This update is closely related to some feedback received by customers in the early days of this asset pack wich pointed out there where not enough versatile assets for terrain creation.
Sometimes you need to get far enough from your creation to check how it works in a realistic way due hard work sometimes trend us to see our works better than they are. This time was no exception. Checking the feedback with the asset in scene was time for a big required update.
To improve the pack and turn it into a really useful tool to create environments many new prefabs must be included. In this case the major part of the upgrades comes from the new cliff assets as long as other bunch of big rocks (to serve as middle step between samll rocks and huge rocky cliffs) as long as new plants and flowers to increase variety. Also trees got a new set of prefabs without animation rig but to work with terrain systems. The new demoscene included has been created using several assets to ensure compatibility.
What's new?
[NEW PREFABS]
- Plants [+11]
- Rocky Cliffs [+39]
- Big Rocks [+8]
- Fxs [+2]
[NEW FEATURES]
- Trees now working with Unity & Gaia Terrains
- New bigger demoscene (Island demo)
- Included Premade Biome (Requires Gaia)
- Included free Ancient Ruins assets
NOTE: Gaia biome doesn't include all assets. Some of them like terrain decoration or cliffs must be set in your level by hand.
Checking some assets...
I was asked via Discord wich is gonna be the next asset at Daelonik artworks store and among several ideas I asked that I'm actually working parallel on a different task wich is being able to create a game using my own assets. The point is to test by myself how useful they are in a real project since I've noticed some of them to require optimization in some ways (That's why assets are constantly beign updated for free). One of the things I want to test is how good DK art assets work together with other tools in the store. With this in mind I've been investing some money in getting some of (what I found) most useful and popular assets in the store. For this update I wasn't able to test all of them but I did check some and so that's what I've found:
GAIA 2
I don't think anyone who uses to check the store could miss to see this one. In my opinion is highly recommendable for anyone who want to create terrains. It took me 2 or 3 days to get used to it and probably the PRO version is way better than this but still great tool to help with terrain creation. Gives you a quick way to design and populate wide environments without in a procedural way.
I can't compare with other similar tools for I haven't tested but I probably will in the future to give a better opinion about the differences. By now I'm way happy with the results of this asset and there's a Gaia ready biome included in the Mediterranean Nature update so you can spawn the assets easily on any terrain.
AURA 2
I'm personally way into giving environments a believeable ambience. This tool is very useful to mess with volumetric lights. I think that's not very useful under HDRP but for Builtin is really nice since tools included by default by Unity are not so pro.
My experience is good with this asset but I have to say that some shaders like water trends not to work very fine with this asset. It's very simple and easy to use, gives good aesthetics but it also consumes a bit of your render power and volumetric noise looks kinda weird.
My final opinion: It has ups and downs but I don't regret the purchase and probably will use it.
ENVIRO
As said in previous asset I like to give scenes a nice ambient and I think static clouds are not really cool though sometimes it's all we need, but for this time I wanted to check how this really cool weather system works.
And have to say I'm not dissapointed at all. It includes almost everything you could require from a weather system. Also clouds are really beautiful and includes day/night working properly with night stars, moon, etc... It work fine together with Gaia and Aura.
The only issue I've found is the reflections in water. Even when it says it works fine my water from Gaia didn't reflect the clouds properly. On the other hand this asset makes Aura almost useless since it includes very nice volumetric lights. (Not as good as Aura but very nice ones)
WEATHER MAKER
This one is very similar to Enviro. There are some differences but mostly the same. So let's compare what's different. For enviro I'd say it has nice integration with other tools and creates very
nice skies. Weather maker on its side also creates good skies, the integration is not as good as the other. It worky pretty similar in terms of how to use it, but its moon & stars are not as
good as Enviro. On the other side it has way better climate system. Better rain system and storms.
I'm not yet decided about what will use in the future, probably will require more testing because both assets are really good.
RELIEF TERRAIN PACK
I'm really sad to say I couldn't use this asset in the demo video because it causes many troubles with lighting. I don't really know why but I've found many issues using this asset. Personally I really love the features and wanted to use it because I find the tool really useful but wasn't able due to several issues. On one side there was a weird lighting wich causes the close terrain to look way dark while the far was looking good. No idea why. On the other side I really wanted to use tessellation but it just didn't worked. Followed tutorial and terrain dissapaired. As long as Im using a strong workstation, don't think its a hardware fault. I can't recommend the asset but there's a chance that the asset works fine and I just don't understand why that happened to me.
So I can't say for sure this asset is broken but for me didn't work as expected. I loved the features that worked like snow or the terrain material itself (relief I think is a must for terrain).
So in short words...
In conclusion I guess I would strongly recommend Gaia (that's why this asset has become compatible with it) and also Enviro weather system wich really gives your environments a believeable sky (thats a big part of the frame ingame!). Aura and Weather maker are good choice and you can give them a chance if you find them useful due they work pretty fine. For RTP I cant give a bad review just because it doesn't worked fine for me, but can't also recommend. Find a second opinion, it has great features if it works should be great...
I have a bunch of assets waiting to get checked like Dungeon architect, The vegetation engine and many others waiting to get checked, but if you think some asset will be useful using together with Daelonik Artworks assets let me know at the DISCORD channel or send mp to support.