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GeNa - Sophisticated procedural content spawner

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by AdamGoodrich, Oct 22, 2016.

  1. MrG

    MrG

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    Did you submit this to the Support system? If not, please do. Thanks.
     
  2. PrimeDerektive

    PrimeDerektive

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  3. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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  4. vampir26

    vampir26

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    I'm wondering how I can set a "max height" in spawn criteria, because I wish to spawn seaweed globally.

    I'm also wondering, why I can't place trees, because I get message: "You must have an active terrain". I use 2x2 terrains.
     
  5. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    In GeNa there is a min height - to avoid placing below water level, and a height range... which will place assets around a given height.

    There is however no max height as it was never something I considered would be useful.
     
  6. MrG

    MrG

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    What...no seaweed down under? :D
    Seriously...plants and rocks and choral in the water not so far fetched.
     
  7. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    You can do this no problems - my comment is that while i saw a need for a minimum height - i never saw a need for a maximum height... 20 - 20 hindsight :)
     
    MrG likes this.
  8. ScourgeGames

    ScourgeGames

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    Thanks for posting this. Saved me in my recent upgrade.
     
  9. ohbado

    ohbado

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    Hello.
    I will CTRL + left click in Gena to generate grass in Gena. But Gena does not work.
    I changed Position Y of Terrain from -36 to 0. Then Gena worked properly.
    I had Gena's Height check turned off.

    Gena can work properly even if Position of Terrain is other than Origin?
     
  10. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Looks like you found an edge condition. Not sure why you would ever have terrain not at zero.

    Quick fix: Put it to zero and then put back afterwards :)
     
  11. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Hey everyone,

    U2018.2 breaks prefab spawning in GeNa.

    I have found and made that and the other fixes, and will release an update later this week.

    Added some small but useful changes as well, and @MrG will see if i can add in that max height tweak as well.

    Anyone who wants to add some input please connect to me on our discord channel. A link to it is in my signature.

    Cheers,
    Adam.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2018
  12. MrG

    MrG

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    That was @vampir26 :)
     
  13. docsavage

    docsavage

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    Looking forward to this Gena update.

    A 'Select All' toggle for editing all prefabs in a group at the same time without having to do them individually would be great as well. Eg if a groups objects are all set to align with terrain and you want to change this you currently have to do all individually but having a toggle that will update all in that group for any setting would be a great speed up to workflow.

    Thanks.
     
  14. vampir26

    vampir26

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    Ok, thank you, it would help me a lot.
     
  15. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    FREEBIES!!!



    We have made the custom blacksmith environment, and the GeNa spawners demonstrated in this video available for free in our freebies channel on discord.

    One of the things we did with the Blacksmith environment was to re-configure it to use the Unity Standard shader, and that means that it will now be usable with the Unity 2018 LW & HD SRP pipelines!

    Jump into Discord, say g'day on your way through, and grab a copy of it from our freebies channel! https://discord.gg/rtKn8rw
     
    KeithBrown likes this.
  16. ohbado

    ohbado

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    Thank you.
    You had better write it in a document or a FAQ.
    Terrain can be used other than zero position. Unity allows it.
     
  17. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Think its a bug actually - will check it - am working on next release of GeNa at moment.
     
  18. YevgenyBlinov

    YevgenyBlinov

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    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1otEArYQUazzRnc9sBiaHw6JD8kID_DXu/view

    Hi everybody, as you can see in the video, GeNa allows to spawn objects not only on top of terrain, but also on top of other meshes. Is it possible to prevent that? I want to make all the rocks spawned at the ground level, no matter what meshes are there beforehand. Is it possible?
     
  19. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Not at present, but the next release will be out shortly and i will be adding collision layer support.

    In mean time, temporarily turn the colliders off on your meshes.
     
  20. YevgenyBlinov

    YevgenyBlinov

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    Okay thanks :)
     
  21. AlexLTS

    AlexLTS

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    Hello.I have a question about Gaia, GeNa and Vegetation Studio. From what I see Gaia makes the world for example an isle and GeNa is a spawning system for anything you want to put in that isle(scene). Now I dont understand the difference between GeNa and Vegetation Studio, they are both spawning systems right? What is the actual difference? I also may be wrong but I want to decide which one to buy.
     
  22. AdamGoodrich

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    All three systems can do vegetation.

    Gaia shapes, paints and populates entire scenes - using generic rules - and is vanilla unity.

    Vegetation Studio paints scenes, and populates them with grass, trees and prefabs.. and has a bunch of ways of controlling where things go - including basing this off the underlying textures. Vegetation Studio also does an amazing job of replacing slow unity vegetation with fast instanced vegetation - the speed up can be dramatic!

    GeNa puts grass, trees and any prefab you like anywhere you like, and has the most flexibility of all the systems in terms of the range of placement algorithms, and the degree of control you get when placing things - as it is less automated than the other two systems.
     
    Mark_01 likes this.
  23. icyfrog66

    icyfrog66

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    After the recent unity update on 8/10, I got an error with the Gena Spawner Script on line 1554: lpg.probePositions = new Vector3[0];
    The error was that probePositions cannot be modified because it is read only. I disabled the line for now so that my project can build, but is there another solution to this issue (potentially caused by the recent unity update)?
     
  24. AdamGoodrich

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    Yep Unity breaks things. Scroll back and you will find solution in this forum.
     
    Mark_01 likes this.
  25. docsavage

    docsavage

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    I know I need new glasses but I'm struggling to find this fix :)

    Really looking forward to this new Gena update. Any details you'd like to share about it?
     
  26. somosky

    somosky

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    Hi I'm having a small issue with Gena where I believe Gena doesn't know it is interacting with a terrain. When I hold shift and click a solid green circle is created instead of the smaller placement circles and if I hold control and click only one prefab is instantiated. Any idea why this would be?
     
  27. AdamGoodrich

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    My sense is user error :)

    Please check out the tutorials here : http://www.procedural-worlds.com/gena/?section=tutorials

    And come join us in the Discord channel - chances are you will get much faster responses! Link is in my signature.
     
  28. somosky

    somosky

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    So I watched your video on Speed Trees with Gena. I have used it many times but I thought I could use a refresher course .The issue is still the same though. It's almost like Gena doesn't recognize that the terrain is a terrain and thinks it is just a regular mesh. Is there anything that Gena checks while hovering over a terrain to make sure it is a terrain? I'm sure there is just some setting messed up in my project which is messing with Gena.
     
  29. AdamGoodrich

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    GeNa has never had an issue with terrain to my knowledge. There is however an issue with prefabs in u2018, and maybe thats causing your problem. We will have an update out in the next few days.
     
  30. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    SALE SALE SALE!!!

    All Procedural Worlds Assets Are on Sale - Including our recent SECTR acquisition!!

    Plus - to sweeten the deal - we also have a stellar bunch of updates!!

    Gaia v1.8.0 update is live:
    • Added Mac 16 bit raw import
    • Added 8 bit raw file import
    • U2018 related fixes due to changed API's related to spawning prefabs
    • Turned off automatic lightmap baking when creating news scenes
    • Improvement to bounds based collision checking
    • Added Terrain Utilities to Main menu to highlight it
    • Reorganised More menus to make them more understandable
    • Minor usability tweaks
    GeNa 2.0 Upgrade is live ($20 for purchases > 90 days ago, free otherwise):
    • Paintbrush painting mode
    • New layer based spawning system & improvements
    • Vastly improved bounds based collision checking
    • Vastly improved rotation algorithm when doing fences
    • New Min and Max spawn height capability & visualizations
    • Height offset modification for collisions
    • Seamless support for SECTR
    • Preliminary Vegetation Studio support
    • Improved help system
    • Fully 2018.x compatible
    • Better defaults.
    CTS 1.8 update is live:
    • New material & shader caching system
    • Use of material enable materials shared between terrains
    • New cached shader id system to speed up updates
    • Better registration / deregistration system for multitile
    • Component menu workarounds : CTS moved to GameObject menu
    • Terrain now world space instead of vertex space (prelude to mesh blending)
    • Improved terrain normals generation
    • Moves shaders from Resources to Shaders directory to stop excessive compile times . Reorganised texture and profile directories
    • Latest shader updates / amplify bug fixes
    SECTR will be updated in next few days (currently in test)
    • Seamless support for Gaia terrains
    • Seamless support for CTS
    • New suite of Video Tutorials
    With all this new coolness, a bunch of new video tutorials will also come out later this week...

    HUMBLE BUNDLE SALE

    If you haven't already heard about it then do yourself a favor and check out the amazing Humble Bundle Sale! $15 gets you a bunch of cool games, a set of game dev courses valued at $600, and a whole bunch of premium unity assets.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2018
  31. levi777l

    levi777l

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    Yay. I now own Gena 2. Have not even had time to use Gena 1 yet...... :) Anything ever get planned for that synty thing?
     
    AdamGoodrich likes this.
  32. imgumby

    imgumby

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    What the heck ? So Gena 2 is an update to Gena 1.why the $20 "update" fee ??? Getting a little weary of being charged for what the Unity sellers agreement requires of you guys..updates for free since we're basically buying WIP's...Proof that they're WIP's....?? Regular updates to Gena 1 leading to Gena 2 ...
    I see Sectr on your road map above.Are we going to be charged for that update as well ?? o_O
     
    magique likes this.
  33. Acissathar

    Acissathar

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    A line has to be drawn eventually so that people can be paid for further work on the product and someone will ALWAYS be upset, regardless of where that line is.
     
  34. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    The Upgrade to GeNa 2 is the first upgrade fee we have ever charged on any of our products - ever.

    GeNa 1 is far from a WIP - it is an incredible powerful tool that level designers absolutely love, and it will continue to work just fine up until Unity 2018. No guarantees for U2019. You are under no obligation to upgrade.

    However, for those that would like the new and features we have added, plus keep in line with all the breaking changes that Unity keeps inflicting on us, as well as access to whats coming, then an upgrade to GeNa 2 is probably a pretty good investment.

    What I can announce that is coming in the V2 release roadmap is also:
    • Terrain texturing
    • Spline based spawning

    And there is one more massive thing we are planning as well - but its a surprise for the moment - unfortunately there are some publishers that love to plagiarise.

    Also FYI, while it would be well within our rights to charge an upgrade fee for SECTR, as we need to recuperate the cost of acquisition, the update will be free.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
    TeagansDad, StevenPicard and Mark_01 like this.
  35. sarum

    sarum

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    does that mean that GeNa 1 will not be updated to work with Unity 2018 and up ?
     
  36. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    There will be 1 more update to make it compatible with latest release of Unity.

    EDIT: We will continue to support for U2018.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
  37. Acissathar

    Acissathar

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    I think at the very least a "what issues to expect in U2018."

    That way we can know if a Unity 2018 compatibility issue with GeNa 1 is a showstopper for the project or not.
     
  38. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    There is a post at the top of the page - U 2018.2.3 or 4 introduced a build breaker, and U2018.2.something deprecated a prefab instantiation call. We will put it in the document.

    EDIT: We updated it today to resolve these issues.

    EDIT EDIT: We will continue to support V1 until end U2018.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
    Acissathar likes this.
  39. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    Actually - changed mind - as gesture of good will we will release a patch to GeNa 1 that will make it compatible with the current release of Unity. There will be no further updates to GeNa 1 beyond this. This will be available later today :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2018
    Mark_01 and Acissathar like this.
  40. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    Will the upgrade price of $20 be permanent or only for a few days during release? Just asking because I bought Gena and used it only for an hour, it was just not good enough. Might give Gena 2 a try though at some point, things progress.
     
  41. AdamGoodrich

    AdamGoodrich

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    GeNa 1.6 is now out! This is the FINAL Gena 1 series release and patches the issues that were introduced by Unity 2018.

    EDIT: I think its totally fair to support V1 to end of U2018 - so we will do so :)

    The upgrade works the same as any other upgrade and is therefore permanent for the duration of the 2 series.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
    Mark_01 and Rowlan like this.
  42. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    Ok, thanks. In that case a reduced upgrade price for e. g. the first 7 days of release would have been nice though ;)
     
  43. Akshara

    Akshara

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    Just upgraded, happy to support and grateful for the opportunity to do so. Hard to believe I paid just $25 almost two years ago during the Unity 5.4 to 5.5 transition; and then only $20 today for a professional feature rich level design tool, compatible with 2018 and forward, which I could never hope to create myself, for less than the cost of an hour of my time and which would easily be a $450 or $4500 plugin in the music or film industry. Thanks Adam.
     
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  44. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    @AdamGoodrich Is there a video of the new features? The one on the store page is from 2016.
     
  45. AdamGoodrich

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    There will be next week. We have been crazy busy updating our releases across board and once done, will also update the videos.
     
    Mark_01, Acissathar and Rowlan like this.
  46. StevenPicard

    StevenPicard

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    The original was released almost 2 years ago with updates during that time. A paid update every 2 years for a heavily supported product is not unreasonable. The new features look like they'll be great. I'll be updating within the next few weeks since I find this a very useful asset.
     
  47. blacksun666

    blacksun666

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    @AdamGoodrich I'm a bit disappointed regarding the upgrade costs. As an EU citizen I find that I am being charged 21.44 euros, to upgrade, which is the same price as to buy the full product; the current sale price of Gena2. Surprised you didn't offer a lower upgrade cost in the short term.
     
    atomicjoe likes this.
  48. gyl09

    gyl09

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    @AdamGoodrich, I agree that a paid update every 2 years is totally reasonable, but only if you owned it since the beginning or almost.
    In my case, I purchased this asset on June 2nd, so 90 + 4 days before this new release. And paid for a product dead after only 3 months (no more update at all announced) is really disappointing, whatever the quality of the asset.
     
    Ne0mega likes this.
  49. AdamGoodrich

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    Unfortunate timing :(

    Two points however. You got a update yesterday that resolves the issues that U2018 introduced on a capable and useful product, so it continues to deliver on what you bought.

    And second. It’s far from dead. I just announced some amazing new features, and released a new version and roadmap that signals that the product is alive, well, and increasing in capability. The one feature I didn’t announce is the one I am most excited about. So much so that I sort of want to drop everything to implement it. The good news is that with the growth of our team we will bring it sooner rather than later.

    So far from being one of the many products that lies abandoned on the store, it would be sort of nice if people saw this for the really healthy move this is. I have delivered a product that is well documented, well supported, and am investing the money made from working basically 7 days a week for years into growing the team so that we can increase the quality and capability of our tools even faster.

    The ultimate winner of me treating this as an actual sustainable business instead of a part time hobby, is you.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2018
  50. KeithBrown

    KeithBrown

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    I have to agree with Adam on this. The upgrade price is only $20. If you cannot afford the $20 then use version 1 until you can afford it. You still have an outstanding product from a company that has a history of A+++++ support.