A customer saw at twitter and want it replicated in a video using Cloudscape Seasons. It shall be fast enough to have a plane moving into the storm as part of the featurete
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To antecipate the new version release (v.1.2) in the coming days, in the store there will be a link for a website which you will input your e-mail to acquire the documentation. You will need to use the same e-mail account which you used to purchase, there will be no passwords, just inform the e-mail. After few days once I receive the confirmation from Epic that you are eligible for the asset you will receive the link.
The main reason for this procedure is to difficult people, who has using friendly fraud after purchase, to access the documentation once they don’t have the rights anymore. Unfortunetelly this will make life a bit harder for other people, but there will be plenty of extra maps, extended documentation and extended videos to explain how the asset works, while at the store only minimal documentation and short videos.
Once I update the store I will update this thread.
Stay tunned and cheers!
We are still doing some changes on version 1.2 because we want it perfect!
The changes on the pack are massive, basically we created an entire level to show how to go through all our FAQ, created a new level to showcase the new Evolution Orchestrator, made new videos for the manual (short and long versions as stated above), a written manual (short and long version aswel), new pictures and video for the support thread and the store.
The asset price will not change anymore and it will have the Evolution Orchestrator as integral part of it, which alone will be sold for US$25, so it is a win for everyone who have been supporting our product from the very beginning and a great value for the new users.
The moment antecipating the submission is making us very anxious, since we are putting a lot of effort on this asset, and we really hope everyone enjoy the new featured video and the updates! (soon)
Thank you for your support!
Update roadmap. As there are other projects going on, some features will come later, other brought earlier and others will come with version 1.2, we also added a new feature of performance and quality auto-adjust which will come with version 1.2, since we are using it for one ongoing project.
Cheers!
We are very upset that we could not release the version 1.2 yet, since we are running after regaining 2ms performance we lost with some modifications. Up to now, we are spliting the features which have added the extra loss, so we can still attack them in development while releasing the following set of features for everyone to start using:
- add blinking effect at stars and some movement
- adding simple circular trajectoty to the Sun and Moon (you set the angle from the sun position as a curve) as a secondary option using just the time of the day from the calendar. The Moon rises where the Sun sets.
- multiplayer replicated for all features
- works now with OpenGL and Vulkan, besides D3D
- works now with Blueprint Nativization
- extra parameters to control clouds height, interspacing and radius - per layer
- better Maps with built-in documentation and showing some FAQ - common ones
- 4.17, 4.18 and 4.19 will be updated same content.
From the release 1.2, you can expect it working for other platforms besides Windows, like Mac and Linux. You might think that Vulkan support might make it work well on mobile, but the fact is that it can run OK while in emulators, but in a real device, the overheat because the high demand on the raymarching makes it not suitable for battery and device lifespan, so keep this in mind if you still want to try this.
The 1st post will be updated with new pictures and videos and the asset MP page as soon it gets released by the MP team, I will make the announcement. Thanks for your support.
Version 1.2 is up! Soon the 1st post and store will be updated with new pictures, new videos and new video documentation.
The changes depicted in the previous post.
I have setup a Discord server with the link you can find in my signature, join us, chat with us, intention is to provide support, but gamedev chat aswel.
A small update will be released after 4.20 launches and get stable after one or two hotfixes, bringing:
- all assets will have the obrigatory and desirable variables set as exposed to cinematic;
- a new map containing a way of masking the cloud coverage placement and cloud shapes;
- a new map containing how to drive the assets inside a cinematic sequence;
- removal of few assets (enums and structs) wrongly released and have no current use;
The two new maps will be part of a new complete documentation for the asset since they will be covered in a video tutorial. Make sure to download the update and check it out.
Cheers!
The asset got quite some audience and as we just got 100+ people who purchased it, Id like to know what are the thoughts on a version for this asset as a C++ plugin. I will still keep the blueprint one, but several features planned will have more performance in the C++ plugin one. The people who purchased the blueprint version will automatically receive a copy of the C++ plugin version for free up to the launch date, then the C++ version will receive another name.
Let me know your thoughts! With this I can put the priority on development up regarding other assets I already have being planned to release.
Is it possible to add the clouds to your own nightday cycle?
It is possible, since the blueprints which control the clouds are separate from the blueprint which control the day and night cycle. You just need to have fed the directional lights in separate for Sun and Moon for the correct rim light effect to be seen in the clouds.
I am planning a new set of updates, including some from user feedback on projects. There is also in development a new asset which is a C++ plugin more advanced with a lot more performance and details, which will be introduced next year and I will grant every owner of Cloudscape Seasons a free copy for purchases up to January 2019. Don’t miss any news, subscribe to the Youtube channel or the Discord server: Discord
Asset is working fine in 4.21, there is a standard message about the Curves present into the pack:
Linear color curves now accurately handle RGB values > 1. If you were relying on HSV clamping, please update C_XXXXXXX
You can ignore this message which is given when the project is converted to 4.21 or when packaging, since it is just a warning and will not prevent the asset to run. The next update I will sent to the package, I will update the curves so they will not show the warning anymore.
There is an issue found today on UE 4.21 which seems to prevent the project to be opened sometimes… no clue still what is causing it, but we are investigating and sending logs to Epic. Asset were working with no changes from 4.17 to 4.20. It was working fine on 4.21 previews (tested on each one which was available). As soon we manage to pin point the root cause and a way to fix it, we will let you all know about it!
Meanwhile, we are still working on the next major update and also trying to include Tornado as an additional feature, but we are not sure if we will be able to complete all tests in time to release it upon this December. Rain, lightning and thunder progress are going fine and I will release a video soon! 
We have found the cause, but not why it is causing the issue, since it was not present previously. It looks for some reason the editor can’t load a map containing the asset when you startup the editor, but once you have the editor loaded you can open the level without problems, meaning it is a regression issue of some sort.
The steps to get out of the crashing projects is to follow the steps below:
- Save your project Config folder
- At your current Config folder, edit the file DefaultEngine.ini
- Locate the configuration section: [/Script/EngineSettings.GameMapsSettings]
- search inside the section above, the line with the parameter “EditorStartupMap”
- you can remove the entire line
- now you can open again the project
Once we have answer from Epic about this regression issue I will see how the fix will be applied (if their side in case they are not going to fix this or if we should change something and how)
Cheers!
TIP: People asking how to get even more fluffy clouds without changing the turbulence movement and without changing the wind strength too. The fluffiness can still be achieved without changing the noise textures which erode the depth and shapes, once you make the scale of the curly noise used to distort the edges of the cloud which the turbulence acts.
To do it change the material MI_2DTexture_01 with the following values:
> Curl_1stOctaveScale = 0.0001
> Curl_2ndOctaveScale = 0.2
> Curl_2ndOctaveStrength = 1.1
It is necessary to hit the checkbox Update at the BP_CloudscapeSeasons for it to update the whole cloudscape
About the bug above when the EditorStartupMap containing your level with Cloudscape Seasons makes the editor crash when opening the project, I have figured out the regression issue in UE 4.21. The issue happens when the editor is starting up and loading the level and any operation being done in render targets happens while editor still loading is causing the crash. Isolating the code making that the render targets are never accessed made the editor loads without issues. First thing now is to identify a workaround in blueprint code to avoid this and package a game and see if nothing is breaking. Second is to create a sample project with the behavior captured and send to Epic for a fix. So, things are going fine on the final solution for the issue.
It seems that with blueprints now, if you ever going to access any resource in a constructor, which affects basically editor, you need to be sure it is loaded. So, while a workaround would be if the asset registry is loading resources and skip the constructor at all (it works and I have tested it), I am checking if in blueprint mode is possible to wait each resource while in contructor phase. Something tells me it is not possible… but again this asset registry thing is kinda new.
Update:
Fix for UE 4.21 called 1.2a will be sent tomorrow (Nov 28th), so within days you should see an update on your Epic Launcher’s Library tab. We could apply a single update for all versions 4.17 to 4.21 and we will get back to the testing on the features for release 1.3 we hope to reach you all in December with Rain and Thunder, hopefully we will stick the Tornado aswell, lets hope in an update for all versions and not only 4.21.
Fix 1.2a is now live. Update your package!
@chrisradsby found an issue with the demo maps (which should be reproducible elsewhere) with planar reflections being completely missing when night time and even with the Moon up. Basically no stars, no Moon or clouds can be seen. This happens because of an error in the main raymarch material which negates the transmission (blend mode: alpha composite) resulting in dark areas underneath, so the planar reflections are translating this to an absence of reflection. If you uncheck Visible at BP_CloudscapeViewer you will see the reflections back. This issue also impacts the light intensities at night time, meaning that if you have created a level showing night time, you will see all the light types probably too strong and you will need to adjust that aswel. I will leave a video posted here and at the Discord channel showing how is the impact on the lighting and how you can change the cloudscape parameters to compensate aswel. If you only created day time levels, you won’t be affected.
With that said we are about to release another update (fix) 1.2b in the next days after we finish the tests for all scenarios of Sun and Moon position through the Sky!