GeNa - Sophisticated procedural content spawner

What is GeNa?

GeNa is the swiss army knife of spawning systems, enabling the rapid creation of gorgeous looking environments.

GeNa gives you the flexibility to go fully procedural or fully manual or somewhere in between and cuts days and weeks out of level generation.

GeNa makes your environments look more natural and reduces 'designer fatigue' with its powerful nature based spawning algorithms.

GeNa reduces bake times in some cases to zero, and can improve frame rates and lighting quality through its automated prefab optimization system.

GeNa will spawn on mesh and terrain based environments, and is compatible with single or multi-tile terrains. GeNa is of course the perfect companion to Gaia!

How is GeNa different to Gaia?

Gaia and GeNa share the ability to spawn things into your terrain, however, GeNa takes the spawning system to a whole new level and adds in some killer new features like the optimization system that takes literally hours off your bake time while also improve lighting and frame rates.

One of the key differences between Gaia and GeNa is GeNa's ability to sample the environment you click on, and then select similar area's within the criteria you set in which to spawn your target objects. It's an entirely new way to work and is incredibly intuitive.

Here is a more exhaustive list of the differences between Gaia and GeNa:

* Sculpt terrain - Gaia yes, GeNa no
* Texture terrain - Gaia yes, Gena no
* Simple scene setup with water, player, wind and lighting - Gaia yes, GeNa no
* Spawn grass, trees and prefabs on terrain - Gaia yes, GeNa yes
* Spawn sophisticated collections of prefabs on terrain - Gaia yes, GeNa yes
* Sophisticated image based masking - Gaia yes, GeNa yes
* Sophisticated colour-map based masking - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Spawns on meshes - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Global and local spawning - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Click based spawn positioning - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Composable spawners - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Clickable spawn criteria configuration - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Real-time spawn criteria visualization - Gaia partial, GeNa yes
* Automated prefab performance optimization - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Automated light probe placement and optimization - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Gravity based spawning system - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Fence and wall building system - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Fine grained spawn placement tuning - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Save and re-use spawners as prefabs - Gaia no, GeNa yes
* Run-time spawning - Gaia - partial, GeNa yes

You can think of Gaia as a wide roller brush designed to do entire terrains whereas GeNa is the precision tool to add in the details and optimize them. Your typical workflow would be to use Gaia (or your tool of choice) to sculpt and texture your terrain and then hand over to GeNa to do the rest. Why ? GeNa's spawning system is precise, faster and easier to setup and spawn, and is more intuitive to use.

Key Features:

- Fast intuitive setup;
- Optimization system - reduces bake time, improves frame rate and lighting;
- Works with terrains or meshes (including walls and spheres);
- Works with single or multiple terrain tiles;
- Spawns grasses, trees or prefabs
- Spawns individual items;
- Spawns complex structures;
- Spawns locally or across entire scenes;
- Design time or runtime spawning;
- Precision placement modification;
- Save your spawners as prefabs for re-use;
- Amazing gravity simulation;
- Rock ledge and rock wall building;
- Cool fence building system;
- Multiple spawn algorithms.

Multiple Spawn Algorithms:

- Organic;
- Clustered;
- Last location;
- Every location;
- Local spawns;
- Global spawns;
- Image and noise masking;
- Gravity!

Documentation:

Here is the version by version documentation for Gena.

Tutorials:

Here are the tutorials for GeNa. Be sure to come back often as these tutorials are added to regularly.

Video Playlist:

Asset Store:

Check GeNa out : https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/74407

 

Here are some images of scenes created with Gaia and GeNa!







More coming soon!

 

Intriguing. Procedural content spawner. Would be great if it somehow could address the issue that even though I use Gaia and the pre-made stuff from Cobus assets, setting up a working game environment still take quite some time. Both indoor and outdoor. Time will tell.

 

Its just gone live - i am travelling for Unite so its hard to do video's - but they will arrive in the next week.

 

I bought Gaia at launch and I loved it. I can trust on the quality of Adam's Assets, so I believe GeNa will be no different.

 

Congrats on the release Adam, I'll definitely pick this up this week!

 

Thank you

While GeNa in no way devalues Gaia, it brings a bunch to the table that Gaia doesn't have, and from a configuration perspective is super light weight - pretty much drag and drop.

I really do love using Gena - and have had similar and consistent feedback from the beta group

 

It has finally arrived. I am looking forward to using it.

 

Since there aro no documentation and video, I'm not sure how is this system different from Gaia default spawn system.

 

And next week discount is over I hope you will extend the discount a few days so we can decide after seeing the docs and workflow videos about buying it.

 

Released almost a year to the day that Gaia came out Looking forward to what you release in October 2017 !

 

any video shows how to use this asset

 

Sounds intriguing, but I'm with others about seeing a video. We need to see it in action to make a purchase decision.

 

This really comes in handy as I still haven't decided which terrain generator I will use. Already bought it

 

can you make a video showing its features

 

Hey everyone,

Hey everyone, @AdamGoodrich has just released GeNa

Go grab GeNa, the latest package from @AdamGoodrich , the creator of Gaia

It is on a -50% , 7 day launch special
Even at $50, I would gladly buy it for the time alone it is going to save me.

Congrats @AdamGoodrich !!!



@AdamGoodrich flew of to Unite Aus and was tight for time that is what the vids are not up yet.

As with Gaia, you can expect to see just the best when it comes to ease of use and tutorial videos
It has a very comprehensive 63 page .pdf document included with the package.

It is very different in the range of functions that it has.
It is done to be used with whatever Terrain creation tools you are using to carve your game-world with.
It does work very well with Gaia, but will work as good with World Creator, TC2 and anything else that spits out Unity Terrain or even works perfect for mesh.
It is not just a terrain tool.
You can plant/paint grass onto the roofs of houses, add ivy to pillars or up the side of a castle wall
Very useful mask by colour spawning, like splat-maps
So have the pathways in your village drawn in one colour, then add varying thickness lines on the edges of the paths in another colour.

Then with GeNa to that last edge line add small rocks, one or two grass types and other small environmental placable prefabs and when you spawn that in the spot where you control and want you village with whatever brush-size, it will place all that with the randomness and settings that you chose and paint that one go with neat consistency

With the size by Alpha map, you can say where the river edge is edit the alpha so that the plants that spawn on the edge of the river because there is water, spawn large Cats Tails or whatever grass you added to that mask.

Or in the valleys of mountains spawn larger trees.
Your imagination is the limit when thinking or ways to leverage this tool-set

And this is spawning of ANY prefab, not just nature related, onto terrain or other mesh

Cheers
Cobus

 

@S4G4N Thanks for pointing this out as I had all of this in mind when I bought this asset. The part with the pathways makes it even much better for me.

 

One must just think out the box

Will be so cool, nice small rocks, pebbles and dry grass all added to same colour, all can be spawned one go and will have a nice constancy.
Now procedural has it's limits, so afterwards to can go add some here, remove some there and you have a very good looking result.

 

saw - bought Video is not enough ...

 

As with Gaia, you can expect to see just the best when it comes to ease of use and tutorial videos
It has a very comprehensive 63 page .pdf document included with the package.

 

Gladly give Adam my money for this since it will work with any terrain tool...Which is a huge plus since I'm a picky SOB and like to use many terrain tools on the same terrain...

 

Hey,

That is a HUGE plus for this package.
The fact that it will work with whatever you already using to make your game-world terrain / scenes
It does not depend on and require anything else to make it work.

Cheers
Cobus

 

so this asset is like sectr ? i m asking for video because i didn t really understand what it does exactly i won t buy a cat in a bag

 

No it is not. It isn't really like any tool.... on the store really..Its for level design /world design. You can place objects manually, make cliffs, rock walls, anything really.. or even in runtime.. So for example, if you are trying to make a world that you want to have alot of realism in it, objects can be placed procedurally. which is great and don't have to sit there and tweak and tweak to get it to look the way you want, you are able to place grass, trees, rocks, buildings, what ever so they look more natural..

Now if you don't want realism, it works for that as well....So this tool is for Level, Design World Building and I'm sure much more. Now you can use with Sector , or World Streamer, sure..

 

Yep I understand your concern about the lack of a video... GeNa really needs one to show off its ease of use and power, but I simply ran out of time before heading to Unite and really wanted to get the release out. Maybe I will be able to get access to a machine tomorrow that does decent video - my laptop is just not up to it.

So one thing to be clear about first - GeNa does not terraform or texture like Gaia does. GeNa is a spawning system that works on any terrain, or any mesh. At its core what it is really good at doing is placing grass, trees, and prefabs into your scene.

Sounds simplistic... well not so much... there is a lot of complexity hidden under the hood.

Here are some of the cool things you can do with it:

* Create lovely natural grassy areas
* Create lovely natural tree groves (with terrain trees or prefabbed trees)
* Scatter detritus, rocks, boulders etc naturally using gravity
* Create awesome looking rock walls with ledges, dropoffs etc (solving this led to Gena)
* Create fences and other walls by auto rotating the last object placed
* Place prefabs onto other objects - great for placing interesting details onto porches etc
* Place manually designed sophisticated structures in a way that naturally conforms to the terrain
* Place sophisticated structures that are auto generated from masks

And more. I really need to show it off in action. A bunch of tutorial videos will comes soon

 

Yep. I spent a lot of time making sure that GeNa was different to the other things on the store. Like stamping with Gaia, GeNa brings new things to the space.

 

Or outside the Castle so to speak.

The manual appears to be 62 pages in size. It will be good reading.

 

It almost killed me! Not as good as video imho, but should get you up and running.

 

I am a big fan of written documentation.

 

I think I'll just have to get this then. Gaia is already an important part of my terrain workflow, and it sounds like this will be very useful.

I see there's a fence building system, so maybe there's a road system on the way as well? I know I could do that with Gaia and some masks, but it would be really neat to have a simple and quick way of creating roads.

Edit: Bought it.

 

Just purchased!!!! keep up the awesome work @AdamGoodrich

 

Hey there,

That is exactly why I developed the BLUEPRINTS concept.
Have you had a look at the FREE Premium BLUEPRINTS Sword & Shield Inn yet ?

*IMPORTANT REQUIREMENTS*
Village Exteriors Kit & Village Interiors Kit packages are required to open this BLUEPRINT
*NO texture or mesh data included !!!

The whole idea was to, risk free, have users that already own one or both of the packages be able to grab, use, test and forever own this great handcrafted building that include all the Interiors & Exteriors ready to just drag & drop into your scene.

* If you have only the Exteriors, then only that will be viable when the import the package, same for Interiors

I am going to soon start release themed, paid for Asset packages that will have collections of these in at very low prices.
An example would be, say a village package.
In a specific Look & Feel / Style provide several Houses, an Inn, Church / Chapel , Shops, Town Hall, Blacksmith, General Store and Stables.

Because the package are modular and will be given in the same state, you can go and further customize the structures and tweak them exactly to your taste and make them the only ones that look like that in the world.

I have had many users ask for such solution becasue of a lack of time to build their own

Cheers
Cobus

 

seems there is somebody making stealthy ads for his assets in somebody else thread , people want to know about GeNA not about your stuff so if you have something that contribute will be great or keep quite

 

It's not up to you to decide if he can or cannot put an advertisement on author's page, that's a matter that concerns to them. So be polite please. Besides it seems to me that they are partners at least up to certain degree (his kit is in part included in Gaia). I'm saying this because I just purchased GeNa but not Gaia and not nothing from 3DForge and, as a newbie, I'm really interested to see how these asset can work together.

 

@fernandobraz You are correct. I believe that Cobus is working on further integration of his 3D Forge kits with Gaia's (and maybe GeNa's) spawners. We've had plenty of talk about Gaia in the 3D Forge thread.

 

i am trying to create a multiplayer game using photon and wonder if this will work straight off the bat. looking forward to seeing what u can do as reading this is abit unclear the practicality of it so seeing the work flow helps more. in a multiplayer environment is the positioning going to be random? is the spawns random? i should just shut up and buy it as gaia is ace but figuring out all this multiplayer stuff is hard work as it is. so yeah like many peeps just waiting for a video explanation showcasing the features.

 

@S4G4N was promoting GeNa just this morning in his own thread. More than once. He is great about promoting other people's assets.

It always pays to do some research before calling someone out.

 

Hi @blackbird ,
I did so with 100% consent from @AdamGoodrich since we have worked hard to integrate my current and most upcoming artwork to work best together.

If you would carefully check why I responded and gave the whole explanation.
It was in reply to @bjolin 's comment and I was explaining an upcoming solution.
That is the spirit of the Asset Store, selling tool & art that helps save time.

I trust this helps to understand why I responded how I did, I did not mean to offend anyone, I am trying to make game development less tedious and more fun and provide solution to those that are looking for more ways to do things.

The good news for everyone is that whatever is integrated with Gaia, to my knowledge, GeNa will just pick up and will be spawnable as POI's hence the integration that @AdamGoodrich has implemented across his product.

Cheers
Cobus

 

The good news
Everything that I am adding as integrated Gaia POI's to my understanding GeNa just picks up, can grab and spawn.

@fernandobraz welcome to Unity, the community is a HUGE reason for it's success with very lively forums as you can see.

That is the exact purpose of the reply that might seem like an add only, but is not, it is there to inform users about the integration between us, @AdamGoodrich does not do buildings, grass or rocks, he hooked up with other publishers that does them and we have become good friends from the opposite side of the planet that operate in the same market space with products that compliment each other.

Cheers
Cobus

 

Another rushed and poorly designed asset from Adam.

Just kidding! Another awesome asset, already bought it.

 

It says Meshes is supported, does this means it would also support a sphere generated "terrain" ( as a mesh) Or how can I understand the Mesh support ? And if it supports it does it act like a Terrain?

 

Getting these warnings when importing in Unity 5.4.1:

Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs(317,49): warning CS0618: `UnityEngine.Physics.solverIterationCount' is obsolete: `Please use Physics.defaultSolverIterations instead. (UnityUpgradable) -> defaultSolverIterations'

(Filename: Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs Line: 317)

Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs(321,25): warning CS0618: `UnityEngine.Physics.solverIterationCount' is obsolete: `Please use Physics.defaultSolverIterations instead. (UnityUpgradable) -> defaultSolverIterations'

(Filename: Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs Line: 321)

Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs(581,25): warning CS0618: `UnityEngine.Physics.solverIterationCount' is obsolete: `Please use Physics.defaultSolverIterations instead. (UnityUpgradable) -> defaultSolverIterations'

(Filename: Assets/GeNa/Scripts/Spawner.cs Line: 581)


.... and Unity wants to run the API updater on the project.

 

Hi,

I do not have that asset to test, but when I did screenshare sessions with Adam and did tests where you can take say an part of a plant like an Ivy leaf and then paint/spawn it onto another mesh object/prefab, like a house or pillar, plant grass on the roof if you want, so my best guess would be yes to all your questions.

@AdamGoodrich is at Unity Aus at this very moment, so sure the moment he gets back to his laptop after daily events and some cold beer he will answer the question more detailed

Cheers
Cobus

 

Congrats. I have been waiting this and will probably buy this in the next few days. I wonder if it would be possible to have the documentation released publicly? Since there is no video yet, it would be at least some alternative for people to learn about your asset.

 

This is sound advice. I was on the GeNa test group and you can get some interesting uses out of it. I created a quick asteroid field by just having a messy perlin generated terrain with steep peaks and troughs. I then just used gena to add the asteroids to the terrain. Saved the asteroids out as a seperate gameobject group and deleted the terrain. Painting random objects into empty 3d space would be tedious. With this technique it was very quick. Gena was worth buying then and that was before Adam added all the colormap stuff as well.

 

Seems like there went something wrong... with global spawn

Edit: okay I deleted the Instance the 4 time and now it worked in the correct way didnt changed a Setting so dont knwo why this happened.

Next Question:
Is there an Option to paint in the Editor areas where no Trees f.e. should be placed? I miss something like area or Biom Setting where I can define in a simple way where areas are and where they blend together

 

Maybe instead of a video you could at least post the documentation up on your website for perusal.

 

I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the differences between GeNa and Mega Scatter (specifically TextureScatter). Also, there's no editor screenshots of the GeNa tool anywhere, which is kind of silly for an editor tool. I'll probably end up getting GeNa anyway, just to support @AdamGoodrich, but it'd be nice to have some confidence going into the purchase.

 

That would be great and easy, just a dropbox link..

 

Yes also interested. But sure would like to see video or doc. Very interested in gravity thingy...