[Community Project] WIP Weather & Ocean Water Shader

[Nsomnia]

Download the windows GUI github client. Its incredibly easy to use and everything else can be done online. I had never used it before I started my project and after reading a few how-to pages I had it more or less figured out. I never saw your from Vancouver! I take it you went to siggraph? Im from Edmonton. I can make a post on my basic understanding of it issue tracker with tags/release milestones is easy, wiki is self explanatory and once you get the formatting down you can add readmes in any directory you want, other than that what I've done is created a directory on my spare harddrive called "#Github" and then my repo is linked to directory within there called "ColdWarSubSim" and then I copied all my project files there. I still have a main backup that I backup every week but I do all my work in that directory. I leave the GitHub client for Windows running and it detects changes to any files and then when you think you've made some progress you commit it with a title and a description and it gets uploaded online.

Users can clone the repo to get the current files you have and then anytime you make a change, they can hit "sync" to get the latest changes, and you can do the same. I'm sure other people could add to that short description. Although that might clutter up the thread more than I already have.

[LUXO99]

Hi DotCam,
I've seen in one of your videos that you have implemented Flocking behavior to make fishes behavior more realistic.
I'm doing a project for university where I have to implement collision avoidance (steering behaviors, flocking, etc.) and I'm interested in see how you have solved it, if it's possible of course.
If not, could you give me any advice about how to achieve the behavior... I'm new using unreal 4 and I'm a little bit lost with this monster engine.

Thank you very much DotCam!!

[Nsomnia]

Now that Unity hit back with free Unity 5 (I have to check out how unfinished it is, its a half year early) now I have a hard choice. DotCam you may lose a coder... I started with Unity.. TOUGH TOUGH super tough call.

Edit: Wow, they have implemented a LOT. Once their servers stop choking I'll see how buggy it is, if it all. Heres my overview of features I posted on the wiki.... realtime global illumination. Being that C# is much easier to learn I'm gonna have to make a tough choice soon. God I have bad timing, I just cancelled my Unity subscription, renewed my UE subscription and started learning more C++ after learning C# for Unity, after learning JavaScript as my first programming language.

Unity 5 released for free on March 3rd, 2015 added the much anticipated real-time global illumination based on the Geomerics Enlighten technology. Other major changes include physically-based shaders, HDR sky-boxes, reflection probes, a new audio mixer with effects and enhanced animator workflows.
PhysX was finally updated to 3.3, whereas Unity 4.x had an aging version. Unitys Cloud Build system was introduced (for $25/month for non-pro users) as well as 'Game Performance Reporting' and the beta 'Game Analytics' (also 25$/month for non-pro users) which logs players usage and performance on released games, something that many developers found hard to implement in Unity 4.x and Unreal Engine had recently released direct support for. Previously, a game developer needed to code support for player logging directly into their engine.

Smaller additons include: A 64-bit Editor to handle large projects, iOS 64-bit support, New Deferred Rendering, Graphics Command Buffers, Improved Linear lighting, HDR, Skybox and Cubemap workflows, Improved job scheduling system, plus a new CPU Timeline Profiler lets you see and investigate multicore usage, Improved NavMesh pathfinding system, Integrated SpeedTree support to create lush, rich and dynamic vegetation, New Frame Debugger to track down graphical issues in your projects, Improved Project Wizard, Updated Standard Assets, New UI and scripting APIs for AssetBundle Build system
and lastly, Access to the new Asset Store Level 11 program: Available for free to Unity 5 Professional customers, and soon to be available to Unity Personal Edition users for $19/month.


PhysX 3.3 Update
Up until Unity 5 the engine was using a fairly outdated version of Nvidias PhysX physics middleware. The 3.3 version included in Unity 5, which is standard among triple-a quality video games includes the following features: multithreaded simulation for platforms that support it, a new cloth component for character clothing. New wheel colliders make better support for suspension and tire force simulation in vehicle based games. Collision mesh detection is improved and bake-free scaled MeshCollider support as well. All these features means the physics will be much more realistic in Unity 5 and no longer prone to the problems and bugs that plagues developers in Unreal 4.x.

Supported Platforms in Unity 5
Unity 5 brings support for [[Windows]], [[Mac]], [[Linux]]/Steam OS, Unity Webplayer, [[Android]], [[iOS]], [[Blackberry]] 10, [[Windows Phone]] 8, [[Tizen]], Windows Store apps, WebGL, [[Playstation 3]], [[Playstation 4]], [[Playstation Vita]], [[Wii U]]. [[Xbox One]], [[Xbox 360]], Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, [[Oculus Rift]], and [[Gear VR]] for a total of 21 supported platforms.

More Unity 5 Release notes can be found in the [http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-5.0 Unity 5.0 changelog]

[Avolanty]

Hey guys I got my AI patrolling correctly now here is a video update on it. I will continue working on the combat systems and keep you updated on my progress. This of course is in the 4.6 version and I would like to make it to 4.7 with Hankor's help on the buoyancy. I understand that he needs to make it all in BP only is that still happening?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INvX...ature=youtu.be

[Handkor]

I had some free time tonight and I rewrote the OceanManager to be 100% Blueprint. I've also created a BuoyancyComponent with the new ActorComponents. I just need to finish the applying the buoyancy forces to the objects and the 100% blueprint version will be complete.

[Nsomnia]

I had some free time tonight and I rewrote the OceanManager to be 100% Blueprint. I've also created a BuoyancyComponent with the new ActorComponents. I just need to finish the applying the buoyancy forces to the objects and the 100% blueprint version will be complete.

Another Canadian eh! We will be known as the Canadian Ocean Team lol! Are you going to share that? I'm a visual learner and would love seeing all the blueprints to get up to speed on this project so I can start tinkering with underwater fluid dynamics and addons. Been so busy modelling some ships I havnt gotten around to even opening the project yet.

[Handkor]

Another Canadian eh! We will be known as the Canadian Ocean Team lol! Are you going to share that? I'm a visual learner and would love seeing all the blueprints to get up to speed on this project so I can start tinkering with underwater fluid dynamics and addons. Been so busy modelling some ships I havnt gotten around to even opening the project yet.

I'd like to share it but It looks like I am going to have to recreate everything again. The project keeps giving me external reference errors when I place an pawn with the buoyancy component in the map it is then preventing me from saving the map. I'm thinking it was caused from migrating some of the old blueprints that were referencing the code OceanManager but I can't seem to be able to shake the reference. I just tried to Fix References on the folder and just sent the engine in an infinite loop. Other than that the components works and I made a cube float.

[Handkor]

This reference thing is weird. It goes away when I reopen the project but comes back as I edit the BuoyancyComponent. It does not always come back immediately though.

Anyway I just did some performance testing and the C++ version 1 or 24 object the framerate is the same. The Blueprint version 12 object cuts the framerate in half and 24 cuts it in quarters. This seems to be too much math for the Blueprint system to handle.

[Avolanty]

This reference thing is weird. It goes away when I reopen the project but comes back as I edit the BuoyancyComponent. It does not always come back immediately though.

Anyway I just did some performance testing and the C++ version 1 or 24 object the framerate is the same. The Blueprint version 12 object cuts the framerate in half and 24 cuts it in quarters. This seems to be too much math for the Blueprint system to handle.

Maybe we can reduce the number of calculations in Blueprint by using a multiple Blueprint approach with some calculative C++, or just add more Blueprints to support the load on one of the blueprints. In C++ you perform the calculation needed for the Gerstner wave. But then pull variables created from the C++ into the blueprint.(Now I have seen you doing this already in C++ and using variables in the BP but I'm trying to think of a way to reduce the overall math in the one or more BP.) I run into the same frame rate issue when I attach my AI script to one Character BP. I instead have to make new Blueprints to reduce the number of functions on the one blueprint.

For instance the P(x,y,t)= [x+sum(QA *D.*cos(x,y) + pt)), y+sum(QA *D.*cos(x,y) + pt)), sum(A sin(x,y)+pt))] can be used In C++ to carry out some sort of background calculation and then pulled into the blueprint using created variables. Then we make a Calculation Blueprint that takes these variables and just calculates variables for use in other blueprints. It sounds like building more structure to the blueprint can help lower the load on the blueprint system for one or more of your blueprints. Let me know if this helps.

[Shockwave-peter]

Or you can write everything in C++, compute shaders and provide blueprints as an interface solution

[Handkor]

Or you can write everything in C++, compute shaders and provide blueprints as an interface solution

Yeah, if it's not 100% Blueprint then might as well keep the C++ I already have. At least now I know the impact of doing this in blueprint. I also ended up doing dome refactoring/simplifications when converting that I will apply to the C++.

[Avolanty]

Yeah, if it's not 100% Blueprint then might as well keep the C++ I already have. At least now I know the impact of doing this in blueprint. I also ended up doing dome refactoring/simplifications when converting that I will apply to the C++.

Have you tried splitting up some of the Blueprint and using event dispatchers or even the blackboard system? I'm not against the idea for C++ if it lowers the frame rate, but maybe we are looking at using the blueprint system improperly for the scope of the project. Also sorry about the Kandkor, I corrected it in my video.

[DotCam]

This reference thing is weird. It goes away when I reopen the project but comes back as I edit the BuoyancyComponent. It does not always come back immediately though.

Anyway I just did some performance testing and the C++ version 1 or 24 object the framerate is the same. The Blueprint version 12 object cuts the framerate in half and 24 cuts it in quarters. This seems to be too much math for the Blueprint system to handle.

Wow, so it's confirmed then. I thought I was doing something wrong when I used BP in the past with similar performance, that's crazy!

[Shockwave-peter]

Yeah, if it's not 100% Blueprint then might as well keep the C++ I already have. At least now I know the impact of doing this in blueprint. I also ended up doing dome refactoring/simplifications when converting that I will apply to the C++.

For example I can't imagine calculating FFT on blueprints for large (at least 512x512) displacement maps without killing performance completely.

P.S. Do you have a list of programming tasks for your project?

[DotCam]

Now that Unity hit back with free Unity 5 (I have to check out how unfinished it is, its a half year early) now I have a hard choice. DotCam you may lose a coder... I started with Unity.. TOUGH TOUGH super tough call.

Edit: Wow, they have implemented a LOT. Once their servers stop choking I'll see how buggy it is, if it all. Heres my overview of features I posted on the wiki.... realtime global illumination. Being that C# is much easier to learn I'm gonna have to make a tough choice soon. God I have bad timing, I just cancelled my Unity subscription, renewed my UE subscription and started learning more C++ after learning C# for Unity, after learning JavaScript as my first programming language.

Hey man, wasn't able to make the last Siggraph, but hoping to go to the next! Funny how Canadians seem to be obsessed with water, eh?

As far as you project goes, please do what is best for you. I would love to have you work on this project as well but I don't want to get in the way of your game whatsoever. So you do what is best for you okay? I totally understand either way.