THOR Thunderstorm - The fastest and most user friendly Thunder and Lightning System

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Links: DEMO | MANUAL | ASSET STORE

THOR Thunderstorm is the fastest, most user friendly, best looking and sounding thunder and lightning system you can get. It integrates into your project by simply dragging a prefab into your scene. It gives you everything between light thunder rumbling to the most apocalyptic thunder and lightning strikes you have ever seen in Unity.

FEATURES:
• Automatic spawning of lightning
• Spawns randomly, in camera view or both
• Animated Lightning Bolts
• Animated Sheet Lightning
• Lightning Evolution
• Dynamic Spotlight with Shadows (optional)
• 26 High Quality Thunder Samples in 4 Distance Categories
• 3 Background Thunder Loops
• Automatic Pooling
• Zero Garbage Collection
• Very Low Overdraw
• High Compatibility
• Tidy Custom Inspector with Tooltips



Unlike procedurally generated lightning assets, THOR thunderstorm relies on simple shader tricks, clever texturing & modeling, and smart scripting to achieve its blazing fast performance, great looks, and sounds.

THOR Thunderstorm is used in the "Made With Unity" game D.R.O.N.E.

Notes:

• Thor Thunderstorm is not a complete Weather System, it focuses on Thunder and Lightning only and excels in that field. It can be integrated easily in existing weather and sky solutions.

• The current version has an issue with some references that got lost upon Asset Store upload, the fix is quite easy and shown nicely in @TheMessyCoder's tutorial. This will be fixed in the next update.

 

It looks really nice .....

 

I am happy to announce that THOR Thunderstorm is available on the asset store now:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/103956

 

I am considering giving away a few vouchers for people that want to test and review THOR Thunderstorm. If you are interested in getting the package for free in return of writing an honest(!) review and giving feedback please let me know.
Note that you should have intermediate to advanced experience with Unity.

Thanks,
Peter

 

That is fine for me . I am developing my asset ( currently in beta ) and supporting test for other ..

 

I'm willing to test as well, if you are still in need of somebody.

 

Hey Peter I would be interested in trying it in Brides Of Vampira check my signature link for more info

 

I'd be happy to test

 

Maybe @TheMessyCoder would be interested in doing an asset review with this one?

 

Looks very interesting, I've sent a PM.

Oh that would be great I love his videos.

 

Sent PMs Thanks a lot.

Thanks again for the contact

I am out of vouchers, so unfortunately no more free giveaways available for now
For potential customers, it was pointed out to me that the main prefab has lost its references, i have it fixed and uploaded though it will probably take a few days until the fix is on the store. It can be very easily fixed in the "Asset References" of the "THOR_Thunderstorm" prefab, meshes and audio clips need to be assigned again.

 

Unity 5.4 and up compatibility is pending for review on the store. Should be just a few days. Current version is only compatible with Unity 5.6.3 - Unity 2017.2(and beta 3).

 

Great asset ... exploring the options with Unity 5.6.3p2 and all works smoothly.
@Becoming what weather system have you used with Thor ? or what would you suggest ?

 

Thanks, in D.R.O.N.E. we use Time of Day, which is great. It is not a full weather system but it is very dynamic and can set things like fog, atmospheric scattering cloud coverage and so on. It does not have rain or snow particle fx and of course no thunder and lightning. We have our own GPU based rain and snow particle fx solution which could potentially be released on the store(no promises). I can not really suggest weather systems as i have not used existing solutions apart from evaluating a few from the store, but they all were not sufficient for the look we need in D.R.O.N.E.

Anyway, basically you can use THOR with any weather system and if it has some sort of thunder and lightning included, just disable it and use THOR instead for better look, sound and performance. Since THOR is so simple, integration is a five minute effort(or even less).

 

In the video is this asset integrated with Enviro and the controller is UFPS.
I'm extremely excited to play with this asset and might send a script to the Enviro Developer to have this asset be a simple one click integration when I'm not busy. I absolutely love this asset and plan to use it in cut scene for something I am working on.

 

Here's an action sequence from Brides Of Vampira with Thor going off in the background, really digging it bro

 

Thanks, for the awesome screenshots @punk, Brides of Vampira looks really neat and the lightning really adds to the mood

I just uploaded v1.1, all requests from the testers are implemented and all found issues are fixed.

 

Thanks bro I'll post a video another day, looks totally epic

 

THOR Thunderstorm is on sale now!

My other assets are on sale as well and Horizon[ON] is on the top assets list with 50% price!

 

Ugh cant believe Nath never told me, I own all of his tools, yours, and Tom's I'm sad, we are in the middle of development and would of been happy to test in our Steam game, that is going on PC and XB1 , PS4..... But I'm sure he has been busy and forgot, typically he tells me about new assets first lol.... ....


Oh well, hope it goes well, I would buy it, but I no longer buy assets, due to an issue I had with Unity..that story is for another time.... I do wish it good luck...... though. I have no doubt it will sell, well...there isn't many like this on the store...



@Antonio Enviro, is one of the best for weather... I have tested MOST, and found that one to be really nice, it also works nice with some of my own custom solutions for my Steam game..... Sky Master also is nice, Demo's are terrible...screen shots as well, but I been impressed by everything it can do, and the cross platforms....Knowing, how well I have Known, Nath ., Becoming tools, I bet it won't have any issues.....Enviro's code is super clean, as well as Nath's code and Becoming, so I doubt it you would have issues with it working with Thor....

 

@Antonio Enviro, is one of the best for weather... I have tested MOST, and found that one to be really nice, it also works nice with some of my own custom solutions for my Steam game..... Sky Master also is nice, Demo's are terrible...screen shots as well, but I been impressed by everything it can do, and the cross platforms....Knowing, how well I have Known, Nath ., Becoming tools, I bet it won't have any issues.....Enviro's code is super clean, as well as Nath's code and Becoming, so I doubt it you would have issues with it working with Thor....[/QUOTE]

This is extremely easy to use. All I did was create a little event that listens for when the weather changes and calls this. Works with enviro and skymaster. I don't really know how much more they could do to combine these since it already is super easy and just once call. I prefer this over what was included in the effects of those packages. This is the must have for lightning effects. It's simple and amazing.

 

Thanks, glad to know that the design worked out the way it was planned.

 

Hi Peter,

I'm noticing within THOR_Thunderstorm.cs you are using camPos = Camera.main.transform.position;
Can this be made public assignable please? In my project I'm using different camera's and in some actions (driving a car fi) another camera is used. However this leads to this error:

Code (CSharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. THOR.THOR_Thunderstorm.SheetLightning () (at Assets/Plugins/THOR_Thunderstorm/Sources/Scripts/THOR_Thunderstorm.cs:273)
3. THOR.THOR_Thunderstorm.Update () (at Assets/Plugins/THOR_Thunderstorm/Sources/Scripts/THOR_Thunderstorm.cs:211)

I'm guessing line 236 could benefit of this as well.

 

Just download the updated version from the store, among a few little fixes it adds exactly what you request.
It will only take Camera.main if it is not specified in the Inspector(or via script in runtime)

 

Thanks! With what version of Unity was the latest version submitted? I'm only seeing 1.0 in my store front (using Unity 2017.2.0f3).

 

I uploaded v1.1 from Unity 5.4.0, 5.5.0, 5.6.3, and 2017.2.0
Strange that you don't see it... Could it be a refresh issue?

 

Strange thing although a upgrade button is displayed and pressing so does do a download the version stays 1.0. I'll contact the asset store people to check this out, thanks.

 

hey,

how is this looking from a camera angle like in civ 6 and not at night-time?

 

it was not intended for viewing from above but i just tried to flip the transform.localscale.y on awake for the cloud lightning and then it works quite nicely with a perspective cam:



And with modifying the lookat vector to not face the camera position but instead -camera.transform.forward it can work with orthogonal cameras too:



Both screenshots were captured in empty scene with default skybox...

Note that out of the box this doesn't work but the change is really just 2 short lines of code. I will probably add this and other 2d functionality in the next update. For now i can only offer to help you to set it up for your usecase.

 

it looks really good.

on the perspective cam, could you add a white plane bellow the thunderstorm (to simulate a landscape) ? I just want to be sure of the angle.

 

Got something better for you

 

Added to the cart!

So I will own all DRONE assets(MCS) so far

 

Actually, all of my other assets are D.R.O.N.E. assets as well

 

@blitzvb let me know when you are modifying THOR for your topdown game, i'll guide you through the modifications and give you some general tips for using THOR in such a scenario.

 

awesome.

 

Maybe add some section in the manual describing those steps, this will prevent you from having to repeat yourself over and over for everyone who is in need of such an approach? Or is it to specific tailored and can only be handled individually for each use case?

 

I would do that but i think i can integrate it into an update so it is compatible with 2d/2.5d/3d topdown views and sidescrollers out of the box.

 

even better.

 

Spoiler: Using THOR Thunderstorm with Enviro!

Open EnviroLightning.cs add

Code (CSharp):

1. using THOR;

to the top.
edit the LightningBolt coroutine with something like this.

Code (CSharp):

1. public IEnumerator LightningBolt()
2.     {
3.         GetComponent<Light> ().enabled = true;
4.         //record the starting/off intensity of the light
5.         float defaultIntensity = GetComponent<Light>().intensity;
6.         //number of flashes this bolt will display
7.         int flashCount = Random.Range(2, 5);
8.         int thisFlash = 0;
9.      
10.         while(thisFlash < flashCount){
11.             GetComponent<Light>().intensity = defaultIntensity * Random.Range(1, 1.5f);
12.             EnviroSky.instance.thunder = Random.Range (5f, 10f);
13.             THOR_Thunderstorm.SetProbability(Random.Range(0.1f, 1));
14.             yield return new WaitForSeconds(Random.Range (0.05f,0.1f));
15.             GetComponent<Light>().intensity = defaultIntensity;
16.             EnviroSky.instance.thunder = 1f;
17.             thisFlash++;
18.         }
19.         GetComponent<Light> ().enabled = false;
20.     }

in EnviroSky.cs add

Code (CSharp):

1. using THOR;

then look for

Code (CSharp):

1. public virtual void NotifyWeatherChanged(EnviroWeatherPreset type)

and change it to this

Code (CSharp):

1. public virtual void NotifyWeatherChanged(EnviroWeatherPreset type)
2.         {
3.             if(OnWeatherChanged != null)
4.                 OnWeatherChanged (type);
5.                 THOR_Thunderstorm.SetProbability(0);
6.         }

 

Hi All!
Its more of a tutorial than a review, but I really enjoyed playing with Thor! Hope you enjoy the video nearly as much.

Thanks to SirTwistedStorm for his snippet!!

 

Totally missed this asset somehow! Thanks to @TheMessyCoder for bringing to my attention it now has a spot on my wishlist! Always nice to see smaller and specialized tools like this that can easily be integrated into larger and broader ranged toolsets. Keep up the awesome work!

 

If you still need testers i'm really interested in getting my hands on this as we are about to do a kickstarter this week and it would be pretty cool to show of some fancy thunder for our game we will def plug you in the video. Anyways either way thanks for the cool asset

 

Wow, looks really nice!

About Enviro Integration:
Instead of hacking that into main script of enviro you could just use the event in another script and don't loose the modifications when updating enviro.

Something like that:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4.  
5. public class EnviroThorIntegration : MonoBehaviour {
6.  
7.     void Start()
8.     {
9.         EnviroSky.instance.OnWeatherChanged += (EnviroWeatherPreset type) =>
10.         {
11.             SwitchTHOR(type);
12.         };
13.     }
14.  
15.     void SwitchTHOR (EnviroWeatherPreset type)
16.     {
17.         if(type.isLightningStorm)
18.         {
19.            //Enable Thor
20.         }
21.         else
22.         {
23.            //Disable Thor
24.         }
25.     }
26. }

I also will add a new event that will be triggered when enviro does a lightning flash in next update. If there is a function in THOR to trigger a single lightning bolt we could synchronize the effects.

 

This is a good idea as i will be using these integrated as well. Thanks Vondox and thanks for the awesome asset i'm loving working with Enviro. Now i just need to get the going in my game.

 

Hi, do you have a recommendation or a guide on modifying THOR for a topdown game? Thanks!

 

Hi!

I purchased THOR, but when I add it to an empty scene, I don't see the lightnings - only the light flashes in the cloud, but not the bolts themselves. What could this be? I have increased camera clipping plane and the lightnings do occur - I just can't see the bolts.

I'm running Unity 2017.3.0f3

EDIT: It seems that THOR requires that the camera has the tag MainCamera. Why is this required? Because it finds the camera into the object slot automatically, but bolts won't work without the main camera having this tag. It was a bit confusing.

 

You need to reassign all the arrays in the inspector. It’s a bug.

 

I do have the same issue ... don't know how to fix it ... any ideas

 

You can try to disable "Depth Blending" in the "Distance & Duration Settings" or to change the "Depth Blend Distance" to a negative value. The Depth blending feature of Thor has the same requirement as the "soft particles" feature of unity particles. So either you have to make your forward camera render a depth texture(see soft particles in the unity manual) or turn off "Depth Blending" in the "Distance & Duration Settings" of Thor. I will disable this feature by default or check in the shader if a Depth texture is present.Other than that, i have to investigate... btw, an update is around the corner

 

Hello i was wondering if this asset could be used with UniStorm. Does anyone have any experience with that?