[Released] ATLAS - Next Gen Terrain Editor - essential tool for creating beautiful worlds

Atlas is a non destructive, next gen terrain editor. It allows you to treat stamps such as mountains, dunes, craters, volcanoes, roads and rivers as regular prefabs.

As long-time Unity users we have been working on a new terrain editor that overcomes the shortcomings of a purely brushed vs purely generated technique.

Available on the Asset Store

Website | Documentation | Tutorials

For Support use this thread or get direct help at Discord


Based on all the feedback we received we decided it was about time we revamped the tutorial experience entirely.
There are additional tutorials planned so suggestions on things you'd like to see are definitely welcome.

Our new tutorial new series covers the following topics and you can access every single one by clicking the individual link below.

Introduction
Takes a look at the basics of what Atlas is.

Install Package
Goes into more detail on how to install the package into your Unity project.

Terrain Set Up
Explains how to set up your Unity terrain and the terrain layers that come with the package.

Preview Volume
Shows you how to make sure that you can edit your terrain in real time.

Increasing Resolution
A look at how you can increase the resolution of your terrain to 4K.

Placing Stamps
Here you'll learn how to place your first stamp.

Blending Stamps
All the information you need about the different blend modes.

Brushing Stamps
A couple examples on how the brush gives you even more control when building your world with the stamps.

Splatmapping
Gives all the necessary information about splatmap control in Atlas.

Structuring Stamps
Use cases where we go over the best practices for structuring your scene.

Getting a Sense of Scale
Demonstration on how Atlas helps you get the scale right.

​

 

Sounds (and looks) cool, but where's are the details?

How does this compare to existing tools like Gaia (1 or 2), MapMagic?

Are the terrains hightmap based? Voxel? Something else?

Does it support navmesh agents?

What about vegetation? Speed Tree?

Caves? Overhangs?

So many questions, I know -- but I'm evaluating planet terrain generation right now for my project and these are all fresh on my mind.

 

Hi BetaMark, welcome to the thread.

Atlas is a terrain editor that applies directly onto unity terrains, or any terrain solution that accepts heightmap, splatmaps etc.
This means that navmesh, vegetation and trees are supported out of the box.
A more in depth look will be revealed shortly after the trailer, so stay tuned ^^

 

Thats awesome to hear Looking forward to hearing more details. I'm subbed to the youtube release video - is there anywhere better to get notified on the release and updates?

 

Good point BetaMark, you can follow us on our socials. And we have added a mail subscription box to the website, just drop your mail if you want to get notified, thanks! ^^

 

Will it be integrated with Microsplat?
I see some roads, is there a spline system included and maybe rivers?

I will be following your development.

Edit: Is there a Discord server planned? On the website, the link leads nowhere.

 

Hi mick129,
Nice catch on the splines ^^ this is something we can't go without, they are just too useful. From what we can see it probably works with Microsplat, unless Microsplat requires something more than a unity terrain in order to work? a Discord server is definitely planned just not right now.

 

There are many ways I guess to integrate Microsplat but the most important part is to have a way to tell what texture to use and remain constant from a map to another.
Otherwise some grass texture could become sand and vice versa.

 

Does this only work in editor, or do you support runtime generation/ editing of terrains?

 

We do use the regular splatmap flow so i think we are all good here ^^

This tool is an editor extension. It is possible to get it to work at runtime, but keep in mind that changing a 4K terrain heightmap will surely create a lag spike.

 

Hi guys!
Thank you for your interest so far, we know there are a lot of questions waiting to be answered. We would like to announce our first video which will become available very soon. Stay tuned and get a more in depth look on what exactly Atlas is and what Atlas can mean to your project!

Trailer: Link

 

When will this be available in the Asset Store?

 

That looks like you took stamps and turned them into rotatable volume additives. That's definitly got my eye. What's the initial cost expected to be and when is a release or beta period?

 

If all goes well somewhere around January.

We are currently past the beta testing period. As for the initial price we have some ideas but no data to back them up so we will be doing more homework on that soon.

 

I really like this non-destructive way of stamping terrains.

Will the stamp object also contains information about vegetation placement？Like I have a green hill stamp and a dune stamp，they can just merge together？

 

leveling landscape by curves looks awesome ?
Does anybody know if GAIA 2 have it ?

 

Gaia does but it's not that helpful that video showed a much more advanced version of it

 

Atlas is equipped with full splatmap control, so a grass hill will indeed blend with dunes.

We have played around with vegetation data inside the stamps themselves but have voted against it. In most cases you want vegetation based on the final result of your terrain and not based on the internals of the individual stamp itself.

For example: you could stretch out your stamp height wise, increase the slope on some areas and no longer want threes there. So we figured that for vegetation a "selector" stamp type would fit better, where you can select a particular splatmap and then select a slope from x angle to y angle. These selector stamps are a concept we are playing with and will enter the project later on.

Our current solution is a scattering system that allows you to populate your terrains based on their final splatmaps and heightmaps. But nothing is stopping you from using any other tool available that can scatter vegetation on unities builtin terrain ^^

 

Can't wait to get my hands on this tool. Cloud you please take my money now？I dont think my wallet can survive Christmas.

 

Glad you are excited!
More disclosure about features coming soon

 

As promised we'll be releasing more information about Atlas in the coming days and weeks. Today we'd like to take a moment to talk a bit more about stamps within Atlas.

on our site you can subscribe and get notified once Atlas goes live

STAMPS AS OBJECTS

In Atlas, stamps are regular GameObjects that you can transform in any way and condense into prefabs. This makes it extremely easy to create specific gameplay areas that can be reused throughout your project. Just like with regular props you can come back at any time and easily change things around while you finalize your level, even when your non terrain related props have already been placed.

Stamps will render based on their order in the hierarchy and can be nested without issues. You can look at a stamp as a layer in photoshop; each layer renders itself on top of the layer below and builds up to your final result. At the same time stamps are equipped with different blend modes which gives you enough variation to handle pretty much any scenario.

 

The discord link in the website points to a channel,
Can you put a permalink to it, so i can join please?

 

In addition to our latest post about stamps as objects we'd like to have a closer look at splatmap control within Atlas.

on our site you can subscribe and get notified once Atlas goes live

SPLATMAP CONTROL
Within Atlas each stamp comes with its own masks for creating splatmaps. Depending on the stamp these masks can range from Erosion lines to Deposition, Curvature, Slope or anything that this stamp wants to express. These masks can then be filtered and mapped to the splatmap layers of your terrain.

Whereas Unity's built-in terrain supports up to 8 splatmap layers, Atlas has 16 layers that you can write to and export as textures. How you use them is entirely up to you... Just to give an idea; you can upgrade the terrain shader to support 16 splatmap layers, or feed some of the layers to a scattering system.

 

@Atlas-terrain
Be sure to correct your Instagram bio URL, as there is a typo.

 

Will we get Vegetation Studio Pro integration on the first release？Looks like a very poweful combo，beacuse we can add vegetation mask and biome under the stamp object.

 

The server was set up but not public (should’ve made it hidden on the site, sorry for that). We’ll fix is ASAP

It looks like it will work with Atlas out of the box. Not sure if the vegetation zones are GameObjects, but if so you could just add a vegetation zone + an atlas stamp to a prefab \o/

 

Nice catch, thanks for the heads up.

 

After talking about stamps and splatmap control we'd like to have a closer look at mask painting within Atlas.

Mask painting
Each stamp has an opacity mask, and each opacity mask can be painted with a brush.

After selecting a stamp by pressing [edit mask] you'll be able to start brushing. This is especially handy when you want to isolate a specific piece out of a stamp or when you need to make a couple stamps fit better. You can always revert back to the previous mask or jump back to the original mask, so feel free to make a mess, no harm done.

In short mask painting is here and has your back in tricky situations.

 

can each stamp, be adjusted?
Meaning can each stamp be changed by rot, Transform, scale, at any time... I see many of these tools, only allow you to back up, to it, or to..... only do it at certain times..


I BELIEVE you should have total control over your height map where you can change each stamp, at any point, any time.. When I did contract work for years I had clients who would come back to me and ask for change, and many times they change would take me hours of work.... if I had a properly control, it would take seconds, to mins, if we can adjust EACH stamp at any time...... and not make these as one, like in GAIA, you lose that control... unless you back up.. So this is something that always bothered me about GAIA, as much as I like it, there are things I dislike about it for my own work flow...

SO I like to be clear what you are doing different here...


By looking at the one video, this looks to be the case, but you around all over the place, rather fast. So I WOULD be showing this off more...

I know in GAIA it has a non destructive work flow, but not like this. This is something I had suggested many times.( GAIA uses a session manager, which is ok.... but I like to have more control over my height map..

This would make the height maps alot more editable.... and control by the looks of it, but I like to be sure... and more clear about this.. ( I even used Mad Maps, which was kinda like this..) but, the asset developer disappeared.. (which worries me about this one knowing you been around since 2015, but you don't seem to come here often.. ( alot of tech demos, and asset made by people, just to disappear, if they don't do well fast enough...



So, you peak my interest... Not a fan of your interface at all, it looks thrown together.

Have you used this yet, in your own games, or worked with other game developers that have used this?? I just hope this is not another fly by night, asset that we see all over the store.. I had used every terrain asset you can think of and even been long time user tester for many of them and yet I still go back to World Machine... every time..

But with your work flow, this is something I been wanting for years now, and yet to get anyone to add it.... where I have total control over each stamp/height map, and being able to edit any time I want too.... ( so these stamps are not static, they can be changed, moved, rotating, later on as well in a non destructive manner??


if so please show this off more..

Last, I would like to be able to use with other height maps, where I can merge in my height maps made from World Machine... so, how are the stamps made... ( please don't say PNG..)


Your comment about We strongly believe that the future of terrain editing lies in a non destructive object based workflow.

Me too, I say this all the time to every developer making terrains, textures, or other wise, I use heavily professional Substance Designer...... to make all my textures, which is all non destructive.. (something most Unity users miss out on.)

non Destructive, is where its AT.....( when done right.)


By the way, I would make sure you are able to use this with other popular terrain tools, since many of us world builders, will use more than one tool in order to make there terrains...

There are many of us, who will use 2-3 different programs in order to make our maps... I for one, would not use your texturing tools, but I do like how you handle your stamps inside of Unity.. as long as its what I think it is..

( Please make more videos, showing off some of this.)

I own and have used every terrain tool to date, inside Unity and out, such as WORLD MACHINE, GAEA, World Creator, Houdini, GAIA, 1,2 pro, and 2021, Terrain Composer 1 and 2, ( I was TC2 first tester) So I know how every terrain tool works.... and what they are ALL missing... ( so I just hope this is like them, missing the important aspects..

Even if you capture some of the main parts missing, then you may have something here.( as long as you don't disappear) Like Mad Maps did.)

 

Well ... that's a pretty long list of terrain assets you've got over there.


Based on your questions you'll mostly likely come to love Atlas as an addition to your toolkit. When it comes to adjusting/readjusting stamps as you go the answer is a resounding yes. We too found it very time consuming (read frustrating at times) to make changes and wanted more control over our heightmap so this was a must for us from the start.

We developed Atlas as a tool we wanted for ourselves so we're definitely in it for the long run. To keep it as lightweight and accessible as possible we made the interface as close to default Unity as possible.

Good point about us having to show it off more. It's something that we'll be doing in future posts/videos and our documentation so if you have any suggestions, shoot .

 

The problem of Gaia is that, it's too big, and too slow. Computing stamps takes ages. All I want is a lightweight stamp terrain editor to toy with, not a noise world generator + tons of example assets + list of hundred parameters + environment system + level design tool....I really wish Atlas could keep things as simple as possible. Just like placing GameObjects, but they merge into a terrain.

 

we really need it ！buy it ！

 

Thanks for the answers, yes I been a professional developer for nearly 3 decades so I used alot of software over the years. Anyways, I to found most engines, and software annoying to use, and to edit as I was stating, which is why your asset peak my interest.

As far as the UI, Unity UI is horrible, I been a UX/UI Designer for years, and that is something that Unity fails at badly is there UI, so, I would make your own, because this is what can make software, not do as well, when you have a bad UX or UI.. or both...

This is something many games and software, have high support due to bad designs.... So this is important to get right, or users will never be able to use your asset as well, or get the most out of it.. Imagine playing a game, and getting frustrated, because you are unable, do what you intended to, while playing.. This happens in most other assets as well.. Unity has been bringing in UI elements and better Unity editor tools, which will help too...So I would leverage that..

As far as the tool itself, I for sure will be watching this one, because its for sure, something I had wished every other asset developer would of listen, I tried to get all of them to do, but it never was what I wanted..... This looks 100% what I been looking for.


Now I would like to know more about you and what you have used this asset on at all?? I mention this question, as I don't want to support another tech demo, or another fly by night asset developer.. This happens way to much.. This happen with Mad Map, which remind me of this... Have you ever used Mad Map? if not check it out, they used it in there popular game... but yet still when inactive, and the asset sits there, not being updated for the last 3 years... this gets old, and why I stop buying most assets, I have over 300.... and 295 are JUNK, or inactive...

Unreal, after 20 years I own 1... which is recent...So, I really hope to see what your plans are....... You have not been that active around here, and curious if you been active on another known asset discord?? So, before I invest any time, I like to know more about your plans and your self.. (Alot of people tend to buy, assets I recommend as well... I help people alot.... So these questions are important, I won't recommend an asset, if I feel its just another fly by night, tech demo.

Thanks for the replies.

 

Well I recommended in the last post, show off, each important function, but don't do it so fast. I would keep them simple and to the point. ( Short and to the point videos, showing off how to use your tool but by function.

Most assets also do a bad job of showing off there tools, this is also why UX/UI why its so important, many assets, don't know how to build a good interface is part of the issue, its why I give them feed back. (some listen, some don't) when I see alot of reports about the same issue, I tend to think of ways to fix that UI issue, when its related to that, but many developers don't want to spend the time fixing. ( they rather, people struggle.) This is very common....

Odin also helped Unity developers, that is something I had wished they would of brought to asset developers, but sadly it never happen.. So as far as the UI, I would look into the new UI elements, and editor tools, this will help you with all of this... as I mention in the last post.

Like I said you peak my interest... but the lack of knowing anything about you, or your plans, makes me very cautious....

I really hope you do something with this.... Its the first time, I seen someone inside Unity anyways, make something like this, which is totally my work flow..

I for one would be using it with other software such as GAIA, World Machine, World Creator .... Microsplats... So I would make sure you have people testing this as well..... ( SUPER important.)




Important question, I mentioned it before, how are the stamps being made as well??

 

I agree, on this part. I totally asked TC, GAIA and other developers to add stuff like this..for years, and never seen it 100% like this, and this is what I been wanting for a long time. (Not trying to bash those guys, they have great software as well.. but, this is more my work flow for sure. I plan to use, with GAIA, and other terrain software...


.

(The GAIA part I have no issues with it being slow.. and used since GAIA 1.. If you are trying to stamp a huge area, that will cause problems, and more so if you are lacking memory to do so, and a weak GPU. This is all based on limitations of Unity, and your PC. specs.

 

Hello, I just thought I'd chip in here and say I love what I'm seeing with Atlas. The state of terrain - especially realistic, detailed heightmaps - has been one of the greatest stress factors for me using Unity, and both your methods and results so far look very promising to relieve that stress.

At the moment I have just a couple questions if I may ask:
Are the textures and materials shown on your website included with Atlas? If not, where are they from?
Do you have any opinions on Mesh terrains for Atlas? (I've seen anecdotes saying they can be more performant than Unity terrains, though that's rather vague.)
As of now (mid-January), what does the ETA for a public release, beta or otherwise, look like?

Thanks!

 

Yup ^^ the plan for Atlas is an elegant tool that stays within its scope of "terrain editing", anything out of bounds will have to split to another tool.

 

We're definitely no fans of the all too common editor windows that shouldn't even be there or the casual "invasive" gameobjects that do a thing once. Not to mention red and green buttons everywhere XD, banners in the inspector, collapsible tool tips that are TLTR... That said we do have custom inspectors, we just want our tool to feel like it comes from Unity itself, not a "mod" that clearly doesn't fit in with the rest of... Unity.

About us... we're a group of 5 friends, most of us have known each other for years working on various projects. We started out using "gamemaker" and jumped on Unity when it was V3 ... IIRC? it still had vertex lighting and a Ratchet and Clankish tutorial which sparked some inspiration

Througout the years we have gone trough many terrain tools as well (first time we hear about Mad Maps though) but never found something that we truly liked.

Atlas started out to fuel our own needs, we need big worlds with specific game play areas so we can't just generate it all but certainly can't brush it either. Seeing the tool evolve and realizing it's potential it lead us to spending a lot of time shaping the flow to make it easy to understand and user friendly.

We have used the tool in some of our own projects. The most interesting part however was in the last 2 months where we've been pushing Atlas to the edge by building scenes from scratch without limitations of our own projects, just seeing how far it can go.
Right now our development process of the tool itself is fairly simple. On one hand we have our coder who's responsible for making the tool work and UX. At the same time we have our technical artist who constantly tests Atlas, finds new ways of using it and pushes its limits.

 

Thanks alot for the information, about you guys, I remember the old days of Unity, I started around Unity 2. something, it was awhile ago. around when it become free.

I to, used alot of tools to make my terrains and for different reasons. like in world machine, we can set height, slope and meshify to make cliffs, no other terrain tool, does this.(so we can export to ZBRUSH, and back in seamlessly.

I like total control over my biomes/areas of each mountain, cliff, or other wise. No terrain tool has yet to handle this very well. Unreal is the closest, as I use Unreal professionally for years as well, but its still not really a main terrain tool either. So, so many are just missing features, so as I was saying before alot of us, end up using many different tools in order to reach our goals, now when I worked at the studio, we would build such tools. ( I wish I had my hands on them for my own work or had the time to build every tool I needed. haha, but I DON'T, I would rather make games.

Anyways thanks for this info. Mad Maps, is different than what you guys do and was used in Hurt world. But it reminds me of it the fact that you can use non destructive work flow. ( the tool never really took off) as it was not shown off very good. (But it was fairly good. ( I still use it ( modified it since its been not updated.)


I recommend to show off what you guys built with it as well.)

I will keep my eye on this one, and see where you guys take it, because it looks like something that is my work flow .... and something that has been missing for awhile. ( the UI concerns me, but as long as source is there, I can always fix it myself.. if I like the tool.. and it does what I hope it to by looking at some of your brief videos, anyways, keep us updated, you could have a winner here for sure..

PS: since I ASK alot of questions I believe you keep missing it, ( no problem.

but how are the stamps being made?? So for example, if I make a height map in World machine, which I can use any file type I want to bring into Unity ( that allows) I use RAW .


I would love to check this out. when you guys get closer, to that point..

 

Right the stamps ...

The stamps are assets, they can contain a heightmap, colormap, 8 masks packed in 2 textures that can hold channels ranging from erosion to slope,curvature to whatever else this stamp wants to express and a main opacity mask.

You can make these yourself using whatever terrain software that can export any of these textures, the stamps don't require all of the textures in order to work, so just a height texture will work as well.

We have been using GAEA from Quadspinner to make our stamps, and we can definitely recommend it ^^

 

Hi, thanks ^^
The screenshots on our website are meant to show whats possible with atlas and unity today, the textures are bought from Quixel and the terrain shader in some of the screenshots is MicroSplat.
These are not included, but we do provide a starting texture pack that we built for those who need it.

We have experimented with mesh terrains actually... initially Atlas was also a terrain solution featuring custom mesh terrain with assetbundle based streaming system that got us to about 50/50km unique worlds with 0.25m accuracy with full viewing distance and a 2.5ms lag spike for loading tiles... BUT it wasn't compatible with anything and tbh not stable enough but we got close!
We might revisit this later but for now we voted to make it work on Unities built in terrain so that Atlas can work with other tools from the asset store, and make it more usable overall.
Mesh terrains can def be more performant when done right but it has other drawbacks, it really depends on what you need.

That said when we do revisit it, it will most likely not be part of Atlas terrain editor since it is not meant to be a terrain solution on its own.
Right now you can build your world using Atlas in a non invasive way, there is nothing Atlas related needed at runtime, in other words Atlas does not impact your real time performance.

Right now we are rounding up the package and testing it in different versions of Unity, looking good so far ^^

 

+1 for GAEA use

 

Any update on release date?

 

Thank you for that info.

please keep us informed on the progress, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. ( i'm picky now a days.) to much junk being sold, and alot of false hope..

Looking forward to the final product.

PS: GAEA is great for making smaller height maps, erosions are nice, but horrible for open world. If you are just making smaller to mid size stamps, it would serve its purpose. GAEA also is a big buggy. I still use World Machine, new version and the old version so I can use GAEA old plug in. in World Machine, Geo Glyth. I use GAEA to make certain shapes, erosions, and toss it in programs like World machine, Houdini.

I just wish, Gaea would make it more stable.. I had it since day 1, its gotten better,but still a ways to go. The developer is certain talented, which is why I bought it. Since I was a supporter of GG for years.

Also World Machine is the only program, besides Houdini that you can mask an area out extracting a mesh. and make seamless cliffs....

so this could work, really well for me in like you said any terrain software for sure.. .

 

Right now we're fine-tuning some things and are awaiting approval from Unity. We'll definitely keep you guys updated about the final date.

On our site you can opt in to get notified when we go live.

 

20-30 days, holy S***. Even steam is faster than this.

 

It was over 3 months on my latest packages. Unity didn't feed the hamster powering the store and it died..

 

Poor hamster

 

Looks like they found a replacement.

 

There's a new spot in the submission system where you can give it food pellets.