terrain mapper is an editor extension for Unity, that provides several new mechanics related to terrain editing:
terrain mapping via slope, elevation or a combination of both
normal mapped terrain shaders
placement of trees details per map
terrain presets can be saved - including maps, trees details for easy re-useablity
override for terrain settings to enable farther visibility of maps, trees details
multi-threaded for performance
full source code access
With this package, there is no need to use 3rd party programs for terrain mapping! The sometimes cumbersome process of getting those into Unity can be circumvented. Together with the possibility to place trees and details, you can create whole ecosystems with a few clicks, and save your setup to a preset - so it can easily be spread over multiple terrains.
Unity texture, tree and detail painting functionality are still accessible, so you can fine tune your results if necessary.
if there are any questions, comments or complaints, you can contact me via PM, post in this thread or send me an email at slartibartfast1@gmx.de.
Multi-threaded in the editor or the player? How does this compare to Tom’s Terrain Tools? A video of this in action would help us understand more about it.
multi-threaded in the editor only. basically, this tool lets you define materials per angle/height range like terragen or Vue. After setting up your terrain, you can actually delete the terrain mapper component again, and pack only the resulting terrain into a player. your setup can be saved to a preset for later use and refinement.
the exact functionality that uses all available cores on your machine:
calculation of slope/height maps for the terrain
assigning maps depending on the set parameters
distribution of trees and details over the terrain
special operations on the generated splat maps to finetune the result (normalize, boost …)
on my computer, with 12 threads, this has proven to be an impressive performance boost. Huge terrains, with large splat map resolutions, are mapped within 1-2 seconds (maps only). if you also let it place lots of details and trees (which also can be done seperately, at a later point) it will take longer of course.
in comparison to Tom’s tool, terrain mapper lets you actually create the mapping of a terrain in unity and not import it from a 3rd party tool. you have full control over what gets mapped where. You can update your parameters any time and apply them in an instant.
I am working on an example video, showing how a terrain is mapped, and then populated with trees and details. I hope to have it on youtube by tomorrow evening!
@angel_m: trees and details are placed according to the mapping - so it is kind of per slope/height but not individually, always linked to a texture. there would be ways to decouple this - maybe in a future version
@I am da Bawss: the upload is currently running… had a hard time making the video and I’m not completely satisfied with it, but it should show what this plugin does … anybody else hating to listen to his own voice?
I’m currently a bit busy, but stay tuned for the next update. It will add terrain creation functionality, as well as a few tweaks and extra functionality for presets.
pls report any bugs you experience, or features you would like to see, in this thread, or directly to me via email or pm. I’ll try my best to adress all of them.
the next update is planned for beginning of september.
How does your normal map shaders work? I thought, there is technical limit and you cant have normal mapped textures on more than one terrain in one scene.
Is there any limit on supported number of textures on one terrain?
the shader does a tangent estimation in the vertex shader to make bumpmaps work.
this is of course not 100 % accurate, but it is a close enough approximation to work for my needs.
In one of my projects, I use 4x4 terrains with the shader applied, and it works on all of them - I’m not aware of any technical limitation concerning the amount of terrains using normal mapped shaders.
the current limit is 16 textures. When using the bumpmapped shader, this means 8 diffuse and 8 normal maps. this is only a UI limitation though - I have never tested (and needed) more then 8 textures before (4 diffuse, 4 bump). it is as easy as increasing a number in the ui code to allow for more textures. I’m not gonna go into the effects this has on performance, as I’ve never measured it and it highly depends on your hardware.
to be sure on how to answer this request, I quickly tested with 12 maps and it worked fine. there is a bug in the interface code though, which makes the “add texture” button disappear after 10 textures are set. you can still add them via the unity terrain interface - this will be fixed in the next version. if you are impatient - PM me
By the way … i’m trying to make a terrain in 3dsmax thanks to some plugins but I’m not a professional in that domain ^^ so I have some problems to paint the substances … after I will export that terrain but it’s better if it’s integrated in Unity
It would be very nice if we can put Allegorithmic substances …