TerrainScannerFix

TerrainScanner

Forked from Due to original creator abandoning and archiving origin mod repository I made a fork and updated it to work with latest The Final Ascent update.

Terrain scanner is based on shader and is rendered by GPU. And asynchronous frame rendering, so it is fast and not stuck.

What it shows

• Slope classification (example thresholds used by the module):
• Flat: 0°–30°
• Gentle slope: 30°–50°
• Steep: 50°–90°

These thresholds are configurable via ScanConfig (see below).

Quick install / usage

• Add the TerrainScanner scripts (or compiled DLL) into your Unity project's Assets/ folder. The source is located in src/TerrainScanner/ in this repository.
• In your scene, attach ActiveScan to a GameObject (for example, the Player or Camera). By default the scanner is triggered with the Q key (see ActiveScan.cs).
• Ensure ScanConfig is properly populated at runtime with the required materials and particle prefabs:

• scanMaterial (shader for scan wave)
• markMaterial (instanced shader for marks)
• markParticle1/markParticle2/markParticle3 (optional particle prefabs)

If you're using a mod loader (BepInEx) the plugin can populate these for you at startup.

Configuration (important fields)

Most runtime options live in ScanConfig (src/TerrainScanner/Config.cs). Important values:

• horizontalCount, verticalCount — sampling grid size. Larger values increase coverage and precision but cost more CPU.
• gridStep — spacing between samples (meters).
• sampling_originHeightOffset — how far above the camera/player the ray origin starts. Increase this to scan higher terrain.
• sampling_maxDistanceShort / sampling_maxDistanceLong — raycast lengths for ground/ledge and long-range tests.
• steepSpawnProb, midSpawnProb, flatSpawnProb — per-category particle spawn probabilities.

Tune these values via the ScanConfigManager or by binding them in your plugin's initialization.

Troubleshooting

• I see only some marks rendered even though scanning detected many hits:

• Make sure the CPU-side Marks struct layout matches the HLSL Marks StructuredBuffer. Field order and sizes must match.
• Ensure ComputeBuffer is created with the correct stride (use Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(Marks))).
• Check the instanced shader does not write depth in the fragment stage (writing SV_DEPTH in the fragment can cause depth conflicts and hide instances). Move depth calculation to the vertex stage or remove manual depth writes.
• Rays don't reach high cliffs:

• Increase sampling_originHeightOffset and sampling_maxDistanceShort.
• Performance concerns:

• The sampling runs in slices (uses UniTask.Yield() to avoid blocking the main thread). If you increase resolution, consider reducing horizontalCount/verticalCount or lowering sample frequency.
• Consider limiting how many marks are uploaded to the GPU per frame (e.g. keep only the nearest N marks or prioritize by slope category).

Roadmap — Smarter Terrain Scanner (next major feature)

Planned: an "Intelligent Terrain Scanner" that improves scanning quality while staying performant. High-level goals and design notes:

• Energy-based propagation model

• Each discovered sample carries an energy budget (kinetic + potential). Propagation to neighbors consumes energy for distance traveled and for climbing.
• Branching reduces energy (spawn cost). A cell is revisited only if arriving with strictly more remaining energy (best-energy rule).
• Priority-driven exploration

• Replace the plain FIFO propagation queue with a priority queue sorted by remaining energy (prefer uphill, higher-energy fronts) so the algorithm finds viable ascent routes sooner.
• Quantized, memory-efficient state

• Store per-cell discovered heights as quantized keys (e.g. 0.1m precision) in HashSets to avoid float equality problems and to reduce duplicates.
• Safety & termination

• Global processed-count cap and local energy thresholds to prevent runaway propagation in caves or dens