7 replies to this topic

[IanK]

I was wondering if in future we might be able to select various grasses within Unity and plant them together to provide a random planting. In my opinion this would give a quick way to produce a realistic look.

[Kablammo11]

As you say, that is an Unity functionality. PP has no influence over that.

 

It's debatable whether the two terms "random planting" and "realistic look" can be used as logical cause and inescapable consequence in the same sentence. Randomness is not a panacea. If anything, my experience with Unity/CF taught me that there is no quick fix to be had, and that, willy-nilly, hard miles need to be done.

Once I have all my grasses imported, set up, tested for colour, actual planting for them takes from 2 to 3 hours at most: hardly a time-consuming grind. 

 

I thought I heard though, that mixed grasses might be a possible option for Turf Effects on meshes. I'm not sure about that and would need to see it to believe it. Still... maybe.

[IanK]

Anything that saves time and achieves a good result sounds good to me. What I might try on my next project is to plant the whole terrain with various grasses and delete as necessary.

[bortimus]

I was wondering if in future we might be able to select various grasses within Unity and plant them together to provide a random planting. In my opinion this would give a quick way to produce a realistic look.

 

There is a terrain painting asset that can do this along with several other really useful functions for textures and grasses.     

https://www.assetsto...!/content/27340

 

The video and documentation is a bit lackluster (focusing mostly on painting by height), but when you start experimenting it's actually quite impressive.  I haven't used it on a project but have played around with it some.  

 

Features that seem useful after experimenting:  

Brushes can be scaled as large as desired 

Brushes can be rotated

Noise can be added to brushes.  Noise can be customized.   

Blur/Sharpen modes for texture transitions.  Blur/Sharpen strengths can be customized.   

Multiple grasses can be added to brushes and applied.  Sounds like you want this functionality.

You can also add your own brushes.  There are several noise-like brushes already included with the asset along with solid brushes.   

 

The combination of huge scale brushes/rotations/noise/multiple grass selection is pretty unique among assets I believe.  

 

Use at your own risk of course.  I'm assuming this could be used, then the script could be removed from the terrain before building. 

Probably best to test this out first on a practice terrain and see how a build goes.

No promises.     

[IanK]

Thank you bortimus.

[Mike Jones]

The info for that tool says unity 5.3 upwards which might make it incompatible with the course forge version of unity 5.2.3

[DPRoberts]

I have used Map Magic demo to plant grasses procedurally. It works well but has limitations. You would likely cover the whole terrain and then use a subtractive method by hand to get what you want. It works better for filling in the periphery. In the end, I still prefer the hand painting method.

You also finalize everything before editing with CF and doing manual changes. Can't go back to the procedural changes without wiping out anything done by hand.

I think the value of something like these terrain composers would be to generate a bunch of grids to share that can then be modified to each designers liking. Not unlike what the random terrain generator does for TGC.

It always cycles back to needing to attack the terrain by hand to get a quality finished product. Not unlike what you would do in real life though.

[J.H.Buchanan]

I guess one day soon we will go to google maps take a screen shot and the entire course is made with all the grasses, trees, and elevations ... pins tees etc... all this and for being involved with 

Early Access at what was it $20.00 ??  not bad 

 

For now adulation is due the designers of courses that really pop they really can't be appreciated enough

 

.....never have so many owed so much to so few ......Why do I say all this? Not, assuredly, to boast; not, assuredly, to give the slightest countenance to complacency. The dangers we face are still enormous, but so are our advantages and resources. I recount them because the people have a right to know that there are solid grounds for the confidence which we feel, and that we have good reason to believe ourselves capable, as I said in a very dark hour two months ago, of continuing the course the building of it  "if necessary alone, if necessary for years.  ----- (Un, anyway stole this from Winston added a word or to took out a word or two)