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

I'm also seeing another confusing behavior, which perhaps you can help me with ... when adding splat map rules to a stamp, if two "blend" stamps overlap, the rules combine in unexpected ways. For example, I'm trying to create a larger mountainous area by blending several mountain stamps together. But after getting the splatmap rules to look right on one stamp, and then copying them over to the others, the areas that overlap look wrong -- things like opacity and cutoff get combined in the final splat output. Any suggestions?

 

Aha! interesting! , yup thats it, you can comment out that check ^^ will remove this on my end as well.

 

You can make sure splat maps from other stamps don't leak trough by setting the first splat rule input to none.

So the first rule paints the whole stamp, the mask however still occludes the splatmap same as for the heightmap.

The mask acts as the global opacity for the whole stamp ^^.

 

Hello, a quick question. Is there a way to use Atlas and the Unity Terrain editor tools? We loose painted work when rendering with the atlas terrain renderer, and I am curious if there is a workaround so we can keep the stamps/splines...etc but paint on the terrain in addition. Thank you!

 

Hi EnviroArtist, Sadly the unity brushes are destructive and there is no seamless way to detect changes between edit modes.

Atlas however comes with its own brush that can also give the results youd get with unity brushes but in a non destructive way.

Heres a video tutorial about the atlas brush:

There's one other feature (not yet released but we can set you up trough PM), which can convert your existing terrain to a stamp. you can then use that stamp as your base and built on top of that.
this method is mainly meant to continue from an existing terrain.

 

When working with Splines, is it possible to adjust the control points? E.g. make one bend much sharper than the other?
Or are we supposed to be adding a lot of subdivisions?

Also; how do we add detail objects which have GPU instancing enabled? I think we can only select grass or vertexlit.

 

Hi TJHeuvel-net, the spline is cubic so no bezier nodes, you can add nodes to bend the spline to your likings.

The scattering merely places objects (detail prototypes) onto the terrain as if you would have placed them using the built-in unity brushes. so Atlas is not taking over instancing, you can make them instance following the standard unity methods and/or using other packages that handle instancing on the asset store.

Hope this help, have fun ^^

 

https://docs.unity3d.com/2022.1/Documentation/Manual/terrain-Grass.html

Here we can see there are 4 modes, in the Atlas editor we cannot select Instancing, there are only 3 modes.

 

Oh i see, good to know!

Can you change the render mode trough the unity menus?
Let us know if that works while we add to mode to the list ^^

 

I'm very interested in Atlas, but the fact that it hasn't received many updates since launch makes me curious about the roadmap for this addon. I was impressed by the youtube video series a couple of months ago, so I'm keeping an eye on Atlas for my new projects.

- What is the support for Unity 2022.2 like?
- Do you have support for holes in the terrain, for tunnels etc?
- Do you have any plans for a brush capture tool from existing terrain or geometry?

 

Hey,
Just thought I'd chip in here, hopefully to settle some nervousness you may have.

in re: hasn't received many updates.
A common misbelief is that assets need updates often.

This isn't true however as
Software update progressions vary, some work faster than other naturally based in complexity, skill level and the product lifetime.

Versioning is usually made in advance by the developers major.minor.patch

Major being your core features.
Minor and patch are generally UX polishing and bug fixes and new smaller features of said major features which come from engine updates, bugs discovered or reporte etc.

Once your software is feature complete you're either going to be working on new major version whilst operating reported bug fixes and feedback on anything else, or it's going to run its course.

You also have rare situations where an asset developer or publisher is a also a game developer, usually this means that they also use their own asset in their project, which is great for production testing because they can also provide their own feedback for fixes (powerful stuff).

Requesting a roadmap is certainly a smart decision strategy as you can of course see the value in the teams production.
Sometimes of course there just isn't more if it's feature complete, it's up to feature requesting like you have also mentioned.
That's a good opportunity for the teams to evaluate the cost, complexity and density of user requests.

So as much as not having updates can appear like abandonment, if no issues are being reported and their are otherwise activity from developers and or publishers, that also shows good health.

We had a similar situation where we have an asset that has worked with minimal updating whilst we R&D major updates for it's 2022lts release, that has worked through 2019 lts to 2021 lts, often questions about whether it's working in newer lts versions (yes).

This is likely due to many assets breaking as soon as a new major version releases publicly, who knows.

Either way, keep up feedback to developers as it helps them and publishers massively.

 

@HIBIKI_entertainment Thanks for the response! Honestly I'm happy enough with products that update less frequently, but it's hard to distinguish the stable software from the abandoned software. Looking forward to trying this out in the future!

 

Hi dock, Atlas has been released pretty stable, we have been monitoring and carefully planning out another update that should finalize the product.

As for your questions

* Unity 2022.2 should work fine, will test today to make sure it does.

* We don't support holes yet, but its already working in our next update, at the current state you would draw holes using the unity brushes.

* We opted for a terrain converter that converts unity terraindata to a stamp, you can use this to continue from existing terrain or to bake what you currently have and continue from there or convert a heightmap to a stamp.

The converter tool will be released in the next update but you can already get this one trough discord or via sending us a mail ^^

As for the roadmap, these are the points we have planned.

additions:
add feature to pack and unpack textures from a stamp
add feature to combine 4 grayscale textures into one splat map for stamp assets
add feature to convert stamp textures to 16Bit or 32Bit
add feature to override terrain layer names for the target layer drop down
add feature where unity terrain data can be converted to a stamp via a converter asset
add feature to split splines meshes into grid chunks
add editor tool to enter/exit preview mode quickly without having to select the preview volume
add project setting to strip stamps from build and play mode, reducing run time memory and build size
add features to alter the mask from height data and edge techniques like blob and square edge fading
add feature to invert the mask on a stamp
add feature to tile stamps
add feature to render an output for stamp highlighting
add feature to paint holes in the terrain via stamps
add feature to scatter based on multiple terrain layers

improvements:
improve normal map export to give correct results in all cases
improve performance by rendering when we stop moving the full resolution square
improve spline mesh export settings UI in the inspector
improve splines so that they can be scaled like any other game object
improve spline utility class by removing unused code
improve stamp inspector by showing info box when there is no stamp asset assigned
improve icon naming and load utility
improve render pipeline performance by only processing render textures when needed
improve info about the terrain in the AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer component
improve stamp inspector by making the edit mask button smaller and only showing it when the mask section is expanded
improve visibility of edit mode by using different icons between the two states
improve mask painting by showing the brush location and size
improve inspector for scatter rules, use range sliders for min and max values
improve mask painting gizmo to thick lined outline
improve mask painting no longer locks current selection
improve mask painting brush can be rotated
improve mask painting indicator by using a thick outline
improve preview volume by not showing an outline gizmo while editing

+ some fixes ^^

 

I completely understand!

Happy to see some more updates from the @Atlas-terrain team above too

 

Hi there, I'm curious how Atlas is applied to terrains. For instance, I'm generating my terrain from the HoudiniEngine, which just generates a terrain in the UnityEditor from a Houdini graph. If I regenerate my terrain (from Houdini), will Atlas reapply everything to the terrain in the scene, or does it expect the terrain to be unmodified?

 

Wow, this was exactly what I was looking for. Just bought it. Can't wait to use it. Solves a huge, painful workflow problem. Thanks so much and I hope the asset does very well for you!

 

Just getting started with Atlas – works pretty well and I appreciate the simplicity and focus.

There are a couple of features that it seems like you already have a lot of the infrastructure for that would really take this to the next level. I highly recommend watching this section of this GDC talk on the non-destructive terrain tools from "Alba: A Wildlife Adventure", which has a similar (proprietary) system. and might give you some ideas!

Things that would be great:

• An object-based approach to splatmap and scattering. This would allow you to brush "biomes" onto your map non-destructively. Right now, the scattering stuff is attached to the whole terrain, but ideally it would be controllable just like stamps. Not just whole biomes but easy ways to place a cluster of trees, etc just by putting a sphere or something in the scene.
• Similarly, the scattering allows you to use the slope information and stuff from the final terrain, but it doesn't seem like there's a way to generate splatmaps from this (you can only base them on channels from the stamp itself). For example, a common thing to do would be to apply a rock texture to steep areas of the entire map. Ideally, object-based biomes could influence this.
• Procedural stamps for simple shapes (shown in the Alba video as "ridges, valleys, and levelers")

Please let me know if some of these things are currently possible!

 

A couple issues:

I get this error every time I render the terrain (but it seems to work). (I have not selected to export any texures, but I get the same error with that on or off.)

Code (CSharp):

1. Atlas.Unity.AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer.ExportTextures: invalid path: needs forward slashes '/' : Assets/Atlas Terrain Editor/Export
2. UnityEngine.Debug:LogError (object)
3. Atlas.Unity.AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer:ExportTextures (Atlas.Unity.AtlasStamper,string) (at Assets/Atlas Terrain Editor/Runtime/AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer.cs:201)
4. Atlas.Unity.AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer:Render (string) (at Assets/Atlas Terrain Editor/Runtime/AtlasUnityTerrainRenderer.cs:62)
5. Atlas.Unity.AtlasUnityTerrainRendererEditor:OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/Atlas Terrain Editor/Editor/AtlasUnityTerrainRendererEditor.cs:81)
6. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent (int,intptr,bool&) (at /Users/bokken/build/output/unity/unity/Modules/IMGUI/GUIUtility.cs:189)
7.  

Also, it seems like "child count" is ignored for me – whatever I change it to (with the attached settings) it spawns the same number of trees.

 

Hi tgaldi

Atlas will render each stamp, like layers in photoshop, one at a time building up the final render textures.
It then applies these render textures onto the unity terrain.

I guess you'd want to have Houdini generate stamps instead of terrains if you want to combine it with Atlas.

Here you can see the input textures for the atlas stamp asset.
https://www.atlasterrain.com/docs.html#section18

If you have it somehow set so you can change the stamp or the textures that the stamp uses... from houdini, then Atlas will update with it

 

Hi wilgieseler, glad you like it so far ^^

You have some really good suggestions and sparked our interest, we've been thinking about the scattering and agree that stamp based biome scattering is the best way to move forward, now we just got to get past the technical difficulties of making this possible.

The procedural stamps are awesome and we think we can bring some of this into atlas aswell ^^

The things you've mentioned are possible if you choose to extend Atlas, if you need help with that feel free to message us on discord.

 

Yes the / bug, you can comment out the line that checks for reverse slash, it is removed on our end as well so will transition fine when the new update rolls out.

As for the child count, it might be your spacing value that is making it spawn the same number of trees.
How the scattering works is

It starts by scattering your first tree using the global spacing value, so if this is set to 10, it will try and place it each 10 meters.

Then that first tree has the possibility to scatter smaller children around it.

So its kind of branch based, where first large trees can be scattered and they can then scatter smaller trees and those could then scatter bushes and so forth ^^

 

Glad the suggestions sparked interest! I think you have a really cool tool here, and I've always been so frustrated by the destructive nature of the Unity terrain system. It's really hard to iterate on level design without it!

I've got some thoughts for some UX improvements after using it more, particularly around the Spline Stamp, but overall having a great time with it! And also just tossed in some random suggestions. Not in any particular order.

• The spline tools are pretty good overall
• I particularly like the tool to move only in the XZ plane
• There doesn't seem to be a tool to move only along Y though? But free movement (somehow) works well enough it hasn't been a major problem
• There was no tutorial video on the splines, so not sure if I missed some key features
• It's a bit confusing that the spline shows as a polyline (no interpolation) in the gizmo but seems to actually interpolate when painting the terrain? I thought there was no interpolation for a while and was confused.
• The "snap to ground" tool doesn't seem to work reliably, it seems to sometimes just constantly move up, perhaps because it is snapping to the terrain after it applies itself? Sometimes some nodes will snap and others won't. Not sure of the behavior but it's something I find myself doing a lot so would be great if it was more reliable.
• A quick button to reverse the spline would be nice because new nodes are added to the end. (I know you can click in between to add in between, which is a decent workaround.)
• It would be very useful to be able to manually enter coordinates (and width) for each node. Sometimes you just want to exactly match another object or something.
• Mesh export is cool, I'll probably end up using that for NavMesh modifiers. For that to work, it would be nice if I could somehow guarantee the generated object will always have a particular component (for example. the NavMeshModifier). Perhaps you could just always have the GameObject the mesh will be generated on present so you can keep components on it without it getting cleared out?
• It would be useful to be able to hook the spline up to other tools in some way, so that I could spawn road line decals or fences and other things. Maybe it makes sense to integrate with Unity's spline system somehow if they have a standard interface? Not sure exactly but a loose idea here. https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.splines@1.0/manual/getting-started-with-splines.html
• I could not figure out how "road blending" works exactly, the documentation is a bit sparse.
• Ideally "tiling" would be in world units so it would be consistent as the spline gets longer and not stretch.
• Many of the stamp settings live directly on the GameObject, particularly the splat layers and blend settings. It would be ideal for these to be ScriptableObjects or something so that I can easily switch a spline from "Road" to "Path" or something and have all the settings come along with it. Otherwise I have to duplicate the game object and reconfigure the nodes and all the fiddly little texture settings. "Copy component" copies the nodes and stuff too so that doesn't work for this.
• I end up wanting to finesse the "carving" of paths a lot - which is a bit hard to do because that seems to be mostly encoded in the mask texture. I also want to lay down several textures and tweak the blending, like for putting dirt shoulders next to the road. You can kind of do this with a custom stamp texture I think, but some of the options apply to the whole stamp. Maybe a solution is a "Sub Stamp" for splines which can stamp a different set of settings on the same line (maybe with width tweaking). That way you can have one for shoulder, one to finesse carving, one for the road surface. And if you move the road around all those layers move with you.
• Relatedly, I was trying to look at the details of the shipped stamps to maybe modify them, but they're packed in a Unity .asset so I couldn't open the textures up in Photoshop.
• I often find myself having to click back and forth to the "Atlas Unity Preview Volume" item in my scene, perhaps that could be implemented as a small overlay in the scene view so I don't have to hunt for it to toggle.
• I love the scale references! I love that they work even when you're not in preview mode.
• Something's weird with the "Scatter Rule Assets" inspector in the "Atlas Unity Terrain Renderer". When expanding a scatter rule asset, all of them expand at the same time and then scrolling in the inspector gets weird and won't let me scroll all the way down. I have to edit the asset files directly, one-at-a-time as a workaround. This is mostly annoying because it puts the "Render" button really far away.
• Might be nice to have an option to render without scattering, for a quicker and less cluttered preview of terrain only.
• Similarly, maybe an option to hide existing scattered objects while in edit mode, since sometimes you are modifying the terrain so much that they are distracting.
• A visualization overlay for the scatter rule settings, to show what slope/height/masks you've selected would be very useful since you kinda need to play with the values a lot. Maybe that visualization could also show dots or something for your spawn locations or something?
• I would really appreciate more detailed documentation for the properties. Ideally each property could fully explain how it works, what the units are, and how it's applied. The tooltips and such are not bad, but just going through and adding more detail and context would be valuable I think.
• Since the whole workflow is based around blending, maybe a visualization in the gizmo of the "edge erase" size or other blending options would be useful so you can see exactly how smooth your blend is
• Not super important, but would be kind of neat if you could alt-click the terrain (or something) and select or see which stamps affect that point on the terrain so you can easily find the relevant stamp
• It would be nice if I could perhaps add a component to certain objects that always keeps them stuck to the terrain after I edit it.
• Being able to parent objects or other stamps to particular nodes in the spline could be cool maybe?

I'll continue letting you know feedback as I encounter it! Hopefully it is helpful -- I'm just so jazzed about this workflow.

 

Woo thanks dude :O


Here are some tips and things that should alr be possible ^^

Try disabling the splines own height modification before snapping to ground, it's snapping onto its own height ^^, still goto find an automated way around this.

This should be the case, the mesh is being re generated but the game object is being left alone.

Some of the road stamps included have shoulders but the Size.y property of the stamp is very low, try increasing that to have more of the stamp's own height come trough.

Yup packing and Unpacking options are on the way.

This too, working in 2020 and above usng unity overlay system.

Hmm the scatter rules asset should not expand on the atlasunityterrainrederer component itself.
Heres how it looks like on my end.
https://i.imgur.com/UkKU7gR.png

Theres a toggle button above the scatter rule list in the atlasunityterrainrederer component.

The terrain should be free of scattering while in edit mode, the draw trees and foilage of the terrain is toggled off while editing.


Appreciate the effort you put into this post man! your suggestions are noted.

 

I think it's because I'm scattering prefab trees.

I think this might be because I am using Odin Inspector. No worries then.

Oh, didn't think to look there. Doesn't seem to clear the prefab trees when re-rendering though, and it's inconvenient to switch back to the other component. Could be a bit more seamless.

Will take a look at your other suggestions a bit later.

 

This makes sense, but I just cannot get it working. Here's an example where I try to scatter a box with a spacing of 100 meters, child count of 10 and spawn radius of 30, and I just get the first level of scattering, it seems like.

 

Try adding another tree to the scatter stack ^^, that will then be the child of the element above.

 

Ah, I didn't get that was how it worked! Thanks.

 

Another question: I'm trying to scatter terrain details, but the minimum density seems to be 1. Is this correct? I don't really seem to be able to reduce the density enough for certain irregular details. If I paint with the terrain brush directly I need to set the opacity to something like 0.005 in order to get the effect I want. So I would think I'd just want a very small density value.

Also, I would love to be able to have more detailed rules or noise for the detail scattering. I think the only way to get variation is from a splat layer? Which means the placement has to be tied to the ground texture? Is that correct?

 

Yup the minimum density is 1 meter, so each meter the root tree will be spawned if it gets passed the filters like slope...

Maximum density is 200 meters, this would create 1 root tree about every 200 meter and then it could spawn its children around it, creating a tiny forest depending on the settings.

You can alter the [Range(a,b)] attribute (above the spacing property) on the "ScatterRuleAsset.cs" script if you need more range ^^

Correct the filters are limited to Splatmap MinMax, Slope MinMax and height MinMax ... oh and colliders

 

Is there a chance that object scattering will get an update regardging scatter-rule-flexibility?
For example it would be helpful if there would be an option to draw a polygonal-surfaces and attach scatter-rules to those .

 

Hi,

Atlas does make some really nice looking terrains but a couple of requests.

Any chance of an update via the unity package manager for those of us who don't regularly use discord. It's been a while now and we keep hearing about features that would be great to see. I'd be happy with the beta bundled into one asset with the current version.

Also a bit of advice on best practice exporting height and flow maps etc etc from third party tools and then bringing then into atlas would be great as well. It would be useful from to get that advice from yourselves as your finished terrains always seem to look better than mine.

Thanks

 

Yeah some improvements have been made, like being able to select multiple splatmaps and UI simplification.

Zones aren't planned for this package, but Atlas works well with other tools focused on scattering

 

Hey docsavage, Thanks for the advice ^^

We're back at it and getting the update ready for shipping.

is there anything you need specifically?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/z6ac0k/unity_terrain_how_to_create_custom_stamps_for/

Here's a showcase of importing stamps from third party tools

The import method used is the one included with the update but it can be imported today.
Just need to assign textures to the stamp really and configure the 16bit format for height and mask

We built some small utilities to, for example combine multiple grayscale images into a 4 channel splatmap
And buttons to pack / unpack the textures with the stamp asset

 

Sounds great and looking forward to the update. Watched the video and it cleared a few things up. The end results look really nice.

Thanks for the reply and help.

 

Not what I expected. How do I make the stamps show over one another like in the demo video?

 

I have painted a custom textures on my terrain but as soon as I click on Atlas Unity Preview Volume all those custom terrain texturing vanishes. How do I keep my custom texturing on terrain stored even if I enable Atlas Preview Volume.

Looking forward for your response. Thanks

 

Hello

How can I make a lake?
I can't seem to find how to lower the ground to make for the bottom of the lake

 

I think you need to raise the ground first, so you can then make valleys/lake into it.
tried this script for 2019, it works
https://answers.unity.com/questions/246761/can-i-universally-raise-my-terrain-to-allow-greate.html

is there a way to make these stamp assets, flow/rockmap as other stamp on the asset store have only the heightmap?

 

Hi, the render order is the one in the hierarchy, so a stamp further down the hierarchy will draw over stamps further up in the hierarchy, Atlas renders from top to bottom essentially.

 

Hi, Atlas only has information contained within the stamps, we are unable to check what has been painted manually in between edit modes, the way we manually paint in atlas is explained here:

 

if you need the flow/rockmaps youd have to generate those from the heightmaps you have available, when we generated our stamps in "gaea" at that point in the software you have flow available so we can just export the textures as needed, if you however only have a heightmap to work with youd need some software that can figure out a flow map from it, i believe "gaea" can do this, but i'm not certain.

 

Hi, I have a question. Can Atlas be used to generate infinite procedural terrains at runtime?

 

The discord link on the asset store page is not valid. Could someone please post a valid link here. THanks.

 

Trying to use this with Unity 2020.3.18f1 and upon importing I get this error

Assets\Atlas Terrain Editor\Runtime\AtlasUnityPreviewVolume.cs(891,29): error CS1955: Non-invocable member 'AtlasUnityPreviewVolume.onBeforeEdit' cannot be used like a method.

There's also no way to add the Atlas Unity Terrain Renderer component to the Terrain like in the tutorials.

The Discord Link is invalid as well, is there still a Discord channel or was it shut down?

 

hello @Atlas-terrain I've tested Atlas and feel very great to work with.
I think a feature can benefit it is letting user brush some mask and Atlas perform hydraulic erosion (I think Unity has an Api for that) with user input Iteration Count on those area, this way we can wash away sharp areas with more believable deformation and no need to place a lots of patching stamps for the same task. This can be slow for iterative workflow, can have a button for user to perform this action after placing all the stamps will be neat.

If Unity doesn't have API exposed for this, this asset (Free) can do hydraulic erosion. You can look into it. RunSwimFly Terrain Tools | Terrain | Unity Asset Store

 

Hi @Atlas-terrain Are there any updates due in 2023? Are terrain holes still coming? I’ve been impressed by this tool but not having terrain holes is a major limitation.

 

@Atlas-terrain
Subject: Size


Can this be used on an older computer with limited hard drive space and CPU power? I noticed 1.6 G on the asset store. Can we import just parts?

Also, how compact is the final result in bytes for a typical terrain without any other assets?

 

Atlas could help you there as it works at runtime, but its not meant as a realtime as you go terrain generator, its more a terrain editing tool, some poeple have used atlas to proceduraly place stamps and then generate the world via a loadingscreen method

doing it all smoothly in de background requires chunking the terrains, and managing the memory, it becomes a very challenging task

 

Discord...

https://discord.com/invite/ycFha5sffP

 

Hmm thats strange, 'AtlasUnityPreviewVolume.onBeforeEdit' is a System.Action ...

Code (CSharp):

1. if (onBeforeEdit != null) {
2.  
3.    onBeforeEdit();
4.  
5. }

Should work fine.

If the scripts arent compiled than you can not addcomponent. so that has to be fixed before you can move on.

is that the only error in your project?

Here is the discord link...https://discord.com/invite/ycFha5sffP