Landscape Builder - Procedural Terrains, Advanced Prefab System, spline tool, and more

For real-world GeoTIFF users, OpenTopo (a great source for real-world data), has recently changed it's download format from non-Tiled compressed files to Tiled compressed files.

When using the TIFF import button on the Topography tab of Landscape Builder, you might see the following message:

"INFO: LBImportTIFF.ImportHeightmapTIFF Landscape Builder currently does not support TIFF files that contain tiles."

We are currently working on an option to import Tiled TIFF files too.

If you see this message, as a workaround, you can use popular image editors like GIMP or Corel Paint Shop Pro to simply re-save the downloaded file as TIFF (with LZW compression). With the versions we tested, these products default to non-Tiled TIFF files.

Then you can import the TIFF file into LB as normal.

 

Importing Mars (MOLA) Data - it is literally out of this world



Above: Valles Marineris canyon (Mars) in Landscape Builder (10x the size of the Grand Canyon...)

Recently I was asked on our Discord channel about importing data from Mars. Here is a quick overview of how to do this in Landscape Builder.

Phase 1 - Getting the data

1. Go to the Univerity of Washington to get the NASA data: https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mgs/megdr.html
2. Scroll down the page to "MEGDR Tiled Image Files and Labels at 128 Pixels Per Degree"
3. Download one (or two) of the IMG files 64 to 128 MB each, along with the TBL files (small text meta-data files)
4. Download and install the (free) ImageJ app (from US Dept. Health) https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/

Phase 2 - Convert data to TIFF

In the TBL file locate something that looks like the following:

LINES = 5632
LINE_SAMPLES = 11520
SAMPLE_TYPE = MSB_INTEGER
SAMPLE_BITS = 16
UNIT = METER

1. Open ImageJ
2. File->Import-Raw
3. Set Width to LINE_SAMPLES
4. Set Height to LINES
5. This example is 16-bit Signed because SAMPLE_BITS is 16 (2 x 8bit per pixel), Signed (Most Significant Bit, "Integer"). The data contains +ve and -ve numbers with an artificial sea level
6. Optionally crop the image (the IMG files are 1/16th of the surface of Mars!)
7. File->Save As->TIFF

Phase 3 - Importing into LB

1. Create a new landscape
2. On the Topography tab, click TIFF
3. Locate the TIFF file from Phase 2 and click Open
4. Depending on how big your TIFF is, how many terrains and their height-map resolution is, this could take from a few seconds to a few minutes.
5. Optionally add some Topography Smoothing (less or none is generally better)
6. Now you're ready to texture the landscape, add space ships (using Sci-Fi Ship Controller of course), build a colony etc.

With correct texturing and features on your landscape you have the making of a great space game with actual Martian terrain.

 

Landscape Builder 2.3.5 is now available for download from the Asset Store.

Included in this release:

• [NEW] Stencils - Negative image option to reverse or invert Stencil Layer data
• [NEW] Demo bridge support models - useful for building bridges with Groups system
• [NEW] Demo concrete safety barrier model
• [NEW] Topography - support for Tiled (Geo)TIFF files
• [FIXED] Game view is not restored after editing a Stencil in Unity 2020.2+
• [IMPROVED] LBTemplate - VS or VS Pro usage visible in Template Editor
• [IMPROVED] Compatibility with EasyRoads3D 3.1.9
• [IMPROVED] LB Path Importer is out of Experimental state and now is in Technical Preview
• [IMPROVED] Group Object Path (width-based) point heights can be all adjusted when CTRL key is held down

 

New Video coming tomorrow. "Apollo's Dream II" Using tons of assets, as usual. The music is always an original composition.

Hope everyone enjoys it, the scene and music has been in the works for a long time. We are glad we are finally coming to a final product.

Keep an eye on our YouTube for the new video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/silverthorndavid/videos
View attachment 829055

 

Apollo's Dream II is now live!
A ton of work went into this one, I hope everyone will enjoy it.
Creating beauty with Unity for a Virtual Experience with an original soundtrack is a lot of fun and I hope it shows in the video.

Landscape Builder 2 helps create a wonderful environment for this old west experience.
LB2 is my favorite asset for building my scenes and the support is top notch! Thank you @sstrong !!!

 

Fixing spikes in TIFF data

Sometimes source data can have nasty spikes in it. We'll use an example of the Amalfi coast in Italy supplied by a customer.

5-step process

In Landscape Builder 2.3.6 we're adding a new threshold feature to help repair the damaged source data.

Step 1 - Import the (Geo)TIFF data

Step 2 - Set the threshold to trim and repair the top spiky values.

Set the "Repair Threshold" and click "Fix Now" right next to it (ignore any other warnings).
DO NOT click "Generate Heightmap" just yet.

You may need to delete the layer and repeat the first 2 steps a couple of time to get the "Repair Threshold" right.



Step 3 - Adjust the height
If the landscape looks quite flat, click "Normalise Input" and adjust the "Height Scale" as required and click "Generate Heightmap".



Depending on the resolution and quality of the imported GeoTIFF file, you may also which to apply a small amount of smoothing in the Final Pass (less is usually better than more).

Step 4 - Manual adjustments

This step is not always required. It really depends on how close the spikes are in the source data.



Step 5 - Re-import the cleaned data

If you have manually modified the terrain heights in step 4, you'll need to re-import the cleaned data to avoid your manual changes being lost when using other features of LB.

So, delete Layer 1 (imported TIFF files are always on Layer 1).
Now click "Import" to re-import your terrain data into LB.
Disable any Final Pass "Smoothing" you used earlier.
Click "Generate Heightmap" (nothing should change in your scene).

 

Error in Unity 2021.1.4 or newer.

Assets\LandscapeBuilder\Editor\LandscapeBuilderWindow.cs(19046,70): error CS0619: 'SelectionMode.OnlyUserModifiable' is obsolete: ''OnlyUserModifiable' is obsolete. Use 'Editable' instead. (UnityUpgradeable) -> Editable'

If you see this error, there is a simple fix for this:

1. Double-click on the error in the Unity Editor console to edit the script.
2. On the line (19046), change the OnlyUserModifiable to Editable.
3. Save the script and it should now be all good.

OLD CODE

Code (CSharp):

1. // Get all the currently selected transforms. This includes those in the scene AND the project folder
2. Transform[] selectedTransforms = Selection.GetTransforms(SelectionMode.OnlyUserModifiable);
3. int grpIdxGroupDesigner = lbGroupList.FindIndex(grp => grp.showGroupDesigner == true);

NEW CODE

Code (CSharp):

1. // Get all the currently selected transforms. This includes those in the scene AND the project folder
2. Transform[] selectedTransforms = Selection.GetTransforms(SelectionMode.Editable);
3. int grpIdxGroupDesigner = lbGroupList.FindIndex(grp => grp.showGroupDesigner == true);

Beta Program members can download a patch now (2.3.6 Beta 2a or newer) and the fix will be in the 2.3.6 release coming soon.

Thanks to @docsavage for reporting this.

 

Group Member Terrain Flattening Explained

In a procedural or manually placed clearing Group, sometimes you may want to flatten an area under one or more objects in the group. A classic example, is flattening the terrain under a building.

You could just tick the flatten terrain box for the whole group but that might make your whole town/farm/prefab collection look too flat.

In Landscape Builder, we have tools that help you do this. However, if you're not careful, you can overlap your terrain flattening and get some unexpected results. To help with this, we have an option in the Group Designer to show what you're flatten areas look in relation to other objects.



In this example, you can see that I've been careful not to overlap my flatten areas. I can right click on any object and select Display => Member Flatten Area.


The outer ring is the total distance the area is flattened, while the inner ring (a little difficult to see in this screen shot), indicated by the bottom right arrows, is where the blending with the terrain heights begins.

It is important to remember that the order your Group Members appear in the LB editor determines the order in which they are spawned and how they affect the terrain and each other.

 

LB version 2.3.6 is now available in the Asset Store. This update includes:

[NEW] Topography Image Modifier Layer - Oakworth UK
[NEW] Topography Layers - Repair Threshold for imported TIFF files
[NEW] GroupDesigner - optionally show group flatten terrain area
[FIXED] LBImportTIFF variable warnings
[FIXED] SelectionMode.OnlyUserModifiable' is obsolete in U2021.1.4 or newer

 

Join us for a live interview where we'll be looking at Landscape Builder and LB Enviro Pack 1. Who knows, there may even be some other goodies on offer...

 

Here is one of the scenes we built during the Messy Coder live interview. I've dropped in a ship in the background from Sci-Fi Ship Controller for good measure.



It may look a little dark here in the forum - as we wanted to show stars in a night sky over real world data from Mars.

 

This version is now available in the Asset Store. It includes the following changes since 2.3.6

• [NEW] Instructions for importing MOLA (Mars) data
• [FIXED] RTP Integration - Normal maps may revert to default textures
• [FIXED] Trees - NullReferenceException with Add Filter
• [IMPROVED] Group Designer - zone selection in large clearings

 

Create Mesh Terrains from a LB Template

1. Import package containing the LB template
2. Find the template e.g. Landscape Builder\Templates\MeshTerrain1 Template
3. In the Inspector, click "Open Prefab" (don't forget this step!), tick "Populate Landscape"
4. Click "Create New Landscape From Template"
5. Wait a few seconds, exit out of prefab preview, Discard Changes
6. In the LB Editor, go to Export tab
7. Under "Create Landscape as Mesh", Add Colliders, Include Splatmaps
8. Click "Export to Mesh"
9. Click "Disable Terrains"

To re-edit the landscape:

1. Click "Disable Mesh"
2. Click "Enable Terrains"

Now you can edit in LB as normal, then click "Export to Mesh" to update your mesh terrains.



For more details, see our manual.

 

If you are looking for a kinematic character controller to use with Landscape Builder, check out our new Sticky3D Controller.

LB customers should see a discount when they purchase the new controller.

 

A note about using MicroSplat 3.7+ with Landscape Builder on our Beta Program forum.

 

New Minimum Version with next release

In the next release of Landscape Builder, the minimum Unity version will be 2019.4.1 LTS.

If this might be an issue for you, please let us know.

 

LB version 2.3.8 is now live in the asset store.



Here's what's been updated:

[NEW] Topography - Image Modifiers (Asinara, Ibiza, La Maddalena, Menorca)
[NEW] Transfer Group Object Path points between projects using JSON files
[IMPROVED] Terrain to Mesh workflow
[IMPROVED] Compatibility with MicroSplat 3.8
[IMPROVED] Repairing holes in TIFF data - pixel range option
[IMPROVED] Compatibility with 2021.2

 

This is a Teaser for an upcoming project continuing the Apollo's Dream series.

The video was made with Unity 2019 using this asset.

 

I am trying to use my own splatmap for texturing a layer, but I'm not able to make it work.
I tried first a normal texture map.
It said that the GPU module only support it if converted using MAP FROM PATH (I don't know what it is but ok).
I enabled it, it didn't work.
So I tried to work out the texture settings.
Alpha from grey: didn't work.
Channel red: didn't work.
I updated of course the color to look for in the inspector window of LB: white and then black for Alpha from grey, and for channel red I selected a pure red.
I am at a dead point here.

Edit: this was with a PSD file. I saved with a PNG now and it's working with tis.

 

Glad to hear you got it working.

 

Which is the fastest shader in LB?

 

As any good consultant, I'd always reply "it depends".

In game development there are so many inter-dependent things that affect performance. I'd start by attaching a build of your game to the Unity Profiler (as the editor will affect results) and see what your bottlenecks are.

Most of the time, you'll discover that things you thought were issues are just victims of other things. Always start with the biggest performance hog. Then chip away at them one at a time until you achieve your desired frame rate on your lowest target platform (hardware).

Apart from the weather shaders (built-in pipe line only), LB uses standard Unity terrain shaders and integrates with a number of third party terrain and grass shaders.

 

Thank you for the extensive answer, but that's not the right path for me.
I mean, I'm developing for a Quest resident game, so I just want the maximum performance, with just a bit of features.

I don't need 200 textures on the terrain, just a few, like 3-4 max, but I need to squeeze out the maximum performance possible, because it's a racing game: I don't want frame drops.
Also, there's a far horizon, because the player moves quite fast, and I need to place some meshes as obstacles, etc.

The ideal would be a just diffuse shader, with 6 textures, and possible triplanar, so to not have the distortion on vertical walls... but for I know triplanar is quite expensive, so I'll let that go...

In case you are curious about the application, here it is:

 

I guess, I'm just asking how do you know the bottleneck is, in your case, the terrain texture shader?

You "could" just write a very simple single-pass 4 texture shader and see what difference it mades to the game performance. Then at least you'd know (without profiling as mentioned above) if that was your issue.

Before I did that, I'd probably do other things like turn off the particle effects, lower the terrain Heightmap resolution (Landscape Builder tab, Terrain Settings), lower the terrain alpha map resolution, enable Draw Instanced turn, Disable Trees and Grass (Advanced tab, Options in LB) etc. to see what had the greatest impact.

If you made the landscape in LB, you can save a template of the existing Landscape, then trial different scenarios like mentioned in another scene or test project.

 

Also, I've not used them myself yet, but I believe Oculus has a bunch of performance profiler tools that can be used with the Quest headsets. I'm assuming you're using an Android build in Unity, right?

BTW - we like your game concept. We're thinking of creating a VR demo racing game for Quest 2 with Sci-Fi Ship Controller.

 

Also check any texture compression formats as the quest is really funny about what it likes. Can't remember the name off the top of my head but its in the documentation.

 

I am not sure, but almost, because as you can see in the scene there's... well, practically only the terrain.
I have another scene with a much larger terrain, but the track is at lower level than the ground, so there's the occlusion optimization going on, and there's no problem there.
Here, you can see a large part of the terrain, and that's everything that's in there, as you can see.

I'll see how it works now that I've run the occlusion calculations.

 

Thank you, but could you change your game setting?
No I didn't use the Oculus profiler, just using the OSD to see real time data.

 

Oh... I don't know, I just set the Build options for ASTC, as suggested.
I'll search for more info, thanks.

 

Mars Tech Demo - Interactive Experience

In 2020 we built Tech Demo 2 for our Sci-Fi Ship Controller asset using Landscape Builder. This was a 64 km x 64 km landscape with a citadel roughly in the middle. As a mini-game, you pilot a space ship flying within the atmosphere of the planet in which you attack the citadel with a squadron of fighters in order to prevent a capital ship from escaping.

In 2021, we switched to a space port, and built an interactive mini-game which integrated with Sticky3D Controller (our new character controller asset). If you only own Sci-Fi Ship Controller, you experience a fly-through of the space shuttle and space port, before joining a space battle in a small space craft fighter. We aim to release this mini-game (Tech Demo 3) as part of Sci-Fi Ship Controller version 1.3.0.

In 2022, we'd like to build an interactive experience that includes Landscape Builder, Sci-Fi Ship Controller, and Sticky3D Controller. We're thinking this could be based on Mars using real-world data.

It's pretty ambitious but it could include:

• Real world Martian landscape (maybe scaled down for better game play)
• Terra-formed areas under domes
• A space ship docking port
• Turret defenses (some pesky AI space craft are sure to attack...)
• Walking on the planet and use of jet packs (Sticky3D would be useful here)
• Support for VR (SSC and S3D v1.0.6+ support VR)

What do you think? We're happy to consider any suggestions. Post your comments here or on our Discord channel.

 

LB 2.3.9 is now available in the Unity Asset Store. It includes the following updates:

[NEW] Compatibility with SoulLink Spawner
[IMPROVED] LBLighting exposes rain, hail and snow values via API
[IMPROVED] Store Terrain Data in Project - out of Technical Preview

 

Mars Tech Demo - Interactive Experience

In 2020 we built Tech Demo 2 for our Sci-Fi Ship Controller asset using Landscape Builder. This was a 64 km x 64 km landscape with a citadel roughly in the middle. As a mini-game, you pilot a space ship flying within the atmosphere of the planet in which you attack the citadel with a squadron of fighters in order to prevent a capital ship from escaping.

In 2021, we switched to a space port, and built an interactive mini-game which integrated with Sticky3D Controller (our new character controller asset). If you only own Sci-Fi Ship Controller, you experience a fly-through of the space shuttle and space port, before joining a space battle in a small space craft fighter. We aim to release this mini-game (Tech Demo 3) as part of Sci-Fi Ship Controller version 1.3.0.

In 2022, we'd like to build an interactive experience that includes Landscape Builder, Sci-Fi Ship Controller, and Sticky3D Controller. We're thinking this could be based on Mars using real-world data.

It's pretty ambitious but it could include:

• Real world Martian landscape (maybe scaled down for better game play)
• Terra-formed areas under domes
• A space ship docking port
• Turret defenses (some pesky AI space craft are sure to attack...)
• Walking on the planet and use of jet packs (Sticky3D would be useful here)
• Support for VR (SSC and S3D v1.0.6+ support VR)

As we explore this new concept for Sci-Fi Ship Controller, watch out for new enhancements in Landscape Builder as we push the limits.

What do you think? We're happy to consider any suggestions. Post your comments here or on our Discord channel.

 

Hi, I'm evaluating to buy this asset, because it seems to be very powerful and easy to use, but I don't know if it can be useful in my case. I explain better: my world game is a map of 20km x 20 km size made of many slices of terrain 500m x 500m.
I'm already using a world map like this, made with MapMagic 2, but I'm not happy of the result because MapMagic 2 uses only one heightmap for all the 20km x 20km terrain and of course the heightmap resolution is too low for such a large terrain (even if it's divided in smaller tiles of 500m x 500m size each), and at the end the map is filled with artifacts and actually is very bad to see and I can't use it.
I'd like to know if Landscape Builder supports terrain tiles like the ones I need (500m x 500m) and if each tile has its own heightmap, or if there is only one heightmap for all the huge terrain, like in MapMagic 2.
Also, I'd like to know is someone used Landscape Builder with World Streamer 2 that is the streaming contents solution that I'm using right now.
Thanks in advance.

 

We test up to 256 terrain tiles in one landscape. Using say a 2000 x 2000 terrain tile, that allows up to 32km x 32km with a terrain resolution of 1025 on a PC with 16 or 32GB RAM and a modern graphics card. In Unity, you need to be careful with memory management (both RAM and VRAM).

Some studios have used our APIs to build custom editors to editor much larger open worlds but that needs a deep knowledge of custom editors and the terrain system in general.

We have landscape-wide settings (to ensure consistency), however, we write data to each terrain at the resolution you specify in our editor (each terrain has the same heightmap resolution, alphamap settings etc). We don't own Map Magic so we can't comment on how that asset works.

We don't own World Streamer, although we have heard it requires terrains to be moved into a particular folder structure after creating and editing the landscape with LB (I'm not sure if this is still true or not).

 

Thanks for your fast reply. I think that the heightmaps management is like the one I'm looking for; I'd like to know if the slicing of the terrain in smaller tiles is generated automatically by LB: reading your reply I think that it works in this way, but I'd rather ask to you a confirmation.
Thanks!!

 

I use LB and it's a great tool. It definitely slices the tiles automatically.

 

This video was made using this asset. LB is my go to tool for every scene!

Third in the Apollo’s Dream series, we make these for all people to find some peace and beauty in this world of chaos. We hope you enjoy it.

 

Just got LB and already way happier with it than I was with Gaia Pro. Yeah, crazy impressive results OOTB possible there but I could never get an actual useable landscape. So much more control and the LB stamps are way more usable. TY!!

That being said, I'm having a problem. Tutorial landscapes I created were all fine, but now that I'm making mine, I'm getting artifacts. Stock setup 4K (2k x 2k) but I'm using the quality preset.




edit, doing some experimenting, quality vs default preset doesn't make a difference




edit 2 - it definitely shows up in the camera so not a viewport issue

 

Yeah, that looks pretty weird.
What's your landscape setup look like? (Landscape tab, stats).
On the Advanced tab, if you turn off GPU acceleration for Topography, does the issue go away? If so, which GPU or graphics card do you have?

Which version of Unity are you on?

Spoiler: Similar Setup On My Tablet

 

Unity

Hi ty!

Turned off all GPU acceleration tabs and no difference (made a new landscape just to double check). AMD 5700XT with WHQL drivers. i9 12900 w/ Asrock z690 extreme, 64gb ddr4, etc etc (christmas present )

Unity 2021.2.7f1. I'm currently downloading the 2020 LTS now to see if it's a 2021 issue.




shoot.. i hit the wrong landscape button.. retrying with 2020 and if it happens again I'll get the proper Stats tab.

 

I downloaded U2021.2.7 and LB 2.3.9 on my low-end i5 tablet and couldn't see any issues. Sorry, I'm away from the office so can't try it on a i7 dev machine.

A few years ago I think there was an issue with Surface Pro 4s and Unity PerlinNoise which would give strange results. I (think) the solution was a hardware firmware patch (but I can't recall the exact fix). I've also heard some assets have issues with i9 processors and Unity but I'd need to do some more research.

I believe some processors have floating point calc issues which cause havoc with Perlin noise, Its difficult to know if this is what you're seeing or not. One solution is for you to send us your i9-12900 PC for us to test with (we'd be more than happy to get our own Christmas present ).

 

Seems to be working! Tried GPU on and off with LTS.

2020.3.25f1 LTS with GPU on, errors
2020.3.25f1 LTS with GPU off, no errors

I'll take it! TY again!!

 

I bought LB and actually it's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for your help!

 

This is a test I made today to stream a world sized 20 Km x 20 Km made with 1.600 tiles of 500 m x 500 m, created with Landscape Builder, using World Streamer 2.

This solution works very well: each tile of the landscape visible in this video is 500m x 500 m and World Streamer 2 streams only what's necessary around the player, saving a lot of CPU and GPU). Landscape Builder allowed me to create a very beautiful scenario ready to be streamed. These two tools used together rock!

 

Creating Image Modifier Layers from Unity Terrains

Sometimes you may wish to create an Image Modifier layer for LB from an existing Unity terrain.

1. Create a regular terrain using the Unity terrain tools.
2. Highlight the terrain in the Hierarchy and click the Terrain Settings icon on the Terrain script in the Unity Inspector.
3. Click “Export Raw…”, select “Bit 16”, and click “Export” when prompted
4. Give the file a meaningful name and click Save
5. In the Project pane, drill down to Assets/LandscapeBuilder/Modifiers/
6. Right click on Hills or Mountains (don’t use the Custom folder) and click “Show in Explorer” (if on Windows)
7. Copy the saved RAW file from step 4 into the Hills or Mountains folder.
8. Test the Image Modifier in the LB Editor. Go to the Topography tab, add a new Layer, change the “Layer Type” to “Image Modifier”, change the “Category” to Hills. If you don’t see your new modifier in the “Landform” dropdown, click the “Refresh” button on the Layer.

 

Thanks, I'm going to try it; if I've understood well there's no difference if I put the RAW heightmap in \mountains or \hills, right? It's just a name of a folder and it hasn't any influence on how the image modifier works, right?
Thanks.

 

Yep, just a matter of preference. Although Valleys and Lakes folders can have an effect on how the data is interpreted in some circumstances.

 

Unity Version Upgrade Announcement

The next version of Landscape Builder (2.4.0) will require a minimum Unity version of 2019.4.32 LTS.

Why are we doing this?
Unity have dropped support for Collaborate and Plastic SCM requires a minimum version of 2019.4.32. With a distributed development team, we depend on collaboration to support our products.

What if I cannot upgrade my Unity version?
You can either stay on the last build of LB that supports your Unity version, or get script-only updates of LB and forego any changes to prefabs or newly added assets.

 

We found and fixed a small (but annoying) bug in the Landscape Builder editor today. If you insert a duplicate Texture using the (I)nsert button on the Texturing tab, any Stencil Layer filters get copied to the new Texture. This means, if you change the Stencil Layer filters on one Texture, they get changed on the duplicate.

This is fixed in LB 2.4.0 Beta 3a or newer (which is available immediately for Beta Program members).

Thanks to @tomobiki for reporting it. The latest beta also contains:

[NEW] Landscape Extensions support a grid of planes
[NEW] Splatmaps can be exported to coloured textures for Landscape Extensions
[NEW] Stencil - IsPointPaintedInLayer API to check world space positions
[FIXED] Textures - Stencil Filters are incorrectly duplicated when (I)nsert is used
[IMPROVED] LBScreenShot tool now includes a TakeScreenShot API method
[IMPROVED] Template Editor - Debug Mode