[Solved] Shiny Terrain in 5.0.1f1?

vdeloso · April 22, 2015, 5:05pm

So, I recently upgraded to 5.0.1f1 from 5.0.0f4 and noticed that my terrain has a shiny layer has been added. All of the terrain tiles we use are generated via script and are using the “Built In Standard” for the Base Terrain material. Running from the editor, I tried changing the material and noticed that the “Built In Legacy Diffuse” is the Material that removes the odd shiny effect. In the picture below, you can see where the Legacy looks correct and the adjacent terrain tiles have the shiny effect.

As a current workaround, I have a small, hidden terrain object in the scene with the correct material that I want to use. Then for all generated terrain tiles, I set the material type to the one from the corrected terrain game object’s material type. Really not optimal… is there another way to programmatically reference the built-in materials?

Manipulating the direction of the global lighting does not change the effect, neither does disabling lighting from Scene view.

Another developer here has not upgraded yet (from 5.0.0f4) and does not encounter this rendering issue, so I can assume that it’s something to do with the changes in the version that I am using.

Is there a way for me to manipulate the Built In Standard material to not cause this shiny effect? Is this a known issue from the changes in 5.0.1? Or am I just stuck with using the Legacy Diffuse material for my terrain?

Update: Also tested with 5.0.1p2 and the effect is still there.

yuanxing_cai · April 27, 2015, 2:27am

Hi! You need to go to the ‘Edit Textures’ dialog and lower the smoothness value of your textures.

vdeloso · April 27, 2015, 5:20am

I don’t see a slider or anything that will let me modify the smoothness for a texture…

All I am doing is setting a loaded image to the texture of a SplatPrototype for the terrain. I tried setting the splat.smoothness to 0, but the effect still shows.

private void SetupSplatPrototype(TerrainTile target, Texture2D texture, float terrainSize)
{
    SplatPrototype splat = new SplatPrototype();
    splat.texture = texture;
    splat.smoothness = 0;
    splat.tileSize = new Vector2(terrainSize, terrainSize);
    target.Tile.terrainData.splatPrototypes = new SplatPrototype[] { splat };
}

yuanxing_cai · April 27, 2015, 5:33am

vdeloso:

I don’t see a slider or anything that will let me modify the smoothness for a texture…

All I am doing is setting a loaded image to the texture of a SplatPrototype for the terrain. I tried setting the splat.smoothness to 0, but the effect still shows.
private void SetupSplatPrototype(TerrainTile target, Texture2D texture, float terrainSize)
{
    SplatPrototype splat = new SplatPrototype();
    splat.texture = texture;
    splat.smoothness = 0;
    splat.tileSize = new Vector2(terrainSize, terrainSize);
    target.Tile.terrainData.splatPrototypes = new SplatPrototype[] { splat };
}

OK then we’ll need a repro project to figure out what’s going on. Is it possible for you to extract a single scene from your project in which you can reproduce this issue and attach it here?

vdeloso · April 27, 2015, 3:45pm

I generated a completely new project from Unity 5.0.1p2, copied the bare essentials of the code and source data. Running it, the terrain still appears shiny. Please note, I cannot edit the source texture image and must use it as is. If any modifications need to be done to the image, they must be done through the Unity script and not from an external non-live editor.

Had to host it on my dropbox as the zipped project exceeds the forum attachment size (3.63mb): project link.

yuanxing_cai · May 5, 2015, 3:42am

OK. I know what the problem is.

In your script, you used Texture2D.LoadImage to load a .png file. Texture2D.LoadImage will load any .png file into ARGB32 format. If the original image doesn’t have an alpha channel (which is your case), the default alpha value for the Texture2D is 1.0. As the standard terrain shader uses the alpha channel of the splat texture as the smoothness value for the surface, you got a very shinny surface with its smoothness = 1.0.

Changing the source image into .jpg format fixes the problem, as Texture2D.LoadImage will load .jpg files into RGB24 format. Terrain material system will correctly handle this format (smoothness will be controlled by SplatPrototype.smoothness instead).

If you can’t do anything about the source image, here is one of the tricks you can do in the scripts:

Texture2D texture = new Texture2D(2, 2);
texture.LoadImage(File.ReadAllBytes(pngImagePath));
texture.LoadImage(texture.EncodeToJPG(100));

vdeloso · May 5, 2015, 8:47pm

Alright, thanks for the help regarding this issue. I opted to consolidate it to the following:

splat.texture = texture;
splat.texture.LoadImage(texture.EncodeToJPG(100));

Since the source texture can be either from file cache or loaded from the web. Things look back to normal now, I get to retain the standard material for terrain and no longer need the awkward extra base terrain tile.

BES · August 6, 2015, 9:03pm

I am getting this issue too… with the unity built in standard Legobet88 = Daftar Situs Slot Online Terpercaya & Slot Gacor Resmi Hari Ini di Login Bet88

And also with a Relief Terrain shader material(ReliefTerrainVertexBlendTriplanar material/shader) : Legobet88 = Daftar Situs Slot Online Terpercaya & Slot Gacor Resmi Hari Ini di Login Bet88

This is highly annoying …it was fine in Unity 4…

Guess I can use the legacy diffuse one…since it works how its supposed to…

Chris-Trueman · September 21, 2015, 5:42am

I was using textures imported into Unity and getting the same shine on quite a few objects not just the terrain. I checked the import settings for all my textures and unchecked Alpha from greyscale and it looks fine now.

R4347 · February 13, 2017, 5:08am

Hey guys I figured out a easier way to do it without coding just click on terrain and than click on the gear far right of the inspector under terrain, there you will see Base terrain next to material click and select "Built in Legacy diffuse’ and the shine will come right off. No need to open coding windows it wasnt that complicated XD

vdeloso · February 13, 2017, 5:13am

Considering that our terrain was being generated at run time via script, we definitely needed to edit the terrain data via script. The use case if for those that are doing streaming terrain and from source images that we cannot modify.

R4347 · February 13, 2017, 5:20am

Well, thats how I did it if anyone else igured it out it would have been posted here.

Joaquinmolina_1 · March 26, 2017, 10:45pm

I had the same issue and found a solution.

click on your terrain and make sure it’s selected in your hierarchy.

on your far right under the inspector tab, next to the little pad lock, look for a down arrow on the right side, click on the down arrow and select DEBUG.

There, under the DEBUG window, look for the terrain tab. There you will look for REFLECTION PROBE USAGE, have that setting set to Zero (0).

Then leave DEBUG and select NORMAL on the down arrow.

Hope that helped.

ReZult_Studios · May 7, 2017, 8:54am

Go to the Terrain Settings and change the material to legacy diffuse!

Revir · October 3, 2017, 2:18am

I found another fix thanks to some of your suggesting getting me looking in the right place.

I found that if you go into the Terrain Settings and change the Splat Map Distance, this has a great effect on how shiny the terrain texture is. Changing this to a value lower then 500 removes all shininess. At least for me! It seems a bit wonky.

ice2011 · January 8, 2020, 9:56pm

Here is the more updated approach (Unity 2019.2.9f1) to remove that tongue biting shiny terrain from your scene.

Select “Terrain”
Select “Terrain Settings”
“Reflection Probes” (To your desired options)

“Never. Stop. Following. Your. Passion.”

mushroomseasonisopen666420 · June 16, 2021, 8:18am

Can I just say that this is a joke. Smoothness affecting specularity, and having no effect on smoothness?

Every step I take in this program drives me crazier.