AutoMagic in TTT v2.1 - create entire terrains at the click of a button

Update:
Released by now, see this forum thread for details.


I'm working on the next update to Tom's Terrain Tools, and it will contain a revolutionary new feature I call AutoMagic. This allows you to create an entire terrain from height-, splat-, tree- and grassmaps with essentially one click, speeding up the workflow considerably.

There's a demo video on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3acrpPaHcaE

sorry for the "Screenflow Demo" watermark, using the screenflow demo was the quickest way to get this out. When it's finished, I'll probably make a proper tutorial video.

There are a few more details at my site: http://lemuria.org/projects/wiki/AutoMagic


This will be a in a free upgrade to anyone who bought the 2.0 version of my tools. The update also brings performance improvements and bugfixes.

 

Impressive. I'll keep an eye on this.

 

Nice!

I have been looking into TTT for a while now, and I think it is a great extension for Unity. I will buy a copy next time I get some money together

 

Impressive to say the least... can't wait for the update!

 

Can this autoloading be done at runtime too? Or just in the editor?

 

Hello,

It is compatible with splitted terrains, and StichScape, L3DT and FractScape ? Please.

Thanks a lot !! ^^

 

It will be possible to generate terrains, for multiple terrains (batch processing).

Or if i have a verybig world, of multiple terrains splitted and welded to compose a big big suare, can i select all them and generate terrains i every single flat square ???


Thanks a lot !!

Best Regards.

PS : - - - I just bought your tools today.

^^

 

I was wondering the same thing as DisTrash.

 

Up ?

Thanks !

 

Sorry, I was busy with other stuff. Answers:

@pakfront: It's an editor script, though you get the source so you could theoretically modify it so it runs at runtime.

@DisTrash: The terrains generated are standard Unity 3D terrains, so they should be compatible with everything that works on those. RoyS posted a workflow for L3DT, slightly updated version available on my website. FractScape generates terrain by itself, I don't see what you mean by "compatible"?

@DisTrash 2nd post: It does not currently support batch processing per se. However, every time you click the "run AutoMagic" button, a new terrain is generated, so all that's left to do manually is to move all the terrains around, stich them together, etc. It doesn't do that, yet. Maybe in a future version.

 

Great Work Tom!
Im going to be purchasing Your terrain tools at the end of this week

AutoMagic looks great! and is something Im really looking forward to.

If I had one wish for this toolkit to make it spectacular, would be for it to have the ability to auto generate the distribution maps (height, splat, tree and grass maps) individually and auto generated. I believe this would then be an amazing product which does it all.

The TerrainToolKit by SixTimesNothing is good, except that the maps that are created are crazy at times and hard to control even though they did a great job (just my opinion, I could never create anything close lol).

Well thats my wish, I know its probably not something thats easy to do but you never know until you ask having auto generated maps would be waaaaay cool.

Again Tom AMAZING job! Im a huge supporter.

 

I wanted to know where one would get these maps but I had a look at the wiki and it states there that you make them yourself.

My question now is, Is there a place where one can download the said maps to recreate (for example) real world terrain or is this purely a custom Photoshop deal? If so, what is the advantage of creating tree-map textures in Photoshop for a few hours over placing trees manually for a few hours?

Anyways, I read that your tool not only creates terrain but also places trees and grass and basically create you a scene, instead of just a random noise-alike height dispersion.. so you got me interested... Then I look at the maps you need for the 1-click operation and I go: "Huh? What's that?"

Take the screenshot you posted... Now THAT is a scene... All you need now is a rest stop and some hitchhikers and you are ready to go

What bothers me, is that I once tried to create a terrain using Photoshop and the difference in hue caused such a huge difference in terrain that I simply struggled for hours to create anything and I ended up with absolute nothing... So now I am wondering how difficult it will be to create not only the height map this time, but instead the entire scene this way...

How hard is is to crate these maps? Is it just a blotch here and there and your tool will fill it up nicely with dense trees or is the density based on the hue etc... Again, your tool creates an entire scene in one click... What a time saver... but it does so using these images that I don't know how to create... Hos much do I suck So what am I to do? that is basically the main question, i suppose...

 

MrDude - If you do your splat-, etc. maps in Photoshop then the only advantage is that you can reload them at the click of a button instead of having to repaint everything if you make changes.

The real power comes when you combine TTT with a dedicated external landscape generator, such as Terragen 2, WorldMachine 2, GeoControl, L3DT, etc. - these tools are specialized at creating realistic landscape and very, VERY configurable, so you can get the EXACT landscape you want.

That is why I will not ever put a landscape generator into TTT. FractScape and the Terrain Toolkit go that route, so if that is what you need, by all means use those tools. TTT is if a bit of Perlin noise isn't enough for you and you want layered multifractals, alpine fractals, river systems, design maps or one of the many, many other strengths of those dedicated tools.

All the example scenes I include, and all the screenshots I post are from scenes generated externally and then imported into Unity using the TTT.

 

Faster reload when making changes... ahhhhh!!!!!! Gotcha!
Combining TTT with Terragen... AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Gotcha!

That basically answers my questions. Thanks for that
I hope I didn't come off as dissing you in any way, I was merely genuinely interested to know