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

The trick is can we use your interiors to dress up the house's and go inside, a wee howto would be choice,.. BTW can I ask, how is collsion done for buildings, I got some assets that the modder was to lazy to add any. Lovely building but run right through em and no interiors so I have my work cut out learn to model now too. I'm after the Elder Scrollish feel where you get to go inside look abround and loot.

 

Hi all Gaia package owners

You will see that two forge buildings have been included with the v1.0 release of Gaia
The one has a door missing, well it is missing for an excellent reason

I added that one to give users the ability to download one of the FREE packages and use it with Gaia.
The Blacksmith's Forge is a small sample pack taken from the FULL Village Interiors Kit that will give you a large selection of great looking new props as well as the wall tiles for the inside of this forge.

And of course, that missing door is included the the FREE package







PS, please don't forget to STAR rate and possibly review the FREE package

Enjoy
Cobus

 

In the new release, if a prefab does not have any colliders then Gaia will add a mesh collider. You can choose to leave this enabled - or not - at run time.

 

How about keeping the same level of complexity. That's part of why I'm supporting you, for the ease and speed of use.

 

No worries

I had a 1-on-1 screen share Skype session with @AdamGoodrich this morning when he showed me what he is doing and referring to in last few screenshots.

He is def going to the very cool, extremely powerful functionality that I personally did not see any complexity with.
And I am an artist only and I will be able to use it

I am excited for his sake when he reveals more information about this.

Cheers
Cobus

 

Possibly both?

Have the core user friendly system then have drop in prefab components with the extras.

Similar to how the apex path devs have done (great pathfinder by the way!! <- not affiliated etc etc)

 

Happy Birthday @AdamGoodrich

 

Happy Birthday Adam!!!

 

If possible less of these ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

will hopefully result in more of these

 

Happy Birthday Adam!!

 

Thanks Adam,it's just another wee thing for the ole geezzer to get his head round. The Prefabs are a pale bluish colour
when dropped into the scene but the mesh's are the correct colour. I have not (should look up a tut right) worked the whole Prefab thing out yet, I'm spose to drop the prefab in not the meash?

This is the asset I brought

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/1821

Sadly no replies to emails

 

Sounds maybe like a shader issue and the way lighting is interpreted on the model. If there are prefabs, I will generally use those because they have already been imported. Usually what is put in the meshes folders of an art assets are the original models which you can tweak settings and reimport. I'm not an artist type so not really sure all the options. I always just use prefabs.

You could play around with selecting different shaders. You can always reimport the package to get back to the originals.

BTW, those are some neat looking buildings. Would be interested to know how you fare with them in the end.

 

The texture comes right if I use forward rending and goes white if I use Deferred rendering

They are ok also if I use "Legacy Deferred (light Pass)"

Edit:

Shawn, It seem just fiddling with the shaders thngs cam right and the assets look fine. I don't know if it releated but probley is I have a job popping up "2/3 Reflection Probes | 1 jobs" and it's been falashing for days so I maybe have broken something in this test. So I just need to get some collsion on these things and try make some interiors

 

Yup.. So definitely a shader issue... If you are using deferred and they look ok with Legacy Deferred shader, I'd use that one on them until the publisher gets back with you. We need Cobus to do a modular elven village pack similar to those... heheh. The ones you got look great, but lack of support from artist SUCKS... lol

 

Hi Kiwi Hawk,

I was just learning about lighting today. Had a quick scan through and came across this - http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/RenderingPaths.html

It seems a good breakdown of types of lighting. It may prove useful. If you check this doc out and think that the asset is of no use to you and you can't get any response from the developer then you should contact unity. They may be able to sort out.

Sometimes a slightly different colour than expected is just a result of the ambient lighting colour being a bit off.

One other thing to consider is your monitor. I am working on dual screen and one is IPS the other isn't. The difference in colour calibration is quite an eye opener. On my non ips screen that asset does look bluer than on my ips panel!?

 

@Kiwi-Hawk,

Just had a thought. It you say the mesh objects show the correct colour then create another prefab from that object and compare with the prefabs already there by dropping them into the scene together.

 

@S4G4N do I just need to import the enviroment to get the forge parts or the whole lot?

 

LOL we must be typing at the same time mate,.. thanks for the reply and idea mate.

 

So your saying the videos make it look a lot easyer than it in truth is?

 

I've been playing around with making some more stamps for Gaia.. Here are a couple of waterfalls that I've been working on..

The first one is of Shoshone Falls waterfall in Idaho. I'm using all Gaia free assets with the exception of the water, sky, and waterfalls. The waterfalls are free from Unity's Water FX asset on the asset store, the water is the free Lite version of AQUAS from the asset store, and the sky is Time of Day. None of Time of Day's camera components were added in this shot. Still need to figure out a better solution for the waterfall and the way AQUAS blends into the scene, but all in all a decent start of a scene!



The next screenshot is of Akaka Falls in Hawaii. In this scene I'm using sample assets included with Gaia in addition to the Water FX asset mentioned above, Time of Day (this time with ToD components added to camera), along with Scion and SSAO Pro on camera. Also I am helping test Distingo, a new terrain shader system which I have loaded in the scene. I haven't actually added water other than the standard water4 which is way below this altitude. Still looking for a really good lite solution for streams and inland waters. Love Suimono for my oceans but inland waters it seems really heavy.

 

I think a lot about complexity when I am adding new features. Wherever possible I am defaulting values to ones that make sense, or hide them behind custom inspectors so that they only show up with you need them.

The whole new GX system is about increasing speed to develop awesome things, while also reducing the learning curve to create them.

 

Kia ora

I need to find out whats casing thhse nasty blue shadows, this spreds across the char shoulder when I run into a shaded
area too

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5z8g8wipegrjviz/Screenshot 2016-02-04 14.02.44.png?dl=0

I put one of the Viking Village houses in to show a prspective I have the Elvan house's at a scale of 2 to get a door height a Human would look correct using

https://www.dropbox.com/s/615b5ierxff97cl/Screenshot 2016-02-04 14.02.56.png?dl=0

Back to dropbos it failed to post my pic's off Imgur,.. I have no idea why that has to be so difficult

 

Sounds like an alpha line of some sort.

 

Hi,
It is a small package, just pull in the whole thing, then there will be aa demo scene that you can check it out.
I think it will just snap in for I think it is the same size building even.
Try it

 

Sensational effort, great effort all round.

 

Keep an eye on Distingo - just about to launch onto the Asset Store!

It's a variation on the standard terrain shader - with none of the issues of the standard terrain shader (no tiling!!), and can be added to your terrain with a single click via GX (Gaia eXtensions) if you also happen to own Distingo.

Without Distingo...



With Distingo!





While you can mix colour maps etc.. this is it in its simplest setup - the only thing I added was an AO map to the cliff texture to make it pop a little more. It wasn't really needed but it looked cool.

Note: These are the textures that come with the next version of Gaia and I have already gone to a lot of trouble to make them work well. With poorer quality textures the effect is more dramatic.

Distingo is simple and powerful.

 

Speaking of cool things - here is a glimpse of the new water flow simulation coming with the next version of Gaia...

If you look at the gulleys on the cliffs there you can see that I have painted a grass texture where the water would flow - this is a terrific technique for making more natural environments. I have deliberately made them narrow - but you can control the effect to make it work for your environment. The same approach can also be used to mask for grass, trees and game objects - its very powerful.

This terrain doesn't have Distingo on it - and you can really notice the difference

 

So looking forward to this

I tested it and the simplicity of use and the direct, on the fly visual changes as you manipulate the sliders is awesome
a New Terrain Shader star is rising

 

Because nobody would ever do something deceitful like that just to sell you something, right?

I'm experimenting with waterfalls too. I'm not trying to duplicate any real world ones like you are, but have run into similar problems creating an end to end solution. I use Ceto for my main ocean, but it doesn't do waterfalls, so I just made a mesh of the waterfall and added the Scroll UV script to provide the flow. The pool at the top is just another mesh with Water4 as a material. The problem is blending them all together. Once you get the colors to match the best you can, you're still left with some ugly seams at the top and bottom. I've tried to cover them by adding boulders and a lot of particle spray. I'm still not completely happy with the result, so I'll continue to tweak it, but here's what I have so far:




If anyone has any better suggestions for doing this I'd love to hear them.

 

Nice ! Waterfalls are hard!!

 

You've get that right! But thanks. Here's another shot showing the whole thing.



I'm still working on the terrain details, and really looking forward to the next Gaia release (and now Distingo apparently ), so i can finish it.

 

Looking good, a very believable waterfall

 

Not sure about that road there though, it seems to remind me of that song Talking Heads...can't recall the name of it though....

Good job, what stone texture is that FargleBargle?

 

Thanks. It actually turned out better than expected, considering the whole thing started as a bit of a kludge to cover some seams. The terrain on the right is partly made from a mesh that covers the tunnel the racetrack takes through the mountain. Since it's not part of the actual terrain, I'm stuck with just a plain rock texture, with pretty noticeable seams where it blends with the terrain on either side. The lake covered a lot of that, and the waterfall was just a nice finishing touch. I'm still working on it, but it's shaping up nicely.

Nope. It goes somewhere, have no fear.

The rock is something I cobbled together from a tiling rock texture I found on the Internet with some added horizontal banding to give it a bit of a layered sediment look. Can't wait to see what Distingo does to it. Not sure where the original came from, since all I can find now after a quick search is this lower res version:



...but here's my tweaked version:

 

Never mind the waterfall where did you get those shirt textures!

One of my friends used to always wear shirts like those. With the shirts and moustache he had he looked like a 5ft 4' version of magnum, except in a nissan and not a ferrrari.

 

sc

Looks great @FargleBargle! I'm not really trying to replicate real world waterfalls as much as just getting terrains that are waterfall-ready. Just trying to get a waterfall placed in the locations that look good. Unfortunately I'm not artistic so I haven't even attempted to make meshes. Are you making them in Unity somehow or using a modeling program to make them?

 

Right. I have a whole (virtual) closet full of 'em. Since my main level is a kind of tropical paradise, I figured Hawaiian shirts would be appropriate attire. He gets a different one every time I play, and I don't need to change the mesh to do it. I just randomly pick them from a texture pool. If you want some of your own, search Google images for "hawaiian shirt texture". Then it's just a matter of finding some that aren't watermarked by stock image sites. For commercial projects, where you need to have clear title to the textures you use, those stock image sites can set you up nicely for a fee.

Depends on the shape. If you can use a quad, without it poking out somewhere you don't want to see, you can do it in Unity. If you need to trim off corners to make it fit, you'll need a modelling program. The one in the picture is just a plain rectangle I think, so not much artistic skill needed there.

For the waterfall, you pretty much need a modelling program, to bend a flat plane to the shape you want. But you can use any modelling program, and Blender is free.

There are a few Unity apps, like Mega-fiers, that let you manipulate meshes right in Unity, but I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any of them.

 

A Settlement I am working on.

 

Very cool

 

I want to to place some lakes and rivers in the mountains above sea-level. Is there an easy way to keep my chosen lake/river areas free of grasses, trees etc. other than having to manually spawn around these areas?

Also would there be a way to use Gaia to add vegetation around the river banks and lake edges (think cattail etc.)?

 

That looks great mate,.. BTW where'd you score the swing bridge? I have a broken one but it's not great, I'm thinking I'll be forced to try make one but not sure I'll get anything any good yet, just started playing with blender

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5zazy5ruf6zb7dy/Screenshot 2016-02-05 10.14.53.png?dl=0

 

I too need an answer to this. I spawned the tress and details the other day and had to remove them they where all in my lakes. I have a splatmap from World Machine I'm thinking I can use the red area as a no go mask as that the sea bed and lake floors.Adam did show me that in the skype call bless him but I got a memory like a shive (vedgie strainer). I think I make a mask from a colour map, select the red and it leaves that blank

 

I was just talking with Adam about this last night. Right now the best way to do it is as @Kiwi-Hawk was talking. I don't have World Machine, so I'd have to pull the SplatAlpha which Unity makes (added as a child to your terrain object) and pull that into Photoshop and somehow mask the areas where water would be and get rid of all the others. My thoughts would be then to add an outline through the Layer stuff, setting it to whatever thickness I want my inland shorelines to be, that way that outline could be used as a mask... It is all in my head, but I think that should do it.

Some of the stuff Adam is working on might make some of that easier in future releases. But at this point, I think using the World Machine splatmap or the SplatAlpha maps from Unity are the only way. I'd love to hear other suggestions for easier methods!

Actually, my rambling there was for the shoreline spawning of cattails, etc. For the lake beds/river beds, you would use similar just painting your lake area/river area in Photoshop / Gimp and using that as a mask. I'm fighting with the same thing right now with my waterfall areas I'm working on. Lower area is sand because it is below my water level (Gaia sea level) but the upper area of the river above the falls spawns grass. Currently, hand painting terrain or creating mask in photoshop would be the only way around. Then spawn sand texture (or dirt texture if you are using it as a base) using what you created as a mask and use !0 (or whatever texture slot the texture you don't want to spawn on) to each of the things you don't want to be able to spawn on that texture.

 

Yup.. if red is the area you don't want to spawn, use the red mask and invert... That should let things spawn on everything except the red area.

 

Part of me is wondering if the texture filter option under slope might work? if ALL you waterways etc are textured in the same sand/dirt (say texture 1 or 2 (not sure you can use two numbers tho)) activating that filter and selecting that texture number should filter it right?

 

I think it originally came from the 3D Warehouse, but as with so many Sketchup models, it needed a lot of cleanup before it was game ready. They always seem to have messed up normals or UVs, making the models look terrible in a game engine until they've been fixed. The meshes also usually need to be optimized a bit to reduce poly counts. I rarely use anything I find "as is", so the scale and textures and lots of other details needed tweaking as well. If I'd known more about modelling at the time, it might have been easier to just make it from scratch.

When I first started out I spent a lot of time prospecting for stuff like this. Turns out there are a lot of free 3D model sites on the net if you look hard enough, so until your modelling skills catch up, there's still hope. Even premium sites like Turbosquid have a number of good free models available, and many others that are quite cheap. I've picked up a lot at the Asset Store as well, which have the advantage of being game optimized and Unity ready right out of the box. . But don't be afraid to make your own either. You'll learn a lot doing it.

Me too. I'm not sure if or how you can specify multiple textures. If you could, marking your sand and rock textures as off limits would do the trick. But the good thing about Gaia is that it's still a standard terrain when you're done. As much as I'd love to use stamps and splat maps for everything, sometimes a bit of hand painting is actually quicker. Removing a few unwanted trees and plants is usually pretty easy, unless you're talking about really large areas.

 

Maybe you could add a decal plane above the waterfall join and have a rushing water texture on it and fade it at both ends?

Also you usually get a lot of vegetation along the riverbanks and water edges, maybe a fern model or two sticking out of the cliff.
Looking good!

 

This any good to ya mate?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w4yhfaay6hic2mm/wall-and-terrain-textures-pack-screenshots-1.jpg?dl=0

Happy Birthday people,.. knock ya selves out if it's any good to ya

 

Hmm little curious Cobus but where are those shields with the 2 swords and spikes from? I never saw them in the Interior kid. Are they from the exterior kid?

Happy Birthday Adam

 

Great ideas. The decal thing is something I should have thought of myself. As for the ferns, I'm still working on that. Right now, it just has Gaia's default texture and detail placement, and Gaia had no idea I'd put a lake there, so it will definitely need some adjustment. I'm waiting on the update before finalizing it, because I'm sure there'll be a few goodies in it that will make it look even better. Also, as I mentioned, the rock on the right side of the waterfall at the top is all mesh, so isn't something Gaia has any control over. I'll need to plant anything on that side manually, and change the underlying texture to something other than rock. Anyone know a good mesh texture blender? I've tried a few of the free ones that used to be available (which were all pretty quirky btw), but can't get any of them work in Unity 5.

Looks nice, but doesn't tile too well as it stands. It also isn't a square power of 2, which Unity likes best. Fortunately it can still be incorporated into other textures that are. Here's one I made based on it and another cliff texture I had:

The other texture contributed the larger features, while yours added some closer detail.
Cheers.