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

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by AdamGoodrich, May 21, 2015.

  1. danreid70

    danreid70

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    Can I import 1.9 over an existing project that used 1.8 without any issues? (asking for a friend)... :)
     
  2. SickaGamer

    SickaGamer

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    Thanks Adam. Good stuff for a developer that isn't really good at the world creating side of things!
     
  3. magique

    magique

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    How does performance of the new water system compare to AQUAS?
     
  4. ceebeee

    ceebeee

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    I'm using Unity 2018, and I want to use the built in Postprocessing that is installed with the package manager. but Gaia keeps insisting I have to use it's bundled version. Is there a way to work around this?
     
  5. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Interesting question. I guess to answer it - we are trying to create a nice 'out of the box' solution, and if anything we were targeting Unity water rather than specialist solutions like AQUAS.

    The biggest issue we have seen with water solutions is the way they do reflections - its hugely expensive. The other issue is with the way they handle fog... they often ignore it and the end result looks terrible. Our solution addresses both performance and fog.

    Ignore these images - i forgot to turn off vsync. Look at stats a few posts down instead!

    First AQUAS - as usual it looks stunning!
    aquas.jpg

    Then AQUAS when you turn off the reflection script - way faster - but no reflections:
    aquas no reflections.jpg

    Then Gaia water - high settings (this can be set on the reflection probe):
    gaia hi.jpg

    Then Gaia water on the default settings:
    gaia default.jpg

    Our water lacks the sophistication and capability of AQUAS but is orders of magnitude faster while still giving you 'good enough' looks and reflections.

    The intention with Gaia water was to give our customers a good performant starting point for their games rather than to be a competitor to specialist products like AQUAS... and in that respect I think we nailed it.

    UGH - just realized i have VSYNC on - ignore this... will redo.
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
  6. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    I would have loved to ditch support for older versions of unity as package manager is far superior... but for now you can read the screen and just not install the PP2 part of the package.
     
    ceebeee likes this.
  7. SickaGamer

    SickaGamer

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    Any deals of Cyber Week? ;)
     
  8. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    I guess you will have to wait and see ;)
     
    SickaGamer likes this.
  9. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Hmmm - following on from my previous post, here is the performance comparison version 2 - this time with vsync off.

    AQUAS normal.
    aquas.jpg

    AQUAS no reflections:
    aquas no reflections.jpg

    Gaia Hi:
    gaia hi.jpg

    Gaia Default:
    gaia default.jpg

    So on a typical scene you have Gaia running you at 102fps and AQUAS running you at 45pfs.

    For sheer beauty and accuracy I would go with AQUAS, and for performance GAIA.
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
    Mark_01, TeagansDad, magique and 4 others like this.
  10. HeadClot88

    HeadClot88

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    Is the new Gaia water Shaders compatible with the HD and light weight Scriptable render pipelines?
     
  11. magique

    magique

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    Great news. I will try on my Wii U project and see if it functions and performs well.
     
  12. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Curious to see how you go.
     
  13. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Not yet - but I dont think it will take much to get it there.
     
    HeadClot88 likes this.
  14. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Hey everyone - if you are on Mac or Linux there is a breaking error with the latest Gaia.

    Please change the following line 187 in Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Common/Editor/Prod.cs

    from:

    Code (CSharp):
    1. string path = dirsAtLevel[i].FullName + @"\" + subfolderPath;
    to:

    Code (CSharp):
    1. string path = Path.Combine(dirsAtLevel[i].FullName, subfolderPath);
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
  15. mukki014

    mukki014

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    Will new Gaia's water system support mobile ?
     
  16. combatsheep

    combatsheep

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    Hi.
    I tried it to new unity project, but 8 errors still alive.
    ---
    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(647,21): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `GaiaReflectionProbeUpdate' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(648,21): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `GaiaUnderWaterEffects' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(649,25): error CS0841: A local variable `theProbeUpdater' cannot be used before it is declared

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(652,50): error CS0841: A local variable `effectsSettings' cannot be used before it is declared

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(652,25): error CS0841: A local variable `effectsSettings' cannot be used before it is declared

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(2096,18): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `GX' does not exist in the namespace `Gaia'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(2113,18): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `GX' does not exist in the namespace `Gaia'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

    Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Editor/GaiaManagerEditor.cs(2114,18): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `GX' does not exist in the namespace `Gaia'. Are you missing an assembly reference?
    ---
    Do I need to import all assets?

    <Fixed>
    Now I understand, "AmbientSkiesSamples" must be imported when importing Gaia.
    After imported it, no error occurs!

    Env:
    Unity 2018.2.f18
    macOS highSierra 10.13.6
    Gaia 1.9.0
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
  17. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Yeah we debated this.

    Maybe we need to take this outside of samples directory.

    However it is not really about Gaia as Gaia is a terrain and scene generation system - it is a free sample from a new asset we will launch in the next few weeks and because it makes such a massive difference we decided to add it to Gaia.

    It is intended to be both a value add to Gaia, and also a sampler of a new asset we will be releasing shortly called Ambient Skies.

    It was designed to be a fast alternative water to Unity water (and the stats above bear this out), but was not designed specifically for mobile. Try it and let us know how you go.
     
    mukki014 and combatsheep like this.
  18. BrandStone

    BrandStone

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    Really nice. I’ve been postponing buying Gaia because I target HDRP on new terrain but now I cannot wait to play with it :)

    Is 1.9 at least functional with the new system (multiple terrains)?

    I also use photogrammetry trees and grass from quixel (clump game objects)
     
  19. mukki014

    mukki014

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    Thank you for the reply. I will test it on mobile. I've open gl 3.2 with dx 12 shader model 5 Hope it will work.
     
  20. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Just disable the terrains your not currently using and do one tile at a time. Gaia 2 will have multi tile support.
     
  21. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    I'm always eager to try out new stuff, especially better performing. i downloaded gaia 1.9 yesterday and tried it out, but got an issue that the reflection of the water is rater blocky. not only blocky, but the blocks swap heavily, very noticable when you move left/right, but also if you advance. the terrain is super smooth while the water reflection blockiness is distracting the player. is there a way to improve this? eg with higher reflection probe resolution?

    i see you have the same issue, example in the new vid at around 17:29

     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2018
  22. mukki014

    mukki014

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    As far as multi terrain concern it isn't compatible til Gaia 2.0 .Gaia is a terrain generation which support every kind of material so it's up to you what material or objects you do use.
    Is hdrp is available for terrain now?
     
    BrandStone likes this.
  23. SickaGamer

    SickaGamer

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    So which ones? GeNa added to the cart! Pegasus and CTS?
     
    BackwoodsGaming likes this.
  24. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Hi,

    I know the new release is getting a lot of posts atm. Awesome update btw!

    I hate to ask twice in a thread, but I would really like to know how to use Gaia/GeNa in combination with Megascans.
    How does one use Imported Megascan assets (textured models and ground textures etc.) in combination with Gaia/GeNa?

    And I'm getting this error on a terrain when spawning textures:
    There is a mismatch between your resources Terrain Height 1000 and your actual Terrain Height 60. Your Spawn may not work as intended!
    I started off with a empty 3D terrain and added a raw image to it, created from a previous sculpt. The terrain resolution was/is set to 500/500/60. But I cannot seem to find the height:1000 value anywhere in the UI. Anyone?

    cheers!

    rob
     
  25. mukki014

    mukki014

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    B
    Because your terrain height is 60 not 1000
     
  26. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Ahhh... That was it! Thanks!! /s

    If you don't want to help out, please don't...

    It's a legit question, and I have searched all over Gaia. Even when I create separate starter settings with a height of 60, Gaia still finds the 1000 somewhere.
    I'm pretty sure it's user error, but your reply isn't helpful at all.
     
  27. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Nice work!
     
  28. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    There is a simple fix for this - we never had the issue in testing and then BAM as soon as I test further away I get it... of course only after release!

    In GaiaReflectionProbeUpdate.cs change the following line in SetProbeSettings function (around line 121 or so):

    from:

    Code (CSharp):
    1. reflectionProbe.timeSlicingMode = ReflectionProbeTimeSlicingMode.IndividualFaces;
    to:

    Code (CSharp):
    1. reflectionProbe.timeSlicingMode = ReflectionProbeTimeSlicingMode.AllFacesAtOnce;
     
    Rowlan likes this.
  29. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Just a quick heads up everyone - we plan to push a patch for Gaia up with improved water and fixes to the couple of issues we have seen tomorrow.

    The fixes I am referring to have already been posted here.
     
  30. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    Thank you Adam, I tried that, but it's still there. Although I can confirm that this solves another bug I noticed, i. e. that the water turns all uni-color when you change the movement direction (from left to right and vice versa), that's gone now.

    I tried various settings of the shader but it didn't help. Just to ensure we talk of the same thing, this is what I mean:

    gaia-water.gif
     
  31. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Oh - yeah this a different thing.

    To get higher quality reflections you can change the settings on the Global Reflection Probe object. The new settings are applied to the probe when you press play.

    The downside of this approach is that when you move the camera we also update the reflection probe so that the richer you make the reflection the more time it takes to update. We mitigate against this by only updating it when you are moving - so its a cost you bear only when you need to.

    We chose lower quality defaults to increase frame rates for people on lower end systems. You are seeing the artefacts associated with a very low resolution reflection probe.

    You could stop the issue completely by not updating it at all and just baking it but the reflections would be less accurate. You could experiment with this by disabling the update script on the reflection probe.

    I guess its about the pro's and cons of our approach vs others. As something we have made and given away for free, we think many people will be more than happy with it.

    gaia rprobe.jpg

    In the image below I dialed the reflection probe settings up. When you consider that this was done only with Gaia and the small collection of sample assets we provide, and made from scratch in about 15 mins - you can create some pretty nice environments!

    Adding CTS and some 3D grasses and props would boost these visuals significantly.

    Grab 20181119192128 w1920h919 x132y51z631r110.jpg

    We will be making an update to Gaia probably tomorrow with the fixes we have made so far and an improved water (as the sun reflection is currently way off). If you have any suggestions we would be happy to consider them.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
    Rowlan likes this.
  32. OneManBandGames

    OneManBandGames

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    Yes, Gaia just needs any unity standard terrain to work on, and it does not care if there is already hills and valleys or textures, assets etc. on it. So you can for example create hills and valleys in another tool and just texture it with Gaia. Or you could manually paint on a grass texture and then decide that Gaia should place random trees on that grass.

    EDIT: Argh, just realised I answered quite an old question and that you got Gaia anyways already in the meantime. Notifications brought me to an older post on the last page, so I did not realize first there were many other posts since then.
     
  33. chrisabranch

    chrisabranch

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    Hi, I just bought GeNa2, CTS and sectr complete. I want to buy Gaia but I need to know if Gaia will upgrade to gaia2 free. if not I need to wait, because I don't have the budget to buy it 2 times. Can you please let me know if Gaia will upgrade free? and if not, what will be the upgrade cost?
     
  34. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    There will be a $15 upgrade fee.
     
    chrisabranch and SickaGamer like this.
  35. chrisabranch

    chrisabranch

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    Thank you, buying it now :)
     
  36. StevanJay

    StevanJay

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    Hello! I just upgraded Gaia, and it`s giving me a compile error in Ambient Skies Samples/Scripts/UnderWaterEffects.cs, that namespace "PostProcessing" does not exist in the namespace "UnityEngine.Rendering"... I had PostProcessing already imported, tried deleting it completely and reimporting, not sure what else I can do... Any suggestions what might be going on...?

    edit: So trying to fix it just led to a whole ton more namespace errors with the Ambient Skies Samples... I ended up just deleting that folder entirely, and then commenting out every reference to it in GaiaManagerEditor.cs... Which allows me to compile at least, but still I`m missing out on the Ambient Skies... ;) So suggestions as to the root of the problem still very welcome!
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  37. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Ambient skies requires Post Processing V2? If it is not there then Gaia will ask you to install it and we embed this as a Unity package for your convenience. Did you install as asked?

    Here is the Quick Start Guide in video form so we also show you how to do this.

     
    Quique-Martinez likes this.
  38. magique

    magique

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    @AdamGoodrich I just installed the latest Gaia in my PC project and suddenly my scene is having issues. I keep getting the following error even when just in editor mode:

    NullReferenceException: Do not create your own module instances, get them from a ParticleSystem instance
    UnityEngine.ParticleSystem+EmissionModule.set_rateOverTime (MinMaxCurve value) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/bindings_old/common/ParticleSystem/ParticleSystemBindings.gen.cs:370)
    UnityEngine.AzureSky.AzureSkyController.Update () (at Assets/Azure[Sky] Dynamic Skybox/Scripts/AzureSkyController.cs:586)

    Now, I know this is an Azure Sky error, but it was working fine until I installed Gaia so I'm baffled as to how this is suddenly causing an issue. Any ideas?


    [EDIT]
    It seems that closing and restarting Unity makes it go away. If it comes back I'll let you know.

    [EDIT 2]
    Yep, it started coming back again.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  39. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Weird. We have some under water particles in latest Gaia. I wonder if there is a conflict. We also need Post Processing V2 for our post fx - but this is all optional stuff.

    No idea off top of my head - let us know if you manage to work out whats causing it.
     
  40. ceebeee

    ceebeee

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  41. imagoculturae

    imagoculturae

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    I am importing r16 into the scanner and it is saying: assuming 16bit raw 513x513. But I am using 1025x1025. How do I change this? My height is not correct it looks doubled, which I guess is correct because is assuming that the size of my terrain is half. Please help!
     
  42. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Have a look at the settings there - you should be able to choose between 8 & 16 bit - and mac and ibm formats.

    I have responded in the cts forum.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2018
  43. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Gaia version 1.9.1 is live!

    It has some enhancements and improvements over the 1.9.0 release:
    • Reduced far clip plane to a max distance of 2248m on large terrains to improve framerate.
    • Added new global reflection probe to scene to improve overall scene lighting
    • Added camera follow reflection probe to follow camera, with adjustable height offset to adjust for reflection issues with trees caused by reflection probe based approach.
    • Modified reflection probe update algorithm to stop tearing.
    • Improved large terrain auto settings to stop tops of mountains from being cut off.
    • Improved water settings and reflections to reduce blown out sun highlights.
    • Improved speed of QuadTree system with resulting tree placement speed improvements.
    • Fixed issue when post processing v2 was already in scene.
    • Fixed Linux and Mac backslash issue.
    • Improved 2018.3 compatibility.
    • Fixed post processing gizmo on water.
     
    Mark_01 likes this.
  44. imagoculturae

    imagoculturae

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    Hi Adam I think this settings are fine I have 16 bit raw but where do I change from 513 to 1025?
     
  45. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    This will be the difference between 8 and 16 bit. Try the variations.
     
  46. imagoculturae

    imagoculturae

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    vesuvio25 Height Map (Merged).png toohigh.jpg
    Hi Adam, I found the problem which was that I was using World Machine free edition and this can only export to a maximum size of 513. So from this point of view it is fixed, however this putted me even in more trouble because it was the only free program that it worked by exporting r16 or raw files. I have tried Gimp but when I export to raw the scanner tells me that is 8 bit, when I export as the original png file the scanner accept it and it shows 1025, but still gives me the wrong height. I am attaching the original image png at 1081, I would like to crop it at 1025 and save it as a raw, any idea?
    ps the view is from the scanner
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2018
  47. magique

    magique

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    Turns out that the error that I saw the second time was not the same error. It was complaining about some Gaia Underwater thing. I had added the new Gaia water, but didn't like it so I removed from the scene, but there was a script attached to another object that needed it.

    Speaking of the new water, I'm confused. I tried it and it just looked bad. It didn't look anything like the video. So I checked the shader and it was set to Simple. I thought there must be some other water shaders provided, but none were there.
     
  48. Shadowing

    Shadowing

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    has anyone seen a problem like this before. This isn't Gaia grass btw its Vegetation studio.
    Figure id ask here see if someone watching might happen to of came across this problem before.
    Vegetation becomes darken like its been burnt.
    Both pictures are taken with the same lighting settings.





    here is a video showing it
    Also causes flickering. Keep in mind post processing is active too.
     
  49. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Can assure you its the same water :)

    To get this lighting select Evening in the Ambient Skies sample.

    Gaia Evening.jpg

    And if you want richer reflections then select the camera reflection probe (we changed the way reflection proves work in 191 so that we now have a global reflection probe and one that follows the camera) and dial up the range and quality.

    The benefits of this water are that it is a FREE addition to a terrain generator, looks pretty good in most situations, and its double the frame rate of most other waters.

    You are probably not its target audience anyway. We would expect that people will start with this and then upgrade to a specialist water solution.

    Gaia Water.jpg
     
  50. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Out of curiosity - did you do this with Gaia 1.9.0?

    If you did - there was an issue with a reflection probe that was set to update all faces individually - we thought this might be better for performance - but turns out that in some situations you can see it update. In 1.9.1 we set them to update all faces at once. You could even try disabling them completely to see if there is a difference.