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

This maybe a silly question but can you make the terrain bigger?

 

I haven't looked at it in a while, but I'm pretty sure you can put in your default terrain size settings in the GaiaDefaults data resource within the Gaia/Data folder. This would only effect new terrains created by Gaia. I don't think you can resize after it has been created though. I could be wrong, but not something I've ever been able to do successfully.

 

Ahh ok sweet i will take a look thanks

 

You can place any prefab you want via Game Object spawners.

I have no idea what is going on here. Not even sure where to start with so little information.

 

Terrain resizing is not something that Gaia supports. There are other assets in the store that do this but I have never used them so I can not comment on how well they work.

 

Is there a way to take ALL textures off a landscape, to restart, I think I'm messing up by correcting to many times and I'm getting black and white patch's all over the terrain, eg; I change the terrain a bit to allow for something I'm building and re run the coverage spawner. I what I'd like to do is clean off all textures to rerun the spawner

 

You could try removing them from the terrain object. When the spawner runs it should re-add them.

 

Is there a maximum terrain size (or a practical maximum), that can be set in GaiaDefaults in the current release? Will all the spawners and stamps function as expected at that size?

I'm inquiring as to the maximum size without carving and spawning in sections and reassembling sectors.

 

I haven't tried making a larger terrain, but I know you can scale the spawners. You can set their size by changing the range on each spawner object.

 

Hi @wood333.. For me personally, I would say a practical maximum is probably 1024x1024. Even at the default of 2048x2048, you will probably have to do a lot of optimizations to get it to be practical in a game. I guess realistically, that is going to be true of any size though. All of the terrains I work with and test my terrain stamp packs with are 2048x2048. My planned tile sizes for my game will be either 512 or 1024 using something like Sectr Stream to stream neighboring tiles.

With that said, in the tutorial (which yeah, I know I need to get back to ) that I started, the terrain I created there is 32kx32k and I'm able to create that terrain with Gaia and stamp my smaller tiles into with no problem. I would never ever dream of trying to run spawners on something that large. My plan, once I finish stamping, is to slice the terrain into smaller tiles and then setup and run the spawners on the individual slices. This will be coming up in probably part 3 of the tutorial series.. Once I can get things lined out with my schedule, I'd like to make that a weekly series. That was the original plan until my schedule fell to hell in a handbasket, so to speak.. lol

Bottom line is, the main consideration when deciding on tile size is going to be your target platform and audience. What type of hardware or devices are they going to be using which may limit performance. Then you have to keep in mind that everything you put into the scene will in some way need to be optimized. Occlusion culling, billboarding, LODs, etc. All of these are considerations you will still have to look into. So it really isn't a question of what is the maximum you can do with Gaia, it is more a question of what is the maximum you can do and optimize well enough for your target platform / audience. Whatever that limitation is, I'm willing to be Gaia isn't going to have a problem with it. You will be limited by those two factors before you are limited by Gaia.

Hope that helps..

 

Thank you @Shawn67 and @wolfen231,

I have a demo terrain prepared by others that is 4096 x 4096. I don't need to stamp it, but I may attempt to re-texture and replant it to upgrade the look. Thanks for the tips.

 

In that case, it mainly just depends on your computer. Gaia itself wont have problems with that terrain, but the default number of stuff it spawns may cause your computer to lag in play mode until you optimize things.

 

Hi, everyone.
Sorry I won't post an awesome screenshot like you guys usually do I'm having a weid issue. When I use the sample ressources shipped with Gaia, I manage to make some relatively good things but when I start using my own textures, weird things happen. I followed the video tutorial step by step and no matter what I do I always get the horrible shadows seen on the screenshot below.
I tried the camera FX that come with the update to see if wasn't a lighting problem, but it does the same.
The example below is just a quick stamp without the rules for spawning set up or trees or grass. I didn't use Distingo in this one, but I did a few tries back and the effect looks basically the same.
The textures are from GameTextures.com (textures made from substances via Substance player).
Any one know why this happens?
Thank you

 

I have never see this. Suggest you try out a different cliff texture - maybe something is set incorrectly in your textures.

 

Is this in "play" mode or in "scene view"?

I get this in scene view often, but in play mode it's gone.

As Adam suggested. This looks like it might be the normal map not marked as such. Check the normal map texture properties in the inspector, make sure its set as normal map.

 

I "fixed" it. You were right. Something was wrong with the normal map. I made a new one using photoshop and it looks good now. Maybe Substance player export bug or something. Thanks Will come back soonish with true screenshots!

 

Just a sign I have dinked around with textures too much haha.

 

Hi Adam!

Im wanting to use Gaia on a terrain that, was created with Gaia, I did some manual work.. did some more Gaia, moved terrain out of Gaia folder, Deleted Gaia.. workd some more, then decided to put Gaia back and use it for textureing (I was going to to that by hand.
However, how do I do that? I dont want to exactly add another terrain...
OK but I did.. I tried that, deleted the new terrain and dragged my own one back into the Gaia folder, but now when I press texture spawner, nothing happens, infact I get errors..
Now I now this is probably something to do with the defaults, but Im a bit unclear about how to get to them to change them (and hence RE-select my terrain???)
FYI here some errors Ive been getting


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
Gaia.Spawner+<RunAreaSpawnerIteration>c__Iterator7.MoveNext () (at /Users/markfrancombe/Documents/A Place to just be/Assets/Gaia/Scripts/SpawningSystem/Spawner.cs:985)
Gaia.Spawner.EditorUpdate () (at /Users/markfrancombe/Documents/A Place to just be/Assets/Gaia/Scripts/SpawningSystem/Spawner.cs:347)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication.Internal_CallUpdateFunctions () (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/editor/EditorApplicationBindings.gen.cs:270)

KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary.
System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.Int32,System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Gaia.HeightMap]].get_Item (Int32 key) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono-runtime-and-classlibs/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/Dictionary.cs:150)
Gaia.Spawner.CheckLocation (Vector3 locationWU, Gaia.SpawnInfo& spawnInfo) (at /Users/markfrancombe/Documents/A Place to just be/Assets/Gaia/Scripts/SpawningSystem/Spawner.cs:1623)
Gaia.Spawner+<RunAreaSpawnerIteration>c__Iterator7.MoveNext () (at /Users/markfrancombe/Documents/A Place to just be/Assets/Gaia/Scripts/SpawningSystem/Spawner.cs:893)
Gaia.Spawner.EditorUpdate () (at /Users/markfrancombe/Documents/A Place to just be/Assets/Gaia/Scripts/SpawningSystem/Spawner.cs:347)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication.Internal_CallUpdateFunctions () (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/editor/EditorApplicationBindings.gen.cs:270)

 

Hi Mark,

Sounds rather convoluted.

I am assuming you are using the latest 1.5.3 release.

If you want to texture an existing terrain you need to make sure your resources are in sync with your terrain textures.

To to this either duplicate the default resources file, and then select get resources from terrain on the new one - or create a new resource file from scratch and get from terrain. There are videos on the youtube channel that talk to resource management.

Then just add a texture spawner and away you go.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Will you ever add something that will allow the player to create terrain in runtime. So like I could setup the preset GaiaSettings and GaiaRecources which I would put the trees and what ever else and the player could go from the main menu. Pick Randomly generated terrain, the size of the map and configure chances of the stamps in ui and from there click Generate and it would spawn him in after the world has generated. Would this be possible? If so please let me know.

 

It is possible now and some people have done it, however Gaia is not optimised for this in the current release. I am currently exploring some techniques to speed Gaia up and to make it suitable for runtime in version 2.0, but no promises as yet.

 

Ok cool thanks for the quick reply!

 

Been awhile since i posted an image

This was generated with Gaia, SpeedTree Desktop Pack 1, Tenkoku, Scion, and the wide angle show was done with Flowfire Games SSAA

 

Sexy shot actually.

 

Unity 5.3.4p1, plus some of the new beta cinematic effects (which work remarkably well!), an (almost) free SKYPAX HDR Skybox - and the sampler assets the come free with Gaia - looking pretty nice

 

Hi, sorry to report bugs which are specific to Windows 10 builds... (just when you build, you can run the project in the editor no problem)

Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\HeightMap.cs(7,36): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Formatters' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Runtime.Serialization' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\Utils.cs(8,36): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Formatters' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Runtime.Serialization' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

There are more like these but follow the same patters. I know it is possible to remove the Gaia folder before compiling but that's a pain, especially when textures etc are being used within this folder structure

I've been putting in #if UNITY_EDITOR / #endif in the scripts for now to let me use it and build

(there are around 40 files which need updating sorry)

 

Hmm... a few of these did sneak into early 1.5.0 builds, but as far as I am aware there should be none of these with 1.5.3. Can you please let me know which platform / Gaia version / Unity version and I will try to replicate.

 

Unity 5.3.4f1, Gaia 1.5.3, Windows Store / Universal 10. I think a lot of publishers are going to be getting similar requests now home Xbox's can be used for game dev!

 

I will test with this and get back to you asap. Quite tedious how things arbitrarily break depending on the platform chosen.

 

Yeah no rush though as I can work ok

 

That what I been fighting for an age, I remade my textures just as Adam says, and it still there.

I was wondering if it was to do with the number of times the spawner is run, if I use Distingo or anything like that
the whole texture goesa muddy/dirty haze with that shinny ripple over it

 

Beautiful Shots Adam!! I want to run to those mountains! =)

 

You can run a spawner as many times as you like - what you are describing sounds more like issues with texture setup.

 

Yeah, its not like coats of paint in that regard. The textures are just like 1's and 0's. Something is definiteley amiss about your textures if you are seeing those kinds of things. Check their properties, check anything about the requirements for unity's textures.

Make sure normal maps do not have the use alpha from grayscale too. That one gets a lot of people.

 

I wonder if it could be tiling size. If it is too small, it gets really muddy looking on some textures.

 

Try creating a new scene and load in the terrain you have created. I've just started having lighting/ texture issues myself. Might be the Unity beta for all I know, but loading my terrain into a new scene just proved to me that it wasn't a terrain and texture issue.

 

#tip I'd try what @wolfen231 suggested. Normal maps need to be properly set up when imported into Unity or they'll look terrible. As a test, try removing the normals and AO maps from all the terrain textures you're using. You might want to remove Distingo, AND the custom Distingo terrain material, found near the top of the "Terrain Settings" tab. Also turn off "Lightmap Static" on the terrain's "Static" dropdown, and "Auto" light mapping at the bottom of the "Scene" tab in the Lighting window. Then clear any baked data. This should take you back to a fairly clean slate texture-wise. If this finally gets rid of the artifacts, start adding Normal maps and Distingo back in again, and see if the symptoms come back. Good luck.

 

Now theres a point, I been setting the tile size to round 4 to 8 on the grass's so that the stone and cloves etc don't look gigantic and the rocks for mountains at somit like 30 - 60 to kill tiling effects. The only alpha is in the diffuse map, I have NO alpha in the normal's they have been save at 2048x2048 24 bit TGA files with no alpha.

It seems the issues is with my normal's I (as FargleBargle suggested I took out the normal maps and the issue seems to just fade away

 

If you have been sitting on the fence about Gaia - check out this article in 80.lv about SpeedTree's April bonus content, and then head on over to SpeedTree to check it out!!

In addition to selling Gaia on their store, SpeedTree are now offering a Gaia Starter Pack which includes White Oak, Scotts Pine, Snakeweed, and Rough Grass models!

Very proud to be working with SpeedTree to deliver better outcomes faster for Gaia and SpeedTree customers!

 

#tip OK. That's progress. Now look at your Normal maps in the Inspector. Unity needs to be specifically told that they're "Normal" maps, as this doesn't happen automatically. By default, they will be imported as Texture Type "Texture" as shown in the left panel below:



Sometimes you'll see a warning when importing them that they aren't marked as Normal maps, and be given the option to "Fix Now". Sometimes they'll slip through though. If you try to make a material with an unfixed Normal map you'll see the warning again, as shown in the center panel, but you might not see this when using them on terrains. When you look at the map itself in the Inspector though, you can see right away if it's "fixed" or not. If the Texture Type is set to "Texture", just change it to "Normal map", leaving the "Create from Grayscale" box unchecked (unless you're using a grayscale Bump map and want Unity to convert it to a Normal map, which is "normally" a purple/blue color). Once all of your Normal maps are identified correctly they should look better when using them on your terrains.

 

Greetings, i looked at Gaia and it really looks nice, especially with the upcoming multiterrain features.

So i went and got me all the videos and as i was about to watch them, fear crept up from that dark,
cold, corner in the back of my head, fear of being disappointed, because i cannot at all afford a Unity Pro license.
That bit of information seemed to elude me, as i looked at the assetstore, the Gaia website and this thread.
(i must admit, i did not read all 106 pages)

So, just rip off the bandaid fast and painful:

Do i need Unity Pro for Gaia?

 

Hey @twentyfourseven

Normal FREE Unity Personal will do it.
Check up higher where @AdamGoodrich posted latest test shots, post
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ga...d-scene-creation.327342/page-106#post-2583149

Gaia comes a heap of sample material from different publishers to give you the best out of the box user experience as you can see evident from the many reviews.

Some of the features are the latest BETA features, but even the current normal releases, Adam has added numerous lighting and other features as part of the package

Cheers
Cobus

 

No.. I think at least half, if not more than half, of the beta testers for Gaia were using Unity Personal. I am on Unity Personal and all of my screenshots made to show off my stamps packs were taken without Unity Pro. There are some in this thread or you can look at the through my stamps pack thread (link in signature) to see screenshots done with free.. And those are straight screenshots. The only camera effects I am using are the Time of Day ones. But Adam's screens (even though he is showing that he took them with pro) shows new camera effects that come with 5.3.4.

Basically visually, there is no longer a difference between Pro and the free version (Personal). Free users get all the same stuff as far as effects. The differences the pro people get are more team related.

 

Kia ora

You are a gem my friend I have not found anything close to this for instruction for making Unity textures.
I found NON of my normal's where correct and with a wee testing I can get the same look from a 1024x1024 diffuse and 512x512 normal as I can using 2048x2048 for both. I notice too Unity does not like the 8bit greyscale occlusion maps the Knald puts out, do I need to convert them to RGB?

My process now using Knald:
Load a diffuse map (get the normal how I like) export the normal

Load that new normal
export the normal, occlusion, height, (because they'er there) concavity, convexity as 8bit tga files
Copy the height and paste into the Alpha in the diffues
resize diffuse to 1024x1024 resize the rest to 512x512 the diffues is 1024x1024 .psd the others are 512x512 8bit 24b/p tga

I'm thinking I need to convert the occlusion to RGB or RGBA so Unity will read them?

 

The unity doco is pretty sparse isnt it. I believe they will soon be putting out doco that's been written by educators, instead of what they currently have - which often is next to useless.

My approach is to google stuff and then just experiment until I get an outcome I am happy with.

 

This is interesting, I bought myself a new graphics card and power supply. GTX 960 4gb with a FSP Aurum 650W.
Anyway, I fitted them and when I run Gaia in Unity, I now get this telescope effect with black in the corners and around the edges.
Anyone struck this, before I start looking under the bonnet?

 

I'm still stuck in the stone ages with my graphics card.. But I think I recall others reporting that and someone saying it was some setting in the driver.. but for the life of me I can't think of what it was. Are you sure you don't have camera effects on? There is a photographic effect that does that and for the life of me I can grasp the name of it either.. (pretty bad seeing that I'm also a photographer).. stupid brain fog crap... lol

I would check camera effects first. If the name of the specific thing to look for hits me in a couple minutes (like they usually do), I'll post back. It could be it just wasn't being pushed through strong enough for you to notice this drastic of a difference but the new card is pulling out sharper... Vignetting... that's the word you wanna look for.. lol.. told you it would come to me. That is basically what that is called when you fade the corners of an image to a solid color. But dig through camera effects and then check driver.. that would be my route to check...

Good luck! And grats on new card.. *mumbles something as he goes back to work with his GT620 card* heheh

 

It looks to me like a hard edged vignette. Maybe that's the word you were looking for? I'm not sure what would cause it though. I don't remember anything in the 3d card settings that would do it though. Maybe it is something that you have as an image effect somewhere, that was somehow being turned off due to having lower end graphics capability, that now that you suddenly have a more capable graphics card you can suddenly display it.

 

Looks like the vignette effect. I set a nice default but Unity seems to vary this in some versions - and you may be experiencing this.

Select the FirstPersonCharacter object which is parented to the Player object - it has the camera and Post FX applied to it.

Select the Vignette Post FX object and dial it down, or disable it completely.

That will allow you to customise it to your preference.

 

Looks like the vignette effect.

Edit: Doh! Page refreshed after I posted.