Distingo already gives you great control over your terrain textures, giving you the ability to control texture tiling, alter normals and apply occlusion maps, but when combined with Vertex Tools Pro, it will take your terrain render to another level with height blending, parallax mapping and much more.
Overview What is Dinstingo Standalone used for?
Distingo as a standalone is used for terrains. It gives you way better control about the tiling of the textures, esepcially in term of far distance tiling. It also comes with a slight PBR approach.
What is Vertex Tools Pro Standalone used for?
Vertex Tools Pro as a standalone is used to paint meshes. You can just paint different textures on a mesh (not a terrain) and they get blended according to heightmaps etc. This way you can greatly increase the integration of props on the terrain.
So what are the benefits if I own both, Vertex Tools Pro and Distingo?
If you own both, you will get access to a new shader in Distingo - Remember this is currently WIP and we are aiming for the update next week. This new Shader has access to Vertex Tools Pro Shader Algortihms and Techniques. So it basically brings the Heightbased Blending, Parallax and PBR from the Vertex Tools Pro Shaders to the Distingo Shaders. The painting of the terrain stays as it is. So basically Vertex Tools Pro just supplies Distingo with the needed library to further increase visual quality of the terrain itself and also use the benefits of better visual integration of props into the environment (Mesh Painting with VTP Standalone).
A very good idea to have a combined forum for those of us who will have both assets. One question I need answered with reference to Gaia, Distingo and now Vortex terrain creation and manipulation; is do I create the terrain a a unity terrain or a mesh?
In all the discussion Iâm rather confused about what approach will offer the best performance (fps) and texture quality? Iâd really appreciate some advice guys.
So, with Distingo + VTP, you can use VTP on your Unity Terrain, VTP on itâs own you can use on Meshâs.
So, in summary you can use Gaia to generate your terrain, Distingo to improve the render quality over the stock Unity terrain shader, and with VTP, you can then have height based blending and paralax on both your terrain and the objects in your world too.
Best performance you will definitly want to use a Standard Dinstingo Shader. Enhances visual quality greatly compared to Unity Standard Terrain Shader and has nearly zero impact on performance.
If you then want a even better visual experience you can combine Distingo with VTP. With both assets installed, you have access to a new Distingo Shader. This Shader is a full PBR Shader (roughness, metallic, occlusion) and enables you to use heightbased blending (crispier edges when blending textures) and parallax (better feel for the depth). In addition you can use Tri-Planar Mapping to avoid stretched textures.
Lastly, with VTP installed, you are able to better integrate the other enviroment (props, buildings, etc) in the terrain.
First, this is because if you use the Distingo-VTP Shader you get the exact same Shading technique on terrain and props. Second, you can use VTP natively on the meshes (props, building) to paint the edge between the terrain and the mesh and create a more natural blend between Terrain and Objects.
Thanks NemoKrad and PitHeimes for clarifying my questions again. Apologies to you both, but I had asked a very similar question in the Distingo thread two weeks ago
I have both tools but now Iâm getting a little confused.
Can you show me how you would use VTP on terrains?
do you mean create a separate object (rock mesh) and then paint on it as usual or do you mean paint using VTP directly on the terrain?
if youâre going to use this thread for the two working together I would have thought you should make it clear on how these work together, not just pictures of what looks cool.
Distingo as a standalone is used for terrains. It gives you way better control about the tiling of the textures, esepcially in term of far distance tiling. It also comes with a slight PBR approach.
What is Vertex Tools Pro Standalone used for?
Vertex Tools Pro as a standalone is used to paint meshes. You can just paint different textures on a mesh (not a terrain) and they get blended according to heightmaps etc. This way you can greatly increase the integration of props on the terrain.
So what are the benefits if I own both, Vertex Tools Pro and Distingo?
If you own both, you will get access to a new shader in Distingo - Remember this is currently WIP and we are aiming for the update next week. This new Shader has access to Vertex Tools Pro Shader Algortihms and Techniques. So it basically brings the Heightbased Blending, Parallax and PBR from the Vertex Tools Pro Shaders to the Distingo Shaders. The painting of the terrain stays as it is. So basically Vertex Tools Pro just supplies Distingo with the needed library to further increase visual quality of the terrain itself and also use the benefits of better visual integration of props into the environment (Mesh Painting with VTP Standalone).
Hope this helps a bit. If there are still any questions left, do not hesitate to ask
We are using 3 Textures per Layer. An Albedo, a normal map and the Combined Map, which is also used in the VTP (standalone) shaders. VTP comes with a tool to generate whose âcombined Mapsâ for you.
Posted all the pics in the Gaia thread, but here are a few showing off Distingo + VTP. Triplanar, and some height based stuff. Look for the cracked dirt on the ground. Thatâs height blended. Triplanar mapping should be pretty objects.
nevertheless, itâs coming