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

Hmm... looks to me like its doing what its supposed to there... i.e. the trees are being spawned and constrained to the spawner bounds in red...

Feel free to get my via Skype and we can do a quick session to see whats going on. I will drop you a PM with my skype address.

 

Very cool - check this review of Gaia by IGDSunshineMag - thanks Guys !!

http://igdsunshinemag.com/Mag/gaia-unity-asset-full-review/

 

PBR Graveyard Pack 1.3 is compatible with Gaia? Nice, just got that. But are tomb stones placed?

 

You'll probably want to setup a POI to spawn them in a graveyard, but yeah... It is just models. You can spawn any item that is a gameobject with Gaia. It doesn't discriminate..

Adam made a video on creating POIs. Just watch it under the Tutorials menu option of Gaia's section of the Procedural Worlds website. A POI will allow the individual tombstones to conform to your terrain. You could also spawn the graveyard as a single game object but the problem then is you would have tombstones floating in the air. A POI is definitely the way to go. It will then spawn like the farm's and village's that are in the Gaia samples. Those are examples of POIs.

 

Yep - POI or Point Of Interest - is a set of prefabs that can be spawned as a group and uses all of the power of the Gaia spawning system to not only choose where they are placed, but also make sure all the pieces are placed correctly.

Saves hours and hours of time.

 

The tool looks awesome but I was wondering if you had an ETA on the next release/product that includes multi-tile support?

 

I managed to make a new & totally different Video finally, just posting it on a new Reply in the Gaia's Forum;

 

I have 2 new assets that are in last stages of dev / testing. As soon as they are out (the next week or so) I will be focusing again on next Gaia release.

I have no eta for multi tile release yet - people will just get angry if i miss it - it will be out when it is at the quality level it needs to be

 

Snippets of things to come... these images come from the new asset working in conjunction with Gaia...





Very high level of control over where and how things spawn - grass spawned with a cog shape - within a ring of rocks - within a ring of bamboo.



If you look closely you will see trees being spawned on meshes - the new system will work as happily on single or multi tile terrains as it will on light weight mesh based environments ie mobile & vr games



One of the significantly cool aspects of the new system is the ability to simulate the effects of gravity to create very natural debris fields.

NOTE: These are not 'marketing shots' - just WIP's as the capability is being tested

 

Morning all,

Before I start, just like to say I've been using Gaia for a while now and it's a joy to work with you've done a fantastic job.

I have a quick question which I know isn't strictly Gaia related, but as you're such a lovely bunch I'm sure you won't mind me asking.

I've built a prototype for a game I'm working on, and I've used Gaia and the standard assets used in the tutorials in the documentation, all is good, however when I come to do a build to share, for some reason the terrain textures are missing. I've struggled to find much help as to why this could be, I know this is more of a Unity question, but could you point me in the right direction, I'm sure it must be something simple.

Thanks in advance!

Andy

 

Hey Andy

I have never seen this before. If the asset is referenced in the scene it will be automatically included in the build.

The only time i have seen different is when the asset is procedurally placed at runtime. To handle that, you need to stick the asset (eg texture, model etc) into the resources folder.

Here is a link to some unity documentation on it: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Resources.html

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Hello Andy I had something similar when using 5.4.01b, where the textures were disappearing both in the preview and stamping window, as well at runtime.

I have reverted back to 5.3 for the time being until, the next version of Gaia is out.

 

Hmmm... ok i know what you are talking about...

This was a bug with Unity 5.4 beta, and perhaps some versions of 5.3... I reported this to Unity and it was one of the last bugs they fixed before the 5.4 release.

It was caused by terrain mip maps not being regenerated properly and was fixed and I have tested it working fine in the released version of Unity 5.4.

If you take a look here - and are getting similar issues - then just upgrade to latest unity version : http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/weird-editor-terrain-glitch-5-4-0f1.416047/

 

Quite right that was the exact problem. I'll just download the 5.4 official version then.

Looking forward to Pegasus. I see you are going for the Grecian white Pegasus, instead of the new Holywood black version. Well done.

 

Thanks for your help chaps, very much appreciated!

Ill give this a try when I get home this evening.

Thanks again,

Andy

 

Hello lurkers.. I know your there

Sorry things have been a bit quiet - i have been super busy on lots of things.

For today's goodness here is a interesting article on level design : http://80.lv/articles/how-to-build-good-levels-for-games/

My plan is to bring a bunch of these articles together over time to share the knowledge.

 

And here is today's snippet of things to come... high fidelity image based masking in the new product I am developing

You will be able to use an image in which different colours can be used to represent different objects, and then spawn them as a cohesive whole, rotated in any way you want.

In the image below the same mask was used to spawn the trees as was used to spawn the rocks at the bottom left hand side of the screen.

NOTE: It will work as well on a mesh as it will on a terrain - and this opens up many additional possibilities for mobile and vr based scene generation.

 

Coming along nicely

 

Seriously wish you had released this 4 months ago when I was needing it for current game. Would have saved a load of time.

 

Hi Adam. Just wanted to say thanks for all the educational articles and stuff that you have posted. Every day i check out this thread and not for only product updates, but for additional education value. Many great things are being shared here.

 

Thanks for your help the other day, for some reason it was just the one scene which was causing a problem, everything else was fine.

Anyway, here is the result:

 

Hi, this is my first post so please excuse my ignorance. I've literally just started with Unity. I'm a programmer, not a designer, so I'm looking for tools such as yours to help get my project started.

I want to build multiple terrains for an ARPG, but I have specific maps I'd like to use - i.e. I'd like to "draw" accurately where the grass, trees, rocks, water and roads spawn. I'd then like the magic to happen, populating these areas correctly. I'd like to designate certain areas as flat/sparsely populated so that I can build towns/buildings there.

I haven't even thought about how to control or specify terrain height yet! I'll also need to create natural boundaries to limit movement in some areas.

Am I wishing for the impossible, or is GAIA capable of doing (some of) this? Or perhaps your new product mentioned above?

Any advice, however brief, would be very much appreciated. I expect I sound pretty clueless, but I have to start somewhere and will revise my expectations as needed.

 

Nice, would be even better if tracks appeared on the ground when the buggy goes across sand. Not sure how you would do it though.

 

Looks like fun !!

Glad you are enjoying... feedback like this is an awesome motivator for me

Yep Gaia supports image based masks, which can be used to control where things are placed.

One of the strengths of Gaia is the stamping system.. you have full control over the terrain you create.

You can see a whole bunch of video's on how Gaia works here : http://www.procedural-worlds.com/gaia/tutorials/

 

Todays article on level design comes from Witcher 3:

Senior environment artist Michał Janiszewski from CD PROJEKT RED discussed the main ideas, which guided him during the production of virtual spaces for ‘Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’ and ‘Witcher 3: Blood and Wine’. He talked about world building, references, virtual city planning and other aspects of environment design.

http://80.lv/articles/world-building-of-witcher-3/

Enjoy

 

Alloy Shader and Shader Forge and Beautify are on sale in the Unity Asset store. Between Alloy Shader and Shader Forge which one would anyone recommend? I realize this may not have anything to do with a terrain -- just asking because I trust the artistic eyes here. Thanks. I think Beautify would fit more with Gaia than the others.

 

I've never used Alloy or Shader Forge, but I know @Thrawn75 the developer of Beautify. I couldn't believe the changes to my scenes. I love it.

 

That's an instabuy then as we say at toucharcade about games. : ) Thanks.

 

I think they are all quality products

 

Like Gaia--

They're all on my wish list so now---I have to decide which ones to buy. I think Alloy and ShaderForge might be in competition with each other. Beautify is a slam dunk.

 

This is my personal preference.
I dont think that these two products are in competition. One is a set of shaders and another is a tool that let's you build your own custom shaders. It all comes down to your project and needs. I own both but have not used ShaderForge yet.
Alloy on the other hand, i am using it all the time and will probably never going to go back to Unity standard shader.

 

Thanks! I was thinking the same actually, although I haven't spent much time thinking too hard about graphics and effects just yet, more on how the vehicle feels to control.

@AdamGoodrich Thanks!

 

Just purchased Alien Sky asset and played around with some detail spawning

 

I understand it isn't officially supported yet, but as anyone attempted to use Gaia with multi tiling terrain? If so, what was your work flow?

Right now I can see making a terrain in a separate scene and then bringing it into a "main" scene to work on stitching, but I wonder if there might be a better way.

 

Just disable the terrain in the inspector before you create your new one. Gaia will work on the terrain that is enabled. I think that was the workaround Adam told us about after release.

 

That sounds so much easier, I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

 

It's so easy, that when I did it, I sat there shaking my head for 10 minutes at my own inability to figure it out.

Regarding the work flow question, this is something I'm curious about as well. For instance my entire world will be about 20km/2. Now as I create my project plan I am wondering:

1. Should I create a 20km/2 terrain, and use the default spawn settings for trees, objects and details to do 2km/2 terrain at a time.

Or

2. Should I create 20 x 2km/2 terrains and stitch them together when multi tiled terrain functionality is added?

3. Is there another way to approach this terrain example that I have not considered?

 

hi @TheSeawolf

Isn't there a optimal terrain size that runs no slower when smaller but fastest of all. I thoguht it was around 2048 but may be wrong. Can't remember where I read this now.

Also does terrain act like a mesh in that if any visible it is not culled and the the whole thing is calculated?

 

I've been wondering about multi tiling too, how would one go about matching up the heights of the tiles at the edges?

 

Hi @drmanhattan,

For a more straight forward approach have a look at these:

I can totally recommend this - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42671. Made to do just that and is cheap but great quality. I also recommend this by the same dev https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/44037, and his world streamer product is fantastic. Top dev. Not affiliated but had dealings with him in a beta group and some support questions. He's been top notch.

 

@drmanhattan , I fully concur with docsavage, these products are very easy to use, and quite affordable too.

Actually, they are very clearly integrated into the Window Toolbar dropdown, and very easy to use. Actually they are so well integrated that I can't help but consider is there any need for Adam to reinvent the wheel, as opposed to integrating an extension if both asset creators can come to an agreement?

@docsavage , regarding your first point, that is exactly what I thought, and I can't remember which post this was mentioned in either Regarding your second point, I think this is right too. I'm testing my point one now.

 

I talk to the author of both of those products quite regularly - will investigate what is required to integrate them

 

Very interesting...very interesting indeed

 

Hi all. Just wondering if there is any way to convert terrain trees (Speedtrees) spawned by Gaia to GameObjects?

The reason for asking is I would like to run scripts on some trees for interaction, and trees that will be non-reachable areas I'd prefer not to have colliders. I know Gaia can spawn GameObjects but the Tree spawner appears to have different Spawn Criteria settings (more suitable for trees) ? Thanks

 

@AdamGoodrich @TheSeawolf @docsavage thanks for the tip! Investigating now!

As an aside, this is a wonderfully helpful thread.

 

Thought I'd have a relax day. Been doing a small test with Skymaster 3.4beta with volumetric lighting and fog. Used the default settings but altered the color a bit. Think I made it a bit too red. Also used ColorfulFX sharp image effect. HBAO trail version (will definitely be gettig this for next project). Scene made with gaia and the excellent exterior models by cobus. Other assets are standard included in gaia samples. Time of day setting was early evening. Really like all these assets. Skymaster is really nice

 

Gaia does not give this to you by default - but i can see how it would be useful - in fact i have something i need it for right now... might knock something together

 

Wait, isn't this what Tree Manager System implements? I had intention to buy that this week.

 

I think tree manager does a lot more than that

 

@AdamGoodrich Setting up my space for prototype testing. Therefore I have an odd question for you. Is there a "record settings" button that allows me to record my terrain set up so that when I want to add in the correct trees, grasses, and objects that I can rebuild my terrain exactly as my final prototype test with those newer assets?