19 replies to this topic

[DPRoberts]

I get excited when some action happens on the forum. It's a bit like the Vegas craps table...minus the booze, women, big money chips, and the "Yo" man. So, maybe, it's just the table. But, man, what a nice table it is with the sides and the fuzzy felt top.

 

Anyhow, I am in search of some assistance to continue improving our 3D golfing experience. It is possible an incomplete sentence from Mike, such as, "Can't happen" will burst my bubble. BUT, let me show you something I'm jazzed about.

 

5 minutes ago in the land of prehistoric grass shaders with horrific cutout textures (Unity Editor View)

 

Fast forward to present day with a quick swap out of the default Unity grass shader with a free shader online (Unity Editor View) ***No grass planting was altered between this image and the above image

 

I had been experimenting with placing quads for grass meshes with the Alpha Blended particle shader for my Material when I stumbled across this free download. It instantly changes all of your Unity grass after a quick refresh to having a slight blending around the edges of the grass billboards. NET EFFECT- Realistic goodness.

 

PROBLEM - when I compile a course build, it is not showing in game. Is it not possible for me to replace the Unity grass shader and have it show in game? Do I require some form of tamuchan Reflective patch trickery with the dll files?

 

If it can be done, I have no idea on the net effect on FPS. The creator of the shader reports minimal. However, if it can be done, it is something simple (less than 5 minutes) that everyone could do as an update to their course and we instantly make a 5 year jump in graphics quality. 

 

Here is the link to the shader - https://github.com/N...ityTerrainGrass

 

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

[DPRoberts]

We gotta make this shader switch happen!

[M Rose]

Oooo, yes please.

[NoPutt]

As I recall the Bird Flocks had a script that

had to go into the Standard Assets folder

to work in game. Is it possible that this may

have to be the same? Sweet find DP.

[Kablammo11]

Grass Roots... hehe... 

 

I think your Before and After images pretty much clinch the case. Great stuff - although this is, as so much else is, one of those things that may or may not resolve themselves if or when PG2 and CF2 come around. Meaning that your activism is in danger of missing its future target or come too late for the current iteration of CF. Question marks everywhere, quicksands instead of solid ground... not an ideal soil at all for cultivating Poaceae.

I have no clue about scripting and only know that 3rd-party scripts are not always welcome in the PG ecosystem. Which is fine with me, I am too stupid for scripting anyway. For what it's worth (exactly nothing) you have my full and explicit support on this.

[Stingreye]

DP,  Did you slip it into the fine print as a prerequisite for using the ORBS!!!!!

[DPRoberts]

I definitely wish a few things were more "open source" but understand why it is not.

There are a lot of things we could do to advance the current look that are simple and free. I will keep trying to get this to work. I wonder if tamuchan could add it to the .dll and be an on/off thing. Not sure of FPS impact at this point though.

Long term - I'm still looking to support PG1 because I worry PG2 may not include non-Trackman simulator usage. I know that's not a consideration for all designers.

If we can all participate in PG2, there are some neat things with Unity shader graph for Unity 2018 that allow a non-coder such as myself to produce shaders which really control the final look of terrain objects. But, not sure if those will be blocked in final build out as well.

[johnmeyer]

The difference in the before and after is staggering, and to be honest, with "development" of PG1 at a standstill, and PG2 someway off and sort of in limbo for the time being, some kind of mod or info to help make this work would go a long way to giving the current game a much needed boost.

 

Great work DPR, hopefully Mike will chime in and can make this possible somehow. 

 

The current sim playerbase are still very supportive of PG1, in both play hours and pass revenue. This kind of update and and the occasional tweak here Im sure would be very very welcome

[Stingreye]

X2 what John said👍

[M Rose]

Links became what it was after all those wonderful patches and mods came out.

 

So far we have the reflective water, which has been one very nice game changer for me. I love that we have enough creative minds around that we can come up with these little things here and there that make such big differences. I'd also include the House Builder and the ShimonTools amongst those.

[Mike Jones]

Great find DP. Tested it and hopefully I can get it added to the PG build so people can use it if they wish. 

[Stingreye]

AWESOME!!!

[johnmeyer]

Would it need designers to then just update courses?

[Mike Jones]

Would it need designers to then just update courses?

 

Not sure yet, it could perhaps be implemented in a way that would automatically apply the shader to an existing course. I have no idea how much work this would involve but I will be bringing it up at the next dev meeting.

[DPRoberts]

Great news! Thanks Mike. I still have no idea on the FPS impact, especially on heavily planted courses. Hoping you're saying your test included a course build? I just don't want to be known for adding CFCs to the course and killing the ozone.

I gotta believe someone could code the shader switch as an on/off button similar to the tamuchan reflective waterplane patch.

However, I'm guessing he might end up needing to recode his patch to include your update.

[johnmeyer]

Looking at those pics I think barring any huge negative FPS impacts i cant imagine many would want to use the original shader. Superb find DPR

[slewin]

Has anybody tried to create camera facing billboards for grass etc? being able to place grass independent of the terrain would be a big help around bunkers to stop to grass sinking.

[rmoor13]

I tried to get the Unity script for camera facing billboards to work for trees and bushes.  It was a no-go.  Had a terrible time trying to clear the errors, and finally had to revert back to a previous terrain.

[johnmeyer]

I think a lot of the scripts stuff is very much locked down by the game

 

Hopefully the dev meeting is a regular ish occurence and well see if this new shader can be implemented sooner rather than later

[Mike Jones]

In further testing it appears that the grass doesn't take shadows when using these grass shaders which is a significant drawback.