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

This has been addressed in 1.5 - thanks for the feedback

 

Hmm... your screen looks eerily familiar ... what could this be

 

"Quality always surfaces" Looking forward towards the 1.5 release. While I'm playing with it may I suggest yet another feature (may be asked already so if I'm lucking it's already part of the 1.5 )
When spawning Gameobjects the spawned object are parented to the spawner object. Would it be possible to have a structure GameObject Spawner->Rule name->the spawned objects. I'm asking this because in this case a user can remove the results of one rulme, activate the rule back and respawn (without the need to flush/select/remove those objects from one specific rule.

 

Also addressed but slightly differently. Not in front of computer now so can't screenshot

 

I'm not going to worry too much about best optimisation techniques until Unity 5.4 comes out. Because it has GPU instancing, but the current 5.4 beta doesn't include instanced SpeedTree shaders or billboard support so I have to wait a bit longer to see how much difference it will make.

 

Hi Adam, Any updates on this?

 

Seriously man, stop asking... its being asked almost everyday but I can tell you, it's a BIG update so be patient, it will come when its ready

 

Primarily the reason i'm asking is because he said he was aiming for this week I'm just excited about working with the new features, and that it gets asked everyday is a good thing. It simply means there's an interest for a great product.

 

Understood mate, but its being asked everyday almost

You can just look at the replies/views on this thread to see its popular, no need for "when's it ready". You ever heard of the nagging children "are we there yet?" lol... how would you feel if its like that?

By the way, I don't know if Adam is still offering it but you can get the beta access by sending him a pm with your invoice number if you can't wait for the full release

 

I'm very well aware about how it may come across, and I by no means, want to come across as a nagging kid.

But this is the next best thing since beer and baked bread. Sorry Adam, dont beat those just yet but you are pretty darn close.

 

@FargleBargle,

That works, basically I made a unitypackage of all the art. Here's a snapshot, the GUI is trashed in 5.2+, O.K. in
5.1 but won't start 8--[

5.3 trashed gui snapshot
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/102638093/bogwood_feb_12_2016.zip
170mb
keys -
WASD moves
spacebar jumps
tkey-spells
Pkey-inventory
Alt-f4 quits
1-6 spell cast
TAB-crouch

 

lol no! it should be beer and bacon!

Anyways I didn't mean nothing by it, don't take offence to what I said mate

 

Nice starting UI/Character options, is that homemade or a certain asset your using?

 

Also, you might want to adjust the LOD's for Speedtree. You really don't need LOD0 to be very far from the camera. LOD1 is usually still very good. Billboards are fine as long as you aren't making a flight simulator so have those come in a bit earlier...or if you really hate them, have the trees cull out earlier.

Both Tree Manager and Sectr are being used in our game as well.

Unity really doesn't handle huge large terrains very well so you have to find ways to optimize it. Occlusion culling, use of LOD's, box colliders instead of mesh colliders, etc. all help. But overall, you just have to watch what you put in the game. If your characters are very high poly or your camera distances are just too high, then you have to adjust.

I remember a fella who had his camera distances set at some REALLY long distance because he wanted a singular mountain to be clear as day from across his insanely huge terrain. It didn't work and he was not happy with our suggestions. lol It is hard to give up stuff once we get it into our head that we need it. Not to say this is your problem, just an example of an extreme.

 

Also copy and move up/down would be very helpfull and timesaver.

 

Gaia is pretty awesome. I used realistic trees pack, the mountain tree pack, RTP, Rocks and boulders,along with Gaia.

 

Seriously mate you have a nerve, no manners at all, first off your hear complaining and now demanding.
Why don't you just GTFO and go troll elsewhere!

 

I am pretty sure if you PM him with invoice detail he would not mind
It is now 3:47 am there, so give it a few hours though

 

True, but it can only help to optimize now and gain the benefits and then see even more performance benefits automatically when 5.4 comes out. Otherwise, you may miss out on performance enhancements you didn't even realize you could get.

 

It is better than beer and bread...no gluten. Thank you, Adam, for making a gluten-free Gaia!

 

This forum needs to be a place where everyone can share their concerns and opinions. Roni92pl may not have approached the community in the best possible way, but I don't believe that's a reason to beat him down and drive him out. I came from another game development community where I was permanently banned because I was only one of a few who actually pointed out the issues with the product. Yes, I also provided solutions as well. And I was a big supporter of their product and even won a prize in one of their contests. Despite all my contributions to the community though, I was beaten and berated for every criticism I offered and eventually was permanently banned. I pray we don't do that here.

When someone slams a bunch of criticism this way, simply ask for their suggestions on how to improve it. I think the last suggestion was a good one and there was no need to attack him for it.

 

+1

Agreed

Lets just all chill and bring goodness here so that people would Want to come read here

 

@S4G4N maybe you will know this, when Adam gave me the link for the 1.5 beta, is that just a 1 beta on its own or is that link also being updated daily with for example beta1 beta 2 and so on? just wondering, thanks

 

I don't think everyone on this forum will now trash you right away, but I'm sure I speak for everyone if I say:

Delete that post, settle the score with broetchen outside of this thread and nobody's gonna mind you continue posting here - that is as long as it's related to Gaia.

Then everyone will be happy.

 

Don't make me break out the popcorn gif. . Take it to PM.

 

Yep sorry guys, being sorted over PM right now, won't be no more stupidness posted here

 

@Eric2241 awesome pics there

 

Thanks, but thank Adam for the asset!

 

That's right. You're also banned from this thread forever. In addition anyone else will join you if they derail or show lack of respect.

If people have problems with each other, the forum isn't the place for it. End of. Now, back to the hilly wonders of Gaia...

 

I just wanted to report on my earlier idea of using Real Imposters LOD System combined with Smart LOD. I haven't yet tried combining Smart LOD, but Real Imposters alone is absolutely amazing. My review title is "Wow! Amazing!" and it certainly is. I was able to take their demo scene, scale up the objects to real world scale, plop in an fps controller, and walk around at a solid 60 fps on the Wii U. Making this work in Gaia should be a simple matter of copy/pasting the ImposterManager from the demo scene into your own scene and then adding prefabs to the spawning system that have the Imposter script attached. I'll report on further progress later on.

 

Sounds very cool - love to see some screenies

 

I'm running a full terrain spawn on details with the forge and houses converted to imposters right now. But it's taking a very, very long time to spawn the entire 4096x4096 terrain. I don't think screenshots are going to be anything special though. This is all just thrown together testing. I will definitely let you know how the spawn turns out and if the imposters work as expected.

 

I figure I also probably need to take a somewhat different approach for a game that primarily uses a top-down camera versus one that is first person or over-the shoulder. As much as I like being able to tilt that camera down an extra little bit to be able to see the sky and the horizon, I may be better off keeping the tilt more restricted such that you can't quite see the horizon and the terrain off in the distance. That way, it's only the zoom level that determines how much terrain is visible at a time. I don't think that Wasteland 2 or Divinity: Original Sin allow you to tilt the camera enough to actually see the sky and the horizon.

 

They are some of my favorites like
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
Path of Exile
Diablo 1 2 3
Titan Quest
Dungeon Siege
all game types that Gaia features can build scenes for

** Lots of cool memories here

Cheers
Cobus

 

It seems i'm running into a issue with the texture spawner.

It is positioned correctly but it still isn't spawning the textures correctly.

 

Increase the instance count on your texture rules to 2147483647. This was cause in v1 if your terrain was a different size to whats in your defaults file. Next release fixes this.

 

I'm more into turn-based RPGs than the action RPGs (at least on the PC), but I'm definitely going for a similar look and interface.

Funny you should mention Dungeon Siege. Many years ago now, I was involved in the Ultima V: Lazarus project, a remake of the classic Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny using the Dungeon Siege engine. I was one of the early world-builders on the project (Moonglow & Verity Isle, Dungeon Shame, Isle of the Avatar), and when I work with Gaia and your Village kits, I wish that we had those available back then. I HATE flat terrain, and Dungeon Siege had a lot of 4x4 and 8x8 perfectly flat terrain nodes. However, they also had several of these 1m x 2m nodes of various shapes (both convex and concave) that were 2m high. So I was able to very carefully piece together some interesting terrain by using those little 2m slopes to give the terrain some definition. I also recall placing every tree, rock, flower, and mushroom by hand. I spent hundreds of hours building Verity Isle for the original Alpha demo, and it was incredibly difficult to avoid coastlines that looked like LEGO because all of the coastline nodes that came with the game were 8x8 90 degree pieces. But there were also these little 2m high rock faces that were 1m x 2m and I was able to transition between those and the beach pieces so that there would be somewhere for the player to dock the boat (the beach pieces) but I could still maintain the proper shape of the island.

So when I say I'm impressed with Gaia and that I appreciate what it can do, it's not an understatement.

(Ian Frazier, the project lead on Lazarus went on to be a designer on Titan Quest.)

 

WOW,

Loved the editors that came with those game, Siege University and all
The terrains in Dungeon siege was basically terraces and ramps, but it was awesome and the best at the time man
One of the leads at Titan Quest is the founder of Grim Dawn studio after Iron Lore closed down
Also a cool title. Must be all of the games such as these ones that have me make Medieval Fantasy Assets.
My two sons 10 & 14 think I play games all day when they see the game objects

Cheers
Cobus

 

Hi all,

Just been testing the asset - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/33792 mentioned by Quicke.Martinez a good few posts ago (this is a fast moving thread!!!!).

It's free and works nice from what I can see. Create the terrain then add this assets component to it. Sets the slider values and hit a button. Go and make a quick cup of tea or if you are impulsive like me crank the number of iterations WAYYYYY up and then cook your dinner and have a cup of tea. When you come back it's done. The effect can be subtle to more extreme. When done just remove the component and start the spawners etc. I have no affiliation to the developer etc etc etc.

A couple of images showing it.

First - (labelled 2 just to confuse us all) is just stamped. Second (labelled 1 - It's getting late here! ) is after erosion.

doc

 

Quick questions on How to group spawn a large terrain.

I created the terrain and stamp. Then I was able to enlarge the terrain via unity terrain component, and successfully stamp the terrain. However, when I attempted to group spawn, it only spawned on the original stamp size.

How do I successfully create, stamp and spawn a larger terrain than the default size?

Oh, heck. Is that the answer up above, to:

So, I should be changing the terrain size in the defaults file?

 

As I started putting AQUAS water in my scenes I thought I should mention that you can achieve this without duplicating your terrain. In AQUAS you can simply select which layers are included in the reflections. So, if your vegetation and terrain are on different layers then you just don't select the vegetation layer in the reflections.

 

How are you accomplishing that? Are you setting the layer of the vegetation different from the terrain. Are you doing this with the individual spawner layers? Is your vegetation not part of the unity terrain system?

 

I think I spoke too soon. I hadn't actually tried it. I just remember seeing that you could select different layers for the reflections. However, it would still be possible if the vegetation were not painted on the terrain in the standard Unity way. I'm finding that terrain vegetation is actually a mammoth cpu hog so I'm looking at alternatives anyway. I'm looking at InfiniGRASS, for example, which I believe could be on its own layer. I'm also looking at not using terrain trees either. I'm going to try the imposter/smart LOD method I described before. I think it will work better.

 

The best way is to change the terrain size in the defaults file. But if you have already create, resized, and stamped your terrain, you can do it following the answer up above that you quoted.

When you create a terrain with Gaia in the current asset store version, it creates all your max numbers on your spawners to match the terrain size. This is fixed in Gaia 1.5 and the spawners actually check the terrain. But really it is probably a best practice to always setup your defaults prior to doing anything else. That way everything is preset.

 

Many thanks, @Shawn67

 

Been trying out this asset and enjoying it so far, but is there any special trick I'm missing when trying to use it with RTP? Whenever I add it to my terrain the whole thing just goes black. Tried different shader setups and recompiling but it never changes.

 

Hi guys,....

Just wanna draw your attention to this thread with some good advice on efficient terrain making ... and more...

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/the-secret-to-great-terrain-on-mobile.305899/

In particular this free asset is promoted: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3224

... also, among other things, there is a description on how to do water puddles....

Just a thought: This forum has now become my first stop checking Unity-related stuff online - even before the Asset Store And I suspect it has become that for many other terrain freaks/lovers/creators.

The reasons:

1. It has great advice
2. it's full of people crazy about terrain creation
3. it has a positive (mostly ) and friendly tone
4. there is always someone who has a solution (or at least an idea) for any terrain related issue
5. it's not ONLY about Gaia - lot's of other assets are promoted or reviewed.... and that is not a problem because mostly people here are terrain freaks and will buy/use many overlapping tools like Terrain Composer/Gaia and ToD/Tenkoku no matter if they can afford them or not
6. .... and lastly: Because of the pretty pictures Because let's face it. We are all suckers for pretty views and I suspect many of you are like me. We neglect other aspects of our game for Terrain Creation.... and we all forgot time exploring our created terrains for ages It is true that post processing makes pretty pictures and it's true that all of us probably will need to optimize heavily before our terrains are actually usable in our games... but who cares really - it soothes the soul to create terrains

The problem is the fast moving thread where we lose track of all the good advice. I know @AdamGoodrich has plans for that... But how about keeping it dead simple... like Gaia A simple list of #permalinks to the posts containing some kind of advice/tip with a one line description would suffice, I think. That way we wouldn't risk losing the fast and dynamic flow of posts in this thread but still be able to find important stuff. Just a sticky post in the first page could do the trick... Although I guess it would be easier to maintain if we all could post there..,,

What do you think??

Jesper

 

Third Person Controller version 1.2.2 announced, among other things:

Why would a controller require integration with GAIA?