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

Please see this post for an overview table:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/gai...d-scene-creation.327342/page-205#post-5088017

 

The minimum supported version for Gaia Pro is Unity 2019.1 as it uses features of the terrain API only available in that Unity version & above.

 

Thanks, I figured this out earlier and meant to update my issue. Using a the recommended version of Unity3D solved my issue completely! Thanks!

 

can't wait to download gaia2 and play with it!!

 

Thanks a lot for your precise and clear answer! I'll try that as soon as Real Life® gives me an opportunity to do some coding.

 

This topic came up as a question in support: Note that you can still very well import real world terrain from terrain.party into Gaia Pro - it is even easier now than it was before, because the stamper now accepts any image format that Unity can handle as well. Here are the instructions for the interested: https://proceduralworlds.freshdesk....46173-import-real-world-terrain-into-gaia-pro

 

Unity 2019.2.11 3D with Extras template + all current asset updates

Gaia Pro - I would like to setup Gaia to work with DCG Water Pro and Crest Ocean System LWRP.
These would be two different setups, but a tutorial to do this would be helpful I also have Aquas, but it is giving errors.

Assets\AQUAS\Scripts\AQUAS_CameraSwitcher.cs(29,122): error CS0103: The name 'AssetDatabase' does not exist in the current context

also, Is "Unity Connect" the place to ask for paid help?

 

I am sure this has probably been answered before but I have read that there is an upgrade from Gaia to Gaia Pro for $45USD? If so, how do I go about the upgrade?

Thanks!

 

Simply head over to Gaia Pro - Terrain & Scene Generator in the Asset Store and you should already see the price reduction. Buy it and it's yours.

 

We can not make tutorials for every asset on the store unfortunately, so you would need to learn how to set these up from the documentation that comes with the assets.

I did reach out to the author of Crest at one point to explore creating an integration, and from memory he did not seem that interested.

If you can get the authors to contact us we would be happy to show them how to make integrations, and in a lot of cases it is a simple ten minute job. We also include authors that integrate into our compatible assets listings, and this often gets them many more sales.

 

I have a suggestion. I have been using Gaia Pro. I then went to the documents folder and read the only document. I went to the forums and the videos. I was noticing a lack of documentation. Then someone wrote a review saying nice asset but where is the documentation. To which they received a response that it was self documenting. Click the question mark. My suggestion is to add that prominently to the documentation that is in the documentation folder about the question mark. Question mark icons usually are not that helpful I suspect a lot of people (myself included) do not generally think about clicking them. If I had read about them in the documentation that is in the folder I certainly would have and it would have saved me many hours. I was waiting until the weekend to perhaps jump on discord and get some answers. TLDR; put the tip about documentation being under the question mark buttons in the sole document that exists in documentation. Thanks.

 

Great suggestion, I've just added a note at the beginning of the quickstart guide that does just this, we will roll this out with the next update.

 

I just purchased Gaia Pro and am trying to import it to Unity. Is it normal for Gaia Pro to take hours to install? It's been 3 hours and it's still going.

 

It downloads first before you import it.. the download is 3gb (which is big) so it depends on the speed of Unity's servers and your own download speed. But yes, three hours is a lot of time for it to accomplish the task.

 

OK thanks. Download didn't take long at all actually - just a few minutes. But the import ended up taking 4 hours. Around the same for CTS 2019. Vegetation Studio Pro took less than 30 minutes so it's strange why Gaia and CTS took so long to import.

 

I think I might know the problem - I was testing Gaia for Oculus Quest and I think texture compression in Android build setting caused this. Just in case it helps someone else. Thanks!

 

Hello gentlemen,

I'm still learning Gaia, and there is a little something that is seriously driving me nuts as they say across the Atlantic... I'm texturing the world, and the fitness of the textures scales from 0 to 1 ; for example I have a "default ground texture" with an overall fitness of 0,5 that is suppose to show up in each place where special features have less than 50% fitness.

The problem is that, in a place where I have my own texture at, say, 60% fitness, what really shows up on the terrain is 60% my texture, plus 40% of what was there before. So when I change texturing settings, I can never paint the world anew, since the old texturing keeps partly showing up in each place where the new textures have a fitness below 100%.

I am always using the "reset" function of the texture spawner before every new attempt, plus the spawner settings are set on "fittest". What am I doing wrong ?

P.S. On a side note, what's the normal way to access Gaia's base GameObject by script ? I'm using Gaia.GaiaSessionManager.GetSessionManager ().transform.parent.gameObject but that's not very... elegant !

 

Hi there! I have a question regarding GAIA (specifically GAIA Pro) and SECTR. I posted on the SECTR forum as well.

1. Does anyone know if SECTR works well with GAIA Pro and its multi-terrain features? I'm trying to decide on what assets would work well for streaming a very large open world and I was looking at MapMagic, and at GAIA Pro with SECTR but I want to make sure that GAIA Pro and SECTR would work well together streaming large worlds with multiple terrains.

I'd like to have the ability to create worlds (randomly generated, with detailed touches added later) roughly the size of Skyrim or Breath of The Wild, and if possible, I'd also really like the ability to create full procedural worlds the size of Daggerfall or larger. This is why I'm really looking into the world streaming offered by SECTR.

Thanks again!

 

As soon as we stabilize Gaia Pro we will update Sectr so that it works seamlessly together.

Think of this as a paint brush. You need to paint a base colour, and then paint other colors (textures) over top.

Android texture compression is extremely slow. Can't wait until they get background import going for Unity!

 

Im thinking of upgrading my gaia 1 and was wondering whether I should wait for gaia 2. Gaia pro on the asset store says gaia 2 will have less features so not sure what to do now? ADvise please. Thanks.

 

Thanks, but, what if I only want my texture n°1 to show in point A (where it's the fittest at, say, 60% fitness), and only my texture n°2 to show in point B (where it's the fittest at, say, 75% fitness) ? I don't want a "base color" to show at 40% or 25% through my textures...

 

Hi - I know this is the fix for the AQUA CameraSwitcher.cs Script:
AQUAS Script Fix

#if UNITY_EDITOR
using UnityEditor;
using UnityEngine;

Hope that helps- Matt

 

Please see the table posted over here for an overview between the versions:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/gai...d-scene-creation.327342/page-205#post-5088017

My take on this is: If you are happy with the functionality that Gaia 1 has to offer already, but you would not mind having that in multi-terrain and faster and easier to use, wait for the free Gaia 2 update.

If you are interested in the additional features of Gaia Pro, don't mind the entry fee and that random terrain generation & sessioning are still missing, you could consider getting the update.

 

Thanks Peter, I have a 4k multi tile terrain and want to double in size so am looking just to increase the size at present.

Any ETA on Gaia 2?

I have seen that table, but it didnt help because I was wondering also: Is gaia pro a separate app. Or does that upgrade to gaia 2. That is what confused me.

Having pro as a stepping stone suggests that it is a step towards gaia 2 NOT a step beyond. Again the text in the descriptions confused me.

So If I get gaia pro there is no need to upgrade to gaia 2?

The only feature gaia pro has going for it from my perspective is the Advanced Terrain Masking & Stamping System. But not sure what that means exactly. Ill recheck the demo video to see if theres a mention.

Thanks.

 

We are getting similar questions around texture deletion quite often, users often ask us how they can "start texturing from scratch" or how they can remove all textures again because they don't want the existing textures from previous spawns to interfere. However it is a bit more complicated:

• Earlier unity versions from 2019.1 downward show the following behaviour on terrains: As soon as you add a single terrain texture to the terrain, this texture will become the "default texture" and will immediately be displayed across the entire terrain. No way around that, to my knowledge. This means as soon as you start to add textures to the terrain, you start to run in the same behavior then "as Gaia does it": You have a default texture on the terrain, and need to paint over it with the other textures.
  
• With 2019.2 you can add a single texture to the terrain and apply it partially, in this case the "emtpy" checkerboard texture is shining through though then, not sure if you would want something like that to appear in your game:
  
  
  As soon as you add a 2nd texture to the terrain, that one becomes the default texture then and replaces the checkerboard texture. (No idea why they changed that from the other versions, probably technical reasons.) Here is how the terrain from above looks like when adding another texture:
  
  
  And again you have the same situation where you need to paint over an existing texture, just as Gaia does it.
  
• Regardless of this behavior it is not possible to "delete" textures from the terrain again, they have either to be replaced with other textures (as Gaia does it) in that spot or you need to remove and add the entire terrain layer again, which is not that comfortable either

So from the technical side it is not possible, because as soon as you have at leas 2 textures one will become the default texture on the terrain, and you are having the exact Gaia situation again. But it is also a problem from the logical side:

If the texture n°1 is at 60% fitness in a certain spot, what should be displayed below that texture then? If the answer is "nothing, just texture number n°1" then you would need to increase the strength to 100% then, because going below 100% translates to "Ok, I want the textures below to be visible".

If you are not comfortable with a default texture being displayed everywhere on the terrain at first: What should players see on the terrain in spots where you forgot to apply a texture?

 

Can Gaia be used with existing terrain tiles? I have a decent sized world already and would like to use it to fine tune certain areas, if not all of them

 

I asked this question earlier and heres peters response. The bold text is me with peters response underneath the bold text.
↑
I say exactly because the old gaia displayed a stamp shape and then when you stamped the terrain was not very much like the original stamp. It was a much reduced version. But as suggested IU need to stamp over my existing mountains so would like a more exact idea of the result of the stamp.

The stamp preview in Gaia 1 was based on a separate mesh which could divert from what you were actually stamping since the mesh would not represent the heightmap resolution on the terrain and would also not reflect settings like distance mask etc.

The stamp preview in Gaia 2 / Gaia Pro is based on the actual heightmap data & resolution of the terrain and should always include all masks and filters, so it should be very very close to what you get. when you hit the stamp button. Some examples:

Adding a mountain to existing terrain, preview:



Result after Stamping:



Cutting a river in the terrain, original terrain:



Preview:



Result after Stamping:



↑
So just want to make sure that Gaia Pro can refurbish my current terrain tiles and be okay moving the stamper over tiles to specific mountains that need revamping/restamping.

Yes, that should work, you can just move the stamper around freely to your terrains in the scene and it works also across terrain borders.

 

Gaia 1 will upgrade to Gaia 2 as soon as it is available.
Gaia pro is a separate asset on the asset store, and you can upgrade from Gaia 1 or Gaia 2 to Gaia Pro.

No, you would have the version with the most features anyways already.

In Gaia 2 and Pro you can control both your stamping and your spawning with stackable masks (similar to the spawn criteria of Gaia 1). E.g. "I want my texture only to appear at a certain height!"
In Gaia Pro you will have more of these masks that allow you better control your spawning E.g. "I want my texture only to appear when my terrain is convex on that spot!"
The stamper in Gaia Pro will also have additional modes than just pure stamping, e.g. a mode that allows you to change the contrast of the heightmap on the terrain.
We do not have a full list of these features available for comparison as we are still adding new things to Gaia at the moment, but we will have one when Gaia 2 is being finalized.

 

Thank you very much for your incredibly precise and helpful answer. Now I understand the philosophy behind Unity and Gaia's work, as well as the technical limits. I thought I was missing the point in something very straightforward, but now that I know it's not, I'm starting to obtain results that look like what I wanted to do - not perfect but definitely acceptable.

And by the way thanks to your explanations I managed to write my first spawn rule extension, thanks again !

Just in case you still have a little spare time to babysit me, is there a way to call Gaia's base GameObject in a script other than Gaia.GaiaSessionManager.GetSessionManager ().transform.parent.gameObject ? Or each spawner object ? I ask this because unfortunately it is not possible to link any actual instance in the prefab that must be used to host a rule extension.

 

Sorry, missed answering that - this is more a generic unity problem - If you need to access a Game Object in the scene hierarchy you need to either have a direct reference to it (which falls flat in your case due to the Spawn Extension prefab), or you need to look it up somehow by its name, its tag, etc.

One thing you can do is use

GameObject.Find("Gaia");

to look it up by its name. If it is the spawners you are after, you could also do

Spawner[] spawners = GameObject.FindObjectsOfType<Spawner>();

to get an array with all Spawners in the scene. (If you need to get inactive spawners as well, you can look at Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll as well)

All these functions are slow and should not be called on every frame in runtime, or on every spawn in a spawning extension. Rather call them once on the beginning and store the result in a variable.

 

Hi, I have a couple of issues but Its a test terrain so its no big deal really.

I created a terrain and spawned grass but it only spawns and leaves squares empty of grass.

The second issue and more important as I am using it in another project is:

The underwater effects donw seem to work well. There are bubbles but no underwater fog etc.

Not sure but the white box area/bounds is much smaller than my terrain and just doesnt seem to play nice.

Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks

 

Hi, I'm not sure this is a GAIA question, but I do use GAIA with CTS for my terrain.
What I need is to get texture on terrain targeted by raycast. To be more precise I need to get what are the "splatmap" values for textures.

 

Hi There!
Amazing tool, I am using it since quite a bit but recently after an update I get the following errors:



Could you please help me? I have no idea how to solve them.

Thanks in advance,

Dom

 

Im no expert but have you installed the PostProcessing Stack?

Window->Package Manager

all packages section Post Processing.

But like I said I am no expert, its just something to make sure is installed whilst peter responds.

 

Hi! And thanks for your answer.
Yes I installed post processing stack and updated it via Package manager.
But thanks for the interest!
I hope the developer can help me with this issue, really have no idea how to solve without removing Gaia.

 

Is this a single or a multi-terrain scenario? Do you see a warning message in the console telling you something about the "number of detail vertices per patch" being exceeded?

Hmm, this normally would sound like no post processing installed, but given that you just advised another user to install it I assume you have it installed yourself probably already
Some things you could check:
If you are using a custom camera, does this camera have the post processing layer component attached to it?
Could you please check if the box of the "Underwater Post Processing" game object in the scene is in alignment with the water surface and the camera is actually entering that object when going underwater?
If you are using a controller where the camera is a child object of another object, try setting the parent as "Player Camera" in the underwater effects script:

Which white box do you mean? The stamper tool has a white box, and its bounds should reflect the bounds of the current terrain you are over - if it is multiple terrains, this box can be smaller than the full world size,

 

Do you remember what kind of update that was that made the errors appear?
Looking at the errors they really read like Post Processing would not be installed. The first error is referencing a place in the code of a "using UnityEngine.Rendering.PostProcessing" statement - and when this throws an error that this type does not exist this is usually a strong indication that post processing does not exist in the project.
Do you maybe have an older version of post processing (not from the package manager) installed in a folder in your project?
Do you see any other additional error messages in the console that might prevent successful compilation of the project?

 

I will redo the grass to find any errors as I believe I cleaned up since then. But it is a multi terrain and not specifically tied to the connected areas as seen in this image. As said. I will redo and check for errors.

[/QUOTE]

This is the white box:


I am presuming that this should be aligned with the water level? As Aquas uses similar.

I just created a scene to test using flycam and adding only objects that were installed from the gaia manager so post processing wasnt installed at all. So I will check for the profile to add to camera?

I will redo the grass and other spawns now to check for error.

 

I managed to get the underwater effects as you suggested but now I can see the white wall. I will search the forum for a fix but thought I would let you know so if you have a solution. many thanks. Much appreciated.

 

I respawned the grass and there was no difference. Still empty squares.

The only warning was:

The combined number of detail object vertices in one single patch is exceeding the limit (65536). Try decreasing detail density or detail resolution per patch.
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

I changed detail resolution to 1024 from 2048 and there was no change

 

I tested with the default Gaia Third Person Controller and did not run in this issue, there should be 4 "Underwater Horizon Walls" following the camera around specifically to hide these white walls in the distance.



Can you please check if you see those when going underwater and if they follow your camera around accordingly?

 

This is more an issue with the unity terrain system itself: The terrain detail system works by rendering the terrain details in groups which is faster than rendering them each individually. However there is a limit on how many of these terrain details can be rendered in one patch, and if there is too many terrain details in one of those patches it will not render and you are seeing the warning message above.

There are 3 ways to get rid off this error:

Decrease the detail resolution per patch - this will make the patches smaller so that less details are rendered in one go
Decrease the terrain detail resolution, which will result in less details in general
Decrease the detail density in the Gaia Grass Spawners and spawn the grass again

 

Thanks Peter, It was a test scene so alls good.

 

Yes, they do follow the camera around as expected even though they are well below the sea level. I also tried (backing the game object up first) resizing the object to fit my terrain and at the correct sea level but that made no difference to the functioning and walls following the camera (as if I hadn't resized the wall object).

However you can still see the wall to the right but not straight ahead as in the image. Actually, disabling the walls all together has the appearance as the image above without the white wall.

Not sure if there should be fog in that underwater image though?

I added the water to a new test project and to my current project and both times the white walls were placed well below the terrain. But as mentioned that doesnt seem to change the operation of the walls.

 

@PWPeter Hello, in Unity 2019.2.12f1 always crashes after spawning grass and detail

 

Not sure but I would think its related to the size of the terrain and amount of detail being spawned. Unity can only handle so much grass detail.

I would tend to use Vegetation Studio for grass, plants and trees and use gaia for the buildings and rocks etc. That way the veg is spawned only within the field of view within a certain distance.

Although, gaia would be fine on smaller terrain environments.

 

@Hawk0077 Perhaps. Thank you.

 

Does the GAIA terrain stamper only work with RAW files? I don't have Photoshop to convert PNG files to RAW and I heard people say that converting PNG to RAW using an online resource has mixed results.

 

Not sure but I think gimp can do the same? Its free but not sure but it does seem to be a popular software

 

Thanks! it worked! thanks again