koobas.hobune.stream
Which voxel terrain solutions exist for Unity?
There are several voxel solutions available for Unity now and it can be hard to keep track of them. Let's have them all here in an easy to compare format. I made the answer below in community wiki format to everyone can edit it.
For solutions to be included here, they should support large terrains/volumes - larger than what is loaded/generated at any one time. E.g. solutions for displaying voxel based models, or small limited terrains generated all at once, is not the focus here.
For now I'd like every answer to list these aspects (this list could be expanded with other info):
Name
Link to Asset Store page if available.
Link to website if available.
Price
Supported voxelization types (for example Cubes, Marching Cubes, Dual Contouring)
Support for LOD
Support for infinite terrain (notable hiccups when loading/generating new chunks?)
Language (e.g. C#, Javascript, C++ plugin)
Source included?
In active development?
Last update of package, plus which date this was checked.
Also take a look at this thread:
It seems from my naive point of view that there is quite a demand for a good voxel-based solution in Unity. The thread postet by Cherno has been active for more than 5 years, and there is also this one by-far top-voted (3800+ votes) community suggestion from 2009 (also still active) here...
I wonder when the guys over at Unity come up with a terrain solution that is at least better than the current one? At least another suggestion (active since end of 2013, 1800+ votes) has now been marked as "Planned", even though the roadmap has this listed without any further details or even a rough ETA for at least half a year now...
Actually, in my oppinion, Unity has already gone too far with some features. Unity is very different from engines like Unreal or CryEngine. Those engines has been developed for a certain game so they implemented the features they needed. Of course since they released the engine as standalone product they added a few more common features to "round up" the feature list.
Unity on the other hand is a general purpose game engine. So it doesn't focus on a particular game type / genre. Unity's feature list does grow over time, but it's already quite bloated with many many feature you might not even use or need. This just increases the engine's core. As you can read on the feature request you've linked, the comment of sleepCircle shows what i mean.
A lot more advanced / edge case features are usually implemented by third party developers. I'm pretty sure most who support that feature request are actually free users who just want everything for free. $$anonymous$$ost third party developers don't give their work away for free. In the end the actual game developer is the one who is program$$anonymous$$g the game features. An engine is just a tool that supports the programmer with some commonly needed features.
1800 and 3800 votes isn't really a number where you can say: "Wow, it seems all Unity developers need this in every project they do". Unity shouldn't implement a feature just because another engine has that feature too. If all engines are equal, what's the point of having so many? As said an engine is a tool which supports the developer to cope with certain tasks. Just pick the right tools you need and you can work with to get the job done.
ps: I'm sure a lot of those demands for voxel terrain comes from the huge $$anonymous$$ecraft modding community. A lot of those people think: "I want to do something like $$anonymous$$ecraft".
Sorry if it seems rude, but most of your comment seems to be ranting about the community without some real "evidence" (maybe too harsh a word for what I mean). I'll try to clarify my points in regard to your comment anyway .
Yes, Unity is very different, and a general purpsoe engine. It wants to cater to as big an audience as possible, and a quite large part of that audience are non-developers. Being bloated or not is out of scope for this discussion, because you will never find an engine that delivers 100% of what you need, and ONLY that, except if you write it yourself.
I agree on the advanced or edge case features - that's what you and I are doing regularly when working with Unity, right?
But most games make use of some kind of terrain. The demand for having caves or overhangs is not that seldom, and this is where to my knowledge and understanding the current implementation is very user-unfriendly. There are a lot other points where the Unity Terrain is lacking - did you ever try doing something as simple as doing a 90° rotation of a Unity Terrain?
I do not know who voted for this, what their motivation was or if they want to pay for a solution or not. That's also out of scope, but consider what type of user is searching for a way to make a suggestion to an engine - certainly not many of them are people that just want it because of a short-term-temptation. Also, as already noted, it has by far the most votes in the terrain section, and has the second-most votes of ALL currently active suggestions. It is a fact that it would make Unity more attractive to at the very least 380 people out there (3800 votes, 10 votes per user), probably a lot more. Edit: As a funny side note, the top voted suggestion (6730 at the moment) is to make the dark skin available in Unity Free.
The motivation of my comment was to point out that the current terrain implementation is lacking a lot, and the numbers on the suggestions-page states that a lot of people would like an integrated voxel engine.
Here are the solutions that fit the criteria, in alphabetical order.
Cubiquity (Asset Store) (Website)
Free
Voxelization type: Cubes, Marching Cubes?
LOD: No
Infinite terrain: No
Language: C++ plugin, C#
Source included: Partially
In active development: Yes
Last update of package: December 22, 2015 (as of January 13, 2016)
MoleEngine (Asset Store) (no website) (forum thread)
$75
Voxelization type: Dual Contouring, Marching Cubes
LOD: No
Infinite terrain: Yes
Language: C#
Source included: Not in Asset Store package, but available by request
In active development: (Yes: MoleEngine v2)
Last update of package: December 11, 2015 (as of February 28, 2016)
Ruaumoko (Asset Store)
$35
Voxelization type: Marching Cubes, Dual Contouring
LOD: No
Infinite terrain: Yes (with some hiccups)
Language: C#
Source included: Yes
In active development: Minimal
Last update of package: November 23, 2015 (as of January 13, 2016)
TerrainEngine (not on Asset Store) (no website) (forum thread)
? (contact for price) ($6000 according to people who have asked)
Voxelization type: Marching Cubes, others
LOD: Yes (for Octree based voxelization; unclear for other types)
Infinite terrain: Yes
Language: C#
Source included: Yes
In active development: Yes
Last update of package: ?
TerraVol (Asset Store) (Website (dead link))
$65
Voxelization type: Marching Cubes
LOD: No
Infinite terrain: Yes
Language: C#
Source included: Yes
In active development: No (links to docs+demos are dead)
Last update of package: May 11, 2015 (as of January 13, 2016)
Ultimate Terrains (Asset Store) (Website)
$75 / seat
Voxelization type: Dual Contouring
LOD: Yes
Infinite terrain: Yes
Language: C#
Source included: Yes
In active development: Yes
Last update of package: June 15, 2018 (as of June 26, 2018)
Voxeland (Asset Store) (Website)
$95 / seat
Voxelization type: "Smoothed cubes" (smooth but cannot represent spheres or planar surfaces at arbitrary angles)
LOD: Yes
Infinite terrain: Yes (major hiccup with wait message when loading/generating new area)
Language: Javascript
Source included: Yes
In active development: Yes
Last update of package: October 7, 2015 (as of January 13, 2016)
VoxelFarm (not on Asset Store) (Website)
$295 + $19 / month
Voxelization type: Dual Contouring
LOD: Yes
Infinite terrain: Yes
Language: C++ plugin (+ C#?)
Source included: Source for C++ engine included at $995 + $95 / month
In active development: Yes
Last update of package: ?
Other voxel terrain resources
Voxel Engines & Resources for Unity
Old list from 2012. Many of these may no longer be maintained or compatible with latest Unity, but could still be of use to some.
Just a word to say Ultimate Terrains has been updated and is in active development again. Its price has been lowered to $75.
The answer has been "wikified", that is, anyone can edit it. You can update it if you want ;)
Thanks, didn't know about that! However, looks like I'm missing some reputation because there is no 'edit' link for me.
interesting, that only one is upgrading - is Ultimate terrains
