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

There is a free pack of substances on the asset store. It has a stone and desert sand substance (and 16 others like metal and cloth) - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/1352

There is the free substance terrain tool but not sure if it works with Unity 5 - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/2179

At worst I think you can just export the textures and maps if you have substance designer? Not sure if you can use substances on Unity 5 terrain but haven't messed with it in a while.

 

last time i tried generated textures by substance are not assignable to a terrain, there is a tool https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/2179 but it seems not working very well too

Im eager to see gaia editor in screenshot or video, will it be possible soon ?

 

From what i can see its not working with Unity 5.

I will do an introductory video when I launch - you will be able to see it in action and decide for yourself if the work flow works for you. There is not a great deal of point at the moment as the user interface is still in a state of flux.

 

They can be quite large. The big space consumers are textures. The more i pack in the larger it gets.

 

Regarding the terrain textures... Agree. Terrain Composer has been sent off on a bench. Now, it is time to drop the Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) off the throne
GO Adam, GO...

 

Sorry, I deleted that right after posting it ... you must have x-ray eyes! ... I thought its a bit cheeky for 1st release.

It certainly will make scenes more realistic, so glad your x-ray eyes found it and you decided to push it in. Or maybe I just have a direct link into your sub-concious ... gonna put all sorts of tools in there now!

 

Yup.

The learning curve with beta 4 has been on the same par as the other releases, and once you understand the mechanics of how Gaia works, a lot of your time after the initial setup is something like this...

*click to set Gaia on it's merry way processing what you've told it to do*

*spend 15 minutes running around the resulting terrain gawking at what's there and get the occasional surprise as you spot some details that you know would take you a lot longer to recreate manually*

*tweak a setting or two, just to see what happens*

Go back to the first action

 

This image here is a case in point from what I mentioned before

As I was checking out something else in Gaia, I came across this and my mind immediately thought of "this would make a good location to put in a fishing village"



If I tried to create something like this by myself then I'd never get it to look like this - I'm the first to admit that my artistic skills aren't that great (but thankfully I know when I've got something that looks 'right' )

 

wow some great screenshots here!

 

Is Gaia going to work along side RTP or will it have features that replace the need for RTP?
Also have you tested with Advanced Foliage Shader?

How does Gaia support stitching together terrains and handling massive terrains?

Thanks

 

Played around with some SpeedTree ground cover. Removed the colliders and instantiated as trees. Look n works great!

 

All the screen shots here are vanilla unity terrain - so having RTP is not necessary to use it - however RTP does have some great features, and they will happily co-exist.

No - but again its vanilla unity terrain - so if AFS works with that then it will work with this.

Taking other terrains and stitching them together - no and not planned.

Working right now : One of the beta group is testing with very large terrain tiles - and so far 10k x 10k has worked fine. I believe he is planning to test 25k x 25k as well.

Working with massive tiled terrains generated by Gaia and stitching them together - yes (planned).

 

Off-topic, but did you find it easy to remove coliders from the speedtree prefabs for trees and ground cover? I only need a single capsule on trees and nothing at all on ground cover.

 

Yeap - it turned out to be surprisingly easy - drag a speed tree prefab into your terrain - remove the colliders - then save that instance as a new prefab.

You can now use the new prefab in any way you want.

 

Looking so awesomely beautiful.

 

I always use prefab Speedtrees on my terrains. As a result, once I forgot to remove the colliders before placing them with Gaia and then was able to remove them in the prefab and apply it to all the trees on the terrain. It worked well. So...just in case you are like me and forget...that is another option.

 

Just saw this thread after returning to Unity and I have two words: Dayum son! My god this looks amazing. I've not read through all of the posts but may I ask when this will be released (if it hasn't already lol)

 

@georetro it's coming out soon. Amazing.

 

@Whippets Ahh great thanks I was a bit confused because some people had tagged a different Asset within the store! Thanks for clearing it up

 

One of the things I like in the latest beta has to be the spawning of gameobjects across the terrain (randomly placed rocks, etc. to create extra points of interest) and then come across a view like this where randomly placed rocks (textured the same as the cliff texture used on the terrain) create interesting formations, as well as a rock overhang

 

Another Screenshot from Gaia.

 

Looks like a nice tranquil place to relax, but I think I've mislaid my sunglasses lol

 

don't seen sun often in the UK so why not enjoy it here

 

Here are a few shots from the terrain I did tonight.. Computer not the greatest, so this is what a terrain at the lowest settings out of Gaia can look like.. Also this is straight terrain.. No camera effects and using only standard unity shader.. No triplanar or anything fancy.. Everything in the scene was spawned by Gaia..

 

is there a way to do roads with simple texture masking?

 

Not really sure what you are asking

 

i will take terrain composer as an example ( sorry) you can use an image as a color mask where you draw on photoshop a white trail over a black background to make your road, then in editor you just set it to paint road texture on the white color.

how user are supposed to "paint" roads in gaia?

 

In the first release roads will not be supported - so you will need to paint them on the terrain the old fashioned way.

I have a bunch of ideas for roads and rivers for subsequent releases - changing not only the texture - but the underlying terrain as well.

However, even then, it is not my intention to be a roads tool as there are already some very sophisticated roads assets in the store.

 

A river/stream and paths tool would be great. Especially if it works in a different way to the huge easyroads.
A tool that is capable of following contours in a realistic way, as rivers and streams would in the real world is definitely something I'd like to see. Paths the same. People build paths to follow the easiest route, not necesarily the most direct route - zig-zagging to climb steeper areas, and meandering to ensure the easiest flow or walkable route.

 

There may not be anything spectacular to look at, but this would have taken Shawn all of a couple of mouse clicks to generate once Gaia is configured (and the out-of-the-box defaults we've got in the beta provide some stunning results).

The spectacular thing here is that you can go from nothing to something that is a perfectly workable environment with only a few clicks - something that if you were to try and recreate manually would take you a number of hours.

 

What I love is that @Shawn67 is doing his own thing and improving and enjoying it. What else is there ?

 

Well I like what shawn is doing as well as everyone else here using Adams asset.
Terrain to be honest is a pita. I hate doing them and when I do they always come out worst then what a 3 year old can do with crayons.
So far all these pics people have been posting are incredible and if I can only achieve part of what they have been doing, I'll be jumping for joy and screaming from the mountain top.
So get moving adam! Lol

 

@Shawn67 Hmm.... I recognise the costume on your character there. Been playing with Mixamo Fuse like me?

 

That still looks better than anything I've been able to make manually or even with the help of TC.

 

@closetgeekshow You hit the nail on the head
Heavy lifting >> What takes hours and days to do manually, Gaia will do in minutes for you.

Delivering you a use as is or go in and and add some props and smaller details that polishes your project further.
It is not a "Make game Button" , but it is an extremely effective " Make great looking environment " button

 

Man, I so want that "Make MMO" button

 

Sorry that my work isn't up to your high standards. To me the shots are spectacular because after two weeks fighting with terrain composer, I wasn't even able to get a terrain layout that I was happy with. While at a point in my life I was able to really deal with the tech stuff and could have picked up and retained information to successfully use TC (and don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking TC, it is a great product for those who can learn it), at this point in my life health issues have effected my ability to retain information and learn information. With Gaia, I was not only able to create a terrain that I was happy with the layout within a couple of hours (which again, is a bit slower than everyone else in beta who are able to learn and retain info quicker), but I was also able to spawn houses, trees, rocks, and grasses within a couple more hours.. Everything in them was done using tools from Gaia. Again, they don't have extra stuff not doable with Gaia in them. No extra camera effects, shaders, or any of the other things that would add polish on top of the generic stuff. But all of that stuff can still be done. They were just posted to show the basics of what Gaia can do straight out of the box in a couple of hours (or less time if you are dealing with an impairment).. So that, is what is spectacular about the screenshots.

Yup.. Wanted to do something different. So I threw him together. He is a bit too pale. I ended up making a different version of him with more of a tan but haven't replaced him in my Unity project yet.

 

An 'okay looking environment' button in minutes to hours instead of hours to days is all I've ever really wanted. I'm a hobbyist working by myself for fun, I've quickly lost motivation when working with TC or manually making terrain.

I want to toy around with scripting assets and my dumb ideas, not wrestle with complex tools for weeks and still have something I'm kind of embarrassed to show in public.

 

@closetgeekshow then you going to love this

 

Even views from up high can be great

 

Wow.. the level of censorship on this forum is amazing.

@Shawn67 , I was expected other answer, you show me result of a "few clicks". And I've asked before, what's the level of control for generating the terrain, a few screenshots with tool actually will clarify some doubts much more that results.

 

That's for @AdamGoodrich to show and he's said that he'll show this when he's ready to release. The beta testers have all agreed not to steal the spotlight from Adam but just to show what can be achieved relatively quickly

 

Sorry.. It is beta.. We are limited to showing the results atm, not the tool functionality itself. Unfortunately can't reveal that stuff until after release..

 

Then is very hard for me to make a realistic opinion about it. And maybe for others too.

PS. I've said from about 2 months I will buy this. Better show Adam what screenshots you want to show, because may not reflect the real value for this.

 

So you should wait with your opinion till it's released. It's just that simple

 

Yeah, waiting to buy this for 2 months...

 

I am working hard to have this ready for submission to the asset store by the end of the month.

One of the challenges of doing something that's quite complex is to make it simple enough to be usable.

The feedback from the beta is that it is difficult to understand how the Spawner views the underlying terrain, and my response is to try and improve this.

The screen below is a visualisation tool that I am working on that should hopefully make this easier. It shows how a particular grass views the terrain. The movement from green to red shows steadily less acceptable terrain with the green spheres being locations that this grass would like and grow in, and and the red areas that it doesn't like, and would not grow in.

You can see from this image that this grass is not configured correctly because it would grow down the beach and into the water.



The purpose of the beta is to find and address issues like this, and I hope that the time I am investing now in testing and working on the usability of Gaia will make your experience a better one.

Not long to go now and thanks very much for your patience

 

This is what I wanted to see. This screenshot explain me everything, and I am ready to buy this now. If that tell you anything

You see, I try to don't hurt your beta testers, but they should let aside a bit of ego. I try to be realistic, and I will stop here, because I got miss understood.

 

Take your time mate. It looks very promising. It's better to wait 1 or 2 months more and get a tool which is easy to use than spend 12 months to learn a tool usage.

 

Yeah you should stop. Criticising users isn't valid feedback. They're happy. It's not ego.

Gaia is a brilliant tool and ideal for anyone struggling with terrain authoring for larger worlds. I recommend anyone who has a headache making terrains check it out.