GAIA - AAA terrain generator, procedural texturing, planting and scene creation

True..however, the reason for buying should be for the great stuff, not because of the endless freebies. So..if a developer were to change their business model for financial reasons, you would be okay with that?

Anyway..we probably should cease hijacking this thread before Hippo comes and sits on us.

 

Not necessarily, no. As with anything, I would only submit to a subscription model if I felt it was worth it. In some cases I've been forced to submit to a subscription model because there was no alternative and I needed what the vendor offered. But generally speaking, it has to make sense. For 3D content like 3DForge makes, I could understand a base price for an initial pack and a subscription price for additional content on a regular basis. But if Adam were to charge a subscription fee just to license Gaia per month then I would totally against that kind of model.

Adam mentioned a potential subscription model and we are discussing the pros and cons of such a model. How is that hijacking a thread?

 

I was hijacking the thread then. LOL I agree that for 3dForge a subscription model would be fabulous...although add-ons would be better. That way folks can pick and choose what they want.

 

This is my first and most likely only post.
I have been a hobbyist in graphics from 21 till 30 then took a break till 54, and started
as a hobbyist recently again. As such being a hobbyist I will never do a subscription
anything, and being on a pension too, even 15 dollars a month for something I will
not use a lot is too much. I bought Maya LT while I still could get with out a subscription.

I feel in-part the asset store is selling dreams and is a good deal for people that want to do this
as a hobby. As Adam, said " I have had professional studio's comment that they would pay 40x
the normal price of Gaia because of the value it offers to their studios as professionals. "
And studios have that kind of money as well as " subscription money "

This forum has been the only forum I have read from page 1 .. Twice .. ;-) and i have leaned
more about Unity and how things work and can work together, here more then anywhere else.
In part because of Adam's willingness for open discussion on how to make out-door
terrain landscapes better by using or showing off non-competing products that complement each other
and from honest options of real users, like others have said here I have bought other assets
in-part because of this group. The net has made people forget manners its one thing to say
i find this easier then " name " but to post links of a competing product is just
rude. I know that been dealt with. With out sincere developers on the asset store..
all of us " hobbyists " would not have dreams to buy. And or to maybe help
us make our own games faster. I think Adam has lit a fire in the community in
general, and with out him there would be no Gaia and the bar would NOT have been
raised in the first place.
I sincerely hope Adam will continue to have the same high standards for himself
and anything else he chooses to make/do.

Sorry for the rant, if this get pulled down, so be it. Big studios have big money
to spend, i think here in Unity there is a lot of hobbyists and dreamer's.
So for myself I will never pay a subscription, no matter how good something looks.
I have a feeling that a lot of people here are in the same boat.

To Adam ... " Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery "

 

Right then. Let's get back to what we do best here. Still tinkering with my Ringworld level, and have a few Screenshotter pics hot off the press. Hope you're OK with heights...


The pics are taken approaching, and then from the lowest, middle, and highest balconies of a floating city. You can barely see the land below through the fog in the last pic, but the effect is still pretty cool.

 

Forget the heights, that shirt needs a warning.

Anyway, nice use of fog there.

 

Thanks. So it does. I pride myself on having one of the loudest, gaudiest Hawaiian shirt collections on the planet (or elsewhere for that matter), not that I'd actually wear any of them in RL. But the one that really needs a warning is the t-shirt I'm wearing underneath. That's why most of the pics I post are from the back.

 

Yup, I don't sub to adobe, or autodesk, and I most certainly won't sub to an "asset" from an asset store. Ill pay an upgrade or even just an entire new fee for something that has changed so much it's not even the same anymore (under the hood anyway). But a sub is a bad idea in my opinion.

I think you make very valid points for the concept of subs and how it would relate to a lot of the users of unity, excluding the large companies that use unity.

For @AdamGoodrich , maybe a suggestion on the idea of the sub based model is create a sub for corperations companies. Provide another level of support for them, and allow more than one seat per sub (This being the big part of the sub). That might be a more appealing concept. Even for some small teams. Just a thought that occured to me. Don't know how good of an idea that is, but it's an idea. hehe

 

Yep - in the end if we can afford something we will pay what we think it is worth to us - and there are many different drivers at play here.

Yep i think the asset store is invaluable to people who are starting out (myself included), and to pro's alike, depending on what you are trying to achieve. I know I have spent a lot of money on the asset store and learnt loads. I am also of the general opinion that I would rather buy than build in a lot of cases, to get outcomes quicker and cheaper.

It's been a really interesting journey for me as well - the community has taught me heaps! Yesterday I got the opportunity to talk to some cool people at Unity and learnt even more about how to get better performance out of Unity. When I have experimented more I will share what I learn back here.

I think the model that makes sense will be to take a plugin based approach. People who want additional capability will have the ability to get it via a plugin, probably through the GX system.

On top of that I may also offer a premium content, support and training package for the larger entities.

It's all at conceptual stage at the moment - the next big focus is multi - tile support

 

Cool news - we can now push content to our xbox one's - cant wait to generate some nice Gaia environments and make some games for my kids to play with!!

 

I would much rather go with the plugin concept. You have a solid core now (well, obviously still some things to do, but damn solid as is). I would definiteley be happier with a plugin concept. This is much more in line with the idea that if its worth it to the individual they will of course pay for it if they can.

 

Totally agree on the plugin based approach. One thing I would probably do is make the current version Gaia Pro and make the multi-tile support a GX plug-in which would be included with Pro since multi-tile support has been talked about since the beginning. Then create a Gaia Base version which includes the current version of Gaia at the current price, raise the price of Gaia Pro, and later when you have the multi-tile plugin done and ready to release, offer an upgrade option to Gaia Pro.

They always say hind sight is 20/20. Looking back and looking at all of the work involved in development, multi-tile as an addon would have probably been a little better as not everyone needs/wants it, but well worth purchasing as an addon if you do.

If you would want to do something like that, maybe make an announcement of the change and give people sitting on the fence a final chance to buy in with multi-tile support at the current price before making the change. An easier way would be to give people who have invoices prior to the date of change vouchers for the multi-tile addon once released, but you'd have to work some special deal with Unity Asset Store folks since they normally limit number of vouchers publishers can give out per asset.

 

View of the inlet..

 

I'm in @Mark_01's boat (well a similar one anyway)

Sub would leave me out' I just don't see the point and can't afford to be paying on going fees for stuff I'm not making money from, for learners and hobbist's subs are just money sinks, I took a sub in the Substance kit because it was pay till it's covered NOT for ever

Nice to see you here @Mark_01 your NOT alone mate

 

Lets be clear here - it was me that mentioned a subscription model, without giving enough detail, because I was interested in all ideas that can add content/save time and provide Adam an income.

At no point did I ever see any indication from him that he took the idea seriously, or was 'threatening' to impose this model on users. It was me that brought it up and everything everyone else has said, including Adam, does not point in this direction at all.

Anyway I'm too short on time right now to expand in great detail on what I meant, but I was thinking about more about Patreon at the time than the likes of Autodesk, and in my idea the subscription would be for extra layers of content, training etc, not for the base Gaia software.

 

That'll teach ya not to share your ideas.

 

People will just have to subscribe to me in order to hear my ideas in future

 

I love those shirts and have a friend that regularly wore them in real life till they got too old to wear. Bare in mind he's not in Hawaii. He's half scandanavian and lives in the uk

 

You want to really. Just go for it. By the way. I still really like the look of your project. Still looking fun!

 

I double checked and you are right.

Here I have to disagree because in response to your suggestion he stated the following:

"The asset store is actively working on supporting other business models as well. I am looking forward to this when it happens."

EDIT: Although if that's not what he meant then I apologize. That's just the way I read it first time.

 

Thanks. Being that this character is my in-game alter-ego, I do wear them all the time. My closet is sadly lacking any similar shirts though.

Feeding into the "fun" factor, I chose that look to get away from the standard chain-mail, tactical gear, or sci-fi inspired body armor seen in so many other games. I'm going for a kind of whimsical modern fantasy world, with some great visual spectacles, and occasional obstacles and challenges to overcome, but that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Gaia has been perfect for enhancing the visual side, and I can't wait to turn it loose on a few of the other levels.

 

Hi @AdamGoodrich:

I would like to use Gaia with the Low Poly Terrain Asset to create a faceted terrain. It requires a colormap. How can I create a colormap from a created Gaia terrain with textures or from the heightmap.

 

Gaia has the ability to export a splatmap as a texture. Not sure if that is what you need.

 

***A New Season is Coming***
***A New Game fully featured on Unity5 / Gaia***
***Celtic & Vikings are going to resuscitate***
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***In***


"Gotland: the island of nowhere"









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***Merry April fool***​

 

You got me..and it isn't even April Fools day here yet. lol

 

Lovely

 

The colormap is slightly different as follows - "The colormap is basically just a map similiar to the splatmap just with different colors depending on the height of the terrain"

 

I dont have this capability currently, but it doesnt particularly difficult to do. Will add it to the list for next release.

 

This is bit of an oooold bring back. But if any of you are using Bitmap 2 Material to just convert your diffuse maps to make other maps, etc. this workflow is great. It helped me clean up the desert textures I was playing with a lot. Especially to get the right normals, ao, and height maps.

He also of course covers doing some substances with that (i haven't used designer in a while so I got a little lost following his stuff, need to reteach myself designer haha)

http://philwinkel.com/2015/05/23/bitmap2material-pbr-workflow/

 

Thanks for the link, Had a good read, Substances are something I haven't had a chance to look into, but basically Bitmap2Material is $20 a month or round $100 outright I see. I'll have to put that on the possible list for later at this stage and try a bit harder with the free tools. But good to learn more about the elements that make for a PBR lit surface. I'm still working like it's 1999 i think

 

Showing your age

 

I think they do some kind of pay what you want deal as a monthly sub thing. I bought it on steam in a indie pack on sale. Painter, Designer, B2M. Found myself using B2M (and not recently) Designer most. Painter is beyond my abilities at this time. haha

 

Last time I looked the deal with Substance stuff was more 'pay in instalments' than a never-ending pay subscription.

 

Hi, I had a mishap with my terrain, I accidentally pressed flatten. I reinstated the terrain. However, now when I try to spawn objects onto the terrain there are no longer many instances and the objects are no longer dispersed throughout the landscape, they are now confined to a weird cross shape through the middle. See below. Any idea what I need to do to fix this. The scanner no longer lets me stamp a new map either.

 

Bummer about your terrain! Not sure how you are managing the scene - but you can easily get the terrain back and all the spawners by deleting the terrain and then pressing play on your session in the session manager.

I have never seen that pattern before - almost looks like you are using some sort of mask. Easiest way to get things going again is to delete the spawners and re-add them, or as per previous comment if you still have your original session then this is easy enough to do - just step through each step and press play.

If you are still getting weirdness take a look at your layers - are they set up properly ?

Finally - use your visualiser to see how Gaia interprets the terrain - this should show off any weirdness.

 

I have figured out what's going on. Virgin terrain was checked on all objects. D'oh. Thanks for the suggestions. I really love your tool!

 

Yeah. Just looked. They seemed to have changed it. They used to let you pay what you wanted. Looks like now they do a 20 min monthly for a rent to own method. Still a cool idea I think.

 

Just wanted to follow up...My add on for Gaia was accepted to the Asset Store
You can find more info here: Forum Thread

 

In my game I use trees that can be chopped down and therefore a split into 2 parts, the stump and the rest, that come apart when cut down. I use speedTree, but both parts are inside a parent GameObject.

Can I populate these parent GameObject trees onto the Gaia terrains procedurally as if they were any other tree?

 

As long as your prefab trees work with standard Unity terrains (ie. you can add them as terrain trees and paint or mass place them on the terrain), they should work with Gaia. Just add them to your terrain tree section the way you normally would, and then go to the Gaia Resources file you'll be using. You should see a button down near the bottom to get resources from your terrain. This will bring any textures, trees, and detail objects from the terrain into the Resources file to be used by Gaia.

I had problems earlier using tree prefabs that I'd created. I could place them manually, but Gaia only planted empty colliders where the trees should have been. Turned out that when I tried painting them on the terrain using the native terrain tree brush they didn't work either, so it was a Unity terrain issue, not a Gaia issue. Not all tree prefabs are created equal it seems.

 

Can't he place them via "game object" stamper?

 

Sure, you always have that option. But if you want them to behave like trees, and be affected by wind for instance, they should really be placed as trees. I've tried placing tree prefabs as objects instead and they just look... static. One of the reasons I use terrains is to give the trees and grass life, without having to animate them all myself. Unity terrains take care of applying and adjusting wind animation on all trees in the scene according to the wind zone parameters you set. Try doing that with a dozen or more individual animated tree models. Of course if you're OK with doing that, or don't care if the trees move, then placing them as objects will get the job done. If you want to fully utilize the terrain's built in tree features though, you need to use trees that are designed to to work with it.

 

Yeah that is true. Though he could use AFS on them to give them some wind and life and batching if need be as well.

 

Yeah, I cannot place them with the Unity tree terrain tool because my parent object "couldn't be instanced because the prefab contains no valid mesh renderer."

Thanks for letting me know.

 

hi dears
i make my terrain and build for android platform but terrain's textures show :

help me please my friends
tnx a lot

 

Well you can always fall back to using object placement as @wolfen231 mentioned. If you do, you might want to check out the Advanced Foliage Shader he mentioned as well. It should allow you to apply wind effects to tree objects that exist outside of the terrain engine: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3253

Another product that might help is the Trees Manager System. It's supposed to work with normal terrain trees and allow you to interact with them (ie. chop them down). Since it uses standard tree prefabs that only have an additional script attached, it should allow you to create choppable trees that work with the terrain system: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/43129

Good luck.

 

I haven't used AFS since Unity 4. But yeah, it could be a little tricky with the wind. To really get what you wanted you have to get proper vert colors going on them. I would just go into max and select with soft selection on all the outer edges of the trees and then paint them the right color so its strength was less as it got closer to the center of the tree. But these were all purchased assets. If I was designing the tree from the begining I would have planned that out much better haha.

 

SpeedTrees also work as trees and are affected by wind outside of terrain tree placement.

 

Cool. I guess that's why I keep coming here - to learn things. Now does anyone have experience using SpeedTrees with the Trees Manager System? Can you attach the TMS script to a SpeedTree prefab, and is the modified prefab still compatible with the terrain tree planting system? They don't say on the TMS Asset Store page, so I'm kinda curious. SpeedTrees are different enough from the old "standard" Unity trees they might not work the same with some 3rd party tools.

 

TMS works great with Speedtrees. I haven't tried attaching a script before using Gaia's planting system but I see no reason why it would not work. Your other option is to attach the script after to a prefabs. I always work with all my tree prefabs in a file, where I can adjust color, textures, scripts, etc., after the Speedtrees are placed and apply those changes.