Flowmap Generator for Unity

[Synthesizer]

I've made a tool for Unity that generates flowmaps using a fluid simulation. You can control the simulation using fields like vortex, directional, calm, etc. It's also possible to have the flowmap update dynamically within Unity, so you can move fields around, turn them on and off, change the level geometry, etc. It's also possible to export the flowmap so you can use it in other engines. I've submitted it to Unity's Asset store, hopefully it gets added soon.

Here's some more info, with a webplayer demo of a scene using a flowmap generated with this tool. http://www.superpositiongames.com/products/flowmap-generator/

[Vilham]

Thats pretty cool. How expensive is it?

[iwxanthi]

Awesome man! Probably can use that for our next project

[Synthesizer]

I set the suggested price at $60. I'm also planning on making a stand alone application, so people who don't use Unity can use this.

[Vilham]

Sorry I meant computational expense.

[kikette]

Hmmm.. I saw this one wich is free.

Why should I buy your's ?

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105399

Btw, you did a great job. I just want to point out the fact that an other tool exist.

Edited August 2, 2013 by kikette

[Synthesizer]

If you use the baked texture the performance all depends on how expensive you want to make your shader. Compared to the usual way of making a water shader by adding two panning normal maps together it's two extra texture fetches (the flowmap and a noise map for offsetting the phase) and a few extra math instructions. There are flowmap shaders for Unity for iphone, so it's certainly possible to get this working on mobile platforms.

If you want to continuously simulate the flowmap so it updates dynamically it costs a bit more. On my computer (i7 2600k, nvidia 580gtx) it adds about 1-2ms per frame when simulating a 512x512 flowmap, using GPU acceleration. This only works in Unity and is only viable when using GPU acceleration, it takes about 16ms when using 8 threads on the CPU.

[Synthesizer]

Hmmm.. I saw this one wich is free.

Why should I buy your's ?

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105399

Btw, you did a great job. I just want to point out the fact that an other tool exist.

They're very different tools. That one focuses on painting by hand, mine uses a fluid simulation to generate the flowmap. Painting by hand is nice when you're not changing the scene all the time and only have to paint once, but my tool lets you re-simulate when needed. If the area that your flowmap covers is quite large with complicated geometry it's quite often a lot faster and easier to simulate, using fields to push the fluid around.

[The Horse Strangler]

This is totally radical, I've been looking for something like this lately.

[PyroGXPilot]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/siggraph2010_vlachos_waterflow.pdf

[The Horse Strangler]

That's just a shader.

[Synthesizer]

It did give me some ideas of what sort of features might be needed in a full simulation though. They also use a hand painted method, using Houdini.

From the "Future work" slide I've added this, "Render dynamic flow vectors per-frame so animated objects cause flow changes".

I've also tried this one, "Flow height maps and use tessellation hardware" which works pretty good. I did need to add an extra scrolling heightmap as areas where the flowmap wasn't moving very fast looked a bit odd with waves that just stand there. I'll have to make a video or demo of that.

[Synthesizer]

It's up on Unity's asset store now. Here's a post on their forum with a link to the asset store.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/194577-Flowmap-Generator-Create-flowmaps-using-a-fluid-simulation-RELEASED

[Kinky]

This is awesome. And possibly something that might come in handy on a project in the immediate future. Thanks, great work.

[Hipshot]

I don't know what it is, or what it's good for, but it sure looks awesome Simon =)