[HDRP-UPR ✅] Sky Master ULTIMATE-Physical skybox-Volume clouds-Weather FX-Ocean-Realtime GI-Mobile

Community Showcases
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Intro
This is Sky MASTER, the new asset for Sky control and artistic design. The tool was inspired by the need to have fully controllable spectacular skies and dynamic clouds in Unity Free, with complete seasonal control, weather effects like rain, tornados, heavy strorms with lightning, snow storms with freeze and ice formation effects and much more.

The asset will make heavy use of Particle Dynamic Magic for the particle systems and dynamics, and will also include GI Proxy for Global Illumination effects, assigned to the sun. Spot and point light GI is also supported for night time and local lights.


(gif is not from a grabbed video, just 8 pics in succession)

SKY MASTER is envisioned as the ULTIMATE compatibility sky tool, for both Unity FREE and Pro and for all platforms.All Unity free and DX9 users can now enjoy spectacular physically based skies and dynamic clouds. Unity Pro users will of course benefit from extra screen effects and i plan to have special care for that as well.

Sky Master WIP Demo - NEW !!!:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/Sky Master/SKY MASTER DEMO C.html

Features

The initial pack wil provide a system that will:

  • give spectacular skies and cloud rendering and dynamics in both Unity FREE and PRO, at blazing fast speeds.
  • provide various methods for cloud simulation and lighting. Semi-volumetric, fully dynamic clouds is one of the options (most advanced).
  • provide a method of dynamic Global Illumination approximation for the sun and also include spot & point light GI as well.
  • give a controllable day/night cycle, with auto adjustment of scattering, clouds etc for that purpose
  • be compatible with SM2.0, deferred and forward rendering, linear & gamma modes and both DX9 and DX11, plus will not require Unity Pro. Ultimate compatibility.
  • give the option to render the sky to cube texture in Unity Pro and use it as Skybox.
  • provide artistic and dynamic controls for the sky rendering (ring mode etc) and the cloud manipulation (local coloration, attractors, turbulence etc).
  • be readilly compatible with ORK Framework (time variable control)

The “ADVANCED WEATHER” effects will include:

  • REAL LIGHTNING: Lightning that can hit actual targets, even as they move and produce optional chain lighting effects

  • REAL TORNADO: Tornado that can actually affect clouds as it passes by realistically

Features for later versions

Later the plan is to give an optional shader that will directly apply the effect to the Skybox, for extra speed.
But this will come after the initial version and if i manage to make it happen of course and will be a free bonus to the pack.

Future work includes

  • making exact day/night cycles and positioning based on full year calendar.
  • glows and effects for the moon (this may come in the initial release though)
  • extra controls for even more cool artistic effect in all the included systems
  • Advanced effect - special shaders for weather effects (like screen space splashes etc)
  • Advanced effect - GOD RAYS (not 100% sure yet, this is more advanced, but i hope i can make it happen)
  • Advanced effect - REAL CLOUD RAYS: Sun beams that emit from the clouds (not 100% sure yet, but certainly have done some progresss towards it)
  • Advanced effect - REAL BLIZZARD: Freezing storm that will actually generate ice on selected meshes and make ice stick on the hero.
    and much more.

There will be two versions of the asset - The “CORE” and " ULTIMATE":

The “Core” version will not have Global Illumination or the Advanced Dynamic Weather effects (it will have weather effects, just not the very advanced ones, like cloud manipulation from the hero etc), but will be compatible with my GI Proxy tool,so everyone that has the pack or buy it, will enjoy GI with the core version as well.

The “ULTIMATE” version will have both Global Illumination and the Advanced Weather effects, plus a big collection of skies to use.

Images

Here is a gif that shows the cloud progression. (not very good quality, i took this frame by frame)










Some earler pics



http://www.imgnow.net/uploads/714110142Untitled-4.png
http://www.imgnow.net/uploads/714110138Untitled-4.jpg
http://www.imgnow.net/uploads/714110190Untitled-3.png
http://www.imgnow.net/uploads/714110182sunset.png
http://www.imgnow.net/uploads/714110181Untitled-1.jpg

Demo

A demo will be available very soon (as seen in the pics), when i finalize all the cloud controls. I will try to have the tornado effect in as well and cloud manipulation.

If anyone would like to have an earlier demo, with the current version, please let me know :slight_smile:

7 Likes
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Wow. This looks like a very nice asset. Just a quick question, though: how much will it cost?

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Thanks a lot, glad you like it :slight_smile:

I plan to have a “CORE” version for 30$ initially. This will not include my GI Proxy pack and some of the most advanced particle effects. But will be compatible with GI Proxy that is already on the store, so can be upgraded with GI later.

And an “ULTIMATE” one for 50$ initial price, that will include GI Proxy pack & some extra advanced dynamic and particle effects.

Both packs will have the clouds in all their glory, only the level of interaction will be different.

All early adopters will get any update for free, for eternity :), as with all my other packs.

4

Looks nice. Will it work on mobile too?

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Thanks, keep in mind this is heavy WIP, so everything will get an extra layer of coolness by release. For example the cloud lighting is still not in sync with the sun and the multilayer lighting is not yet in (though the system to back it up is ready).

The plan is to make it work on every platform and Unity version. I have already made sure it works in SM2.0, DX9 (and DX11) and forward/deferred. Plus i always test assets on my laptop, so from a performance standpoint so far the sky effect is super fast, i will test on the phone with clouds too, so i can report which of the various cloud systems is best to use for optimal performance.

The test on the phone will probably happen sometime this week, so i will report back how this went.

6

Awesome.

1 Like
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UPDATE:

I am now working on the moon rendering and wonder if i should keep the moonless shader as well, for those that want to squeeze the extra performance on mobile.

Probably i will have them both in, this way i can also add a third with more cool moon and night related effects, but a bit heavier.

Also i may add a Prefab Manager, like in the Particle Dynamic Magic pack, to have all the different configurations applied in one click.

8

Does the atmosphere look like that in Unity Free too? It looks so beautiful with all the transitioning of the sun color with the sky.

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Everything posted is from Unity Free, since i dont have Pro :slight_smile:

So yes, this is the major goal, bring a spectacular looking sky in Unity Free, with dynamic 3D clouds and much more.

That said, i do plan to have some extras for Pro later, but the initial release will be about total compatibility.

Also note that the system is heavy WIP, the effect in the final form will look far more spectacular, since the transition from day to evening and night has not been shown yet :slight_smile:

1 Like
10

This is beautiful as hell then! Well worth the price :slight_smile:

I will follow the development of this, thank you very much :slight_smile:

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Thanks and i have only just begun with the cool effects, now that the base system has been finilized and runs in a robust way.

Here is some tests on refractive effects (rather expensive though, at least on my 4 years old laptop at 1280x720) with the sun halo and faked sun beams. Notice how the sun distorts in the back.


(gif is not from a grabbed video, just pics in succession)

I have also posted some pics of the effect, since the gif is very low quality

1 Like
12

That is absolutely amazing! When are you planning to release this? :slight_smile:

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Many thanks :slight_smile:

I constantly come up with effects that even i never though i would create, it is so fun working on this one. And wait to see this in proper motion, i will post all 8 high res PNGs to cycle through, to get the proper feeling :).

The system is very robust right now, so the release could be very soon, but i have some rough spots in the day cycle and cloud higher level of motion (how they move around the map). I would like to have a perfect system before releasing, so hopefully i can submit the week after this one.

I will start posting demos with updates this week though, so everyone can test and comment on possible issues or provide suggestions for improvements.

1 Like
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Two more pics of the refraction effect, as it affects a sun with the Ring mode activated.
.

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And a day time pic (WIP always).

All pics are from Unity Free.

.

16

UPDATE:

The moon is almost ready, with some cool adjustable halo.
.

17

Looking really cool!
I do notice though shouldn’t the sky NOT be visible in the center of the eclipse in the last screenshot (and the previous ones too, I suppose?) Unless it’s not a sun/moon in the sky, but a glowing ring - but I don’t think that’s the case. It does look pretty cool though!

I’m looking forward to this asset! :slight_smile:

18

Thanks :slight_smile:

Also dont worry, this is not an eclipse :), it is just the moon that does not have the proper lighting yet from the sun and the halo is not yet adjusted depending on how the moon is lit. For example in this case the sun is directly opposite and the moon should be black and not have a halo, which of course is to be adjusted and the system is ready to handle.

Also the clouds are an extra layer below the main shaded dome, and are not yet adjusted for lighting conditions, that is what i am working on right now, the cloud lighting. I have some trully spactacular transitions from day to night :), especially on the dynamic clouds is epic.

So consider this pic as heavy WIP and about to change completly :), that is, besides the moon halo.

I also plan to have a light penetration into night factors, that is how much light is allowed in all the systems as dusk moves to night and for how long. So the cloud coloring and lighting will be fully adjustable (and will have many presets too)

19

I am on to the cloud shadows right now. There are many options, like projected, from the particles, from invisible object in the cloud, maybe procedurally changing etc

I will probably use an aproximated with projection first, since the particle shadows could be rather heavy and probably will contain pointless detail that would not enchance the scene as much as the penalty for that.

What do you think ?

20

Skybox shader - artistic skies (WIP)

UPDATE:

The first attempt at a fully auto adjustable day/night 24hour cycle is now finished !!! Everything changes as day goes to dusk, night and back to day. All dynamic cloud system changes are done and only thing missing are the static clouds, which should be straingforward.

Now on to adding some cool variation to the effect and a slider that will move it from realistic to move vibrant - cartooney, to cover for all possible scenarios.

Another thing i did was to create a shader for the Skybox, i dont yet have the full scattering one from the dome there, but i got some new spectacular effects using what i have made so far, so this shader will be part of the collection as it is, it is ideal for exaggerated sun and coloration, so i decided to have it also as option.

After all the pack is about getting spectacular artistic skies and every option would be helpfull for that purpose.

To clarify further, these are the available sky rendering methods, currently:

  1. Skydome shader with atmospheric scattering, the main approach
  2. Skybox shader - artistic
  3. System to render the Skydome to a cubemap and apply to Skybox or anywhere required

And these are the available cloud systems:

  1. Fully Dynamic clouds, rotating around the map and follow wind dynamics
  2. Static dynamic clouds, for clouds that need to feel dynamic but remain on the spot
  3. Flat cloud bed, for full or partial cloud coverage
  4. Cloud dome, for the far away extra effect and coloration

Plus one Sky Refraction effect.

More will be added as i continue with the development.