WorldComposer a tool to create real World AAA quality terrain

I have purchased your World Builder tool and I'm trying to get it to work. When I do anything with the map stuff I get an error:

You are trying to load data from a www stream which had the following error when downloading.
Rejected because no crossdomain.xml policy file was found
UnityEngine.WWW:LoadImageIntoTexture(Texture2D)
Map_tc:Update() (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:3364)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions()


It seems with this error that the tool can't do me much good so I'm hoping this is a quick fix.

 

Hello,

Did you create the free Bing key? It is descriped in the WorldComposer manual how to do this. The manual is in the folder TerrainComposer in your project.

You are in web player mode...Read the troubleshooting in the manual how to get it working in that mode.

Nathaniel

 

Many thanks for the fast reply... That was what I needed. I didn't look in Terrain Composer as I was looking for a World Composer folder.

 

I guess I'm just not thinking smart today. Once I got the map up and tried to create a terrain it is always giving me the following error...

Heightmap file ........ does not exist. Doesn't seem to matter if I make a new area or try and use one of the existing areas. Pretty followed the video tutorial exactly except for where I was extracting from.

Also, I seem to be having redraw problems of the map as well... sometimes it will seem to only update one half of the screen as I zoom in and out. I've tried the ever reliable, reboot computer, restart Unity and all that but still having the same issues.

 

Did you extract the heightmap? As you have to extract the heightmap and the images seperately. As for redrawing half of the screen, do you have 'Image Editor' button in the top enabled? As this should be disabled. Also make sure you export the images and the heightmap to a folder inside your Unity project (for the heightmap this isn't really needed, but the images it is).

If this doesn't help, can you show a screenshot of your WorldComposer window, with image export, heightmap export and create terrain tab enabled.

Nathaniel

 

Is there a easy way to scale up terrain. I'm running around a road and notice cars are smaller than my FPS controller. If i try to scale up the whole terrain prefab it breaks off and has spaces in between. Would there be a real easy way of scaling up terrains so that they stay connected together but are larger?

 

Hello,

You can do this in the 'Create Terrain' tab in scale. It is multiplicative, so a scale of 2, is 2x bigger. A scale of 1 is the realtime scale, so 1 meter will be 1 Unity unit.



Nathaniel

 

I just bought this right before the sale ended, and started to fiddle with it immediately. I managed to get some sort of terrain from the local area, but it was all flat. After attempting to get more exports, both with and without TerrainComposer, the main WC window stopped showing any world map at all. Restarting Unity didn't work.

Next restart TC reported it had a new version, and I clicked its download button and let it import the new one. This didn't go well and I started over, letting TC upgrade on its own before importing WC. Now finally I have the latest TC without too many errors (yep, there are a few), but importing WC doesn't work at all.

Here's the error log I get:

Code (csharp):

1. ArgumentException: Getting control 10's position in a group with only 10 controls when doing Repaint
2. Aborting
3. UnityEngine.GUILayoutGroup.GetNext ()
4. UnityEngine.GUILayoutUtility.DoGetRect (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options)
5. UnityEngine.GUILayoutUtility.GetRect (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options)
6. UnityEngine.GUILayout.DoButton (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options)
7. UnityEngine.GUILayout.Button (UnityEngine.GUIContent content, UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[] options)
8. TerrainComposer.OnGUI () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/TerrainComposer.js:807)
9. System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)
10. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(2298,127): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
11. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(2298,194): BCE0019: 'Colormap' is not a member of 'resolution_mode_enum'.
12. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(3691,44): BCE0019: 'divide' is not a member of 'condition_output_enum'. Did you mean 'devide'?
13. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6160,66): BCE0019: 'Colormap' is not a member of 'resolution_mode_enum'.
14. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6162,94): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
15. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6163,94): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
16. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6164,113): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
17. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6165,113): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
18. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6166,71): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
19. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6169,58): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
20. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6863,49): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
21. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(6863,91): BCE0019: 'colormap_resolution' is not a member of 'area_class'.
22. Assets/TerrainComposer/Scripts/terraincomposer_save.js(9448,60): BCE0019: 'divide' is not a member of 'condition_output_enum'. Did you mean 'devide'?

So, no WorldComposer with latest TerrainComposer, and no workey-workey with the most recent TC from the asset store. Unity 4.3.3, blank project, other than these two assets.

Which combination of versions and human/animal sacrifice will work?

 

Hello Orb,

You have to import TerrainComposer over it again. The lastest version is in the TerrainComposer -> Update folder, called TerrainComposer. Today I will submit the latest WC to the Asset Store that doesn't require an install order. Hopefully it will be updated soon on the Asset Store.

Nathaniel

 

Cheers, got it back to working order again

 

Hello Everyone,

I got sometimes users exporting an area that is too high resolution, because they don't adjust the zoom level.

WorldComposer has ability to adjust the image/heightmap zoom level so the image resolution of you area won't exceed the memory limitation Unity 32 bit Editor has. So if you want to export a large area, zoom out ...

My recommendation is to use not more then 4k heightmap and inbetween 16k-32k is the total image size (resolution) limitation. Each time you zoom out the resolution will be half. This applies for if you want to make a usable terrain in a Scene in Unity.



Nathaniel

 

Hi Nat, thanks for the videos and tips.
Taking advantage that you made reference to "zoom levels", I wanted to ask a question.
For a terrain in which the player would be walking on this, what "Image Zoom" you recommend? The problem I have with high "image zoom" is that while the far terrain looks great, the near ground, for example, will have a short blurry trees textures .
For this use, it is best to use a smaller "image zoom" as colormap? Thus there will be no trees, etc, in the textures ..
Maybe I'm missing something or not working the right way (I think that the WC + CT + RTP tutorial will solve this doubt )

Sorry form my english
thanks!

 

Hello Antigono,

Do you use RTP? For close up you will need RTP or at least Ats colormap shader (which is free), but RTP is giving the best results. As you really need to mix it with splat textures. Also RTP has mipmap slider in Global Colormap where you can blur the satellite image up close when mixed with splat textures, so you see less blockiness. RTPv3.1 which is in beta, has an advanced colormap mixing, that will boost the quality even more. As you can mix splat and colormap based on height texture. We will be updating the 24 hour demo with RTPv3.1. But both Peter and me are pretty bussy at the moment. I want to release TC2 as soon as possible...

For the 24 hour demo we used 30x30 km and 8k total image resolution is used. I exported images on zoom level 16, which is 12k and scaled it down to 8k. You can export images to as Raw (Only enable raw toggle), then combine them into one big raw image. Then in photoshop do editing on it. Then WC can slice the big raw into jpg tiles again (select jpg and raw). The best quality up close and far away would be 18, but the area be around 16km then.

Nathaniel

 

Hi,

Wow, this asset looks amazing - exactly what I need, but I'd like to know what the available height map zoom level is for Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, Canada?

Also, I'm curious where the data is coming from and what the license is on it? Sorry if this is already mentioned somewhere else in the thread.
[Edit - sorry, never mind, started reading thread from beginning :\]

 

WorldComposer uses Bing and you can take a look at it here:
http://www.bing.com/maps/

Nathaniel

 

Help please.

I've purchased your asset, and everything looks great until the very end. Then my terrain looks like a patchwork quilt. Image attached. What have I done wrong? It doesn't look like this in the satellite images.

 

Hello,

This is a shader issue and has nothing to do with WorldComposer. Proberly you have asset(s) in your project that include an additional terrain shader. Some of Michael O packages have it and also Big Envirmoment pack. What you need to do is find these terrain shaders and delete them.

You can try an empty project with only WC, you will notice that the issue isn't there...

Best regards,
Nathaniel

 

Thanks for your reply, but I can't find how to find the available height map resolution on Bing maps...would you be able to tell me what the height map resolution for Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, Canada is? If the resolution is good, I'll be buying this plugin - but I'm dealing specifically with this area, so I can't invest in this plugin if I can't use it for this area.

Thank you.

 

Hello,

The heightmap resolution of that area is zoom level 11 which is about 80 meter per pixel. I exported a 6 square km area of Okanagan Falls for you, so you can see how it looks:





Nathaniel

 

OK - looks good. Thanks for your help!

 

You are correct. Thank you. I deleted some of my terrain shaders, and this is the result. Stunning, eh? That's outside my back window. That scene is just two blocks from my home.




On another note, I note that there is a lot of 'stepping' in the messes because of the heighmap data. As I smooth out that stepping, it sometimes creates issues where two terrain meshes connect. Is there any way to 'stitch' these different terrain meshes together to form one large mesh?

Thanks in advance. Fantastic tool!

 

You are correct. I have removed my terrain shaders, and this is the result. Pretty fantastic. This is just one block away from my home in Diamond Valley.




On an unrelated note, I am noticing that there is a lot of 'stepping' of the mesh files because of the heighmap. As I smooth out the meshes, I am finding that I can have issues where two terrain mesh files connect. It creates seams. Is there any way to 'stitch' these mesh files together to form one large mesh? Or is there another solution?

Thanks in advance. Fantastic tool.

 

Why would you suppose that its all blocky like this? The first one I created was nice and smooth, but since then, its been looking like this. is there any documentation on what all the settings mean?

Edit - Also, Whenever i create a terrain, then delete it and recreate it, i get all kinds of errors (below) and my map doesn't have any height.

IOException: Sharing violation on path C:\Users\MATTM\Documents\Unity Projects\RRWT\Assets\Upper Lehigh.raw
System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/FileStream.cs:320)
System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode)
(wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream:.ctor (string,System.IO.FileMode)
Map_tc.load_raw_file () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:5770)
Map_tc.generate_begin () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:5593)
Map_tc.create_terrains_area () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:4897)
Map_tc.OnGUI () (at Assets/TerrainComposer/Editor/Map_tc.js:2657)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/monoAndRuntimeClassLibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)

plus a bunch about not being able to assign a splat sometimes. What is the proper sequence for creating the terrain? I'm clicking "export heightmap", "export images", "generate heightmap", "create terrain"

 

Hello TomEnokR and Delinx32,

As for steps in the heightmap you need to select the nearest value (this is selected automatically) in the heightmap resolution in the 'Create Terrain' tab. The correct resolution is displayed in the (...) behind it. I put this in there so you can choose a lower resolution for faster performance, but a higher resolution should never be picked.

The resolution you select there is the resolution per tile, and if you use a higher resolution you get these blocks and also the perfomance is not optimal then, as a higher heightmap resolution is used than needed.

If the resolution in (...) is lower than 33 you need to smooth it a little after creating. As for the smoothing the edges of the terrain should be correct, you need to test it in runtime as in the Unity editor there's always a little bit seams.



Nathaniel

 

Hi Nathaniel,

thanks for this fantastic tool!

I am using WC and RTP3 at the moment (without TC). Is there a recommended way to handle water/ocean/lake areas imported through WC? For example, if I want to achieve an ocean effect like in the RTP3 Island Demoscene on "real world water terrain", what steps would I have to take? Put a water shader on everything with zero elevation? Do I need TerrainComposer to get there?

 

In RTP 3.1 you'll have the option to cut out the terrain based on a texture, you could do that to get rid of the main mass of water and dress the shores with meshes (This is what i'm planning to do when it inevitably crops up)

 

Thanks, that did indeed fix the blockyness. I thought increasing that would increase the actual res of the heightmap. What controls the heightmap resolution? The area I am selecting is always 128. Is that because of the data available from bing? The zoom on my area is 14 which i understand is the best available, yet it appears a little less smooth than your demo scene. Did you get your smoothness by using the smooth function of the tool, or is there a way to generate a higher res heightmap?

A great feature would be to mark some tiles to be skipped in heightmap generation. For example, if you were just trying to follow a valley or something, you might have to select blocks that aren't necessarily relevant to your final product. If you could mark certain squares to skip, then it could possibly increase performance.

 

Another question, I'm having a slight problem with textures not scaling properly, or being offset, or something.

If I create a 7x12 grid with all the default settings my texture is very offset. The rivers are over on the right:


If I create a 1x2 grid over the same area, the texture is better. Its still slightly offset, but not quite as much:



Edit - a 1x1 grid is perfect:

I'm sure I need to tweak a setting or something, but I don't understand what.

 

Hello Delinx32,

I'm working on a new version of WorldComposer where you can set the image offset before exporting, I wasn't awere that grid size has an influence on it. Can you contact me at my e-mail Nathaniel_Doldersum@hotmail.com, and send me a screenshot of the WorldComposer window with your area?

Also in the next update Google maps and google elevation will be in there.

Nathaniel

 

Hi, just got a little issue with my Terrain please see image to understand the setting ive got on the go.

the issue is that the lower image, the terrain has a split line in it! what tutorial should i be looking at to cover stitching my tiles together?

also any advice from my setting would be good.

thanks
Nick.

 

Hello Nick,

This is the same issue as the users above...The heightmap resolution shouldn't be put higher manually (only lower) in create terrains higher as it is resolution per terrain tile. So if you put the heightmap resolution to 33 and recreate the terrain it should be fine.

Nathaniel

 

Hi, me again...
I'm also having problems with heightmap resolution.
In my Create Terrain window it says my heightmap resolution is 16, but the lowest setting is 30. You can see my settings below - please let me know what's wrong here...



These settings are resulting in the same problems mentioned above - "stepped" terrains.

 

Hello,

What is displayed behind is the resolution of the exported heightmap per tile. Unity terrain heightmap can't go lower then 33. I created a smooth button for this. If you don't have TerrainComposer you can use the 'Smooth' in the Create Terrain tab to smooth the terrain. If you have TerrainComposer and export to it, you can use smooth in Quick Tools in TerrainComposer.

Nathaniel

 

Hi Nathaniel,

If it should never be set higher, then you should put a check in your software. I have RTP, TerrainComposer and WorldComposer and I often get errors. I haven't made a terrain that I understood what exactly I'm doing yet, but still learning.

That said! If there are many more issues like the one above, it could make your tool extremely hard to learn. If it shouldn't be put higher manually, then remove that ability in the UI.

Speaking of the UI, why not use a node-based system like many popular tools are implementing now? It could take terrain generation to the next level. Finally, considering World Machine -- does TerrainComposer replicate its functionality? Or do I gain a lot powerful features also adding World Machine to the pipeline?

Also, the default example scenes in TerrainComposer destroy my 2014 Mac. So many trees are created that it crawls. Maybe make the defaults in those examples a little less extreme?

On that note - tree LOD. How can I set up my scene to use Unity Pro's built in LOD system with TerrainComposer? I target a lot of different platforms and I need fine control over how much and what is drawn.

Thank you!

 

Hello,

Yes you are right, at the moment I'm updating WorldComposer and building that in, that you can't put it higher and also a warning system if the resolutions get too high. Also updated documentation, etc.

If you read on my site:
http://www.terraincomposer.com/upcoming-features/
You can see I'm working on a node system for TC2, and it's a node system that is unique on its own. WorldMachine will add to the workflow, as it has very realistic erosion and flow maps. TerrainComposer can import all the stuff from WorldMachine.

As for the example scenes, yes I can put the default densities more down, but you can also do it very easily by changing the tree density with the slider.

If you place trees with TerrainComposer on your Unity terrain with the tree layer, it already uses the terrain tree system. Which is a billboard system. You can change the settings for it in TC terrain list -> Settings -> Tree draw distance, billboard start, fade length, etc (for the editor and runtime).

Nathaniel

 

Excellent news about the node system and thank you for the tips on the tree LOD.

 

Hi, guys Nathaniel!

I´ve still got a problem to convert my xy position ob my object to correct lat/long coordinates. I think I´ve some kind of mental blockage and perhaps you could help me, because I´ve been at it for ages :-( .

I´ve got a world composer map of the isle of man and my map is:
- 62.508 km wide
- 113,651 km long
- 22528 pixel wide
- 40960 pixel long
- 15 zoom factor
- 11 tiles wide, 20 tiles long
- center lat/long is : 52.4927 / -4.5166

See Google maps :
https://www.google.de/maps/preview/...1,-4.0590182,9z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=de

I´ve positioned an object roughly where the marker is ( see http://www.latlong.net/c/?lat=54.084714&long=-4.612341 ) and would like to get the lat/long of this object.

Does anybody know how to get these coordinates?

@ Nathaniel: In your script I don´t understand the zoom factor in these lines.

map_pixel = global_script.latlong_to_pixel2(center_latlong,17);
current_latlong = global_script.pixel_to_latlong2(map_pixel,17);

Would I have to enter "15" for my image setup?

Also I´ve got difficulties with the pixel/meter offset.

map_pixel.x += position.x* ???
map_pixel.y += position.z* ???

Wouldn´t it be map-width in pixel / meters, i.e. 62508 / 22528 = 2,7746 ?

Thankful for any advice,
Michael

 

Hello Michael,

To understand it you can read the Bing map tile system:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb259689.aspx

So you need to use zoom 17 and that is 1.1943 meter per pixel. I will post a new script with this updated.

Nathaniel

 

Thanks. Still confused.. Do you mean that I´´ve got use 17 in the script or that I´ve got to use zoom level 17 image from world composer?

Using 15 zoom level image, I also tried the value 4.7773 as mentioned in the Bing documents, but that was also wrong.

 

It doesn't matter what resolution you exported from Bing. As the terrains size in your Unity scene will always have 1 Unity unit is 1 meter, so with this you need to convert, you want latlong conversion to Unity units. You could use any zoom level but then you have to convert it back also with the conversion listed in Bing description. So you can use zoom level 17 as that is the closest to 1 meter.

Nathaniel

 

Hello Nathaniel,

I have a question that is not related directly to WC but that you could maybe have some idea on it.

I used WC for creating a large area (something like 130km x 100km, zoom 18 for texture res... took quite a while but it worked !). Due to the sheer amount of data, I wrote my own manager script that handle all the loading and unloading of Terrains, coupled with a floating origin system.

I think I read somewhere that you were also working on a similar system and I would like to know if you had problem with memory leaks.

I have nearly 5000 TerrainData (the grid is 80x60), grouped in chunks of 10x10, and while I travel around, I load and unload those chunks. After multiple transitions between those chunks, my application crash because of memory leak.

I checked everything to find the source of the leak and found that it seems to be the fault of the unloading process of Unity Terrain object. Terrain Materials doesn't seems to be unloaded when the object is destroyed and thus, material count increments like crazy at each transitions between chunks. I tried to destroy them manually, but we don't have access to them.

I submitted a bug report 2 month ago, but still no reply from Unity. Didn't have much success either on the forum (http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/214574-Memory-leak-when-destroying-Terrain).

Maybe you know a way to handle a clean destruction of Terrain object... I thought of keeping a track of material count and, when a thresold is triggered, just delete all material and reload my entire scene. But it seems a bit extreme and not very efficient (the freeze would last a few seconds at least I suspect).

 

Hello Ambro,

Best would be not to use materials for terrains, as it makes it slow. And I recommend not to destroy terrains, it will leak indeed, but load terrainData inside an existing terrain instead.

Nathaniel

 

Even if I don't use material on my terrain, there are some that are handled by the Terrain component and which are not destroyed. If you look at the small package in my related post (basically, just a script that spawn or destroy a single Terrain object), you will see the Materials count increase.

I will look at the solution you mentioned.

Thanks for you fast answer.

 

When I try and open the getting started I keep getting this error

Unable to open Assets/TerrainComposer/TerrainComposer Getting Started.pdf: Check external application preferences

how do I change that?


EDIT this has been fixed

 

Hi Nathaniel,

after using WC for a while with no problems, I am suddenly getting a strange bug:



Terrain with 3x5 tiles, image resolution 512 (Unity 4.2.2f1, TerrainComposer 1.320, WorldComposer 1.100, RTPv3)

When I press "Create Terrain" in WC, the first terrain tile is positioned in the correct location in the scene, but the rest of the tiles are stacked on top of each other (all at location -500,0,-500). My console throws this for every terrain tile:

I have tried deleting the terrain, deleting the TerrainComposer object in the scene, deleting the RTP LOD manager, deleting all related files and regenerating the heightmap and images, but the error persists.

If I create a new solution and generate the same terrain there, it works.

Any idea how to fix this? Thanks!

 

Hello Nuitari,

This might be due to that RTP Lod manager is not setup correctly. It says that the heightmap textures are out of range, meaning that there are no 4 textures slots available in RTP. Is First Pass in RTP Lod manager enabled?

Nathaniel

 

Thanks, I will check the textures again.

 

Hello Everyone,

There's a new WorldComposer version with updated documentation on the Asset Store. Also there's a new TerrainComposer version on the Asset Store, they don't require an install order anymore.

The new WorldComposer has a new raw imagery feature, you can export any size of raw image tile, also it is streamed now. There's some improvements and the new documentation explains more details.

Nathaniel

 

WOW! Pretty amazing asset! Couple of questions.

Is there a way to change the transparency of the interface?
How can I reduce image tiling?
Can I control the pixel error of the terrains that are created?

Thanks.

 

You can change the transparency in the 'Settings' tab with the alpha of the background color. You can reduce the amount of tiles with image zoom level and higher image resolution (4k max). You can also control the pixel error as every terrain has a script assigned that sets the pixel error on start. You can multi-select all terrains and then edit the setting in the script.

Nathaniel