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Introduction

First of all, thank you for purchasing TYLER! I hope you enjoy it and it helps you in your project. TYLER is designed for the optimization and management of Open World-style terrain in Unity, as well as for an edition of its properties in a comfortable way from its general panel. Furthermore, TYLER works completely independently from other plugins, since it works natively with Unity, so you can use other plugins related to the appearance of the terrain such as MicroSplat or CTS.

TYLER – Unity terrain advanced for large world.
Native terrain data optimization for Unity system.
It works directly with the Unity terrain system (no patches).
LODs system resolution staggered to achieve panoramic views.
Fantastically increase your FPS, CPU, Tris & Batches for Big terrain.

It includes:

Chunk system with load and unload for native Unity terrain.
LOD system in three levels of resolution at the same time.
Load and unload tyles system for native Unity Neighbor Terrain.
Multi-Tiled system, split for world streaming Unity terrain.
Auto-Stitch system to eliminate bad joints from the terrain.
Vegetation System to put trees and grass on all terrains at the same time.
SplatMap system, to import and export color maps of your terrains.
TerrainData system, to import and export the height and raw map at the same time.

Transform the native Unity system into an advanced option so you can get the most out of it. It works perfectly with both simple land and neighboring land. Divide the terrain into clean units so you can modify it however you want, apply 2 to 5 automatically graded LODs with different resolutions to all terrain tiles, without being limited by plugin options. This way, you can build panoramic terrains without worrying about losing performance in your game.

Example: You can set the main terrain (Tile) to high resolution so that the environment looks perfect, and the other terrains you can lower them to the maximum resolution to reduce their weight to 80%. In this way you will get a panoramic view without losing CPU & FPS. In play mode the resolution changes on the terrains are very smooth and practically undetectable.

The scene will have: 1 High-resolution Main Terrain, and will be surrounded by 8 low-resolution tiles, and with the possibility of adding two more rows of tiles at very very low resolution. You can adjust the resolutions of the terrains for each level of tiles, until you get the most optimal for your game.

Integration with:

CTS.
MicroSplat.
Vegetation Studio Pro.

Getting Started

There are different ways to put TYLER on the scene, but if this is your first time installing TYLER, and you don’t have any previously cut terrain, then you should follow these steps:

1. Right click on the scene hierarchy, 3D Object > TYLER – Advanced Terrain. You will notice that an object called “TYLER – MainTerrain” has been generated with the TYLER_Terrain script.

2. Select this GameObject, Step 1 will appear open where it will ask you to assign a large terrain (example, a terrain of 8000 * 8000) to be able to cut it into smaller pieces. If you have already sectioned terrain, you can skip this step. If this field appears disabled, you must press the “Edit Terrain” button to enter in Edit Mode.

3. Once the large terrain is assigned, with the “Scale” slider, you can select the number of tiles and their sizes that you want in your new terrain. With the second slider (“Max Lods”), you can select the amount of initial LODs you want for the configuration. Finally, click on the Tile Terrain button.

4. Once the process is finished, you will be able to see that within the TYLER – Main Terrain object the plots of the segmented terrain have been generated. In Step 2 of the script, you can select what type of material you want to put (you can choose between a Unity material, a MicroSplat configuration or a CTS profile) and assign it to all terrains. You can change it at any time. For more information go to the Materials section.

5. Finally, in Step 3 of the TYLER_Terrain script you can configure the height in all terrains, and the Base Distance (see Classes). You can also configure the properties of the LODs, such as the heightmap resolution, pixelError, etc. For more information, go to the LODs section.

3 – Classes

3.1 – TYLER_Terrain

Edit/Save Terrain button

This button toggles between terrain edit mode and play mode (ready to run the game). In edit mode, you will be able to edit your terrain comfortably and however you want, shape it, add vegetation, modify it or add more tiles of the same resolutions and dimensions, through the Unity Neightbors System. Finally, it is important that you press Save to apply the changes you have made.

3.1.1 – TerrainControl

3.1.1.1 – Terrain Splitter

This section known as Step 1 of TYLER_Terrain has a land sectorizer in case you want to convert a huge and large land into smaller parcels of land to use with TYLER. You can close this section and ignore it if you are not going to use this process or once it is finished.

3.1.1.2 – Material

In the materials section known as Step 2, you can choose to use a Unity terrain material or use one of the integrations we have implemented, such as MicroSplat and CTS (only if you have these plugins). Depending on what you choose in the Shader Type variable, the following options will appear:

Normal:

The common Unity shader also has a field called Layer Preset where you can assign a ScriptableObject of type TYLER_LayerPreset.

  • Material: Assign a material with the Unity Terrain Shader of type Diffuse, Specular, or Standard.

LayerPreset: Assign an asset that TerrainLayers stores, in order to apply these layers to all terrains. For more information go to TYLER_LayerPreset.

MicroSplat:

With this integration, it allows you to apply the MicroSplat shader with all its components automatically, you just have to assign the following parameters:
Material: Assign a material with the MicroSplat shader.
MicroSplatPropData: Assign the MicroSplatPropData asset to all MicroSplat components attached to terrains.
TextureArrayConfig: Assign the MicroSplat associated textures that you have configured.
MicroSplatKeywords: Assign the data of the Keywords that MicroSplat uses to operate.
MicroSplatProceduralTextureConfig: Assigns the asset that configures MicroSplat’s automatic texture generation. Only if you have the MICROSPLAT PROCEDURAL TEXTURES plugin.

CTS:

With this integration, it allows you to apply the CTS profile that you want or have created and apply the CTS component to all terrains.
CTSProfile: Assign the CTS profile to all terrain components and update it.

3.1.1.3 – LODs

In this section known as Step 3 you can adjust the properties that the LODs of the running terrain will manipulate. The main camera must have the MainCamera tag, for the running system to work. If you make a change, it is important that you press the Update LODs button.
Height: When you change the value, it changes to all terrains the maximum height in real time.
BaseDistance: This value adds an extra distance to the rendering of the LODs. Example: If your tiles have a dimension of 1000m, and the BaseDistance is 500m, the first LOD will render up to 1500m and the second one up to 2500m.
TerrainLODs: In this list, you can add, remove and modify the LODs that will be applied on the terrain, in execution. You can add up to 4 and the minimum is 2.
HeightmapResolution: It allows to choose the resolution that the LOD will have when it is applied in the fields. If you choose a higher resolution than the one available in TerrainData, it will have no effect.
BaseTextureResolution: Allows you to choose the resolution that the terrain texture will have when you are away from the camera and this LOD is being applied.
PixelError: Set the pixelError parameter of all terrains for that LOD.
BaseMapDistance: Sets the distance at which you start to see the terrain texture based on BaseTextureResolution.
TileDistance: Adjusts the distance based on the tiles for rendering the LOD.
DefaultLOD: Just change the LOD that you see in the editor. So you can see how the LODs turned out.
“Update LODs” button: Update the terrain instances that modify the LODs, if you change any of these parameters you must press this button. It will also apply the LOD selected in DefaultLOD.
“Sort Tiles in Hierarchy” button: Sort the Tiles in the hierarchy and give them a new name based on the Origin Terrain which is in Terrain Settings > Origin Terrain. For more information, go to the Terrain Settings section.