Large Terrains for Unity 3D

While working on my aircraft kit I needed a huge terrain to fly around; I decided to create more terrains and make it available in Asset store. I generally take a while and 'touch' the terrain features and textures by hand, for a better quality so it should take about 2 weeks before its ready for prime time.

The aircraft is about 3 times smaller than the reconnaissance balloon, for size reference. The grassy terrain for instance is 6000x6000x 450 (height). Heightmaps will be provided in 4096 (which you'll never need in unity) so you can adjust the terrain size and detail from there. For these sizes, the color map is preferably kept at 4096 as well.

iOS/Android version might be available as well, with the terrain exported as models since Unity does not support terrains on mobile.

 

Good to see someone making pretty terrain for once rather than running the height brush over it a few times, added some default textures and trying to flog it for $50.

 

Woah that mountain is amazing! Did you make that with just the terrain editor!?

 

I'm currently playing around with the limits of the Unity terrain system to find out how far I can go without loosing too much performance on low-end machines. Your terrains look awesome and motivate me a lot Especially the mountain looks just incredible.

Great terrains for the asset store, any thoughts about the estimated price tag? Will you go for a cut-down free version to promote the enhanced one? The thing is that you have to test terrains with your individual needs, because although it might look just right for your project, it's maybe not so right as soon as you imported it. A free low quality or smaller version would give people a feeling about how it will look like. That said, your terrains will be some of the best ones available in the asset store so far, I think a lot of people will love to get them.

 

Not trying to blow my own horn, but I did this 4 years ago using Carrara to generate the heightmap and textures: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/7417-A-couple-of-terrain-tests?highlight=carrara so nice terrains are definitely possible in Unity.

 

wow i wanna look demo...

 

I believe a lite version will be possible with full resolution maps (small resolution might defeat the purpose) and stamped, maybe, with a transparent watermark. The only problem so far (comes with the territory so to speak) it's that the color texture HAS to remain as large as possible; however this can't be an issue on computers; A mobile version with polymodels and a smaller resolution map it's also possible with a relative low texture cost, on smaller displays looks just fine.

The mountain I posted here is used for a 20k terrain so I can fly around with my aircraft kit in it without hitting the outer edges of the map : )

 

I would have to agree that these terrains look awesome.
I would love to see ready made terrains available on the asset store. Stuff where there are clear paths from one clearing to another so you can just setup your village in that space and this space and that is that. Complete with lakes, skyboxes that fit the textures used for the terrain... I would love to be able to go to the store, browse through a collection of game worlds, buy this one and play my game out in that world. I would love it.

Hell, even the default island scene looks better than anything I have come up with since. But, like mentioned above, if anyone with a terrain and a height brush is going to be releasing 'game environments', wading through the crap would certainly hinder this section to the point of uselessness...

This is something a person should sell on his own website. Place a few on the asset store to make himself known and clearly advertise the site from there. This way, if someone makes quality environments, you can brows through a site and know you are going to get qualitystuff.

This poster clearly knows his stuff with those mountains so I would definitely bookmark his site. BigKahuna sounds like he is able to produce this in a hurry using Carrara, so his site might be on my bookmarks list also... Bet seriously, having QUALITY terrains, not just hieght maps and random trees would be real, real nice...

Tom's terrain tools are currently the closest thing to that but due to the nature of it, it is just not that 'localised' as I explained earlier on in this post with paths to village clearings etc., but what it is (as fas as I know) is the only option out there. Choice would be most welcome... Quality choices would make me vey excited indeed!

 

Now that's something to think about as a game content provider, known as a 'content pack' in the Garage Games community or asset package in Unity asset store.
And it's difficult really. Game design is something of a unique path for any given game; you may split the list into large categories but in the the end, the game developer still has to do his own work and add this road here, this path there. Crates and barrels and FPS weapons are at one end of the spectrum. Game worlds are at the other end. Player avatars or characters won't even fit in any category if you really want your game to be unique, at least visually. While you can drop a weapon pack in your game or a crate, a barrel, a bunch of rocks or a set of grass textures, game worlds / terrains are something else. I do agree though - and that's my school of thought so to speak - that when you sell or provide a game asset, the end user has little or nothing to add to it; just drop it in the scene. Hence, a terrain kit, ready made, should provide the rest of the fittings and fixtures as well. For example, the snowy mountains should come in handy with a "snow/blizzard - environment effects" pack. Large rocks, small rocks, in groups so that they can be arranged here and there to provide more detail to certain areas. Nature/environment dressings as well - bushes, twigs, grass, weeds, trees.

There are a few road path tools out there, quite good and easy to use so the end user has little effort to put in for a game logic fitting his environment needs: roads going from A to B, paths organically stretching outwards a clearing and so on.

However, the amount of work required for such a complete environment is enough to make you scale back - otherwise the price would end up too high. If you spend 8 weeks developing the terrains and all the required environment addons mentioned before (which is tight schedule) and throw it in asset store with a 50$ price tag (you get 70% from it) you need about 50-60 sales to make around 2000$. Thats a junior artist monthly wage. And to be realistic, 60 units won't sell in a month or two, more like in 10 months; and that is if there are no similar packs out there. From my experience, 50$ is a very big price when your audience is indie developers. You may get more sales if the price would be 50% off (25$) but you still have to sell over 100 units and my guess is it'll still take 10 months with an average of 10 sold units / day.

The engine is already free or, in the Pro cases, very affordable. The content is in most cases affordable as well. But serious content requires someone's time and talent maybe and that cannot be given away cheap. Therefore, complete game worlds are unlikely to pop up anytime soon, not at a good price and top quality.

 

When you do the maths behind it, I would have to agree that this is highly unlikely to happen...
but it just makes my case even stronger when I say "I would love to see it"

 

MrDude, here's some stuff my artist friend and I have been working on (mostly him, I've just been placing trees and stuff; I'm decent with world machine but he is amazing). I basically wanted to see the same thing as you just mentioned, with the smartly designed terrains and clearings and stuff. Beautiful terrains are easy, but beautiful, playable terrains are not. Keep in mind that this terrain is custom tailored pretty much for my own game, but he is stupid good at making them and could see him making them for others in the future.

First render is from world machine, second is in unity using sixtimesnothing's bump mapping.

 

Hey Jeff new to thread could you send me a quick email Amanda@hoffin.com its about friends hangout