246 replies to this topic

[NoPutt]

Here is a short video that I hope will help

someone start to use Unity 3D. 

If you can't understand my Southern

Redneck Drawl just lower the sound and follow

along anyway. I'll try to do better next time, but 

for now this should get you started. Remember, 

I'm a newbie to Unity too, so don't be too harsh

as my feelings are easily bruised. 

https://www.youtube....h?v=6RPFWadW28w

[Kablammo11]

Nice one! 

 

Personally, I like to make my terrains smaller, just large enough to contain the golf course and without much empty land around it. That gives me a slightly higher resolution and allows me to be a bit more precise with my terrain sculpting, my texture paintings and my grass planting. The terrain size of the Black Swan, for instance, is 1300m - and that means I get about a 50% more detail accuracy using the same height map resolution of 2049 as you.

Not intended as a bruising of feelings, but there is no law about the size of your terrain jpg. If ever, you can make it bigger than 1024, all the way up to 4096, and it will show more details on the ground, because right now it translates into showing you one jpg pixel per 2 terrain meters. 

Do not try to change anything about your Southern Redneck Drawl. It conjures up a nice Deliverance banjo in my mind.

[shimonko]

Now I've got the banjos going.

It's real nice to see people jump straight in, and even do a tutorial, rather than sulk about how complex they think Unity will be.

[NoPutt]

" He's shore got a purdy mouth ain't he"

Thanks Guys, my thought was to eliminate 

the Unity Blank Stare when first opened.

And K, being the greenhorn I am, I was assuming

that blank terrain could not be painted and at

this moment I'm still not sure until I try. I did

notice the low resolution, especially on my grass

when blowing in the wind.

"Now you're gonna do some praying for me boy,

and you're gonna pray real good"  

[Kablammo11]

I sure ain't gonna squeal like a pig!

Sorry for hitting you with a rather obvious cliché that crudely distorts the diversity, beauty and no doubt kindness of you and all other Southern folks. That was a bit insensitive of me.

 

You can paint any texture of every tile size onto the blank terrain. Starting with the layout, the way you did, makes sense and will help your workflow, but it's not a fundamental requirement. 

Grasses are coming at 256 resolution by default, making them look block1 as soon as the view gets near them. I went for 512 at the Black Swan, and probably could even have gone for 1024. When you create your grasses in Photoshop, I recommend that you work on a much larger size (I used 2048) and only downsize them when they are finished.

 

Every texture and grass that you import needs to be set up in the inspector. Just highlight your texture under assets to bring it up.

 

 

For instance, changing your filter mode from bilinear (default) to trilinear and increasing the Aniso Level will render your texture a bit crisper when seen from an acute angle. Otherwise it washes out quite quickly.

Likewise, set the max size properly, depending on the size of your texture, and change the Format from "Compressed", which is set by default, to either 16bit or even Truecolor. This, too, will help a little.

The same goes for textures and normal maps for your imported objects.

When setting up your grass billboards, you also get to select a transpareny setting (mine is set to Transparency from Alpha) and have to change the wrap mode to "clamped".

 

As you see, there's an annoying amount of small print and bureaucracy involved, even at the early stages of the blank stare. Here's a rule of thumb: When you import a new asset, ALWAYS-ALWAYS-ALWAYS call up the inspector first and do your homework.

[NoPutt]

Thems purdy high falutin words for a beginner topic,

but I'se a puttin' on my thankin' cap t'see if'n I'se can cipher

them thar letters.

Behind that gruff persona, You are the kind one K, without

your detailed analysis and dry wit I would still be staring

at a blank Unity screen.

Your explanation of textures just shows that one should not

start Unity designing a Golf Course, but first learn to use the tools

to do so. 

Yall take care now, ya hear

[jazza]

NoPutt....Thanks for the video, much appreciated. It really helps us beginners when we can get help like this. Looking forward to the next one.

You too, K11 your input is also much appreciated. It shows me just how much I have still to learn but really enjoying the journey. 

This whole Unity learning experience makes me feel like a kid opening presents on Christmas day starting with the smaller ones and knowing their are bigger ones still to unwrap. Truly wonderful.

Thanks guys.

[Stephen Sullivan]

Now I've got the banjos going.

It's real nice to see people jump straight in, and even do a tutorial, rather than sulk about how complex they think Unity will be.

Would love to jump straight in, but real life and playing 4 tours on a fully functioning Links are keeping  me busy.

I apologise for that 

[NoPutt]

Here is the second in a short series of videos

that hopefully will draw you further into the Unity web.

This is a 15min. video, mostly because I wasn't in

an editing mood, and my slow southern speech pattern.

And yes, I do know how to pronounce Opacity, I have no

idea why I was saying O-Pass-ity.

https://www.youtube....eature=youtu.be

[Keith]

You have taken to Unity like a duck to water NoPutt.  Already running circles around me.  Don't worry about the Southern drawl.  Mine is probably even more pronounced.  Lifetime resident of rural mid Georgia. 

[NoPutt]

Ahh, a Bulldog fan, or possibly a Yellow Jacket?

I live about 10 miles from a little town called

Clemson or as the locals say "Clempson".

Thanks to this forum ,K11,Shimonko, and some 

encouragement from IanD, I'm more like a one

legged duck, but still paddling fast because I

always hear banjo music.

[NoPutt]

Just a little planting test. The grasses a still just one layer.

I will next try K's suggestion of designing them in 2048 and 

adding the inner bevel. That Hearty/Dry material thingy is a joke,

as stated also by Mr. Kablammo.

Moving around the plot is becoming second nature now, so

keep at it fellow Unitites, or is it Unitarians?

[Keith]

Looking great NoPutt.  And, BTW, Dawg to the bone here.

[Kablammo11]

Unentities...? Uninauts?

 

Watch your scaling, NoPutt. It's very easy to make small things too big or large ones too small without a reference of scale. I should know, I've committed some grave errors of spacial judgment when I started out.

Is the bench in your image properly sized or too big, measured against the dimension of your tee box and of the tree in front of it?

The shimonko solution, credit to him, is to create a simple "cube" under game objects, and to set it to 1m in size. Drag your cube around to receive a good visual clue to find if your proportions are correct. (I, of course, use the Tara King Cutout method: A grass billboard with a human figure that is set to 1.75m height). Either way, make sure your sizes are correct, because that does not happen all by itself and you must keep an eye on this.

[NoPutt]

Thanks K, I was just eyeballing the scale, I will be more 

precise in the future.

My problem at the moment is adding the edge padding

to the alpha texture. I have read and downloaded the 

alphautility.atn for photoshop but when I try to "dialate many times"

I get a pop-up that says something like "merge not available", stop or continue.

I only have PS7, so I don't know if it's that or my execution? Anyway, after an 

hour of trying I'm stumped and letting my brain reboot. 

[shimonko]

I use Solidify B from here for the same purpose in case it is compatibility issues.

[NoPutt]

Thanks pard, I'll give it a go when my

eyes focus again.

[Kablammo11]

This is what I do

 

1. Reduce your grass to the size you want to export it in.
2. Duplicate the finished grass layer, which must be on a transparent background.
3. On lower of the two identical layers, I apply Top Menu > Layer > Matting > Defringe (Value: 1) - this is a Mac workaround for dealing with the "Solidify" mentioned by shimonko, which was for Windows only the last time I looked.
4. On the same layer, I then perform the action "Dilate many times"
5. This results in many, many new layers. I merge all of them together except the top layer (the one I copied at the beginning)
6. In this top layer I left click INSIDE the thumbnail preview and select "Select Pixels" - this brings up a mask on all the original pixels. This mask must stay on for the following steps.
7. Then I merge all the existing layers together and click on the CHANNEL Tab in the Layer window.
8. In there, I create a new channel by clicking on the little "file icon" at the bottom. This creates the alpha channel.
9. I fill the mask from step 6 with 100% white (should be set up by default already)
10. Done. Save your psd, tick the transparency box and deselect the "layers" option.
11. You may import it into Unity now.

 

Alchemy? Of course not! It's.... well... yeah, it's pure alchemy.

[Richard]

EDITED:

 

Alchemy? Of course not! It's.... well... yeah, it's pure alchemy.

 

and very akin to 'witchcraft'. But, hey, it works.!!

[NoPutt]

I'm not above hermetic principles and practices. Being

from the Southern U.S. I grew up with all sorts of  potions

and elixers from Grandmas' House of Home Remedies, 

including a quart jar of Moonshine that was the basis

of all cures. I can still get it by the gallon but nowadays

it cost around $80.00 instead of the $5 a quart she paid.

Thanks K, I'll let you know how it goes.