Environment Pack and Unity's standard assets (Speed Tree) and neither worked.

I had read forum messages that shadows weren't supported for Speed Tree in earlier 5.x builds, but people seem to have them working now with 5.3. I am using 5.3.1f1. I will just have to do more research on it to find a solution.

 

Dude settle down. Just because you didn't master something in the first couple hours doesn't mean it's a pile of garbage.

What do you need help with? We will help.

If you are using the same name and the same folder for a terrain it will probably get written over, so don't do that. Name your terrains, put them in folders, and you can have thousands completely unconnected.

What are your splatmap filters trying to do? they don't seem to be using height or steepness which they really should. Do you really need a colormap if you're using generative filters?

 

I already did everything you said, because im not an idiot. My splatmap filters are based on steepness and direction.

I need a colormap for RTP.

 

I fixed it thank god, had to set the splatmap size to something else and then change it back.

Anyways, how do you create a colormap? nowhere in the documentation or videos does it show you. When I first used this about 3 months ago I somehow figured it out. I cant figure it out again.

 

if you're using RTP you can just click the generate colormap button in the settings

 

Heightmap import issue that is confusing the heck out of me ;-)

If I create terrains (Whether it is a single terrain or multiples) and leave the initial size parameters at 1000x250x1000 I can import my RAW file and select multiple terrains and it spreads across all of them nicely

If I repeat the same exercise (after deleting terrains and saves) I only get half of each tile populated with the heightmap. It spreads across them all but instead of applying to the whole tile it populates half of it ending up with "strips" of the heightmap.

Are there some oddities when creating terrains and changing the initial size parameters?

I was playing with a 10000x10000 scene to test some things. Creating 5x5 at 2000x2000 gives the problem wheras 10x10 at 1000x1000 doesn't. It seems the defaults dont cause a problem ut any size change does.

 

TC is giving me only 'spikes' on terrains when i generate. Even the examples don't seem to work anymore.

All UI dropdownlists have numbers instead of a text value..

Any idea's what could be wrong?

 

I'm seeing a lot of the same comments, essentially, "I can see TC is good judging by the rating and the screenshots but I wouldn't know because the UI is so bad I can't get TC to work." Maybe it's time to fix the UI? For starters, in Splat, Layer 0 (splat) shouldn't even be accessible until the user has assigned textures. Otherwise it seems as if they're being prompted to add textures to the empty slots in Layer 0 (splat). And the Splat icon at top should do double duty of "Add a New Splat Texture" so that users can clearly see where the textures are supposed to go. Or maybe the button for adding a new Splat Texture should be labeled, I don't know, "Add a Splat Texture" instead of being one of 10 un-contextulized plus buttons.

"E" for rename? "F" for fold? What's fold? Are you really trying to rename hide/unhide/collapse? Why an F button? It's redundant of the arrow everyone knows to use already!

Bruh, it's bad. Like really bad.

At left is the terrain I created in 30 seconds using (free) Terrain Toolkit (where the add texture button reads "Add Texture"). At right is Terrain Composer's after a day or so. No idea why it's all black. The terrains are identical and occupy the same space in the same scene. The TC terrain was similar to the TT terrain until I swapped out the cliff texture.



Except for the fact that I couldn't get the cliff texture to show through at specified gradients. I assumed that each filter you add corresponds to the likewise numbered texture (wrong it seems, but a fair guess given the lack of info/context). I then specified "steepness" as the "Input" but it affected all the textures. Mask? But how to get it to correspond only to the cliff texture (ie exclude all other textures).

One day I hope to add object meshes according to the following rules:
only on the grass(Hill) texture
only on level/nearly level terrain

But how? All I learned from the tutorial vids was how to load sample assets.