WorldComposer a tool to create real World AAA quality terrain

Nope, Russia

This works for me too! Thanks!

 

Hey Everyone,

I submitted WC 1.74 to the Asset Store with the FixCultureEditor script included from Andreas12345.

Nathaniel

 

Hey Everyone,

MCS Caves & Overhangs is available again on the Asset Store.
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/terrain/mcs-caves-overhangs-144413

 

Relief Terrain Pack
Looks like Create Terrain from WorldComposer now works OK with Unity 2019. >TIme to start some seroious developing again. Someone knows how to best then use Relief Terrain Pack v3,3 to enhance your terrain?? Understood it to be some special way of updating the splatmaps or something? and also some "taken into consideration multiple terrain files" thingie. Reading through the RTP manual is quite a challenge but I'm still working on it. Would love to see a tutorial from scratch of Worldcomposer with 4 tiles out generating terrain in unity and enhancing it with RTP. Just the mainstream not the xtra gt equipment time stealing stuff.

 

Actually I remember the RTP being quite difficult to wrap my head around at first attempt too. I think the first thing to focus on is getting near-distance terrain textures to fade in (with a multiply of the satellite coloring) over the satellite images when you come close. If you can figure that out, you're pretty golden. Everything else in RTP is pretty environment-specific, and you can chase it down one item at a time. Stick with the minimal number of textures, basic setup that WorldComposer creates for you, and just locate the close textures part of the interface.

I would absolutely love to see someone do a WorldComposer tutorial / walkthrough generating a landscape from Real World data (probably non-USA to show the limits of zoom where Bing doesn't go as detailed) then adding RTP texture detail, a focussed area with higher detail and some rock/tree assets to show a better environment, add Horizon(on) and one of the sky plugins. I think a 1-2h video of this type would be really worthwhile for alot of people.

I'd also love to see someone do a WorldComposer import of real world terrain, then switch to Gaia and edit with some stamps - say adding a branch to a river to suit a game mission better. If anyone has seen this, please let me know - it would make me so incredibly happy. (I have "plans" to try this out sometime, but I'm struggling to hit targets at work already, so it could be a while...)

 

Actually WC has RTPv3 integrated. It automatically assigns RTP to the terrains and sets up the colormaps etc. As for more extended tutorials, Tom is currently working on a RTPv4, will wait with it until he releases it.

 

Hello, when I try to create the terrain I only get a grey heightmap – the satellite images are missing. They do however appear in Terrain Layers under Paint Terrain, which means they appear if I select that image and manually paint it on its respective heightmap tile. How can I get them to automatically appear on the heightmaps when creating terrain? This issue only started happening after I upgraded from a pre-2018.3 version of Unity to the latest version. It worked perfectly in the past. Am using WorlComposer 1.740.

 

Which Unity version are you using now?

 

2019.2.0f1

 

Hi, interested in your product. However I have afew questions:
Does the plugin allow input of custom data to produce a customized output?
Is the resolution and quality of the textures customizable?
Thank you in advanced.

 

I am sitting with the same issue on Unity 2019.2.2f1

 

You mean custom heightmap data?

 

Thanks for telling. It's because Unity changed the way the splat map works in 2019.2 during the release cycle as it was working before. I made a fix for it, and also submitted it to the Asset Store.

 

BING is unfriendly and I think they treated me unfairly - so a word of warning - Beware of contacting them with any questions about Terms of Use and don't ask if there is anything you should consider about future possible plans to use your terrain created with World Composer. Everything had been going well now for a long time, and I have never exceeded the daily limit on the key that I was using. Also I have no commercial game created or ready to go on the market, not making any money on these efforts at this time. My questions to them were purely hypothetical and I was trying to inform myself how to be in compliance with their terms of service at some as yet non existent future moment.

They did not answer in so many words - they simply destroyed my key and said I was not in compliance with their terms of service. I emailed and exchanged more information with a customer service representative - but they did not get back in touch with me via email. A few weeks went by so I applied for another key for another project - it was also blocked. So at this point I can not use World Composer, I can not generate even the terrains that I have created before, and my fault was only that I asked a legitimate set of questions, IMO.

What did I do wrong? What is the future potential consequences for the World Composer software, customers, and the developer? The answers seem unknown but stark, with only one conclusion I can offer - DO NOT TRY to be informed when working with Bing, they will mess you over big time it seems. I've lost all that work.

Any suggestions on what to do now? I'm looking at some other software, but that is not my intention to cause trouble here, I'm only trying to understand Bing's position in this - and wonder if there is any other source or means of using World Composer to access some other data to create terrains. HELP ???

World Composer really works well, ONLY when you have a key.... just ask and they will take it away from you..

 

Linux Developer -> using Unity 2017.4.17f1

Attempting to <Create Terrain> results in an error message "/path/to/file/insertNameOfRegion.raw does not exist", however, it does exist and can be located in the editor->project view as well as the file system.

On testing the files by forcing application on a terrain tile, they do contain height data, but it appears to be incomplete and/ or corrupted.

~

Post-Script:

I failed to mention that after installing the asset, I got an error message stating that content3.dat could not be located in the "templates" directory. I noted that the directory was actually "Templates" and created a "templates" folder with a copy of content3.dat in it.

Not sure if this is pertinent, but clearly there was a case-sensitivity issue for Linux distros as no one else seems to have encountered that particular issue.

 

ALSO, STILL WAITING FOR ANY REPLIES HERE FROM THE FORUM OR NATHANIEL? Don't want to post this as a review in the Asset Store, but would really like to know if there is any other way to use this software to regenerate from some data or whatever. And advice on how to get it through to BING that I am not violating their terms of use (I only asked a question to insure that I would NOT be violating the terms of use. All they would have had to say was "Don't do that." but instead they destroyed my key and dumped the account usefulness. I'm sure I am not doing anything that others aren't doing, but if you asked they would likely destroy your project efforts too. How can we change that? Who can be sure your own projects are not in danger? This is really important, right?

 

Can you apply again for a new Bing key? Unfortunately, they have the right to refuse to serve you, but maybe if you apply using a different email or something ...?

 

Actually I did generate a new key and it too was cut by Bing for "violation of terms of service." I sent them a respectful email about this, but got no reply. The suggestion to get another key by using a different email might work -BUT according to the terms of use that would also be a violation - you are only allowed one account and that with only one email address according to the written rules there.

World Composer will not create a terrain - none at all so far as I can determine - without a key. So basically it becomes useless even though I have some data left over from some terrains I created in the past - they can not be processed for some reason. I got the data files from a backup after my computer crashed, but World Composer will not accept those, and that seems to be because it first seems to check for the existence of the almighty key. Bing satellite images are so good, seldom any black shadows, etc. but just when I was starting to really get results (in the learning curve) - I asked a question about using these terrains in a commercial game even while using image painting and trees etc. - Seems nothing like that is allowed if that is what you thought World Composer could do for a game development.

 

There's a discussion about this on the beginning of this thread. It's all a grey area, simply put...Bing/Google, etc don't even own the elevation and satellite data. Those are provided by several companies like Digital Global, Earth Star Geographics etc (can see it in the right corner of the imagery if you e.g. go to Bing maps or Google maps in your browser). I advice not to even bother them Bing or e.g. Digital Globe, I tried and you will simply be ignored. They are so huge and we sooo small that they don't care...Unless you start bothering them and they just want to get rid of you trying to be legit as you notice as the customer service are the ones at the end of the chain. What I would do in your case is delete all your keys and make another account with another email and continue from there...

Also I was contacted by Microsoft in the past if they could sell WorldComposer on the Windows store, I told them it needed Unity and didn't hear of them anymore. So it's all very confusing...

And be careful not to exceed 50k transations within 24 hours, I exceeded mine a few times and after a day my keys worked again.

Nathaniel

 

Probably it's because you are using Linux. Can you try commenting out the file exist code? If you double click the debug message it will bring you in the code.

 

Here is the most up to date information I received as a reply from BING regarding use of World Composer if you want to comply with their Terms of Use: from their email - "The 50,000 transaction per 24 hours you read about in the TOU was referencing a non-profit or education account. These accounts are provisioned for people like students working on a project for university or non-profit organizations. A basic account like you were licensed under allows for 125,000 transactions per calendar year." In another email they had informed me that to use the software in a commercial sense of not being a registered student or a non-profit organization the lowest account I could purchase from BING would cost $6500 per year. SO, take notice if you have any plan or creative idea that you think might lead you to use World Composer in the production of a commercial game, until or unless World Composer updates to use some other data source than BING. I did have the 50k student version key, until I submitted a set of questions to BING at which point they must have changed my account to a Basic account with the tighter limits and then nullified my key. But the keys do not allow a great many uses of the data in short, unlike we thought. I'm not sure, and I am not a lawyer, but I imagine such wrongful use could cause oneself to end up in a legal problem as the situation stands currently with the Bing Terms of Use. Real World terrain seems to be out of reach for game development with this project tool.

 

Did you read my reply?
I had a few calls with a customer that was working for the companies that were photographing the satellite imagery and he explained me how it all worked...BING and Google DO NOT OWN THE SATELLITE DATA...What you are talking about is a DOWNLOAD SERVICE. Think about downloading an image from e.g. Shutter Stock. Even if you paid for the image, it still doesn't give you always the right to use it commercially, the copyright is owned and decided by the photographer and not the download provider.

So it doesn't matter what is Bing/Google's policy of using their free/paid download service or downloading the SAME data from another source. If you're using their paid service it still doesn't give you commercial rights to the satellite data...This is owned by several companies depending on the map location and zoom level, which is displayed in the down right corner in Google and Bing maps. So try to contact one of those instead. I tried contacting Digital Globe, and they didn't even reply...

So exactly the same thing applies to all other real world terrain tools (e.g. Real World Terrain, Terra Land, Global Mapper, etc), that use other download service sources, but the data itself in the end is all owned by the same companies which photograph the satellite imagery.

 

Hello Nathaniel,

This is the first time I use World Composer and I really like it. Thanks for this awesome asset.

One question : is it possible to obtain a rotated unity terrain ? I only need 180 degree rotated (around y axis) form of the original satellite data terrain.

Is it possible ?

 

Yes, I read your replies. However, if you read my post you will notice that what I am saying is that Bing demands several thousand dollars for a key unless a user is a 'student or working for a non-profit project'. If a user is not in one of those categories they are not entitled to a key unless they pay big bucks (regardless of whether Bing is just a 'download service' as you indicated.)

Which also means that unless a user of World Composer fits into one of those two free account categories they can not use your product World Composer without paying a large sum. Also, since there appears to be no other way to generate a terrain with World Composer without having that Bing key - that means this terrain tool becomes useless to those who have purchased the Unity version.

One possible solution might be to develop within World Composer another means of obtaining data other than from Bing. But that ability does not exist at the present time in World Composer, so far as I can determine. I can not afford to pay Bing thousands of dollars for data, so effectively at this point this tool has become useless to myself. There is no objection to this arrangement, only going forward I think you should otherwise include in the description that this software only works with Bing using Unity on condition the user's status is correctly identified as "student or person working on a project for a non profit organization." Any other circumstance might be seen as slightly deceptive.

Yes, I know the world is full of deceptions. And I wish you well, only hope you can add some additional sourcing for the terrain downloading that will expand the usefulness of World Composer where a Bing account is not qualified.

 

when i click export terrain it says that the height map file is being used by another process please tell me what is the solution to this

 

That is simply untrue...If you're developing a Windows app you can use Bing up to 50k transaction a day for free...And that's the type of key you need to select.What is your purpose, stopping the sales of WorldComposer? You pretty much successfully accomplished that. I'd like to add more sources in the future, but putting WC down like it's unusable doesn't help giving me funds to continue developing it. Also Bing is a very good source that I'd like to keep. I've been selling WorldComposer for ~6 years and have been using it successfully myself for those years as well as 1000's of users.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/licensing/options

 

Yeah, the licensing looks cut and dry to me, it states the 50,000 within 24 hours, if more, fill out a request form for price quote - however, this is for windows app. For a website/mobile app, you get 125k billable transactions per calendar year, so if you want to do a webgl or native mobile app*, it's a license with a lower allowance, but that's still a lot of queries when using it for a specific purpose. (You'd probably want to consult a lawyer, which you should do anyway, but you may be able to do your dev with your windows app key and then use your webapp key when you're ready to query bing maps when you're ready to publish into a webgl/mobile app and still keep inside the legal and intentional allowances of the license without needing to go the quote route.

*eagle555, please let me know if I have that wrong.

 

I just bought the app and followed the instructions.
Very impressive asset! Thumbs up !
However, two questions occured to me:

1. The result of a terrain at my hometown mountain Dundret got very "bricky". I tried to smooth it out but it still looks really bad. Do you have any suggestions about how to avoid this artifact? (I also bought Terraincomposer2 if that could be a way to improve the looks)

2. I've read the discussion about the transactions from Bing and when I look at the report I see that my work rendered "Billable" transactions. Will I be safe or is this gonna cost me something? :-/

Attached image explains my questions

 

I created some terrains with World Composer a couple years ago, and then recently generated low-poly mesh terrains as LODs. All worked fine, except that the original terrains created by WC have vertical outer edges, like walls extending down from the terrain edge to the base of the terrain. Not sure why, but it wasn't a problem until I made the mesh terrains, which because they are lower poly, there is a row of polygons along the outer edges which have incorrect normals -- the problem is that the terrain has one vertex way down, and another up high, which means the normal changes rapidly from one vert to the next (sideways vs vertical). So then when converting this into a low res mesh, instead of having a vert small strip where the normal changes, you have a very large one, making it extremely obvious... see screenshot

So the question is: Any idea why WC creates that outer "wall" around the terrain, and how to prevent it? (The heightmap has topography to the very edge.)

thanks
Dave

 

Hello, Does anyone know if it's possible to extract splat textures from the maps generated by world composer, either directly or through terrain composer?

 

Anyone know if it’s possible to generate the terrain and 3D models where that data is available in BING? Using the Microsoft’s Unity BING SDK - https://github.com/microsoft/MapsSDK-Unity? @eagle555 Potential enhancement to WorldComposer?

 

How do you use the terrains you generate in another project? I generate the terrains and have nice heightmaps+images (using the multi-resolution tutorial) displaying in my scene. I go ahead and save some prefabs as well and a scene, but when I try to load that into another project, the terrains don't show the jpeg textures, though I have the raw and jpeg images in the project)

Do I need to pass them through another tool first?

 

ibyte: yeah, those are cool

 

FWIW, I did a re-import and the terrain textures applied correctly in the project I copied them to when I re-opened the scene or prefabs.

 

1). The brickyness can be caused by choosing a higher hightmap resolution. I explain it in the FAQ in the end of the WorldComposer manual.

2). I've been using WorldComposer since I released it ~6.5 years ago without any issues and exported tons of terrains. Huge ones like this:

Were you able to solve it? Otherwise I can look into this...

You can use it for colormaps, splat textures are usually very high detail of like 2x2 - 4x4 meter terrain. The satellite image data isn't accurate enough for that. So they are used as a colormap then for closeup it's enhanced with splat textures.

Looks interesting, will look into it...

Unity terrains are saved as a TerrainData asset in the project. These you need to export + what you export already.

 

Hi Everyone,

I submitted a new update to the Asset Store. Currently I'm updating all my packages, Mesh Combine Studio & MCS Caves and Overhangs will be next today/tomorrow with quite some improvements. Then will fix TerrainComposer2 for U2019.3 and up.

WorldComposer 1.8

Improvements:
* Connection improvements.
* Tested on Unity 2020.1
* Removed all warnings for >U2019.3
* Auto connect terrains.
* Instance terrains enabled.

Fixes:
* GUI alignment.
* Key removal error.

 

1.Does it support GoogleMap tile or other tiles(satellite images)?
2.How to convert coordinate(real latitude ,longtitude and altitude) to Vector3 in WorldComposer?

 

Hi,

Please help with using the satellite image texture for RTP detailed shaders.

I can see the Global color maps paragrph in the RTP doc. but it's beyond my skills (I've got a 4 thumbnails colormap, how can i produce the shader layers based on them and apply them to the right areas... ?).

thanks.

 

Sorry didn't get notified on your post.

1). WorldComposer uses Bing maps, which is also used for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
2). That's possible with the API, there's method to convert to meters and back to lat, long.

 

Does WorldComposer not assign RTP after you create the terrains with it?

 

Hi Everyone!



I finished my new Debugging Essentials asset and it's pending now on the Asset Store (was already accepted so shouldn't take long).

Check out the video, it's very generic and can be used in any project. I'm using it all the time to speed up development, I even used it on the Asset itself to quickly solve bugs, etc.

 

Hi Everyone,

I started a Discord server for my Assets, feel free to join!
https://discord.gg/HhepjD9

 

Hey Everyone,



Debugging Essentials just got accepted on the Asset Store
http://u3d.as/1UQB

 

Can not find map source from Google and Nokia map in World Composer ，how to switch map source？

 

That's a very old post. I didn't implement it as Nokia maps had lower quality also I think it doesn't exists anymore. As for Google maps they had a very low free transaction limit fore each day, which made it unusable. Also they have the scattered 'google' text imprinted in the satellite images...So back then I decided to skip it.

 

I am looking for a world map asset where I can display on mouse over:

• Longitude
• Latitude
• Elevation

This needs to be real world data. It needs to show on whole globe, though a flat projection is OK.

I am not so interested at this stage in producing 3D maps/models of terrain, but that would be useful down the track. That's why I'm looking at the WorldComposer asset.

I would also like to have historical weather data, which does NOT need to be graphically modeled on the map. Just data displayed somewhere.

Also day/night transition and ability to toggle that on/off.

Last but not least, is sea depth, temperature and thermocline data (depth and temperature) like that at https://datastore.cls.fr/catalogues/thermocline/

 

Thanks for the enquiry. You're looking for realtime streaming. WorldComposer is meant to extract heightmap and satellite images in the Unity editor and create terrains out of it. It doesn't have this runtime functionality...

 

When we hit "Create Terrain," WC creates a multitude of jpeg files and not one landscape,
as shown in the tutorial. What is wrong?

 

WC just doesn't seem to produce a terrain. It produces a series of separate jpeg image tiles. Something has to produce a landscape. About to request a refund.

 

Has anyone in the world gotten Worldcomposer to produce a whole terrain in Unity 2019.4? For us it only produces many files in the inspector, but no images in the scene or game view and no completed terrain at all. We exported the terrain as jpg files in Worldcomposer, as in the tutorial. Something is missing to tie all the files together and make a completed terrain. What is it?