Can't change terrain Detail to spawn. Can't change Instance number. Can't Save/Discard settings

[Akeldarma]

Hi, I have a few issues I've come across when wanting to spawn some grass on my terrain:

1. I have 3 details in my terrain. When creating a spawner, I can only edit the first one added.

2. The instance nunber is locked, can't change it.

3. Save/Discard settings is locked

4. Settings visible in the tutorial video, no longer work or exist -> There is a tutorial version for a different version of Gena here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwbgVNt7UdY , but these settings either don't work or exist any more. For example, each Instance create a huge Blob of grass, and I can't find a solution to Thin it out. The strength modifier does nothing. It stops spawning grass if changed <1.

Edit: I've also recorded a short vid showing this whole weird spawning business. What is the proper way to spawn terrain detail? Be it MeshDetails or GrassTextures? It looks like some kind of an opacity setting is missing from the brush settigs.
What is more, I did not get it on camera, but sometimes the instance slider gets bugged, and changes from Integer values, to PowerFloats, where it will say for example from 1-4.24. Then, after changing to Large Numbers, it is shown as: 1-424943425. If I go back to the slider version, and select 1.23-5.27 for example, and then go to Large Numbers, it will say 12396974-527940353 or some similar shanannigans.

Edit: 5. I've added screen shots for the bug with the instance number.

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Akeldarma
added new issue 4. andUpdated gena version.

[Akeldarma]

Hey @Manny,

So, Ad1., pics below. I'm not  sure, what do terrain layers have to do with assigning terrain details on a spawner... Like, wat? 😜

Ad2. Right...but it is not consistent.
-Sometimes it is locked to 1.
-Sometimes you can change it normally (and accidental use of more that 200 instances...is...well...undesirable to say the least, as you probably know..
-Sometimes it bugs out to this powerFloat notation, with instances going to huuuuge numbers.

If it's supposed to be locked when spawning grass, why is it not locked? Or mentioned anywhere, that this parameter is supposed to be used that way (when spawning detail objects...).

Ad.3 Got it, thx.

Ad.4 Hmm, right, but...Why does a completely rewritten, latest, PRO version of the same tool, handle the job in such a dramatically worse fashion? From what I understand, at the moment, GeNa is not capable of proper and elegant Grass and detailMesh spawning on Unity terrain. Is that the case? I could not find any documentation regarding this, or a workflow presented on video or otherwise, as most of the materials are, as you've said, targeted at a completely different version.
That's all nice, but could you provide information on how to handle this topic with the current version of GeNa. Is it not like...one the most basic concepts for the tool to manage?
I'm a bit salty, as I've used Gaia in the past, and even thou it was clumsy, it did handle grass and detail spawning pretty well. How is it that GeNa, a tool that is basically designed for spawning things on terrain, can't properly spawn grass, when Gaia can? What gives? 
Why is a version from eaons ago, have a simple opacity setting for the brush setting, and the new PRO version, does not? Spawning 10000 empty spawnerobjects in the hierarchy is not something I'm willing to do.

Also, is there any ETA on the new* grass system? 

*Calling it new, might be a bit of an overstatement, as the current is pretty much non-existant...So to rephrase, is there an ETA on a grass spawn system in GeNa? Current or, ver3. or PRO or anykind that is supported by Unity 2021.2
**Sorry for me being obnoxious, but our deadlines are rushing, and it's not a great time, to realize that a tool that was supposed to handle foliage spawning, does not spawn foliage. 

[Akeldarma]

Damn...it's actually that bad? 😜

4 hours ago, Manny said:

 I've realized that the original intention I had for this system isn't working and therefore it's all on me to improve it. I really appreciate all your patience in regards to this issue and I'll try my best to push harder to get a better grass system.

uh...what a bummer. I think you should put up a note about that on the asset store somewhere, just to warn people. It's not that it needs a better grass system. As I've said, it needs a grass system. I still sort of can't wrap my head around the fact, that this tool does some crazy shit like tunnels, rives, roads, but can't spawn grass? 😛 
On asset store, it's a function that is even highlighted, even before all the prefab/tree spawning.

• Spawns textures, grasses, trees, prefabs, structures, towns, rivers, roads.

But my question about an ETA still stands. Is timely fashion for GeNa Pro to be able to spawn grass and terrain details is a few days, weeks, months, years?  

EDIT: GeNa Pro - GeNa Pro os the big brother of GeNa 2. It is a complete re-write, and includes all of the capability of GeNa 2 plus the ability to create splines, rivers, roads and villages and to shape and fill your terrain with rocks, trees grasses and more.

Isn't this like false marketing or something?

EDIT2: I nearly forgot...so, if my layers are preset and not missing textures (as show in the sceenshot I attached to the previous post), why can't I select other detail objects in the spawner? 

[Adam]

2 hours ago, Akeldarma said:

uh...what a bummer. I think you should put up a note about that on the asset store somewhere, just to warn people. It's not that it needs a better grass system. As I've said, it needs a grass system. I still sort of can't wrap my head around the fact, that this tool does some crazy shit like tunnels, rives, roads, but can't spawn grass? 😛 
On asset store, it's a function that is even highlighted, even before all the prefab/tree spawning.

GeNa Pro happily spawns grass. It might work differently than what you expect, but it works. It is based on the same brush like approach that Unity takes. What we have identified as a result of the issues you have had is that our documentation is out of date. This will be updated in the next release.

2 hours ago, Akeldarma said:

But my question about an ETA still stands. Is timely fashion for GeNa Pro to be able to spawn grass and terrain details is a few days, weeks, months, years?

We pay attention to all the feedback we get, and as a result of your issues with the system we can see that the visualization needs to improve. This will make it easier for you to see how the brush interacts with the terrain, and will overall improve your experience.. You can expect an update either next week or the week after. 

[Akeldarma]

6 hours ago, Adam said:

GeNa Pro happily spawns grass. It might work differently than what you expect, but it works. It is based on the same brush like approach that Unity takes. What we have identified as a result of the issues you have had is that our documentation is out of date. This will be updated in the next release.

We pay attention to all the feedback we get, and as a result of your issues with the system we can see that the visualization needs to improve. This will make it easier for you to see how the brush interacts with the terrain, and will overall improve your experience.. You can expect an update either next week or the week after. 

Jesus Christ, you guys can be dense sometimes 😛 If GeNa happily spawns grass, could you happily screenshot a basic, working, not-hierarchy cluttering, grass spawner? If not, can someone point me to a .pdf, docx, showcase, stream, video, rain dance, where it is actually show how to do it? Because no matter the parameters I use (and there is not a lot of them in this case), the system is very, very limited.
Especially, as I can't select more than one object in my spawner, which has till not been addressed by you guys. Is it bug or is this intended, and each prototype should have his own spawner?

I'm not asking for much...Just a screenshot of a set up grass spawner, with 2 or 3 objects that works as intended. Or even a table with parameter values. 

 

[Peter]

Hi @Akeldarma

I think this is mostly a big misunderstanding about how the terrain detail spawning works, caused by lack of documentation and visual feedback from the spawner. In the older GeNa versions, terrain details were spawned in a similar fashion like game objects where a bunch of "detail instances" were spawned each.
In the newer approach GeNa uses the terrain decorator system for grass spawning. It takes a brush shape and applies this to the terrain detail data in one go, so details are not less treated like individual instances anymore, but rather as one pattern that is being applied in a single stroke. The problem is that this brush shape is not visible in the spawner directly, which does not make it very transparent what is going on. But I would dare to say the new system can produce the same results as the old one, if not even better.

Could you please try the following to get a hang of the system while also building your new grass spawner at the same time:

1. Create a new empty Game Object in the hierarchy
2. Add a Gena Terrain Decorator object to it. 
3. Switch the Effect Type to "Detail".
4. Click the small unity icon to add the default brushes
5. Pick a brush image.

You should see a visualization of the brush image appear on the terrain. Click the "Apply to the Terrain" button. The result should be that the terrain details are spawned on the terrain in the same shape as seen in the visualization (you might need to turn off gizmos in the scene view to see the details)



(You can press Ctr+Z to undo, to try different brushes, or resize the area, rotate the object, etc.)

This is what happens in the spawner in the background when grass spawning is performed, it uses this terrain decorator as well, but the visualization is not visible. If a throw distance would be used in the spawner, this brush image might be offset from the center. If multiple instances would be spawned from the spawner, this brush image would be applied multiple times. This might make it difficult to make the connection from the brush image to the actual spawn result.

The older video was showing how a bunch of grass instances were spawned using a noise pattern. To do the same, please enable the noise setting and adjust the noise settings until you see a pattern you like. The noise is applied in combination with the brush shape so you can achieve interesting effects:



If you found a pattern that you like, you can drag and drop the object into a gena spawner - this will effectively copy the settings into the spawner:





Make sure you are only spawning one instance (as we want to apply the brush pattern we set up before only once per spawn) and that there is no throw distance (we do not want an offset) and use the spawner. It should now spawn grass with the noise pattern you set up before:



You can return to the game object you used for the initial setup, and add a second terrain decorator component there to set up a second grass type to spawn in parallel.



 Back in the spawner, you can re-ingest the object and you should have both patterns with the different terrain detail types spawning when you run the spawner:

 

I hope this approach works for you to get similar results as in the original older video you linked above. Please note that the way I suggested here - creating a separate object with terrain decorators that is then to be ingested by a spawner - serves two purposes, I wanted to show how you can see the visualization for the brush, and it also serves as a workaround for the bug you encountered where you could not select a different terrain detail - once this bug is fixed, it should not be required to create a separate object from the spawner.
Ideally we also integrate the visualization into the spawner as well with a different color per terrain detail each, so that you can just add the details from the terrain, set up a pattern (that you can see immediately) and spawn away.
 

P.S: Note that you can do more with the terrain decorator as well, you can texture, or even alter the terrain shape. You could consider adding terrain decorators in your object that change the texturing together with the grass spawning, for example. Note that you can add the terrain decorator to game objects that you want to spawn, and they will be picked up in the same fashion as in this example here. This e.g. allows you to spawn a couple of rocks that have some grass being spawned around it automatically as well - all with the same system demonstrated here.
 

 

[Akeldarma]

All right, now we are getting somewhere. I'm out of office, so I'll be able to test this approach out tomorrow. One thing that I see might be an issue...will this approach in any way respect the spawner rules? 

Because, with this brush approach, it has to have a pretty large diamiater, to have sense (or we would need to spawn hundreds of "stroke" intrances). So, if I have spot, where two terrain textures meet. On texA i want my grass spawn (with a defined shape/size/pattern/density). On texB I do not want any grass. If the spawner finds a spot on texA, near texB, won't it just plop the "brush stroke" on both textures either way?

Same goes for all the other rules. Slope, hight etc. If I have a Cliff, and the spawner finds a "viable spawn position for the brush stroke" near the Cliffs edge, won't that stroke overflow onto the cliff wall? (Even thou, I specified, that I want my grass to spawn only on areas under 10deg incline for example).

[Akeldarma]

Jup, It's as I've feared. It does not care what so ever about the rules. So basically, from what I understand, currently there is no "rule based grass spawning system" only a more convoluted Default Unity Brush system, with the ability to save some presets?

 

[Peter]

Hi @Akeldarma it is correct that the "brush strike" currently does not know about the slope / height / etc. settings of the spawner - the spawner would look at the valid spawn positions and place down the brush from the terrain decorator.
It is possible to make it conform to the spawner settings by reducing the area of the brush, increasing the throw distance and spawning more instances instead - by doing so every spot where the spawner tries to put down an instance would be checked against the spawner settings. Here is an example setup:



and then in the spawner:



While this will give you less control over the pattern that is being spawned, the spawns should then conform to the spawner settings for slope etc.

[Akeldarma]

@Peter @Manny @Adam Guys ;] you reeeaaaally need to get your stories straight. Just a post ago, Peter said:

@Peter: "Make sure you are only spawning one instance (as we want to apply the brush pattern we set up before only once per spawn) and that there is no throw distance (we do not want an offset) and use the spawner."

The same words were spoken by Manny at the beginning. Especially, as the spawner tends to LOCK the instance number to 1. Or it bugs out and uses scientific notation, with values >100 000. 

Now you want me to use 300 instances of tiny brushes, that will clog my hierarchy with garbage empty objects? 😄 I'm sorry, but this is getting a liiiitle frustrating and stupid. 

@Peter: "While this will give you less control over the pattern that is being spawned, the spawns should then conform to the spawner settings for slope etc."

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT SOULD CONFORM TO SPAWNER RULES!? Is that, not like the whole f*****g point of GeNa? If I'd wanted pretty star patterns on my grass, I would use the built-in brush for Christ Sake...

Your tool is not doing, what you are advertising. I understand bugs, problems, weird interactions. EasyRoads, Enviro sky n Weather, MonKey, they all have their quirks, and bugs. They break with each new Unity all the time. I get that. I'm used to it. But every time, I report a bug, it gets ticketed and fixed within a few days, with an actual explanation, why something was broken. But this is not a bug...it's designed that way.

This is starting to deserve a real shitstorm...You really need to update your asset store description asap, or I will notify Unity about this whole thing. 

Please, provide me also with information if or when, rule based grass and detailMesh objection will be a part of GeNa. Depending on the answer, I might kindly ask for a refund.  

 

[Vexstorm]

@Akeldarma  I am truly sorry your frustrated. I get it, as I would be frustrated if something did not work as expected as well. The thing is , we are already working on resolving this, and the start of the response you received, one of the developers mentioned it was actually being course corrected. In fact  our team responded to you the same day, and although yes, its an opportunity with our software that we can and will improve upon, many other members, of the team, reached out and gave you suggestions to get you by in the mean time. This shouldn't mean we can course correct the opportunity, in a few moments, or days, depending how deep the core code would need to be changed. I very much appreciate the feedback, and the descriptions you provided, as this actually helps us, make our products better, for you in the long run. Each time we responded in some manor related to your issue with the product, we have been patient, kind, and understanding.

Although being frustrated is something I understand, especially when something is not going the way you want, (because we all want that so called solution, ASAP, so your not alone in that), this said our team, is engaged, in the behind the scenes to address this opportunity as soon as its possible. 

I do kindly ask moving forward,  as we communicate and work together, as we would with any member of our gaming and developer community family., that we continue to do so without the less than kind remarks, as there are better ways to remedy the opportunity. We will reach out ASAP once we have the solution you desired resolved. Thank you again for your patience.

[Akeldarma]

Guys? Any news?
 

 

1. @Chris (Procedural Worlds)
2. We can, and we will address your concern, my only ask, is you give us the opportunity to do so that makes sense for the software and as well to course correct the opportunity that you were kind enough to share with us

   

   Marcin K — 18.02.2022

   Sounds good to me. But I still would like in the near future (not at this exact moment of course), some sort of a realistic ETA. Don't get me wrong here...I know that eventually, you guys will implement this. But this does matter for me and my team on the way we plan our milestones and sprints. We would like to know, is there a chance for using GeNa in our current production pipeline, or should we start looking for other tools. And I mean realistically. I don't care if you say 6 months, or 2 days, but I need to be able to plan around it.

[Vexstorm]

Hey @Akeldarma thank you for reaching out! We have this on our high priority list and expect it to be resolved in about a few weeks. The reason for the delay in resolution to be several weeks versus a few days ( which honestly we wish it could be that simple) is due to the development team needing to rewrite how the grass is being spawned and what specific information its using, to create the grass spawns position (etc.). (I.E. Height, slope, and respecting collisions). We are very much working on this and the details surrounding this and appreciate you letting us know about the opportunity in the first place.  This resolution that is planned will be a long term improvement over all, and we look forward to making it a reality for you and each user that uses our software. Thank you so very much again for your kindness and patience, and we will reach out as we get closer to the deployment of this needed upgrade.

Chris