This update contains a bunch of new tools, improvements to existing systems and fixes
Unity 2018.3.4
I updated the editor to use Unity 2018.3.4, but no matter what I tried every time I switched the Unity version it broke pretty much everything. I wanted to update mainly so I could port over the new Unity terrain tools which are pretty cool. I spent a week going through everything and fixing it and while I was at it decided to go ahead and re-write some of my existing systems to allow for easier expansion in the future
Asset warm up and prefab spawn times
The amount of time it takes to spawn prefabs when loading a map is something that has given me the shits and had me stumped since the beginning. No matter what I tried I couldn't work out why it was so slow. I even went as far as re-writing all the spawn and file system logic to no avail. After spending a few days just trying everything I could think of, scratching my head wondering wtf was going on I finally saw the typo that was only allowing 1 prefab to spawn per frame... FUCK!
Assets now load incredibly fast, about 50000 prefabs in 20 seconds on my PC, and I also cut the warm up list in half by only loading assets that we can actually use in the editor
Terrain Tools
The terrain tools were one of those system I decided to re-write. While there wasn't really any issues with the way it was setup, it wasn't a modular system so adding new tools to it required a lot of manual work.
Aside from making a new modular system I upgraded it to modify the terrain the same way the new Unity version does (using materials/shaders and modifying a 'texture map' instead of modifying raw data) which allows for larger brush sizes with a lower impact on performance.
Once that was setup I ported 10 of Unity's experimental tools over (Bridge Tool, Clone Brush, Erode Height, Pinch Height, Ridge Erode, Sharpen Height, Slope Flatten, Smudge Height, Terrace Erosion, Twist Height)
The tool UI also got a rework with additional controls for each brush type, a description of what the brush does and how to use it.
Terrain Painter
Since I had already rewritten the entire terrain tool I figured I may as well do the same thing for the terrain painter. I added a few new brush tools to this also. They are;
Conditional Paint Brush - Used to paint any layer based on conditions you set such as height, slope, existing splat/biome/topology
Multilayer Topology Brush - Used to view and paint multiple topology layers at once. When you select multiple layers you will only see where all of those layers overlap, and painting on it paints to all the selected layers
Replace Brush - Allows you to replace any splat or biome channel with another selected channel. Want to change a grass area for snow? This is the tool for you
Erase Brush - This is just the erase logic switched from a toggle box to a individual brush
These brushes are not applicable to every paint type, the Multilayer Topology Brush for instance obviously will only be available when you have the Topology layer selected.
Localization
When the Unity upgrade broke everything it also wiped all my set translation strings. I was dreading have to go through the entire project and reset a few hundred strings and after looking at the translation list realised that it was quickly turning in to a big mess. I bit the bullet and decided to re-write and organise it properly which unfortunately means that existing translation files are invalid. Sorry but it needed to be done.
Tooltips and Hints
Since I was rewriting the localization stuff and with all the new tools and options I thought it would be good to have tool tips to give some explanation on what these options do. Now if you hold your mouse over a option a tool tip will pop up telling you what that option does. I added a shit ton of tool tips the everything I though could use one. Also added hints to the loading screen. There is not many atm but will add to it over time
Custom Prefabs
I added;
Sub-directory support when saving prefab collections, just type FolderName/FileName (or as many folder names as you want) as the name of the prefab when saving
A refresh button so you can add new prefabs to the custom prefab folder and just refresh your list so you don't have to close the editor to see them
A option to convert the current selection of prefabs directly into a single custom prefab when creating custom prefabs
Procedural Rocks
Finally! Procedural rock placement follows the same guidelines as a standard proc gen map. You can opt to generate all the rock types including icesheets and icebergs, or just select the individual type to generate
Random Shit
Added function to rotate maps CW/CCW accessible via the tools menu
Disable the reflection layer from building blocks which made them look blurry in the editor
Removed prefab effects/attachments that should only be visible when flagged in game (balloons on loot crates, damage smoke from sam sites, etc)
Reduced the range of light sources by half to stop your eyes from melting when next to a hobo barrel
Added a bit of color to the foliage shader and fixed the transparency clipping out other transparent layers
Also just a side note, I have started a Patreon that has some perks if any one is interested in helping support the development of the editor
To update the editor simply click Check For Updates in the RustEdit Launcher!
-- Version 1.0.15 -- Change Log --
Added - Option to procedurally spawn rocks, cliffs, icebergs/icesheets
Added - Sub-directory support for custom prefabs
Added - Button to force a refresh of the custom prefab list
Added - Multiple selection from hierarchy menu by holding CTRL
Added - Map rotation tools
Added - Ported an assortment of new terrain tools from Unity 2018.3.4 to the new terrain tool setup (Bridge Tool, Clone Brush, Erode Height, Pinch Height, Ridge Erode, Sharpen Height, Slope Flatten, Smudge Height, Terrace Erosion, Twist Height)
Added - A conditional paint brush that only paints when the specified conditions are met
Added - A replace paint brush that will replace the specified splat layer with a new one
Added - A multilayer topology brush to paint multiple layers at once
Added - Tooltip popups for tool panel options, hover over a tool panel option to view a tooltip
Added - Random editor tips and hints to the loading screen
Added - Custom prefab creator option to convert objects directly into a single custom prefab when saving
Changed - Updated Unity to 2018.3.4f1
Changed - Rewrote entire terrain tool system to be modular in design and allow for future expansion more easily
Changed - Reworked standard terrain tools to suit new tool setup
Changed - Rewrote entire terrain paint system to be modular in design and allow for future expansion
Changed - Reworked standard terrain paint tools to suit the new tool setup
Changed - Biome and Topology visual representations are now applied over time when changing between them
Changed - Automatically run 1 pass of smoothing to terrain when cutting or extending to smooth out the interpolation between terrain grid sizes
Changed - Rewrote localization file so it is now organised into each seperate element instead of a pile of garbage
Changed - Cut asset warmup in half after filtering out all the prefabs that aren't actually useable
Changed - Disable reflection from building parts (blurry construction textures)
Changed - Automatically disable components that are normally toggled via flag (damage smoke from sam sites, balloons on loot boxes, etc)
Changed - Reworked a bunch of the LOD system stuff
Changed - Reduced range of all light sources by half
Fixed - Amount of time to load prefabs is now a fraction of what it was
Fixed - Splat tinting weirdness when painting with low opacity
Fixed - Prevent saving prefabs that are out of bounds
Fixed - Clear Topology button making the terrain a shade of white
Fixed - Topology map being wiped when extending terrain
Fixed - Prevent auto save from running when saving manually
Fixed - Bushes and trees clipping other transparent sources
Unity 2018.3.4
I updated the editor to use Unity 2018.3.4, but no matter what I tried every time I switched the Unity version it broke pretty much everything. I wanted to update mainly so I could port over the new Unity terrain tools which are pretty cool. I spent a week going through everything and fixing it and while I was at it decided to go ahead and re-write some of my existing systems to allow for easier expansion in the future
Asset warm up and prefab spawn times
The amount of time it takes to spawn prefabs when loading a map is something that has given me the shits and had me stumped since the beginning. No matter what I tried I couldn't work out why it was so slow. I even went as far as re-writing all the spawn and file system logic to no avail. After spending a few days just trying everything I could think of, scratching my head wondering wtf was going on I finally saw the typo that was only allowing 1 prefab to spawn per frame... FUCK!
Assets now load incredibly fast, about 50000 prefabs in 20 seconds on my PC, and I also cut the warm up list in half by only loading assets that we can actually use in the editor
Terrain Tools
The terrain tools were one of those system I decided to re-write. While there wasn't really any issues with the way it was setup, it wasn't a modular system so adding new tools to it required a lot of manual work.
Aside from making a new modular system I upgraded it to modify the terrain the same way the new Unity version does (using materials/shaders and modifying a 'texture map' instead of modifying raw data) which allows for larger brush sizes with a lower impact on performance.
Once that was setup I ported 10 of Unity's experimental tools over (Bridge Tool, Clone Brush, Erode Height, Pinch Height, Ridge Erode, Sharpen Height, Slope Flatten, Smudge Height, Terrace Erosion, Twist Height)
The tool UI also got a rework with additional controls for each brush type, a description of what the brush does and how to use it.
Terrain Painter
Since I had already rewritten the entire terrain tool I figured I may as well do the same thing for the terrain painter. I added a few new brush tools to this also. They are;
Conditional Paint Brush - Used to paint any layer based on conditions you set such as height, slope, existing splat/biome/topology
Multilayer Topology Brush - Used to view and paint multiple topology layers at once. When you select multiple layers you will only see where all of those layers overlap, and painting on it paints to all the selected layers
Replace Brush - Allows you to replace any splat or biome channel with another selected channel. Want to change a grass area for snow? This is the tool for you
Erase Brush - This is just the erase logic switched from a toggle box to a individual brush
These brushes are not applicable to every paint type, the Multilayer Topology Brush for instance obviously will only be available when you have the Topology layer selected.
Localization
When the Unity upgrade broke everything it also wiped all my set translation strings. I was dreading have to go through the entire project and reset a few hundred strings and after looking at the translation list realised that it was quickly turning in to a big mess. I bit the bullet and decided to re-write and organise it properly which unfortunately means that existing translation files are invalid. Sorry but it needed to be done.
Tooltips and Hints
Since I was rewriting the localization stuff and with all the new tools and options I thought it would be good to have tool tips to give some explanation on what these options do. Now if you hold your mouse over a option a tool tip will pop up telling you what that option does. I added a shit ton of tool tips the everything I though could use one. Also added hints to the loading screen. There is not many atm but will add to it over time
Custom Prefabs
I added;
Sub-directory support when saving prefab collections, just type FolderName/FileName (or as many folder names as you want) as the name of the prefab when saving
A refresh button so you can add new prefabs to the custom prefab folder and just refresh your list so you don't have to close the editor to see them
A option to convert the current selection of prefabs directly into a single custom prefab when creating custom prefabs
Procedural Rocks
Finally! Procedural rock placement follows the same guidelines as a standard proc gen map. You can opt to generate all the rock types including icesheets and icebergs, or just select the individual type to generate
Random Shit
Added function to rotate maps CW/CCW accessible via the tools menu
Disable the reflection layer from building blocks which made them look blurry in the editor
Removed prefab effects/attachments that should only be visible when flagged in game (balloons on loot crates, damage smoke from sam sites, etc)
Reduced the range of light sources by half to stop your eyes from melting when next to a hobo barrel
Added a bit of color to the foliage shader and fixed the transparency clipping out other transparent layers
Also just a side note, I have started a Patreon that has some perks if any one is interested in helping support the development of the editor
To update the editor simply click Check For Updates in the RustEdit Launcher!
-- Version 1.0.15 -- Change Log --
Added - Option to procedurally spawn rocks, cliffs, icebergs/icesheets
Added - Sub-directory support for custom prefabs
Added - Button to force a refresh of the custom prefab list
Added - Multiple selection from hierarchy menu by holding CTRL
Added - Map rotation tools
Added - Ported an assortment of new terrain tools from Unity 2018.3.4 to the new terrain tool setup (Bridge Tool, Clone Brush, Erode Height, Pinch Height, Ridge Erode, Sharpen Height, Slope Flatten, Smudge Height, Terrace Erosion, Twist Height)
Added - A conditional paint brush that only paints when the specified conditions are met
Added - A replace paint brush that will replace the specified splat layer with a new one
Added - A multilayer topology brush to paint multiple layers at once
Added - Tooltip popups for tool panel options, hover over a tool panel option to view a tooltip
Added - Random editor tips and hints to the loading screen
Added - Custom prefab creator option to convert objects directly into a single custom prefab when saving
Changed - Updated Unity to 2018.3.4f1
Changed - Rewrote entire terrain tool system to be modular in design and allow for future expansion more easily
Changed - Reworked standard terrain tools to suit new tool setup
Changed - Rewrote entire terrain paint system to be modular in design and allow for future expansion
Changed - Reworked standard terrain paint tools to suit the new tool setup
Changed - Biome and Topology visual representations are now applied over time when changing between them
Changed - Automatically run 1 pass of smoothing to terrain when cutting or extending to smooth out the interpolation between terrain grid sizes
Changed - Rewrote localization file so it is now organised into each seperate element instead of a pile of garbage
Changed - Cut asset warmup in half after filtering out all the prefabs that aren't actually useable
Changed - Disable reflection from building parts (blurry construction textures)
Changed - Automatically disable components that are normally toggled via flag (damage smoke from sam sites, balloons on loot boxes, etc)
Changed - Reworked a bunch of the LOD system stuff
Changed - Reduced range of all light sources by half
Fixed - Amount of time to load prefabs is now a fraction of what it was
Fixed - Splat tinting weirdness when painting with low opacity
Fixed - Prevent saving prefabs that are out of bounds
Fixed - Clear Topology button making the terrain a shade of white
Fixed - Topology map being wiped when extending terrain
Fixed - Prevent auto save from running when saving manually
Fixed - Bushes and trees clipping other transparent sources
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