CTS 2019 no longer, what is planned? =)

[Mattis89]

Hello Procedural Worlds Team!!

 

As I saw on asset store that CTS 2019 will be (is) deprecated , what have you guys planned next?

I really liked the CTS terrain shader as it contained everything you needed, and made the terrain really beautiful, so I cant wait whats next 😃

 

[Myke Price]

 

[najak]

I am concerned now about what to buy.   Gaia Pro 2021 is new, and seems to be the push, but it doesn't mention CTS.   I'm trying to decide "what to buy" here, but am totally unsure of what all is needed as of today, to get the best-of-the-best with Gaia and your other tools.

[Tikal]

31 minutes ago, najak said:

I am concerned now about what to buy.   Gaia Pro 2021 is new, and seems to be the push, but it doesn't mention CTS.   I'm trying to decide "what to buy" here, but am totally unsure of what all is needed as of today, to get the best-of-the-best with Gaia and your other tools.

Well they're two separate things. Gaia is for landscape building and procedural placement. CTS is a terrain shader.

They work together.

[najak]

@Tikal - thanks for the answer.  But it leaves me confused.  When I search for CTS on the Asset Store, it takes me to the OUTDATED version of Gaia Pro -- and no listing for CTS.   Try searching Unity Asset store for it.

So that leaves me thinking that maybe the "Pro package" contains "all you need, including CTS".   I have no idea.

Here's my search link:
https://assetstore.unity.com/?q=cts&orderBy=1


Conclusion:  I can no longer find CTS on the Asset Store.  It's missing for me.

[najak]

Also tried their store, here, and it's not listed here either:
https://shop.procedural-worlds.com/collections/all-products?page=1
 

[Sorra the Orc]

12 hours ago, najak said:

Conclusion:  I can no longer find CTS on the Asset Store.  It's missing for me.

Because it is deprecated. 

[najak]

Thanks, I finally found the tangible links that announced "no longer available to new buyers".

And so what is our next best option now?  (or is CTS selling their license outside of the App Store now?)

We need that ability to do Far/Near textures, with non-stretching on the steep sides - to achieve an acceptable result.

[Tikal]

26 minutes ago, najak said:

Thanks, I finally found the tangible links that announced "no longer available to new buyers".

And so what is our next best option now?  (or is CTS selling their license outside of the App Store now?)

We need that ability to do Far/Near textures, with non-stretching on the steep sides - to achieve an acceptable result.

Microsplat.

[Sorra the Orc]

PW are working on a replacement. 

[najak]

On 4/9/2022 at 3:49 PM, Tikal said:

Microsplat.

IIRC, from somewhere I heard/read that Gaia and Microsplat don't really work together.  I'm not sure what that means though.  Can someone shed some light on this?

We're not in a huge rush to get this all working; but would like to know the expected timing for a replacement of CTS, and/or what we can do instead of CTS.

I am MORE interested in a solution that can be used "run-time" to create reasonable terrains, as our game will allow users to create their own maps, and we're still trying to devise our approach for this.   One option appears to be Map Magic 2 + Microsplat combination -- but I'm new to all this stuff, and have no solid opinions yet.

So far we are impressed with the default Gaia outputs - they look top-notch.

We're also wondering if "Vegie Studio" should be used with Gaia, instead of (or in addition to) Gena.

The main tools we're considering now are:  PW suite,  Microsplat suite,  Map Magic, and Vegie Studio (off the cuff).

[aldaluin]

I too was using CTS until it went belly-up.  The only reason I haven't used Unity default while I waited for a PW product, is CTS spoiled me for Triplanar.  It's just impossible to make a rocky mountain look good without it.  So I can confirm that Gaia + MicroSplat (free) + MicroSplat Triplanar (US $10) works just fine in Built-in.  I expect I'll be posting some screenshots later today.  I haven't had a chance to go hunting for vegetation beyond what comes with Gaia (Pro) yet so can't offer any help there. 

The first shot below was done with CTS and Gaia 1 a couple of years ago.  The second one is Gaia 2 and MicroSplat.  Not as good as CTS, but tolerable.  

[Bryan]

Hey everyone, the replacement of CTS is still in development and hopefully we will see something soon (trademark 🙂 hehe) 

 

[najak]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:27 PM, Bryan said:

Hey everyone, the replacement of CTS is still in development and hopefully we will see something soon (trademark 🙂 hehe) 

 

Bryan, thanks for chiming in.   Can you give us a ballpark ETA for CTS replacement?

We're likely going to write our game using Built-in Pipeline, because it seems that most everyone who profiles URP finds that it uses way more memory and runs way slower.    While our game has a challenging task for loading/unloading terrain-LOD's (will be custom code) - our target for rendering quality is fully satisfied by the Built-in Pipeline.

I don't see Unity officials even ACKNOWLEDGING their performance issues with URP -- which makes me think they don't have an answer to this critical performance/memory issue.

[Bryan]

2 hours ago, najak said:

Bryan, thanks for chiming in.   Can you give us a ballpark ETA for CTS replacement?

Its currently in heave development. 
Hopefully soon, but the date I am not sure of. 

[najak]

Bryan, I'd love to hear your honest assessment of URP vs. Built-in pipeline.   Did Unity flub this?   Does Gaia run better, worse, or about the same - for URP vs. Built-in?

From what I can tell, Unity isn't doing a great job of taking-care of the Unity content creators, and URP has really thrown many for a hard loop.   I hope this turns around soon.

[Sorra the Orc]

I still use Built-In because it's still the only option that isn't going to limit you in some way. Both HDRP and URP are missing features. However, the day I switch is getting closer with every update.

From a perf perspective I have not seen a single legitimate comparison that puts URP at a lower performance than Built-In. By "legitimate" I mean a genuine apples to apples comparison. I've seen lots of naive comparisons that are not leveraging URP correctly, or are accepting that Built In is very limited without post processing. Or any other of a million ways to do a poor comparison.

To be fair, however, I've not seen a good comparison, so my following statement is purely anecdotal. URP is significantly more performant than Built-In. Even HDRP will give better performance in some situations.

[Adam]

A new terrain shader 'GTS', lands this week. Here is a sneak peek!

 

[Broudy]

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

[Woofur1n3]

5 hours ago, Adam said:

A new terrain shader 'GTS', lands this week. Here is a sneak peek!

 

Stupid question, would it work well with Low-poly style like Synty Style?

[Adam]

2 minutes ago, Woofur1n3 said:

Stupid question, would it work well with Low-poly style like Synty Style?

Yes it does! That was one of the scenarios we tested 🙂

[Adam]

Looking pretty cool!

[aldaluin]

Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but from the brag it looks like everything I missed from CTS.  Glad I trusted y'all enough to only drop ten bucks on MicroSplat! (I don't really like their piecemeal billing anyway...) 

[vdeijk]

On 6/8/2022 at 5:53 AM, Sorra the Orc said:

I still use Built-In because it's still the only option that isn't going to limit you in some way. Both HDRP and URP are missing features. However, the day I switch is getting closer with every update.

From a perf perspective I have not seen a single legitimate comparison that puts URP at a lower performance than Built-In. By "legitimate" I mean a genuine apples to apples comparison. I've seen lots of naive comparisons that are not leveraging URP correctly, or are accepting that Built In is very limited without post processing. Or any other of a million ways to do a poor comparison.

To be fair, however, I've not seen a good comparison, so my following statement is purely anecdotal. URP is significantly more performant than Built-In. Even HDRP will give better performance in some situations.

Hi, I recently converted my project, Mars Commander, from the built-in RP to URP, so I might be able to give some valuable input. 

For me, URP has made a massive difference, and I would never under any circumstances consider reverting back. Here are some screens of how my game currently looks: https://vdeijk.itch.io/mars-commander

Quality was much, much less with the built-in RP, and performance was actually worse. 

For post-processing, I use Beautify, which is actually better and more performant than Unity's standard post-processing stack. Not sure how it compares to Gaia's, but it works really well for my type of game. 

 

[vdeijk]

On 6/19/2022 at 11:59 PM, Adam said:

A new terrain shader 'GTS', lands this week. Here is a sneak peek!

 

That looks amazing! How do we use it with Unity terrains? To be honest, I'm having a bit of trouble creating mask maps, so it would be great if this shader somehow automated that work.