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

Runtime generation is not officially supported: Gaia uses some functionality that is part of the Editor namespace and therefore won't run in a build.
But in theory you can call the Gaia Stamper and Spawners and other tools at runtime as well to populate a terrain. Try looking into the spawning and stamping buttons from the respective editor, if you look into the code you will find that they boil down to call a single function that applies the stamp or does the spawn, so you could call those from your own script as well. When you try to run this in a build, you might need to add a few workarounds though to make the "editor only" functionality available in the build.

 

Thanks.

 

1. Gaya Import is very slow. Taking almost an hour for me. I am using 2018 Mac Book Pro 15" with 16gb ram.
I installed Gaya 3 days back, first two days it worked, but since today it is taking time to load when i try to install on new project or switch the build platform from Mac to iOS. I reinstalled Unity 2019, still no luck.

2. Then i encountered another strange error. It kept on prompting to install PP v2. But i already have it. I installed multiple times from Package Manager, restarted machine, but still when i try to open Gaya it kept on prompting. Then in the same blog some one mentioned about the below STRING has to be present in "Player Settings > Player > Scripting Define Symbols". I just had GAYA_PRESENT. So i copied and pasted the entire string and then Gaya Manager finally opened.
"UNITY_POST_PROCESSING_STACK_V2;GAIA_PRESENT;CROSS_PLATFORM_INPUT;MOBILE_INPUT"

Can any one help me on issue #1?

 

During the package import unity is taking the files contained in the package and imports the assets contained fitting for the target platform so that they can be used in the unity engine & editor. The "art" assets such as textures and models etc. usually take the longest, if you don't need these you can uncheck all entries below "3rd Party Samplers" during the import, except Ambient Samples which are required by Gaia to function properly.



This should speed up installation quite a bit, since the import does not need to go over the textures etc. that come with Gaia. If you need the sample content there is unfortunately little that can be done to speed things up, the same import process would happen if you would add the same assets via the file system in an existing project.

It sounds like you solved this issue correctly already: This is something that happens from time to time that the post processing installation does not create the correct entry in the scripting defines and it then has to be added manually.

 

Thank you @PWPeter you solutions are really great in this blog and it helped me to solve lot of issues...

 

I am building a terrain for off road vehicle app for iOS and Android.. Since i wanted stunning ui i selected 3DForge and GameTextureDotCom. I don't want to use 'Synty Studios poly'.
As of now I just have one simple level with mountains and trees and 512 sqtmts area and my iOS app size is already 350mb. If i add more levels it will blow up.
I see in App store both iOS and Andorid of similar apps with multiple level have 45 - 150mb in size and the same stunning terrains.
Is something that i am doing wrong by importing all the assets or is GAIA terrain (GameTextureDotCom) taking more space because of its detailed textures?

 

You'll want to take advantage of streaming your levels with a tool like SECTR. Then you can have levels as large as you want and they'll take up significantly less memory.

[EDIT]
Oops. I read wrong. I thought you were referring to runtime memory not build size.

 

Importing the files alone should not add anything to the filesize of your build: When you make a build Unity will go through the scenes that are included for the build in the build settings and will go through all references to assets in the scenes and only include assets that are relevant for the build. For example if your project has 30 GB of textures imported, but they are not used anywhere in the game, the 30 GB should not show up in your build.

First thing to do would be to check your Editor logfile after the build, there should be a summary about which asset type takes how much space in your build, and then also a list of the size of individual assets. With this list you can optimize the build size by either trying to remove the asset, compress it better, reduce the size in textures, etc.: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ReducingFilesize.html

 

Hi @AdamGoodrich ,

i haven't follow the thread but i don't think i have ever seen anything about acceleration of operations in GAIA !
Any chance to get stamping and other thing accelerated on GPU - may using compute shaders. Stamping for example looks the perfect candidate for that !?

Thank You !

 

I don't want to overpromise (and then underdeliver) but if things keep going in the direction they are going at the moment you will see a lot of things being handled with compute shaders in Gaia 2, stamping being one of them.

 

@Vagabond_, as @PWPeter commented - Gaia 2 is shaping up to be exceptional - and yes - everything moves to being real time shader accelerated!

Stamping across multiple terrains with real time visualization of the desired effect right there in the terrain, and texturing across multiple terrains in the blink of an eye.

I have a project in which I need to create a very specific terrain, and even though we still have another month or so of effort to go into Gaia 2, I already can not imagine not using it - that's how much better it is!

We will start sharing images / videos when it is closer to release!

 

Hi Adam et al,

I have just started using Gaia, great tool, and when I click 2. Create Spawners - it only creates GameObject spawners. I am unable to texture my landscape. Also under advanced - Create Coverage Texture Spawner there are no active rules and when I spawn it the terrain is not textured. Any suggestions on what may be wrong?

Sorry I forgot to mention that I have 2019.1.11f and I do have CTS but haven't used it yet

I am getting the following error (I'm not sure what step I have missed or if there is an error any help would be greatly appreciated):

Missing splat textures - add some textures to your terrain
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
CTS.CompleteTerrainShader:UpdateShader() (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/CompleteTerrainShader.cs:1056)
CTS.CompleteTerrainShader:ApplyMaterialAndUpdateShader() (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/CompleteTerrainShader.cs:980)
CTS.CompleteTerrainShader:UpdateProfileFromTerrainForced() (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/CompleteTerrainShader.cs:1448)
CTS.CompleteTerrainShader:set_Profile(CTSProfile) (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/CompleteTerrainShader.cs:51)
CTS.CTSTerrainManager:BroadcastProfileSelect(CTSProfile) (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/CTSTerrainManager.cs:169)
CTS.CompleteTerrainShaderEditor:CreateCTSProfile1(MenuCommand) (at Assets/Procedural Worlds/CTS/Scripts/Editor/CompleteTerrainShaderEditor.cs:75)

 

The error that you are posted is coming out of CTS, and should normally only appear when there are no textures on the terrain while you are applying or changing a CTS profile. To simplify things, can you please try to remove the CTS component from the terrain first so we can concentrate on the texture spawner, and then look at the CTS issue later.

You mentioned the Coverage texture spawner had no active rules - normally it should be created with the textures contained in the terrain resource file from the Gaia Manager per default. For example in this screenshot the Resource File "GR Nature Manufacture" is selected in the Gaia Manager window, and is then selected for the Texture spawner as well. The Texture spawner is set up with rules that match the texture prototypes in the GR Nature Manufacture resource file:


Can you please check which resource file is selected in the Gaia Manager window at the time you are creating the Coverage Texture Spawner and if this Resource File contains texture prototypes?

 

Hello,

This is the first time I run into this issue on a project where I've successfully spawned the texture hundreds of times :



Any ideas ?

Since the previous backup where it spawns correctly I've done the following :
- Blended (lower terrain) a new stamp to create a valley
- Used Path Painter to carve a road through terrain

Update : Restored the terrain (asset and meta files) from the old backup and the error still persists.

Thanks

 

I checked the line of code that throws the error, at this position Gaia tries to get a cached version of the currently existing splatmaps from the terrain. It looks like this is working up until the point at 92.4 % progress, which should be somewhere close to the border of the terrain. Do you have any larger GameObjects / collider placed on the terrain on the same collision layer as the terrain maybe?
Another thing you could try would be to reduce the spawning range to let's say 25% of the terrain and place it on the first quadrant of the terrain, try a spawn. If that works, the object / feature that disturbs the spawn should not be in there, when you find the quadrant where it fails, you can reduce the spawn range further and try to home in on the object / feature that the spawner seems to topple over.

 

Very hyped about this, guys! I hope all is going smooth over there and we’ll get a peek soon

 

Hey there everyone - I thought you might like a sneek peek at Gaia 2 - we are targeting its release for end August!

While we are offering peeks - check out our recently released Ambient Skies 1.5 update being demo'd in a HD scene. It is getting pretty close to 1 click, make magic now!!

 

Oh, really nice! I love the instant preview and how fast the stamper works. And it’s just around the corner.

Great work!

 

Blessed sliders for the curves!!

 

Hi,
My project has two scenes. One i created for Day and other for Night.
In Night Scene i opened 'Gaia Manager' > GX > 'Ambient Skies Samples' > Night (selected)
But when i come back to 'Day Scene' here also i see the sky as 'Night'.
Is this a global change which affects all scene? Can't i control the Skies per scene?

Thanks
Rajju

 

Hi, please see the folder

Gaia\3rd Party Samplers\Ambient Samples\Ambient Skies Sample

Inside this folder is a material called "Ambient Skies Sample Sky". This is a material that is created dynamically according to the sky you choose in the GX settings. However the issue is that if you select day in one scene, and then night in the other, the material will be overwritten with the night sky settings and the daytime scene is ruined.

To prevent this, you can do the following:

1. Open your daytime scene, set up daytime lighting on the GX tab
2. Create a duplicate of the "Ambient Skies Sample Sky" material and give it a good name (e.g. "Daytime Sky")
3. Assign the duplicate in the Windows > Rendering > Lighting settings:



4. Open the nighttime scene, set up the night sky. You can create a duplicate again and make a "Nighttime Sky" material if you want to make more skies for other scenes.

In this way the sky will be stored in your own material and should not be affected by the sky settings in other scenes.

 

Thanks PWPeter for your quick response.
You guys rock!

 

I am so excited to see more of Gaia 2! This is fantastic, y'all.

This is what I've been waiting for to start prototyping the world building for my game on real scale, instead of just sketching individual areas.

 

I am super excited for it as well.

We should be able to make another preview video in the next few days. There are currently some tree issues that need to be fixed, but when done, I think you will be astonished by what the latest Gaia can do and how fast it does it!

We will be releasing Gaia 2 as 2 products. Gaia 2 will be a free upgrade and our entry level product, and Gaia Pro will be the advanced version and have an upgrade fee.

They will both have the same super fast multi tile base capability, and Gaia Pro will supplement that with a bunch more GPU filters that will enable you to do more interesting things.

We will release both Gaia 2 and Gaia Pro at the end of the August in beta form and polish them based on feedback in September.

 

Ok, despite trees not quite being finished, here is a quick demo!

 

That looks dope! I want to use Gaia 2 in HDRP with the Quixel Megascans assets. This asset has grass as prefabs and I’m wondering: is it possible to instatiate grass this way in Gaia 2? As prefab, not grass

 

Yes, you can do this in Gaia 1 already: You would need to add this Grass prefab as a game object resource in the resource file, then it becomes available as Game Object spawn in the Game Object spawner.

 

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing last month, I recreated the Tranquility Base landing site, using Gaia and some hi-res laser scanned lunar elevation data:



Since it had been some time since I'd created any new terrains, I installed the latest version of Gaia (1.9.5.1) into an existing project running on Unity 2018.2.5f1. The first time I tried to do this, since I didn't need them on the moon, I unchecked most of the third party samplers, leaving only the rocks and ground textures. This resulted in a bunch of errors:



I suspected one of the omitted assets was responsible, but wasn't sure which one, so I ended up installing all of the supposedly optional third party samplers to get rid of them, which thankfully worked. When I brought up the Gaia Manager window for the first time, it popped up the following dialog boxes:



Since I was creating the scene in an existing project, that still uses PPV1 everywhere else, and did NOT want to update the whole thing to PPV2 at this time, the presumption by Gaia that it needed to do this for me was very unwelcome. Note that it didn't ask, it just said it was going to go ahead and do it. I closed the dialogs without hitting OK, and hoped Gaia would leave my existing post processing alone. After that, every time I opened the Gaia Manager, I got the same two dialog boxes.

I understand that you want Gaia to be a Swiss army knife of scenery building tools, but it also needs to respect the wishes of the people using it. Sure, it can add beautiful skies, plants, buildings, and camera effects to a project, but if users don't want any of that, and just want to create and texture a terrain, they shouldn't be constantly pressured to use these additional features. I would suggest that instead of just an OK button on these dialogs, they first ask if it's OK to make the suggested changes, and if it's NOT OK, they should accept that decision and stop nagging about them.

 

You are right, the current way Gaia handles its dependencies is too aggressive. The reason it has been created this way was that in the past new users often would miss that there is additional stuff that needs to be installed for the tutorials & additional extras to work, which would result in support requests and / or bad ratings.
With Gaia 2 we want to revisit this and make it so that it installs itself in minimal fashion and provide an overview for the dependencies in the Gaia Manager from where they can be installed or removed from the project to save space. (Expert users can uncheck those dependency packages in the import directly)
If an user tries to access a functionality that requires one of the dependencies we can guide them to the overview screen to install it from there.

 

I just upgraded a project from Unity 2018 to 2019.2 and now I have 3 errors in the console:

• Assets\Gaia Dependencies\PostProcessing-2\PostProcessing\Editor\Utils\GlobalSettings.cs(58,17): error CS0117: 'SettingsProvider' does not contain a definition for 'scopes'
• Assets\Gaia Dependencies\PostProcessing-2\PostProcessing\Editor\Utils\GlobalSettings.cs(58,26): error CS0103: The name 'SettingsScopes' does not exist in the current context
• Assets\Gaia Dependencies\PostProcessing-2\PostProcessing\Editor\Utils\GlobalSettings.cs(55,24): error CS7036: There is no argument given that corresponds to the required formal parameter 'scopes' of 'SettingsProvider.SettingsProvider(string, SettingsScope, IEnumerable<string>)'
  

I have spent some time search for an answer, but so far nothing. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
James

 

This question was answered via the support system, in case anyone else runs into the same issue, this was the solution:

It looks like you have an older version of Post Processing installed in your project - in earlier unity versions unity did install its own version of post-processing so that the users did not have to manually install it somewhere from the net or the asset store. In the newer unity versions Gaia normally installs Post Processing directly from the unity package manager. I would recommend to back up your project, then remove the folder
Assets\Gaia Dependencies\Post-Processing-2
from your project, then install Post Processing V2 Version 2.1.7 directly from the package manager window under
Window > Package Manager
This should resolve the errors you are seeing in the console.

 

FYI for others: Peter was correct and was VERy quick to get back to me. I had updated Gaia but not the Post Processing stack. Because of this, for reasons I do not know, a couple of assets were not showing their menu options. (Weather Maker and CScape, both great assets)

 

Hello everyone,

I can't seem to find the setting / property that I may have turned off in the past for making the water (default Gaia ambient water sample) blend nicely (fade out) at shore with the terrain.

Current snapshot from my current project :



And a snapshot from a new project with a fresh generated Gaia env :


Looking fwd for your feedback.

Thanks,
Jbs

 

Hi,
I finding strange issue since morning.
When i click on Gaia > Coverage GameObject Spawner> Spawn my Unity hangs and nothing happens.
I waited for 30 mins, restarted PC, created new project but still no luck. It started since today all of a sudden.
How can i debug this issue?
I looked at the Editor.logs and here it is. Any help please?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The texture format (RGBA Crunched ETC2) is not supported by GetCompressedTextureFormatBlockSize
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixelImpl_Injected(Int32, Int32, Int32, Color&)
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixelImpl(Int32, Int32, Int32)
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixel(Int32, Int32) (at C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime\Export\Graphics\Texture.cs:602)
Gaia.UnityHeightMap:LoadFromTexture2D(Texture2D) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\UnityHeightMap.cs:195)
Gaia.UnityHeightMap:.ctor(Texture2D) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\UnityHeightMap.cs:79)
Gaia.SpawnTextureExtension:Initialise() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\SpawnExtensions\SpawnTextureExtension.cs:58)
Gaia.SpawnRule:Initialise(Spawner) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\SpawnRule.cs:238)
Gaia.SpawnerreSpawnInitialise() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\Spawner.cs:602)
Gaia.Spawner:RunSpawnerIteration() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\Spawner.cs:836)
Gaia.<PlayOperationCoRoutine>d__67:MoveNext() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SessionSystem\GaiaSessionManager.cs:1579)
Gaia.GaiaSessionManager:EditorUpdate() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SessionSystem\GaiaSessionManager.cs:426)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions() (at C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\EditorApplication.cs:303)

[C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Graphics/Image.cpp line 103]
(Filename: Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Utils/UnityHeightMap.cs Line: 195)

Unknown compressed texture format!
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixelImpl_Injected(Int32, Int32, Int32, Color&)
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixelImpl(Int32, Int32, Int32)
UnityEngine.Texture2D:GetPixel(Int32, Int32) (at C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime\Export\Graphics\Texture.cs:602)
Gaia.UnityHeightMap:LoadFromTexture2D(Texture2D) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\UnityHeightMap.cs:195)
Gaia.UnityHeightMap:.ctor(Texture2D) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\Utils\UnityHeightMap.cs:79)
Gaia.SpawnTextureExtension:Initialise() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\SpawnExtensions\SpawnTextureExtension.cs:58)
Gaia.SpawnRule:Initialise(Spawner) (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\SpawnRule.cs:238)
Gaia.SpawnerreSpawnInitialise() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\Spawner.cs:602)
Gaia.Spawner:RunSpawnerIteration() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SpawningSystem\Spawner.cs:836)
Gaia.<PlayOperationCoRoutine>d__67:MoveNext() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SessionSystem\GaiaSessionManager.cs:1579)
Gaia.GaiaSessionManager:EditorUpdate() (at Assets\Gaia\Scripts\SessionSystem\GaiaSessionManager.cs:426)
UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions() (at C:\buildslave\unity\build\Editor\Mono\EditorApplication.cs:303)

[C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime/Graphics/TextureDecompression.cpp line 1284]
(Filename: Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Utils/UnityHeightMap.cs Line: 195)

 

I'm not sure what you did to achieve this either. I tried to replicate this by adjusting the water shader a bit and the surrounding settings, but I can't get the blending to go away even if I deliberately try to.

I would recommend to re-import the folder
Gaia\3rd Party Samplers\Ambient Samples\Ambient Water Sample
from the Gaia package

and then remove and add the Water in the scene via the GX tab in the Gaia Manager. In this way the water should be set up as if Gaia was freshly installed.

 

Thanks for attaching the editor logs - this made it much easier to look into this issue. I checked the code portion where this error is thrown, and it looks like there is an issue with the so called "Spawn Texture Extensions". Those Extensions can be used to spawn textures around game objects. You can find them for example in the Farm GameObjects from the Gaia Default assets, here is an example:


On the right side you can see one of the farm game objects in the visualiser, you can see that it has a "Farm Medium Texture Extension" assigned as spawn extension. The prefab for this can be seen on the left side.

The error message reads like as if there was an texture with compression used in the "Texture Mask" field so that it can't be read properly during spawning anymore.

Unless you have set up a special Texture Spawning Extension of your own, I assume that somehow the Texture masks for these extensions got changed, for example by build platform settings that change the texture format for all textures in the texture importer.

Could you please check in the folder
Gaia\Masks
if these Mask textures here have any other format than RGB8 applied to them?

 

Hi Peter,

Investigated further. The fade effect is still appearing but not where/when I expect it to, most likely the shader doesn't work OK under certain circumstances.

There are a couple of settings that influence this odd behavior :

1) Works ok if Shadows are enabled.
2) Works ok even with Shadows disabled, but you need DepthOfField enabled (GlobalPostProcessing)

However, if you don't use shadows nor postprocessing (my scenario) than the fade effect moves away from the shore and appears in front of the camera (both in scene and game), when the camera gets close to the water, always perpendicular to where the camera looks at. It's like the same rules for the fade apply but not to terrain and instead to the camera gameobject.

Below are 2 shapshots taken with shadows on and off, from the exact same position & angle :





To reproduce it :
1) New project, import Gaia & dependencies
2) Ctrl+G, create a terrain, stamp any terrain
3) Ctrl+G, GX, add water
4) Go to Directional light gameobject and select No Shadows

Curious on what the underlying issue may be, would be awesome if we could make it work even with no shadows.

Many thanks,
Jbs

 

Hey, your provided stamp doesn't match my require. Is it possible to sculpt terrain on my own and able to control tree, grass and detail with this system?

 

Yes, you can just skip the stamping process of Gaia entirely and shape the terrain in any other way, then continue to use the tree, grass & game object spawners. The spawners "don't know & don't care" how the heightmap info on the terrain was created, they just take it as it is.

 

Thanks PWPeter.
Looks like i had compressed all the texture IMAGES to reduce the build size which might have caused this issue. I did GAIA import from asset store and that fixed the issue. It download only the images which was causing this issue.
Thanks again.

 

Hmm.. I cannot paint texture manually. I want paint at some specific areas

 

What is preventing you? The terrains created with Gaia are Unity standard terrain, so you should be able to paint on textures manually with the built-in unity tools or any other 3rd party tool at any time.

 

Look like I can't even paint on default terrain. Oh, this is not Gaia problem

 

It was I changed from texture full res to half res in project setting

 

Hello, I'm using a scanner. I dragged the 3D model into the scanner. It will report an error: Not allowed to access MeshFilter. mesh on Prefab object. Use MeshFilter. sharedMesh instead 。or：Instantiating mesh due to calling MeshFilter.mesh during edit mode. This will leak meshes. Please use MeshFilter.sharedMesh instead。What did I do wrong?Thank you

 

Hi, I was able to reproduce the error, and it looks like this is a bug / issue in newer Unity versions that we were not aware of yet. I will send you a fix via DM.

 

Thank you very much for your help. My mailbox is 279339937@qq.com. I'm a novice. How do I use this fix? Thanks very much

 

Sorry, I just saw this repair script. I'm a novice. I'm sorry

 

您好，感谢您帮我修复错误。我的Terrain模型Mesh看起来太大了，促使我“出于记忆异常：内存不足”。但是这个Terrain模型网格是由其他人制作的。我该怎么办？

 

Hello, if I shrink the model in Unity. It can be scanned normally, but the accuracy of terrain conversion is reduced. And the terrain seems to be surrounded by a surface. My English is not good. I don't know if I can express it clearly. I have two screenshots. You can have a look. Thanks very much。