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

I am asking what version of Gaia will be released Is this version 1.5.3 or version 2.0

 

Version 1.5.3

 

For anyone else who's linguistically challenged when watching Adam's videos there's this:
http://www15.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/aust-eng.html

I personally don't have a problem with it. Being Canadian, I get my own share of language jibes from the folks down south, but thanks to Crocodile Dundee and Fosters beer, I can navigate Australian just fine most of the time. G'day.

 

HAHAHA. I haven't really found his video lingo confusing at all. Them Ausies do have some fun slang words though. Guess that's what happens when you live upside down all your life.

 

In this routine in HeightMap.cs @ around line 388 make the following changes:

Code (CSharp):

1.        
2. public float this[float x, float z]
3.         {
4.             get
5.             {
6.                 return GetInterpolatedHeight(x, z);
7.             }
8.             set
9.             {
10.                 //x *= ((float)m_widthX - 1f);
11.                 //z *= ((float)m_depthZ - 1f);
12.                 x *= (float)m_widthX;
13.                 z *= (float)m_depthZ;
14.  
15.                 m_heights[(int)x, (int)z] = value;
16.                 m_isDirty = true;
17.             }
18.         }
19.  

 

Ugh.. math. That's why I pay you money for Gaia. haha

 

In this routine in HeightMap.cs @ around line 388 make the following changes:

Code (CSharp):

1.         public float this[float x, float z]
2.         {
3.             get
4.             {
5.                 return GetInterpolatedHeight(x, z);
6.             }
7.             set
8.             {
9.                 //x *= ((float)m_widthX - 1f);
10.                 //z *= ((float)m_depthZ - 1f);
11.                 x *= (float)m_widthX;
12.                 z *= (float)m_depthZ;
13.  
14.                 m_heights[(int)x, (int)z] = value;
15.                 m_isDirty = true;
16.             }
17.         }
18.  

I am doing a test across Gaia as this is a key routine.

If anyone else want's to try it - plug it in and let me know if you have any issues.

 

Looks like it worked!

Thanks for the quick fix Adam

 

Wow after creating two terrains and just moving one over I'm still able to use gaia on both and with the update from above you cant even tell I was standing on the seam of both terrains.

 

As I am experimenting with runtime random terrain generation, I decided to create a small video of my project, showing how the random terrain options of GAIA can be used to build unique new terrains on startup. The working project name is Gaia Orb

I did not skip the loading time to show how long it currently takes to build everything in runtime on a 1 year old PC in Unity.
To make loading time shorter, a higher texture increment value could be set with bigger-scaled textures. Same goes for details. Stamping goes very fast as you can see.

The video also uses my animated day-night-system "One Day" for day-night-cycles.

I am excited about the tutorial video Adam will release about runtime stuff, to make some test builds. currently it only works in Unity Editor. Have fun!

 

Hi adam

I have an idea.
make your stamps as terrain brush.
then what?
use brush paint these stamps to create the terrain you want.
it maybe a more simple and faster workflow.
suggest you try it then see if it's a good idea, or not.

 

One slight snag that I can think of about this approach - you can't rotate the brushes

 

Sorry if this is a beginners question, or if it's just plain stupid and I'm trying to compare potatoes and onions, but could this be used in Gaia? https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/45188

I'm having too much fun in Gaia, just wish I could somehow get the grasses to look somewhat more natural.
I need to go back and actually work on my game idea, not just roll a new terrain every evening

@AdamGoodrich any plans to include a mesh generator for waterfalls?
Also, can you share your workflow creating game objects with multiple objects inside? do you just create a farm and drag it into an empty object, or do you place them one by one, or?

 

Hey @jplebre

The POI (Point of Interest) creation process is something that @AdamGoodrich is busy making tutorial vids for.
He showed me via screenshare at the time he coded it and it is really simple, easy and powerful.
So wee will all soon be able to make our own.
That is the idea, so supply some cool examples but at the end for the users to make their own custom ones

Cheers
Cobus

 

Any unity asset can be used with Gaia. Gaia creates a standard Unity terrain.

As far as a mesh generator for waterfalls, that is kind of beyond Gaia's scope. Not to say Adam may not do it as another asset in the future. We have had a lot of conversations about waterfalls and the lack of a really good waterfall asset in the store. There is one I still want to try but up to now, everyone I've tried has been kind of lacking. I have two stamp packs worth of waterfall stamps for Gaia that I'm holding from release because I don't have a good waterfall asset to create the water.

If I misunderstood you and you are actually looking for waterfall stamps and not the water mesh, I will have two stamp packs of waterfall stamps that I'll be selling as soon as I can find good waterfalls to flow off of them. You can keep an eye on my thread that is linked in my signature for updates on the stamp packs.

 

Ah, It still all comes back to being a bit of a math whizz... kinda (I mean I'm not makin terrains this very minute, so it's easy to think out there instead of right now ), Still makes me think back to Level Designing in Valves editor, similar to your 3D modelling apps I guess (but super easier) things were more hands on and less slider inspector type stuff... I know I'm asking (dreaming) of some Utopian level development environment, but you know Microsoft is exploring AR and sculpting in virtual space using you hands etc.... imagine just seeing the terrain and pulling it up a bit here, lower a bit there, draw a spline river with your finger and similar awesomeness with your hands

How this will pan out i'm not really sure... looks too good to be true, but I am sure Unity will be on board as the tech matures.. I give it another 5 years (ps. Couldn't find the exact video where they got a few 3D artists to try it out)

 

I like this and made a comment about the feasiblity of random terrain generation further back in the thread. Giving a player the option to choose a type of terrain is cool also. Nice work. I'm wondering if it could become an asset.

 

thank you yes, i am loading randomly different GaiaResources which i.e. stand for snowland or desert.
If I manage to make it work for mobile etc. too and there is interest in an asset like this I can of course make an asset out of it if Adam doesnt feel a feature being stealed haha

 

I am hoping to have a play with HoloLens at GDC next week. Would be cool to see what you can do with it with Gaia

 

PM me if you want to talk about doing an extension for Gaia. Gaia has runtime capabilities but they are not well tested or exposed as I have been focussing initially on just making it work

 

I recently did this video giving an overview of my asset Distingo which is a Gaia Compatible asset. The clip starts off showing how Distingo is easily integrated into a Gaia Terrain.

Hope you find it useful

 

The biggest problem with waterfalls is that you pretty much need to make a different custom mesh for each situation. The water flow is really shaped by the terrain it's flowing over. Straight vertical drops are pretty easy, but uneven stepped falls, that don't follow a simple path are much more complicated. So doing a mesh for Niagara for instance would be easier than one for this:



And of course after making the mesh, you still need to create particle systems for the splash, foam, and mist effects to really sell it. Of course if there was a way to do all of this procedurally, based on the underlying terrain, it would be awesome, but otherwise you're stuck doing each one by hand.

 

I am considering doing something like this as a separate asset - it would use splines so that you could define approximately where you want it to go - then interrogate the environment to adapt naturally to it - then both modify the terrain - and create a river / waterfall mesh and place it in the right spot. I could also place mist etc procedurally.

I am not a shader dev though - so the last part would be to plug in your favourite water shader. You never know what is coming in the pipeline

 

@Shawn67 The mesh would probably be the worse part for me. I'm trained as an audio engineer and also work as a software developer (backend API's for web applications), so I'm leaning onto any tool I can to make up for my particular lack of skills in these dept
@AdamGoodrich idea seems perfect

@S4G4N looking forward!

 

That tree branch is constantly scraping on my bedroom window and the roots are causing havoc with my house foundations. The local council said it's protected and I can't cut it down!!!!

The lack of sleep is really getting to me now.

I have decided to bring it to the gaia High court for chief justice @AdamGoodrich to give me permission to cut down that tree.

 

If you're on a network, you may want this plugin to help you chop that tree:
Trees Manager System - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/43129

 

Looks like a great bit of kit and added to my wishlist. But in this instance the town woodsman Herbie Grunger is only charging a chicken to chop it down.

 

Sign me up. Based on what I've seen with Gaia, I'm sure the results will be pretty awesome.

I actually bought that, but it looks like before I can use it I need to remove all of my existing trees, make new prefabs with their script attached, and plant them all again. This also means removing all of my grass and details first as well. While Gaia makes most of that pretty simple, it would mean tossing out all the tuning I've done to everything since initially setting it up.

 

If you just assign the script to the prefabs directly should it not update all the objects in the scene??

 

Can you do this to stock Speedtrees? I didn't bother making custom prefabs for many of the ones I bought, since the standard colliders and pivot placement were OK already. And even if I can, I'll lose the changes as soon as I update any of them. Should have thought it through a bit more before planting them I guess. I was just too eager to turn the new version of Gaia loose on my terrain.

 

Not sure. I wouldn't try in your main project though just in case. Maybe set up a quick test level. I don't have that asset so I can't try it. Would be a downer if can't though.

 

From reading a review by a member called Aurora they state that you can choose to use prefabs(newer) or the older system with Colliders. May be something to look at.

 

It wouldn't be the first time I've had to redo everything, so it's not the end of the world or anything. I'm just not looking forward to it.

 

You just can't get good help these days!!

On a practical note - spawn your game objects first - then the trees - and if they are still too close - increase the bounds in the game objects dna

 

Herbie Grunger is off his head. We decided to to cut the tree down anyway and he was showing off singing all 15 verses of `An Ode to Goodrich` to the theme of Home and Away. Well as you can see it went wrong! The house is a mess. Ironically it's quieter now as the branch isn't scraping on the window anymore but the family are all complaining as we all roll out of our beds. I will have to cut the legs off the beds to match the new incline.

I will be taking your advice in future to prevent this from happening again and to avoid the need for local tradesmen like Herbie.

Thanks

 

This brings up a chicken and egg type of question. What's the best order to do everything? If you lay down the terrain textures first, then place objects, trees, and details, you can use the underlying texture as a spawn criteria for trees and grass for instance, but if you want to use the bounds areas around objects to affect the terrain texture, you should really do the texture later. Or do you just redo it after?

 

The order I do it is - textures - game objects - trees - details.

Speaking of cool things... and now for something completely different.

This is an image generated by Googles Deep Dream Generator:



From this Gaia scene:


The dragon came from SF Bay Studio's Dragons Pack PBR (its absolutely stunning)!

 

Could it be, that you broke even more? I can't seem to get those surrounding mountains generated on Random Generator....
And wouldn't it be a good idea to show a Progressbar while the stamps are randomized? To generate 20 random stamps it takes one minute at least on my core i7 notebook lol

What aboutusing GPU for calculating those hightmaps? Seen this feature on another terrain tool *g*

Greetings

Dark

 

Eh and just got this after applying your fix and recreating a terrain from scratch...

Resources are all default, changed nothing lol

Another Thing which is causing me problems is one of the water scripts, can't remember which one, thinking it was planar reflection....causing me about 66% Culling which is in total 88% Culling...

 

I ran into this as well. Though some one had mentioned to me you can tweak this value. I just haven't read too far into the documentation yet to do it. But a better solution in my opinion is to just stamp out the edges with mountains the way you want them.

 

One minute is pretty good for 20 random stamps! That is a lot of resolution there you are adding to your terrain. lol

 

Another question is: Are the chances really taken into account, because all of them get selected, regardless if I'm slide through null...
Waterfalls get never included, slider is at maximum and nothing other selected. Right before i stamped some bigger parts.

So this is it for now...
It's just 2:38 AM in Germany...good night lol

 

Out of scope questions:

1. Does anyone knows here how to apply a student visa in Australia ?
2. Does anyone here knows TAFE SA or TAFE NSW ? (I know @AdamGoodrich is from Australia, maybe he knows it)

Back to the Gaia topic:
1. I tried using the Playway Water but I get an unsatisfied result because when I cross the lake or any water bodies made from it, I always see a plain terrain when I am inside of it.
2. I don't see much difference when I added Advanced fooliage.
3. Does anyone here tried using Emerald AI for creating a school of fish inside a lake ? ( I would like to see if I can make a fishing spot in Gaia where there are school of fish that I can catch )

 

Are you sure waterfalls never get included? I mean it doesn't add an actual waterfall, but the terrain for it. Maybe you are just not seeing it on the terrain?

 

I have no issues using the random stamper - and yes the chances are taken into account.

There are only 2 waterfall stamps in Gaia - so your haven't gotten much of a selection to choose from there.

 

Is there perhaps a newsletter or something I can sign up for to get release announcement updates for this @AdamGoodrich ? Just waiting till the built in multi tile generation/support is coming. Or is best thing to keep checking this threads first page?

 

Probably best to check the first page - I am using this forum for comms for now.

 

Okay ty for the speedy reply

 

I'm sorry, but it looks like all of your questions are kind of off topic. Gaia creates standard Unity terrain, with standard trees, details, and other objects placed on it. It does nothing special other than making this easier to do. If Playway or the Advanced Foliage Shader are giving strange results, you'd get the same if you created your terrain without Gaia. You should probably be asking about these problems in their own threads. And Emerald AI shouldn't care if it's being used with Gaia or a standard terrain either, so your question about using it to control fish should really be asked in their own thread too.

Playway Water thread
Advanced Foliage Shader thread
Emerald Animal AI thread

As for the rest of your questions, they really are off topic. I'd suggest Google.

 

Not saying there is a new release... but if there was.. the release notes for 1.5.3 would look like this

Enhancements:
• Improved the session preview image display
• Improved the random terrain layout algorithms to use stencils as well
• Added use screen resolution capability to screen shotter
• Added 10 new river stamps

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed game object local scale on spawn issue
• Fixed asset export duplicated object export issue
• Fixed duplicate object session serialise and deserialise issue
• Fixed random terrain generation height issue