Misc Unity3D Advices

This article will be filled continuously with misc informations about various things concerning game dev with Unity, and around that topic.

It is primarily written to be a reminder for my future self, because I will certainly forgot many of these things by tomorrow (exaggerating a bit).

Performance

• About script performance: https://youtu.be/mQ2KTRn4BMI?t=1725
• In case of Gfx.ReadbackImage too high in the profiler when running the build, try to disable Realtime GI in the Lighting panel.
• In case something too high linked with AQUAS Reflections, try to disable some Layers in the AQUAS Reflection component on the Water plane.

Assets use

• My loved assets that integrate well together:
  • Gena: can place objects, use cases including: put random objects on a table, or random furniture in a room, or place a series of fences following your mouse.
  • Gaia: terrain stamping, creates great terrain. Can also texture depending on rules, as well as put grass/trees. Pro version exists now.
  • CTS: shader for the terrain,
  • NatureManufacture assets: the last assets from NatureManufacture are among the best looking I’ve seen on the asset store (especially from Mountain Trees Dynamic Nature and more recent), and even more interesting, the grass shaders included in the prefabs seem to render really fast. It seems the grass (the « cross » ones) render faster than with Advanced Terrain Grass shader (ATG). May depend on the GPU/CPU though, since ATG uses more one than the other.
  • AQUAS (Lite): nice water shader.
  • Enviro: day/night, weather. Enviro integrates quite well with all of the above. The instructions for some integrations may be a bit outdated sometimes. Integration with AQUAS Lite works, while not mentioned specifically (only AQUAS). Integration with Fog Volume 3 does not seem to take into account the variations of fog (didn’t check in detail), but clouds seem ok (I don’t use Fog Volume on the terrain for now). Integrations include: CTS, AQUAS, FogVolume, AURA2, Microsplat, VegetationStudio. May require to write some scripts for example to apply Enviro wind to NatureManufacture grass and trees. Mobile version exists.
  • Vegetation Studio: very nice for grass, trees placement (and others). Possible to import existing grass/trees. I’m missing a more convenient way to make the grass zones fade but it can be achieved in some ways (especially with the great vegetation masks or the curves in height). Pro version exists.
  • Advanced Terrain Shader (ATG): as mentioned in NatureManufacture, ATG seems to me now slower than NatureManufacture grass shaders, BUT: ATG have the best wind I’ve seen for grass.
  • Fog Volume 3: I didn’t try many others, but for cave/ruins fog, looks great.
  • Aura 2: nice volumetric lights, but the performance on my computer make it almost not usable, although it may require some fine tuning.
  • Rustic Grass (and others from Turboscalpeur): in the field of grass texture, good looking grass.
  • Multistory Dungeons: I’ve rarely seen assets that can snap together as well as that.
  • SECTR: creates async parts of the scene to be loaded. when entering triggers.
  • River Auto Material (RAM), version 2019 exists as well: very good for rivers and lakes. I haven’t managed to make it look masked when there is fog. given that the water is transparent.
  • Mesh Baker: combine Meshes. Very easy and works. There is also a Texture Combiner, but it didn’t work very well for me when combining houses (wrong material on some parts, but i didn’t check the parameters a lot).
  • EasyRoad 3D or Path Painter: to create roads/paths. RAM can also create roads (example given in the package).
  • UMotion, Dynamic Bone, Deckard Render, Relief Terrain Pack: not tried yet, look great.

Steam, Steam Direct, Steamworks

• Unity to steam workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5-Y-5Dtg_c and all the following videos of this series
• About TIN number (EIN, ITIN, SSN): no need for the W8 form (but at the time I’m writing, i’m still waiting for steam to check the validity of what I’m writing here):
  • For French companies, when Steam asks for a TIN/EIN/iTIN/SSN number, use the SIREN number, BUT: in the « interview » where you enter this number, the field for entering it was wrongly labeled, as 2 fields were labeled for entering « American » TIN. The one at the bottom is in fact for foreign TINs (it is mentioned beside the checkbox, and the id of the HTML input in the code is named « foreign » something).
  • En français: pour les entreprises françaises (y compris auto-entrepreneur), quand Steam demande un numéro TIN, EIN, ITIN, ou SSN, il semble possible d’utiliser le numéro SIREN (9 chiffres), MAIS: dans l’ « interview » pour entrer ce numéro, le champ pour l’entrer a une mauvaise description, car deux champs textes sont mentionnés pour les numéros « Américains ». Celui du bas est en fait pour les numéros étrangers (c’est mentionné à côté de la checkbox, et l’id de l’élément HTML contient « foreign » au lieu de « us » pour l’autre élément, de plus, dans le formulaire W8 à la fin, le numéro se retrouve au bon endroit). L’utilisation du numéro SIREN est confirmée ici: https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/tax-identification-numbers/France-TIN.pdf

Android

• Signing the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av5ANVlkU3g