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best terrain generator?

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by adampzb, Jan 30, 2017.

  1. Teila

    Teila

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    Yeah, I feel that way too. One reason I will not buy anymore terrain tools. I still stand by WC, but really that is a heightmap creator, like World Machine, both great tools for making the height map, but the terrain is still up to you. I have bits and pieces of tools to do various things but nothing perfect and all together.

    Looking forward to seeing what Unity does for us. :)
     
  2. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    Unity's current feature set is sufficient for the 3 mile test area I tested with.
     
    Teila likes this.
  3. StevenPicard

    StevenPicard

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    Landscape Builder is a very good tool for working with terrains. I have Gaia, as well, and is great if you want to generate some terrain to work with in 5 minutes, but I find that Landscape Builder gives you a lot more creative control and flexibility. Sure the learning curve is a bit more but it's worth it, IMO.

    I love working with terrains. There's something very enjoyable and relaxing about it and tools like WC that Teila has mentioned can make me a little jealous :D but I have to be happy with what I have.
     
    Mark_01, Willbkool_FPCS and Teila like this.
  4. Teila

    Teila

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    I am jealous that you can code! :)
     
  5. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    Women make the best programmers. NASA agrees.
     
    Teila and StevenPicard like this.
  6. StevenPicard

    StevenPicard

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    Shhhh! Don't give her ideas. I want her to add more articles to her blog like "Designing Worlds: How to create more realistic geography/geology". I enjoyed that. :D
     
    Teila likes this.
  7. Ziplock9000

    Ziplock9000

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    Just for people looking at this now. World Creator has been moving away from the Unity version in favour of the stand-alone version for some time. You can see this from the author themselves in the comments of the assets. They have partially abandoned the unity version.
    Further to that, the basic (but still expensive) version of the stand alone does not support basic things like stamping and sculpting, you need the even more expensive pro version.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
    StevenPicard and Willbkool_FPCS like this.
  8. Willbkool_FPCS

    Willbkool_FPCS

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    WC was on sale for half price a few months back for one day only. I was tempted to buy it, but after looking at the developer comments I decided against it.
    I'm more than happy with Landscape builder and Map Magic, whose developers are very active and helpful.
     
    Ziplock9000 and magique like this.
  9. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    The standalone version is the only one to go imo. And in that matter only the Pro. It all depends on your use case. You can e. g. buy a not so "expensive" asset plus additional stamps and other micropayment stuff you'll miss or you can purchase an all-in-one app that's independent of Unity and be done with it. Future proof and doesn't depend on Unity versions or the developer not supporting Unity betas and such. Can be used for UE as well. And you could even create stamps yourself in no time with WC2. Or meshes, splatmaps, backdrop mountains, foliage placement, etc.

    My last Unity asset was Map Magic before I gave up and purchased WC2. Map Magic is still the best imo in the category on the store, but circumstantial. And there are hardly examples. WC2 on the other hand is quick, intuitive and in that matter there's hardly need to require assistance :)
     
  10. Ziplock9000

    Ziplock9000

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    The three big issues for me with WC standalone are:

    I need to create specific map designs that are sketched by artists, so I need fine grain tools. To access basic sculpting tools with WC you have to buy the pro version which is ~$280 that's ridiculous. Sure I could use a 3rd party tool to do that, but then what's the point of using WC then? Other people have commented that's the general state of the standard version, it's crippled, forcing you to buy pro.

    Standalone products bring their own issues as well as benefits. I have a lot custom "entities" that I need to see on the terrain as I sculpt. I don't want to jump back and forth between apps tweaking in WC and then syncing with Unity because I can't get a particle effect to show inside of WC or a ton of other "entities" that I have with custom behaviors and scripts.

    Being quite expensive, I'd expect a demo version of the product before I commit. There isn't one.
     
    Willbkool_FPCS likes this.
  11. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    It's beta, not released yet.
     
  12. Ziplock9000

    Ziplock9000

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    If they can charge release level prices when in beta, they can make demos when in beta too.
    Many products do that all the time, Anthem springs to mind.
     
  13. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    I'm sorry, but on the one hand you write about specific map designs sketched by artists and in the next post you don't sound like you require professional tools by comparing the marketing policy with that of a game which has 10000s of users and which requires that for beta testing a networked gameplay. That doesn't make any sense ;)

    I'm only hobbyist and purchased WC2 because I didn't want my time being wasted by mediocre tools which in the end cost me more time. Of course opinions will in the end differ (and it's my personal opinion, nobody says I must be right), but I tested them all and can judge. You on the other hand can only speak from theory :) If you're into serious game development, I don't think that the price of WC2 would fall into account comparing to toolset money saved vs time wasted by developers. A proper comparison might be to texture a gun in blender with nodes and what not which costs time and resources while on the other hand dragging a metal substance in substance painter on the gun model and be done with it. The latter is what World Creator 2 is for me in matters of terrain creation.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2019
  14. Ziplock9000

    Ziplock9000

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    You need to listen harder if you're confused. I said I'm looking for very specific set of functionally that WC charges £280 for and other tools charge much less and often do better. It's really that simple.

    Well I'm not only a hobbyist and I know exactly what functionality I need and what it's worth to me. So please keep your extremely egotistical and presumptuous rants about what my priorities should be, what functionality I need and how I should run my finances to yourself thank you very much.
     
    Willbkool_FPCS likes this.
  15. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    Since this was asked in another thread now as well, let's talk reality. Here are some images. Took a WC2 project file provided for free by one of the awesome mebers of the WC2 community and hit the random button to make new variations of a terrain.

    stamps.gif
    Creating stamps for the new Unity Terrain Tools from WC2 project file was as easy as hitting the export button:

    stamp.jpg
    Or just import the terrain at the click of a button and specify the tile size while doing so:

    tiles.jpg
    Doing that took me five minutes. It took so long because I had to convert the video I made to an animated gif first and had to find a converter :D