[TerrainEngine] Voxel Terrain : Smooth,Cubic,2D,Hexagonal Infinite Procedural Terrain

best of luck with that

 

Given the atrocious and embarrassing state of the engine, tools and interface, I would say it's safe to say that neither you NOR Junglee have done much useful work on it.

I would absolutely not recommend using TerrainEngine in its current state. All of the videos you see are generated from Unity store assets and converted - they are not terrains and setups created within TerrainEngine itself, which has a completely unusable userinterface for this, along with no realtime previews and horrifically slow generation.

 

I couldn't put it better than Djarcas did, there has been a real lack of oversight and accountability from both parties it is disgusting. I am glad I stayed away from this project and found another that suited my needs. We have asked for a demo numerous times on this forum with no reply. Selling an asset with this price tags and no demo to showcase?

 

I wanted to comment on the UI, I remember before it was bad, and the new one look terrible. being a UI/UX designer, you guys should think about consulting with one.. or hiring one to many people think UI is not important and its an after thought, I see it in a lot of games as well... So your not the only one. in your defense..to many people dont understand how much work goes in this... I get a ton of work from Europe, ....

 

This is absolutely untrue. If you have Terrain Engine and are unable to figure out the interfaces than you haven't followed the few learning guides there are or you aren't dedicating enough time to learn it. I'm not an advanced developer - I've worked in Web, multimedia and interactive for 16+ years but just learned c# 2 years ago. We have recent college graduates coming on board and extending and using Terrain Engine.

Terrain Engine isn't "make a game for dummies" plug in. As stated before, just look around, there are games using it but they have capable developers on board. Regardless, it's not a tool for "gamers" or "weekend warrior" developers, its a tool for serious developers with the idea that there are going to be capable developers using it - which is also part of why I imagine the price is where its at. You want to discuss difficult systems to use that are costly, take a look at Voxel Farm. That is the only competition to Terrain Engine and while the price has come down, its still "unusable". Many studios have had issues and it's a very convoluted process to make procedural voxel terrains and you cannot even do multiple biomes in the same scene. Perspective people, keep it real and relative.

Regardless, what @djarcas is saying is absolutely untrue. If I wasn't in the middle of trying to sort some critical items right now I could take the time to show you guys - it takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours to create a fully functional biome or group of biomes. If you cannot sort this out then watch the videos or read the read me or the image Dyox includes which shows the setup, or simply study an existing biome setup. Our guys, Realm Source guys, Constructonauts guys all figured this out long before Dyox even gave learning materials with his engine(we started 2 years ago with very little documentation and no interfaces). You drop in a few processors, throw some trees, grass and flowers on them. Set what you want for land generation and the materials they will use and hit play and DONE. Most of the videos Dyox show IS PROCEDURAL GENERATION. You can tell if you just pay attention to the details, lol. Watch the distance and watch terrain generate as he runs through the environment. He usually tries to avoid blatantly showing this in the videos because it can be distracting but you can catch it happening. Also in regards to slow generation, again this is untrue and misleading. It depends on the complexity of your scene. I can render MASSIVE epic terrain with 4 biomes in 14-24 seconds(with water and caves off). The more you add, the more it slows down. Makes sense. Take a look at the Horizon knock off screen shots lol. I have this setup now and its amazing and it absolutely is procedural and generates under a minute on a massive setup. After that go play a round of Blizzards flagship uber popular game Overwatch. It takes over a minute to load into a level on that game and it isn't even procedural.

Any customer reading this that has bought Terrain Engine legitimately through Dyox at full price and cannot figure out how to use it, PM me and I'll work some time out to help you or share something that can help. Anyone who went through Junglee will have to try and get those guys to help out.

 

Yeah, that makes sense for a product that going to be in front of millions of users. I'm a UI designer as well, and while a pretty interface would be nice, it certainly isn't stopping us or others from using the product. It's not as if it's unusable. That said, what I think would help, rather than a pretty interface, is a condensed interface that removes the need to understand what each noise is and how to tweak it to look correct. Like translated group settings for Mountains, Forest, Plains, Desert etc..., instead of Perlin or FastRidgedMultifractual with frequency and other controls on it that someone who hasn't studied terrain generation with noise would not understand heh. But again, thats where a little study comes in, which helps the designer anyway. I agree as well - It certainly isn't a matter of dropping in a few nicely skinned buttons and containers, functionality has to be condensed into containers probably that translate the settings into human friendly English terms.

 

yup, to many think a pretty UI is good enough, when its not.. Making user friendly, and making it simple as possible is more important, I tend to keep websites, in the past, I rarely do anymore, mostly games now, I tend to keep things simple, and user friendly.. I have my 65 year old mother, who is a gamer, if she can understand it, most people can..and the reason I say this, and she is very picky about UI 's in games..and always complains.. So if I can please her, I give to her first, lol, then to my testers..to make sure its easier to understand, and use... I have done this for many years..

Anyways.. in Dyox defense, as I said before, a good % of assets have poor UI's so I just rewrite some of them, if they really annoy me.. or my team.. or I extend on it in most tools..

 

So the engine is another fraud? Why is dyox allowed to advertise the asset here anyway? its not part of the assetstore.

 

Dyox... is there a way for me to get a version of V10 that isn't actually throwing errors in unity 5.5? You mentioned to me in skype that that was fixed, and I'm annoyed at having to go in there and fix some issues that look like they were bugs that were simply unfound before.

I have been talking to Junglee for the last few weeks since I wasn't able to hear back from you, and this was really frustrating because I can't get a simple fix from anyone. Why not just fix it myself? Well, I was promised free bugfixes, and in the last year I've not been able to use TE because the performance just wasn't good enough for my needs. Coming back to reevaluate it my first order of business shouldn't really be fixing bugs that someone else already fixed.

For those wondering, TerrainEngine is not a scam, but it's being handled fairly poorly. I have no idea who is in the right between dyox and junglee at this point.

 

I'm working on the engine since years now.
It's not a fraud, and again I have nothing related with junglee team.
The engine is working. All videos are made with it. And I provide a lot of demos to all companies contacting me. And even customized demo to be sure that it fit to the game that they want create.

 

Contact me by email or on skype if you bought Terrain-Engine source code to me.
5.5 is fixed since month now.

 

Just messaged you again on skype.

 

How have you missed all the posts from people that are using it, and how did you miss the games that are live using it that have been mentioned. Not too hard to find working examples.

 

Indeed. It's not a fraud at all. dyox can be hard to get ahold of sometimes, but he's very much one who has a working product. I've been frustrated lately, but he's taking care of me on skype and I've got cubic stuff working in unity 5.5, and he's helping me sort out the last of the smooth voxel issues on my particular build.

 

It's not required to only advertise AssetStore products. Anything Unity plugin specific is allowed to be advertised here on the forums. Dyox's TerrainEngine is not a scam.

 

I would like to share with everyone 2 games in development using TerrainEngine.

Infinite Dust ( early stage of development ) : http://infinite-dust.com/en/

Buildanauts : http://store.steampowered.com/app/394490/

I will continue to share frequently the progress of projects using TerrainEngine.
I invite anyone who use TE to share their progress on this thread.

 

I would like to introduce new features and optimizations of V11 : (30-50% fps optimization)

-New material LOD system, it's now possible to use complex materials (shaders) near to camera (depending of chunk LOD) and simple materials for far chunks. Global performance increased 30-50% when using Tesselation.
On this example, 2 Differents material are used.
The MegaSplat Simple (without tessellation and Detail texture) for all chunks and MegaSplat Complex only for chunk generated on LOD 0 (near to camera). The final FPS is now increased a lot.



-The new Details,Grass and batching system is fully completed and optimized. FPS optimization is 20-30%.

-The new TerrainEngineReflection is fully complete and use the new AdvancedFluidProcessor*

-New AdvancedFluidProcessor : It's a new and completely rewrited fluid system.
The generation time is now 10ms per chunks (from ++60 ms). It is fully multithreaded and fluids are now using an Octree LOD system. (Flow + Mesh Generation + Mesh Build are now fastest than only the Flow system of the old FluidProcessor. The memory usage is also A LOT decreased. From 10-20mo to 100-500ko, the save/load is also optimized)



-The new In Editor Plugin is coming soon and will works with the HeightMap editor, preview will be in realtime in editor
The in editor system will allow :
-Modify and save terrain in editor
-Fully multithreaded, it will follow editor camera and update lod
-Infinite in all direction
-It will be possible to place objects on specific region of the world, and they will be loaded when player will enter on the region
-It use all systems, so fluid flow will be in realtime in editor, grass/details will be modifiable, and construction kit will allow you to create objects directly where you want.

(WIP screen using the old GUI, the final Addon will use a complete new GUI with terrain tools for Add/remove voxels,etc...)

 

RoadMap​

V11.0 to V11.9 :
-In Editor Terrain preview and modification tools
-Realtime Fluids Flow with LOD, Realistic Rivers using multi resolution heightmap system
-ConstructionKit LOD + Networking
-Realtime Mesh decimation for Terrain and ConstructionKit.
-Voxels Objects (Procedural or HandMade) (Cliffs, rocks,etc)
-Long/Lat coords for Player and terrain with floating origin. It will be possible to run XXXXXXX meters and finish on the starting terrain position (Planetary coords)

V12 to V12.9
-One planet, from ground to space. LOD Transition with Geomorphing
-New Trees LOD system GPU based for far draw distance on planet surface

V13 to v13.9
-Universe Generator (Galaxies : Stars,Black hole,Planets,Space fog, and more)
-Multiple camera rendering
-Gravity and movement systems (Character,Ships,etc)
-and more


Progress on Trello : https://trello.com/b/KN6UKYhH

 

I wonder if it will be torus and if not how you will handle pole and area stretching
Great to see those feature finally arriving!

 

Some screens of the new version :
-New TerrainEngineReflection
-New Material LOD system
-New WIP MegaSplat update : https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/76166
-60 fps solid with all new optimizations

 

I would like to share with everyone the next new V11 update :
-Reworked Octree system, the new system will use struct based 1660 objects for 32voxels*256chunks (against 5 000 000 objects before). A new Save/Load/Memory system that will optimize the garbage collector (from 40ms to 6ms)
-I'm working on the new UniGine for Universe, i'm using a base system that is now rewrited,optimized and multithreaded using multiple camera rendering for fully sized planets.
-Planets will use a simple QuadTree (Fake Octree system for voxels) system but working with voxels terrain and procedural systems like water/trees/grass/details/etc
-Galaxy generator is under progress, it need more work for complex things like black holes, stars and space fog. I'm working hard to avoid to use DX10-DX11 features (i'm not a shader expert, sorry for my bad language)

 

-Also, the next version of TerrainEngine V11 will use a sphere system for coordinates. So now it will be possible to walk around the complete world and return to the origjnal position:

 

How do you handle the voxel? inflated cube? or is it UV sphere? How many pole on the sphere? These are important element to know to handling game design and impossible to escape.

No man's sky use 3 lod levels, each 18x18 tiles (artefact visible in vanilla, also allow better cache coherence) just below the player (faster in complex game situation than the quadtree IMHO), voxel sized seems to be .25 (useless imho), planet surface is faked in space with premade textures based on planet type (use to be generated as seens in demo pre released, obviously too slow) and do minimal noise computation:

- one heightmap bed rocks with 2d low frequency perlin, can't carve. It modulate all other noise in height.
- one 2d fbm heightmap added (or blended to get canyon in certain biome) to a single frequency ridged fractal, itself modulated in height by another 2d low frequency perlin to get overhang, on top of the bedrocks layer as a thickness layer (maybe 128 deep or double).
- then it's carved by another single frequency 2d ridged fractal, modulate again by another single 2d low freq perlin in height, to get cave.
- then they add 3d voxel stamps created by math formula which give the repeating signature landmark (column, floating island, wavy ball, etc ...) and the resource deposit.
- they add POI terrain, that basically raise the bedrock and flatten the thickness layer (we can see the artefact) around a certain radius, to spawn poi objects (like oupost, monolith etc ...), obvious gameplay reason.
- then they populate with the decoration meshes (plants, animal, mineral)

It allow to compute things fast when travelling at high speed (even though they limit speed based on height, the closer to the ground, the less fast you are, and many object don't spawn until you land (like animal, though they added giant animal later visible at a certain height, certainly due to backlash).

I wonder haw many of that is replicable in terrain engine?

 

A further note : I have been refused a refund on this package, and am currently exploring my legal options in this area.

Avoid. Like. The. Plague.

 

You guys should purchase TE directly from Thomas. I have no issue with TE overall, performance, professional source code, that I highly doubt one can make a similar system anytime soon. TE is a very complicated system. It's worth every penny if you study his code. I do not have time for that yet. But, using it for over 5 months now, I have no problem whatsoever.

 

The issue is a scammer thought they could take the Unity community and Dyox for a ride. Dyox has been hungry for a partner so even he was taken for a ride which is what people don't understand - hes getting the shaft as well.

At any time you guys could have bought from Dyox. After watching the package be on sale for 3 years and go from $1500 to $3k to whatever it is now. Then a company comes along and offers it for $200 (non source version) and you really think it ISN'T going to be a scam? Yeah they were offering source access.... for more money than it costs from Dyox. Again, red flags everywhere. You know why there isn't a fully functional, game ready robust voxel engine on the asset store? Because it's not easy to figure out and manage and it's not cheap to make. It's even harder to support because now every weekend warrior and his mother has a free copy of Unity and are out to make the next Minecraft or (insert popular survival game name here) clone lol, all by just pressing a few buttons on some interfaces in Unity and downloading a couple asset packs (easy button that doesn't actually exit). So this is one reason to have a smaller customer base because the support becomes impossible if its too cheap and everyone has it, due to its complexity and current design trends. Regarding performance, our new project is a VR game that uses Terrain Engine - currently generating worlds in under 30 seconds and have 90fps lol. Amazing technology. Personally I feel sad for Dyox, worked hard on this project for the last 3 years, sales were already slow and then boom, this mess which certainly isn't helping him and in fact now Junglee are doing things to hurt him - and for the people who dropped thousands of dollars got screwed in the mix up. Makes me wonder if the real leaders over at Junglee know whats going on and being said right now on a public forum about them. I can't imagine the company owner would be happy to know their employees or someone spoofing their employees are handing out developers code, against their will, to the outrage of others. :/

Good luck on your refunds, I truly wish you guys luck. "Junglee" is a cancer on the game development community, if they were ever really involved in the first place (tracking them down on Facebook and some things just dont add up). As I pointed out, if you have a LEGAL copy of TErrain Engine obtained from Dyox, and you cannot figure out something, HIT ME UP, I will help. If you're on this thread and complaining about it and I haven't heard from you, I and others are calling bullshit because we know how great the tech is.

 

Yeah, they haven't paid the original developer what he is owed (Dyox) and the guy(Distrubington) is handing out code illegally. You should sue "them", if its possible to sue some hacker and his contractors from another country heh - they certainly took enough money and haven't reinvested it all and haven't paid due royalties either. As all of us who have studios and aren't just doing this for a hobby can attest, TE works great and we all have live, commercial projects with the engine. I paid a premium for Terrain Engine 2 years ago and I have loved it and our studio has used it for the entire time. As I mentioned earlier, 3 projects right now with TE.

 

Not trying to be a jerk here, I respect you. But, People bought it since MANY of you guys seem to be on board.... and Dyox was....So people TRUSTED THIS.... If this was JUST some random person, I would of never bought either.. Some of us did spend 4-5k... in everyone else's defense..

But this tool did work before, so not sure what people are talking about... We been using it before and had no issues. Some I'm confused by this... But both party's are at fault... If Dyox would of said, I'm not apart of this, I bet hardly no one would of bought it.... I know I wouldn't have nor my investors... Dyox, needed a better system as well before, I know I tried to buy it before and had no luck, he was hard to get a hold of. and the type of payment, over sees I had a hard time trusting.

Again I bought this seeing that some of you DID release a game, WITH it.. So in everyone defense, I don't know what happen here, and will NOT take sides just yet... as I heard both sides... Its hard for us to know for sure what happen 100%. But the tool regardless was working... for us that bought it from Junglee AND when he was working with DYOX..

.

So again, many people are at fault here as well...

That is just my 2 cents... But people should NOT say DYOX is a scam as he is not, we need to let them both handle it legally and see what happens, that is what I plan to do...

People should be civil here, and let see what happens, and I understand why people who did BUY it from DYOX feel, but you guys need to understand HOW we all feel that bought it from JUNGLEE with support from DYOX at the time feel....... We are out 100, 200 , 4k-5k....Dollars..... Which is a lot of money..... So many people are pissed.. I have to PAY BACK and investor right now OUT OF MY POCKET... That is food off my kids table ...But again I'm not blaming Dyox, nor should anyone else.. Lets see what happens..

/cheers.

 

Dyox should be reporting this to PAYPAL... So Junglee don't get all this money if it fact this is illegal.. Just saying ..

. RIght now people aren't getting refunds..... People would if he claimed his software, why hasn't Dyox made a claim to PAYPAL, so people can get there money back , showing proof what happen so people can get there money back and buy it if they wanted from DYOX, just a thought.. PAYPAL stated this to me, that this should take place if this is what happen.... I talk to legal about this.. already.

djarcas, and myself and many others have studio's, I believe djarcas broke sales records for indies on XB1. anyways, I do agree about the blame game, I don't want to blame anyone, until I see what happens legally , as none of us have seen the contract.... Which I would love to see... personally.. But people that bought it off Junglee have a contract with him....... Not DYOX....

So for those that did buy it from JUNGLEE , has to go after him if they don't get a refund...Now if they are able to use, then the contract is between Junglee and that person.

I suggest anyone who is unsure how to handle this to contact legal in your company or hire one, as we have to check this out.

PS: Dyox it's looking good, on the screenshots, keep up the good work.

 

Off Topic, I seen Astral Terra, which other games have you made with TE? are they out yet?? Just wondering, as I tend to support other indie developers on Steam and buy there games . /cheers

 

Great point there! We have had this happen to us as sellers using Paypal and buyers - Paypal protects the buyer, not the seller. If you bought it with PayPal maybe you guys can get your money back. I imagine if enough of your are complaining it's going to be clear to them Junglee owes refunds. Apologies if I made any assumptions, I'm just really angry about the idea of Dyox getting the shaft here and also disappointed as well.

 

This is the exact reason I have steered clear of TerrainEngine, I have always had a bad gut feeling about it. Just from the way everything has been handled even prior to Junglee's hand in it. There is no website, or official channel nothing. Just a forum page and a gmail email for contact. This has never appeared in a professional manner in my opinion so I just steer clear of it. Dyox could simply put together a simple wordpress website for example to showcase his product. I have requested a demo multiple times and never had gotten a reply.

I am not trying to accuse him directly with anything, but this project has always given off a shady vibe to me, especially with the amount of money involved, I would expect a little more attention would be catered to the representation of his product and brand. Personally I would have vetted Junglee team hard if my name was attached to it.

Just as a bystander, this whole mess does NOT look good.

 

Dyox willingly sold the Junglee team the rights to sell the engine with his support behind updating it. He has the rights to sell the engine personally as well. Other than this I don't think anyone outside of the two parties knows any more about the contract between them. So it is very hard to for any of us to say what is going on, let alone start yelling scam. Yes things have gone wrong and people are worried and don't have time to wait around for it to be sorted out but that is what is going to have to happen.

Dyox is a programmer and not a business man. His work on the engine is solid though his method of sales may seem unusual but it is as it is. No one has to buy it.

 

no worries, and I understand, I respect you my friend, I just want you to see our side as well.

again not upset with Dyox, and people shouldn't play the blame game... until we know for sure ... I hate when people assume , its person A, or B... I have not see any info contract wise to prove anyone's guilt ...So I don't assume anything just yet, even though I was pissed at first until I talk to legal on my end... to see what I can do. or can't do.

 

Yup, that is why people who did BUY it off Junglee need to talk to someone/Legal ... Then they will know what they can do or can't do...When I learned this, I was a bit more relaxed.... Remember if you bought it off Junglee, you have a contract with him NOT Dyox...Since you didn't buy it from him.. I'm not a lawyer, nor advising anyone, other than talking to one. You will be a lot more relaxed if you do.. Since you can understand better what is going on. or wait for them two guys to sort it out....

@Tethy issue with PAYPAL, some people pre-ordered awhile back, so PAYPAL, can be a pain to get refunds from Sept... nearly 5-6 months ago.

anyways thats enough on this matter I like to see more Screen Shots, Dyox

 

Sorry to add my grain of salt...

Dyox did support Junglee on their own Unity forum thread. He explained he will take care of the code, they will do the marketing.

He even said "Don't worry. They are professionals".

Some names here are even over that other thread.

I did buy from Junglee BECAUSE I saw it was endorsed by Dyox.

 

I agree. I wouldn't have paid attention hadn't he come to the thread to endorse them as an official distributor.

He should at least give us access to the fork even if no official support. (because it is understandable that support would slowdown development... even though I wonder how come he still has no forums)

 

There are some new things being discussed and developed right now to help. I can't speak to the details but it should help to improve the Terrain Engine image, support and ease of access.

 

many did. including myself, and my investor which that is two of them where bought I also recommended to a few other developers they bought also . All due the same reasons.

 

@dyox

So its been a bit since you mentioned working towards some solution for those of us left high and dry. Any updates for us? I did mail in when asked previously, but have not received a reply. Beggining to wonder if I got overlooked or not.

 

Hi, It's still in dev. it will take some times but i'm working on it.
Some screens of the official website :


What about the new WIP Fracturing system ? : (Using Voxels Physics and fully Multithreaded)(usefull for Explosions, Spells, Hack 'n' Slash games)
-Select Voxels Types available for fracture (Rock, Stone, etc ?) (Select the fracture system, organic, voronoi,etc) (Fully sync over the network) (Cubic, Spherical or custom Fracture size in realtime)
(No Local Material for now(pink objects), i'm working on the new MegaSplat system for Local/World objects (this will also allow the new Planet system to use MegaSplat, TE Shaders are ready for voxels physics and Fracture)

 

++New AdvancedCaveProcessor GUI

 

So many new features & official website screenshots. It just needs a good documentation, video tutorials, some short of forums. So, TE customers can post questions for help, or help each other. I'm glad TE is steering in the right direction.

 

Wow! Great work on the website. Looks amazing. Very professional.

 

Could I by chance get a cubic cube world styled demo?

 

Is there a solution or agreement for those who bought TE from Junglee? Or do we have to ask for a refund ?

 

I cant even get a refund, and I have a very low budget, so I really hope that some sort of agreement is made that allows us Junglee costumers to get updates and support, honestly I dont even care about support, just updates would be nice.

 

I will provide a closed source version like junglee team does.
Junglee team customers will have a lower price on closed and open source. A support system is wip with a forum.
I will keep everyone informed here.
For the moment the website is not finished. Prices are not correct.
It seems that it is useless to ask a refound to Junglee team.
They dont answer or want to refound.

 

People are asking me, as well that paid thousands for the open source.... I bought two one closed and One Open one was mine, for personal, and one was for an investor .. I tried to buy it from you awhile ago.....

... I have another person asking me what to do here, and he bought the Open Source as I did for thousands back in Sept. I wish Dyox best of luck, and others that bought it from Junglee, but the people who bought the Open Source really got screwed.. really bad since we paid thousands... We all feel we just tossed the money in the trash ...

Its still usable but its not worth what we paid...since we didn't get any updates. So would be great to really think about the VERY small few that did buy Open Source... and paid thousands..

So I hope there is a fair solution for everyone but even more so that did PAY a lot of money here... .

Regards.

Keep us informed.