☁ Weather Maker ☁ AAA Clouds, Sky, Weather, Water, Volumetric Light & More!

Why Weather Maker?

Three things make Weather Maker truly unique: Feature set, price and performance. No other asset on the asset store provides as many features, such a low price and the beauty and performance of Weather Maker. For less than half the cost of other less featured and slower assets, you get: Fully automated weather, sky/clouds, water, fog, volumetric light, ambient light management, day night cycle, ambient audio zones and so much more. Performance is also much better compared to other water, sky and volumetric light assets, especially on mobile and VR. Weather Maker can render all lights in one pass for maximum performance. Don't take my word for it, get Weather Maker today!

--> Download Weather Maker from the Unity Asset Store <--

Overview
Weather Maker is the most complete weather, water and sky system for Unity. With both 2D and 3D modes, Weather Maker is the last asset you will need for weather, sky and more in your Unity app or game. I do my best to respond to support requests and even Skype when I have the time for serious problems or questions.

Performance
Weather Maker has been endlessly tuned for maximum performance. Other sky, water and weather assets use highly complex and inefficient shaders which will cause low FPS, especially on VR and mobile. Not Weather Maker. All shaders are heavily optimized even for low end platforms.

Weather
Weather effects include rain, snow, hail and sleet. Collision with scene is optional. Particle systems are lit properly by all lights in your scene. All weather effects fade cleanly both visual and audio to ensure a life-like and smooth experience. Wind is bundled as well and affects particles and trees. Sound dampening prefabs are provided to handle cases where the player goes inside.

Volumetric Clouds
New in Weather Maker 5.0.0 are volumetric clouds! Using state of the art shaders and performance techniques, volumetric clouds look beautiful and won't bog down your frame rate. Rolling, whispy and epic clouds react to ambient, directional lights and lightning for that AAA look and feel. Even cubemaps and water reflection show the clouds effortlessly. To top it off, god rays are built into the clouds.

Atmosphere and Sky
Weather Maker contains an industry standard, BSD licensed physically based sky and atomspheric scattering solution. Atmospheric scattering and sky sphere blend seamlessly with your scene, producing a gorgeous planet curve at the far plane. The sky sphere can render many texture types including night sky with rotation, along with day and dawn/dusk textures. No cube map is needed, just one 2D texture. Performance is superb. All of this is configurable.

Volumetric Fog and Lights
Volumetric fog is a full screen effect that has been tuned to run on the lowest end devices. No branching and ray-tracing and one draw call and the fog still looks amazing. A fog box prefab is also included. Volumetric light is supported for point, spot and directional lights as well. The main directional light (sun) even has a volumetric shadow option! Null fog zones are also provided.

VR, AR & Mobile Ready!
Weather Maker is fully VR/AR ready and has been tested with HTC Vive on Windows 10. Performance on mobile is great, but may require tuning some settings. One asset for desktop, VR/AR and mobile and performance is superb.

Color and Rendering Formats
Weather Maker supports HDR, non-HDR, Linear, Gamma, Deferred and Forward Rendering. No matter how you use it, Weather Maker just works.

Automation
Weather Maker contains a built in weather automation and weather profiles system. Every field of Weather Maker (or any script for that matter) can be automated. Rain and snow climates have been created for you, but you can create additional climates however you like. Storms, clouds, wind, rain and more transition in beautifully and seamlessly and look amazing.

Networking
Unity networking is built in out of the box. Weather profiles, weather manager and time of day are synced automatically. This can easily be disabled if you need a custom solution.

Sound Manager
Weather Maker manages ambient and other sounds for you. All sounds fade in and out seamlessly and can run at different times of day (sunrise / sunset, dawn/dusk, or a specific hour range). You can create sounds zones throughout your scene or put one on top of your player for global sounds. Examples are provided and include crickets and owls at night, birds in the morning and general day ambient sounds.

Lightning
Thunder and lightning - Weather Maker comes bundled with a piece of Procedural Lightning to give you the best storm lightning on the Asset Store.

Weather Maker is integrated with the following:
• Vegetation Studio Pro
• Mirror Networking
• uMMORPG
• AQUAS: Water/River Set
• UBER - Standard Shader Ultra
• RTP (Relief Terrain Pack)
• CTS (Complete Terrain Shader)
• WAPI (World Manager API)

Weather Maker is Compatible With:
• Aura 2

Titles using Weather Maker:
• Tales of Glory

Please email me if you have a title to add.

Support
I'm dedicated to making this the best sky and weather system, not just in the Asset Store but on the planet. I respond to emails and do my best to fix bugs and do feature requests. Please don't hesitate to contact me.

Contact Me
I'm Jeff Johnson, creator of Weather Maker. Please send me your feedback and bug reports to support@digitalruby.com

Notes
The latest version of Weather Maker requires the most newest Unity version. Please ensure you are up to date on your Unity version. Full C# source code and shader code is provided!

--> Download Weather Maker from the Unity Asset Store <--

 

is there a pdf that explains how to add the thunder to a blank scene? I was able to figure out all the other ones, but lightning and thunder seems more complex then the other prefabs.

 

I as able to take apart the code and customize it to do what I asked above. now I was wondering is there any way to light up the whole sky in a 2d world? id like to simulate the lighting of the sky that you see when there is no lightning that you can see you just see the light show in the sky where the whole sky blinks light...

 

The configuration script (WeatherMakeConfigurationScript.cs I believe) has all the examples.

 

I just use plain old point lights and put them slightly in front of the 2D plane, you could try something similar.

 

Is it possible to automate a random weather cycle that changes states without user input?

 

The wind effect for trees isn't working for me. Its shakes them too much and I'm not sure where to turn down the value. Any ideas?

 

Coming in a future update.

 

Under the prefab is a wind zone with a script where you can lower the max wind speed.

 

Hi, I am impressed by your weather system. I have a question for you. I couldn't quite tell from the videos. Does your cloud rendering support multiple layers?

 

Not out of the box but you could duplicate the clouds prefab and tweak it to your liking as a second layer.

 

Hello,
I have got a question :
Is this asset useable for spherical worlds where u walk on? cause my custom wether-clouds look medium.
If It is useable, does it Support Day night cycle based on Spot or point lights?
Thanks

 

The particle systems should be fine, but the clouds and time of day will need a little tweaking. You could have a point light orbit the sphere using the rotation of the directional light. Just set the intensity of the directional light to 0 and set your point light position to the center of the sphere + the distance * rotation.

 

hello,

- Is there a way to change the light intensity of the sun higher than 1? i change it to 2 but everytime y play it changes to 1
- i post a screenshot where you can see the sun is visible throught the foliage and as it is back it must not.How can i change this?
- when do you think you will update WM so it has moon and stars?and the random weather component?

Thanks

 

Thanks for posting, your game looks awesome!
1] Turn off the lens flare on the Sun object in the prefab
2] Set the Sun Full Intensity on the DayNightCycle object in the prefab rather than modifying the light intensity directly. I know this is a little obscure. It is mentioned in the Readme.txt, but can easily be missed.
3] Weather Maker already has a night texture with stars, but I do plan on adding the moon and other celestial objects probably early next year.

 

Random weather is also something I am working on. It is tricky to get just right, but I am also hoping to have it ready in the next month or so.

 

Hey jjxtra, i have a little problem now and maybe you have an idea how i can solve it.
I imported Weather Maker in my Project (Unity 5.4.2f2) and got this compiler error 20x after the import for all image effects scripts:
Assets/Standard Assets/Effects/ImageEffects/Scripts/Bloom.cs(10,26): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `PostEffectsBase' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

But the PostEffectsBase.cs is also in the ImageEffects Folder, so it looks fine.

I tried to reimport the image effects and adding this line to the scripts:
using UnityStandardAssets.ImageEffects;

But without success, do you have an idea what caused this problem?
Thanks for help!

edit:
OK, i solved it, just deleted the PostEffectsBase File and reimported all the ImageEffects and the error is gone now.

So i can focus now on making weather and daycycles!

 

Glad you got it sorted! Weather Maker does use a few standard asset effects and scripts, but I've re-namespaced them all so you should be able to import all the standard assets without conflicts.

 

Yes thank you this was not a big problem after all.

I have a little bit more experience with Weather Maker now and it looks very nice in my scene with time of day enabled.

So i have a few questions.which came up:
- Do you have a random weather script, so when the time is changing with time of day running, that also the weather is changing randomly?
- Is it possible to make the clouds also move?
- is it possible to see a moon during the night?
- Is there a documentation somewhere?

and i have to say your choice of colors in WeatherMakerSkySphereSphereDawnDusk2. png is at least questionable.
You know this tutorial for a day-night circle ->

The transitions and colors he used are very nice,....

After all i can say Weather Maker is a great Asset, which provide everything what someone can imagine for time and weatherchange, thank you for that, it is very easy to use and implement.

Maybe one little bug: I can't klick anything on the configuration canvas, maybe its because of my other used assets, i don't know, but i don't need it anyway.

 

- Random weather script is being worked on right now
- Storm clouds can be moved by setting the velocity before creating the clouds
- Moon as also on TODO list
- Right now the tutorial videos and Readme.txt are all the documentation, and emailing me

The configuration canvas is just using Unity UI, so if you have another UI on top of it or interfering, it's totally possible that mouse events are getting gobbled up. Thaks for the links and feedback!

 

thank you very much!

I noticed that i have just version 1.4 without the vol. fog in my project and 1.5.2 is the latest version.
Is this because of Unity 5.4 and 5.5?

So only the storm clouds are moving, it would be very nice if the normal clouds are also able to move, than there would be nothing left.

 

That's right, I'm submitting with Unity 5.5 now. I will put a note in the description of the asset that latest Unity is required for latest version. I am working on sky sphere clouds funny enough, which will go in the next update

 

Does your asset have a feature/parameter for wind direction? I see your fog seems to be rolling in a direction in one of your videos, and it would be great if I could reference wind direction from your asset for other purposes. Also, it would be more realistic than other weather assets (I own a few) if your fog/weather patterns were coordinated with your internal wind direction, to which I would sync other assets.
Lastly, in general, how is your asset performance wise?

 

Great suggestion on the fog. I'll see what I can do there. Refactoring they wind is probably a good idea anyway. Performance should be great, but on mobile you may want to turn off collisions for the particles.

Is there anything else you'd like to see in this asset?

Let me know if you have more questions.

 

Thank you for the prompt responses. Like others on the forum, I look forward to the automated weather changes, the moon at night, and stars. Your night is pitch black, so a little moonlight would be nice. In fact, maybe an integrated setting for simulated star light scatter, something to slightly light the sky at night.

One final thought would be for a scene with water, to demonstrate cloud and sun reflections, and at night, the moon reflections. I own a few water assets and it seems that the weather developers and the water developers don't pay much attention to each other. Great skies and weather call for great water, and the integration falls to we humble Indies. It would be nice if you had a couple water assets tested and approved for use with Weather Maker. Fantastic actually.

I like Weather Maker a lot. I plan to purchase it, work it into my game, and update when the wind direction, moon etc. are added. Thanks again, and see you round the forum.

 

The weather forecast / automation is next. I've just submitted an update to Unity with sky sphere clouds which was the last piece remaining before I could do a proper automation for the weather. Water will be a great thing to add to the queue, for Q1 of 2017.

 

Thanks for the update, unfortunately i was not able to see the new volumetric clouds because of this error:

dont know what is wrong, maybe you have a suggestion what i should do to fix this error and see the clouds in action.
I tried it in my own scene and also in your demoscene, always this error.

 

Hi,

Below is a screenshot of an image showing an object with its world axis arrows. In terms of the world axis, the Weather Maker by default seems to have the sunrise to the left of the object as it travels to have the sunset to the right of the object.

Is it possible to have the Sunrise start at the right of the object and to have the sunset to the left of the object, in terms of world axis?

My maps are simulated on West and East directions, basing on the world X axis.

Or, maybe is there a setting that I am overlooking?

By the way, this Weather Maker looks amazing, especially the new sky sphere clouds!


Thanks

 

Email support@digitalruby.com and I'll work through this with you via email.

 

Sun positions are based on Earth right now, but I could add a way to provide your own Sun position given the date and time of day, that would solve this issue and allow you to position the Sun however you like. I will try to add this to an update. Until then, you'll have to modify the data night cycle script manually to set the position another way.

 

Awesome, I am looking forward for the future update. With this control of sun positioning, it will be great for different worlds, planets, etc.

Thank you!

 

This will be in the next update. See the ChangeLog.txt for details.

 

I've just updated to the new v1.7 of Weather Maker.

WOW! Just amazing!

* [AWESOME] Night sky star twinkling option
* [AWESOME] RotateYDegrees parameter to day night cycle (... this one is my favorite so far)
* [AWESOME] Sun dims with heavy sky sphere
* [AWESOME] Sun shadows fade out when storm clouds are present
* [AWESOME] Lightning bolt generation, background threaded
* [AWESOME] Refactored wind component

Thank you for the new update! It keeps getting more and more fantastic!

 

I aim to serve

 

Below are screenshots of a character standing next to a wall at various times during sunrise and sunset. The examples reveal that the sun seem to be projecting light and having shadow effects that are out of context during certain times. Due to the sun's position at certain times, it is projecting light upwards from an angle below the ground, thus projecting shadows of objects to be above ground. Can you confirm that this is happening?

The out of context shadows due to the position of the sun are occurring approximately during these "TimeOfDay":
SUNRISE (incorrect sun-shadow contexts)
19800 to 25200 [05:30 to 07:00 Hours]

SUNSET (incorrect sun-shadow contexts)
70200 to 76500 [19.30 to 21:15 Hours]

 

In addendum to my previous post above about out of context shadows due to the position of the sun, here are more screenshot images during a sunset. Unity forums seem to be limiting only 5 images per post.

 

Thanks for your detailed post! The readme specifies this, although it's all the way at the bottom. Add a large cube underneath your scene (something scaled like 10,000x10,000x10,000) and set it to two way shadow casting. Set the transform position to 0,-5000,0. Let me know if that doesn't fix your problem.

 

Yes! I had overlooked that one line near the bottom of the Readme file I tried the solution that you have provided, but used the transform values as shown from the object "LargeGroundAndSunHorizonBlocker" from your demo scene, since the SkySphere is very large. A screenshot of the transform value for the blocker is shown below for reference. The cube is scaled at 100,000x100,000x100,000 with position at 0,-50001,0

The solution you have provided works!
Awesome!

Thanks again!

 

@jjxtra

I just downloaded and imported the latest version of Weather Maker. I get the following two errors with Unity 5.4.1f1, both based on "WeatherMakerCloudScript2D" Since I don't use 2D, what's the best way for me to get past the error messages?

 

HI,

This asset seems very impressive! I use multiple terrains so how big can be the skydome? What about the performance impact of weather maker on frame rate?
thanks in advance for your answer

 

Hi,

Unity 5.5.0p4 Pro
Weather Maker 1.7.2

There is an error message from Weather Maker that pops when a scene starts. It doesn't happen every time, but every so often. When this error does happen, the sound for rain, sleet, hail, and wind does not work.

Please see below for screenshots of the error messages.

 

There is another Error Message with WM 1.7.4 (beside the usual problems with some image effects scripts after import ;-) )

This errormessage appears also in the demoscenes,
and if i drag the prefab in a new scene i get also this errormessage:

Regardless if the Configuration panel is deactivated or not.

 

Can you send me your project with the error? I'm having a hard time duplicating this problem.

 

You have to provide the event system object yourself. I used to bundle one but it was messing up people's ui

 

Sorry misread, I will submit an update that supresses the message if the panel is deactivated.

 

I've never seen this one. Can you send your project? Can you just re-run the scene over and over and it eventually happens?

 

This looks nice. I have a weather system but it is so heavy and has many things I don't need. I am looking at yours as a possibility. We will need the ability to change the time of day settings as our time will not be real time.

Is everything exposed so we can use it over a network?

 

Everything is exposed. You should be able to set the time of day yourself manually if you desire, or the speed of the day and night cycle individually and Unity should propagate that nicely.

 

I was able to duplicate the error. I won't be able to send you the project due to other 3rd party asset copyrights, etc. that are used in the same scene. But, I can give you instructions on how to duplicate the error.

Duplicating this requires at least 2 monitors

1. Have the Unity editor and game view run on the same 1 monitor
2. Have a web browser such as Chrome run on the 2nd monitor
3. In the Unity editor press the play button and immediately click on the Chrome web browser and remain on the web browser while the Unity editor is still loading to play
4. Once Unity editor play is ready it will try and switch over to the game window, but since your active application is the web browser, the Game view window will turn black or be paused on the 1st frame, due to it being out of focus.
5. Click on the Game window, and that error should should show up in the Unity editor console.

This might be just a Unity editor specific side effect due to switching applications during the start of play, so I don't know. I hope you can duplicate this error.

Currently I am using Unity 5.5.1p1 Pro

Thanks!

 

Thank you! I'll have a look and try to fix it. I do have multiple monitors so hopefully should be easy to do.