We’re very excited to announce the release of SECTR VIS on the Unity Asset Store. SECTR VIS is a low memory, high performance, dynamic occlusion culling system that ensures you never waste time rendering what the player can’t see.
Culls everything Unity can render.
Fully dynamic, no static requirements.
No tedious baking process.
Initial setup of a scene takes just minutes.
Simple and completely under your control.
Supports occluders for large spaces.
Hand optimized for mobile and console.
If you’re interested in learning more about SECTR Vis, check out the brief video below, post a question here, check out our online demos, or email info@makecodenow.com.
Just an FYI for anyone using VIS or COMPLETE, there may be a bug in Occluder Auto-Orientation code. I’m traveling and haven’t had time to confirm it yet, but if you have any confusing behavior with Occluder auto-orientation, please email support@makecodenow.com. If I confirm the bug, I’ll post a fix here and include the fix in the next update.
I just confirmed that there is a bug in the Occluder auto orientation code. The fix will be in the next point release later this week, but if anyone needs the fix sooner, just change line 96 of SECTR_Occluder.cs to the following:
FYI that there is a GUI bug in a Sector creation helper dialog. This will be fixed in 1.0.1 but you can fix it yourself replacing Line 48 of SECTR_CoreMenu.cs with this:
if(sharedChildren.Count > 0 EditorUtility.DisplayDialog("Overlap Warning", "Some object in this Sector overlap other Sectors, which may cause unexpected behavior. Would you like to make them Members instead of children?", "Yes", "No"))
SECTR 1.0.3 is now live in the asset store. For folks interested in using SECTR for open world games, definitely check out the Beta Terrain GUI. It will auto create sectors and portals for your terrain, even split the terrain into multiple chunks for you. The GUI tool is in CORE, and STREAM is now aware of how to handle connected terrains. There’s also a new Region Loader for easily streaming a volume around the player.
SECTR 1.0.3 Release Notes
CORE
Beta Terrain Sectorization GUI. Ideal for setting up terrain-based open worlds.
Additional optimizations in Member update.
New Optimization chapter in CORE manual.
AUDIO
Fixed a bug with max instances not properly limiting playback.
Fixed leaking pool objects when reloading in editor.
Fixed bug in application of fade out to HDR sources.
Fixed Propagation Source attenuation beyond max range.
Beta Audio System HUD.
VIS
Fix for visibility traversal terminating early in complex scenes.
Fixed bug with directional shadow caster bounds projection.
Minor optimizations to portal and occluder early out logic.
STREAM
Chunk properly handles unloads during loads and vice versa.
Fixed duplication of extra components on Sector during export.
Beta of new Region Loader. Ideal for open world streaming.
Beta support for terrain grid streaming and stitching.
That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. I think I can repro the bug here. You said that Unity crashes, but on my machine it actually hangs/locks up. Is that what you are seeing?
Awesome! If you’re not using it already, check out Region Loader for streaming terrains. It’s pretty helpful.
As for Streaming vs Culling, they are designed to work together. You can think of Streaming as a kind of very coarse culling, and of course it also saves memory. Culling is useful when you want to do more fine grained rendering optimizations on top of the data that needs to be loaded. In exterior games, usually you rely mostly on streaming and then just make judicious use of Occluders where you can to simply and quickly cull objects behind large objects like mountains, buildings, etc.
SECTR 1.0.5 is out and fixes two critical issues, one of which is a workaround for a Unity bug that can cause save game corruption. Everyone should get this fix ASAP.
SECTR 1.0.5 Release notes
CORE
Workaround for critical serialization bug that could cause scene file corruption when creating portals in projects with mixed/binary serialization.
VIS
Fix bug that could cause infinite loops/hangs in scenes with a lot of pass-through portals (i.e. sectorized terrains).
SECTR 1.0.6 is now available on the Unity Asset Store. This version fixes a critical VIS bug, so if you have VIS you definitely want this ASAP. Also includes some UI related fixes.
SECTR 1.0.6 Release Notes
CORE
Fix some issues with multi-selection and custom inspectors.
Properly orient portals created by Terrain window.
VIS
Properly fix portal traversal culling bug introduced in 1.0.5. Now traversal works for all known portal types and scene configurations.
I’m happy to announce that SECTR COMPLETE is part of the May Madness sale for 50% off on the Unity Asset Store! We’ve reduced the price of the individual SECTR modules (AUDIO, STREAM, VIS) to match.
There’s also a new version of SECTR to celebrate this sale. 1.0.7 is likely to be the last update before 1.1.0, which will be the same code but with additional demos showing off the new features that have come online since 1.0.0.
SECTR 1.0.7 Release Notes
CORE
Added optional PortalDetermined mode to Member. When set to true, Sector membership will only change when the object passes through a Portal (instead of whenever it enters a Sector Bounds). Ideal for games with very complex/concave scenes.
SECTR 1.0.9 is out! Major improvements include better terrain sectorization and some other Core bugfixes.
SECTR 1.0.9 Release Notes
CORE
Terrain window supports automatic Sectorization of Terrain Composer created terrain grids.
Fix crash splitting terrains with trees in the Terrain window.
Sectors no longer include Particle Systems in their bounds computation as they are too dynamic to be reliable. Also fixes issues where sometimes Sector would expand to include the origin due to a particle returning an invalid Bounds.
Custom inspector class updated to more perfectly match behavior of default inspector, including support serializable, private, non-hide-in-inspector variables.
Updated documentation with more information about advanced bounds logic and the new portal determined membership mode.
SECTR 1.0.10 is out. Contains some Core bug fixes.
SECTR 1.0.10 Release Notes
CORE
Added documentation about working with Terrain Window to CORE Manual.
Fix bug where missing null check in Member could cause crashes on some platforms (like iOS).
Fix bug where results from Portal’s viewport Sector selection/swap GUI would be erased in play mode when performed on a Portal in a Prefab when the user pressed Play.
For folks interested in procedurally created dungeons and SECTR, the excellent DunGen just added support for SECTR VIS. If you have both products, simply enable a #define in DunGen and you’re off to the races!
SECTR 1.0.11 is now out. This is one of the biggest updates to VIS and includes a brand new LOD system and major optimizations to culling, including support for multi-threaded culling (ideal for complex scenes on multi-CPU systems).
SECTR 1.0.11 Release Notes
CORE
Sectors created by the Terrain window are now parented above the Terrain rather than being added to the same object. Fixes issues with certain 3rd party scripts expecting to be on the same object as the terrain.
Fixed seams appearing between terrains when using the split feature of the Terrain Window.
Guard against null lights in the baked only lights table.
Fixed PlayMaker integration compile issues in Unity 4.5.
VIS
Band new LOD system for more efficient rendering in open world games. Just add SECTR_LOD component. See VIS manual for more details.
Major optimization pass on occlusion culling. Includes streamlining of core routines as well as support for multi-threaded culling. See VIS manual for more info on threaded culling.
Culler component is now deprecated and no longer necessary. To manually control culling behavior, simply use the new attributes on Member and Sector. Previously added Cullers will continue to behave appropriately.
Fixed PlayMaker integration compile issues in Unity 4.5.
