TerraLand 2 – High Quality Photo-Realistic Terrains from Real-World GIS Data

Hi TerraUnity, anything new coming up, am eager to test something.

 

First version of run-time features are on the way, will post a demo build along with showcase videos in a few days to check out. It's in the final stages as we are wrapping up everything to be free of bugs and flawless.

 

Hows everything looking so far? Really want to get into using terraland if these new features are worth using.

 

Everything is working fine and the system is complete now, we are just putting together a template for the users to get around the system easily. Downloadable demo will be released in a few days from now collecting user experiences and after that, the system will be released as part of TerraLand.

Will post a few media files today to keep you updated

 

Nice, looking forward to the update.

 

Hello, I love the extension so far... but I can't get past "Initializing Satellite Image Downloader." in the downloader tool. It's been hanging for about a day. It generated a terrain fine, just no satellite images.

 

Is it happening all the times or occasionally? If this is a permanent situation so please check Unity's console to see if it gets any errors and report it here.

Also you don't need to wait for a long time to get the satellite images as it will receive imagery data only seconds after you generate terrains just like the heightmap downloader.

 

I started a whole new project and paid attention to the logs

1. At initial import the "setup project" dialog comes up and won't go away, i get this error:
   
   Code (CSharp):

   1. System.IO.FileNotFoundException: /Applications/Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/Frameworks/Mono/etc/mono/2.0/machine.config does not exist
   2. File name: '/Applications/Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/Frameworks/Mono/etc/mono/2.0/machine.config'
   3.   at System.IO.File.Move (System.String sourceFileName, System.String destFileName) [0x000bd] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/File.cs:318
   4.   at TerraLandSettings.ReplaceConfig () [0x0003d] in /Users/michaelrw/Development/Unity/VR/Oculus Launchpad Demo/Assets/TerraLand/Editor/TerraLandSettings.cs:213
   5. UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
   6. TerraLandSettings:ReplaceConfig() (at Assets/TerraLand/Editor/TerraLandSettings.cs:231)
   7. TerraLandSettings:SetSettings() (at Assets/TerraLand/Editor/TerraLandSettings.cs:194)
   8. TerraLandSettings:OnGUI() (at Assets/TerraLand/Editor/TerraLandSettings.cs:153)
   9. UnityEditor.HostView:OnGUI()
   10.  
2. However the tools work, i restart Unity and the setup project dialog pops up, with the error above but the tools work.
3. the imagery still hangs, BUT some of the images came through...

basically the UI doesn't update that anything had downloaded.

 

Thanks for the report. This has been detected before and only happens in Mac systems. Do the following to resolve the issue.

Find the script named "TerraLandSettings.cs" in project under "TerraLand => Editor" folder, remove the existing one and replace it with the attached script here.

This time when the launcher comes up, after pressing ACCEPT button, you need to locate the Unity.app file in your install location and everything will be set. The launcher won't pop-up again and the remaining mentioned issues will be solved.

FYI, this happens because in Mac systems we can not access the absolute path to the Unity's install location and in addition it fails if user rename the installation folder of Unity, so we modified the script so that users need to manually point to the install path. We will update this script in the next version.

Let me know if the problem persists or the UI still hangs!


Following is just to give you more insight about what's going on behind the scenes automatically which in your case has been failed:

In order to have faster & asynchronous Satellite Image downloads in "Terraland Downloader" plugin, following one-time instructions for each Unity installation is required:

The 2 config files for below instructions are located in your project under TerraLand => Resources => TerraUnity => Satellite Image Downloader

Win users

Go to "... Unity installation folder"\Editor\Data\Mono\etc\mono\2.0
Backup "machine.config" & "web.config" files by renaming them (such as "machine_backup.config")
Replace "machine.config" & "web.config" files by copying the provided config files
Restart Unity

Mac users

Go to the Applications folder
Locate Unity.app, right click on it and select "Show Package Contents"
Go to "/Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/Frameworks/Mono/etc/mono/2.0"
Backup "machine.config" & "web.config" files by renaming them (such as "machine_backup.config")
Replace "machine.config" & "web.config" files by copying the provided config files
Restart Unity


Now TerraLand Downloader can download multiple Satellite Images at the same time and gets the most out of your internet connection speed.

 

The system is already so complicated so bear with us if there are any delays, but it absolutely worth the wait. I'll post showcase media ASAP.

 

Hey thanks,

I'll try that now.

 

Unfortunately making the modification causes a loop, remaking me select the install location. I checked the file and one problem:

When you select the unity install path, you can't actually select the Unity.app "folder" you can only select the containing folder (in my case Applications/Unity). On line 295 I added the "/Unity.app..." to the string, but later it keeps looping.

 

Oh, my bad I'm sorry. I just modified it on top of my head with no real testing. Do the following for now to set it up manually.

Remove the "TerraLandSettings.cs" script from your project not to see the launcher again and do the following steps:

• Go to the Applications folder
• Locate Unity.app, right click on it and select "Show Package Contents"
• Go to "/Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/Frameworks/Mono/etc/mono/2.0"
• Backup "machine.config" & "web.config" files by renaming them (such as "machine_backup.config")
• Replace "machine.config" & "web.config" files by copying the provided config files*
• Restart Unity

*The 2 config files are located in your project under TerraLand => Resources => TerraUnity => Satellite Image Downloader


Let me know the results. We'll update the correct version of the script in the next release.

 

That works!

Does this project support mobile android?

 

TerraLand create terrains on top of Unity's built-in terrain system, so it's not about TerraLand or any other products of ours. It's about using terrains in any desired platforms or not! So the answer is yes, you can definitely use it on mobile but you have to take care of the performance yourself.

 

Hay everyone, just wanted to inform you that our first showcase video of TerraLand Run-Time features is going to be uploaded in a few hours.

The Windows & Mac standalone demo will be released in the upcoming days to check out the features

Also more media files and video tutorials will be out throughout the upcoming days. After the demo release, all Beta testers share their experience with the demo and hopefully we will improve the package before the release as part of TerraLand.

Stay Tuned and let us know your impressions about the new Run-Time engine features.

 

TerraLand Runtime Engine showcase video

 

First WebGL build is here: http://terraunity.com/TerraLandWebGL/index.html

Unfortunately had to remove a lot of graphical scene elements due to extreme limits on the current WebGL technology. Hope it goes further soon to be a usable browser-based rendering solution.

Also WebGL build in Unity is currently so buggy and leaves the users clueless of what's wrong while each simple build takes ages to finish.

 

Remember TerraEnhancer? Here are some never-released pictures from back in 2014:

Original Boring Terrain



Erosion & Terrace Filters On Terrain





Original Boring Terrain



Erosion & Terrace Filters On Terrain







Triplanar Procedural Texturing Using Noise On GPU (Alpha)

​

TerraEnhancer takes the normal terrains and enhance them both in shape and visuals. For the heights and shape enhancing it uses natural filters such as erosion & terrace and for the visuals, uses custom terrain shaders to support Parallax Mapping, DX 11 Tessellation, Seamless Procedural Texturing using noise functions in GPU, rock, stone, cliffs & overhangs placement on terrains using advanced automatic mesh blending technique (Geometry Blending) and more.

TerraEnhancer will be as part of a master package we're working on which includes all current TerraUnity products' capabilities.

 

Got this long list of errors after importing. Also got an pop-up on obsolete API. Can you please help?

 

Would you please tell us which package did you import in Unity and what the Unity version is?

 

Can you show some screenshots of rocks blending in the with the terrain. That's one of the major current problems trying to get rocks to match up with terrain seamlessly. Do you know when we get an update to all this goodness your talking about?

 

Hello @TerraUnity how is the moon going?

 

Sorry to get back to you so late guys, been super busy with various projects.

@Migueljb As it was an old implementation of ours, needed to wrap up everything to port in Unity 5's PBR standard shading. Here you go with some WIP screenshots:

Geom Blending On/Off Animation




Geom Blending






DX11Tessellation GeomBlended ProceduralTextured




​

 

DX11Tessellation GeomBlended





Steep Parallax GeomBlended




Steep Parallax GeomBlended Procedural Moss





Steep Parallax GeomBlended Procedural Snow



​

 

Very nice. Thanks for showing that. Looking forward to using all this can't wait.

 

Hey, it looks amazing!
I'm planning on purchasing this asset to use in my current project but I have one question - is there sone sort of a license on using GIS data and satellite imagery? Is it free for any usage, for non-commercial usage only, etc?

Thanks!

 

Still no plans on the release but will be in our pipeline after a stable version of the run-time features.

 

You are welcome. Will post new media regarding the implementation very soon.

 

Thanks. Regarding the license and data usage, refer to the following posts as it has been asked many times before:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/te...atellite-images-released.179358/#post-1306635
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/te...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2472935
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/te...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2484455

 

Hi, all you need to do is run unity as administrator and then press the ACCEPT button! Sorry for my english.

 

Hi developer,
I'm having some problem when i configure the download images from google satellite. When the download images is finished, they are from MAPQUEST satellite, not from the google. I tried in 2048px and 4096px and the result is the same.
Untitled1.png - 2048x2048
Untitled2.png - 4096x4096
Untitled3.png - showing that image downloaded is the same of MAPQUEST satellite.
Best regards.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, we have also recommended the same thing to users but that wasn't the case for some users. Also in Mac, there are still some bugs regarding the launcher which has been resolved and the fix will be included in the next version.

 

Please note that the mapping sources you select in Interactive Map are for visual references only and just to preview the user selected area, so selecting different imagery sources doesn't affect the Satellite Image Downloader source.

The Elevation & Satellite Imagery downloaders in TerraLand use ESRI services to get their data and this can't be changed. This is already stated in the description of TerraLand pages.


You can also find similar questions has been already answered at the bottom of these 2 posts:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2478568
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2584750


The reason that you see the MapQuest in Interactive Map window matches with the output satellite imagery in TerraLand is that both MapQuest and ESRI obtain their data from multiple sources mixed together to get best resolutions in different areas. And seems like the area you selected shown in the screenshot, has the same mapping source in both ESRI and MapQuest.


Couple of notifications which you might find them useful based on given screenshots.

• Select a power of 2 value (e.g. 2, 4, 8) for the Grid Size as much as possible to avoid data resampling and banding artifacts in the generating terrain surface. You have selected a value of 5 so 25 terrains has been generated. Changing the value to 4 or any other PO2 values will result better surfaces.

• As there are recognizable area crops in the output satellite images on terrain surfaces, try with different "Satellite Imagery Resolutions" and/or different "Area Sizes" to see if these obvious changes are gone and the output is seamless.*

• To stop receiving the "There are multiple directional lights in scene." warning in console, go to the "Analysis Maps Downloader" section in TerraLand Downloader's GUI and uncheck "Automatic Sun Settings". And also deselect any map types in this section if you don't need them for faster downloads.

* This is due to different timings for the capture of nearby areas and/or different mapping providers stitched the imagery data to cover the entire region.

 

Thank you for reply, i tried many times but the texture not change. Every time i get 3 different types of texture. The Real World Terrain have option to get textures from NOKIA source and in Brazil that source is the best, without clouds and very clear texture. Could you do this option in your plugin? Your plugin have more options interesting and it's more interactive.

 

As already said resolutions & qualities may differ at certain areas. ESRI world imagery is a collection of high resolution satellite imagery from multiple sources plus having the community driven support at the back.

Currently we have no plan to change TerraLand's imagery source or make it a multi-source solution as ESRI already does this, however it's easy to do us for us because we have already implemented such feature in our Interactive Map which obtains data from Google, Bing, OpenStreetMap, MapQuest, MapBox & Yandex with 35 style variations.


On top of that, there is a technical overhead when using tile-based mapping systems such as Google, Bing, Nokia and etc. as extracted region must match with tile borders and arbitrary area selection is not possible at least in easy ways. Look at other programs that use this systems so you will see this limitation.

While TerraLand uses ESRI's data webservices which analyses and extracts both elevation and imagery data exactly from given arbitrary coordinates and it's a complete flexible system which resamples elevation and renders imagery from that region to finally create a proper file to be used. In short, the output data files are not in fixed sizes, resolutions or dimensions rather than being it in comparison to tile-based solutions. And that's what we are aiming to have an ultimate solution for GIS companies.


If still need to have your own custom satellite imagery collected from sources other than TerraLand, you can use "TerraLand Terrain" component's "Image Tiler" section. The following post will get you started:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2485054

In addition, at the end of the day, full satellite imagery on terrains is boring and limited so no matter how small the area is or satellite images are in very high resolution, you will always lose details at close viewing distances.

But there are various techniques to overcome this limitation. In our TerraLand Tournament demo, actually the satellite images are in low resolution but enhanced with detail normalmaps. Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHHJza5Sl88

More info on this technique:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-2#post-2640264

We are developing a new product which uses advanced terrain shaders to achieve highly detailed rendering on terrains. So satellite images are only used for far viewing distances and referenced to automatically generate splatmaps and detail textures.

 

Thanks for your patience,
I'm using Global Mapping and i have the images from google and the WorldElevation.asc over these images as you can see. Could you explain how is the better way to crop and export the images raster to TerraLand Terrain?

 

@nhf75 Really sorry for the late reply... We've uploaded a video which covers the entire subject on how to use TerraLand's "Downloader" & "Terrain" components to generate and edit photo-realistic terrains from own custom elevation & satellite imagery data by the help of Global Mapper.

The custom imagery data sources in this video are from Google & Bing mapping services. Also this video shows how to work with main sections in Downloader & Terrain components to do various editing operations.

 

Excellent! This video solve all my questions. Thank you very much!

 

About the geometry blend shader: Does it work independently from the terrain shader? If so, that would be pretty amazing.

 

Glad it helped you out.

Yes, it works independently from the terrain shader as in the screenshots which terrain uses Unity's built-in standard shader.

Each geom-blending object in the scene uses a controller script which can access all needed info automatically from the underlying terrain to set the right parameters for its shader and make proper blending. Some needed info from terrain are terrain object's world position and current terrain height below object's center, splatmap, painted textures, textures tiling size & offset.

Also it uses latest Unity's GPU Instancing features so multiple geom-blended objects can share the same material but with arbitrary parameters set specifically for each single material instance to keep it in high performances.

We traditionally used shaders which use camera's depth-map to automatically detect collisions and do the blending based on those detected areas as shown in the previous screenshots. However, it's a very interesting method and implementation, but it has its own limitations which the main one is that the blending changes in different angles and also the shader has to be in a semi-transparent mode instead of being fully opaque, so this is not ideal for solid meshes as rocks and stones. That's why we tried a newer method which I described earlier and the results are more interesting and accurate.

We will share some new media very soon in the upcoming days.

 

Finally, a fully workable Run-Time features demo is available for public downloading.

GET IT HERE
Windows: http://terraunity.com/freedownload/TerraLand_WorldExplorer_Win.zip
Mac: http://terraunity.com/freedownload/TerraLand_WorldExplorer_Mac.zip

​

Please note that these features are still in Beta and during the upcoming weeks we mainly focus on user experiences and feedback to finally release it as a stable version to be included in TerraLand.

We really appreciate user feedback here in this thread. Sorry again for not being in time on this but it's already a very complex system to dynamically create and manage large chunks of data in real-time to bring a high performance and smooth rendering during the gameplay in the run-time.

We will make a video tutorial on this in the upcoming days so that you will get to know all needed information about the system in the demo.

 

The Run-Time demo has been updated with some bug fixes. Redownload it from the original links as before:

DOWNLOAD
Windows: http://terraunity.com/freedownload/TerraLand_WorldExplorer_Win.zip
Mac: http://terraunity.com/freedownload/TerraLand_WorldExplorer_Mac.zip


CONTROLS

WASD/Arrows + Mouse Movement

W/Up: Increase throttle
S/Down: Decrease throttle
A/Left: Yaw left
D/Right: Yaw right
Mouse Movement: Roll & Pitch
R: Reset aircraft 500 meters high in neutral position
G: Open/Close Landing Gears
Escape: Pause/Resume Menu
F: Force Level Start in Loading Screen


Latest Changes:

• Fixed Terrain Stitching when arbitrary "Area Size" is assigned
• Improved Terrain Stitching operation
• Fixed a bug on data downloading froze when going back to main menu
• Fixed some shader compiler errors on Mac
• Better Sun rendering
• Change "Delayed LOD" option to disabled in Advanced menu by default

 

Its been awhile since any updates, anything to report on the moon please?

 

We are heavily working on the latest beta version of Runtime engine and it is now giving us best results to maintain performance and quality at the same time, so close to the final release.

I had a talk with the dev team regarding usage of own custom heightmap and imagery data on a local/online server and this stage will be started next week as the demand is high.

Users' own data-server features in TerraLand leads to setup the moon project pretty easy. I don't think it's gonna take more than 2 weeks from now, so stay tuned.

 

Trying out your run-time demo. No problems running it on my laptop a work, but I cannot get it run correctly on my desktop at home. It fails on downloading satellite images only getting to between 54 and 68% percent (it varies but is in between these 2 values) and then the program just sits there on the loading screen no matter how long I leave it. Downloading Heightmaps gets to 100% and if I check the Elevation Only checkbox in the ADVANCED menu the scene loads and runs correctly correctly without the textures.

I also am interested in a moon project and will pick up Terraland in the next week or so to make a start.

 

I've already seen this situation on a machine which was connecting to internet through a proxy and so the connection calls to the imagery server was dropping and failing. This happens whenever the Imagery server doesn't like some IPs and if there are unstable internet connections. These kinds of issues always come from bad connections so check back your connection and see if the problem persists.

However, for debugging purposes, when you are in the loading screen, you can press the "F" button on your keyboard and after a while it force starts the scene level.

Elevation server seems to be handling the connections better so that's why the scene loads up properly by selecting the "Elevation Only" checkbox in the settings.

FYI, The latest stable version of the demo will be there in a few hours which has a lot of improvements.

The Moon project is on its way to be implemented soon.

 

Hi,
I have bought Terraland just 10 minutes ago .. and in my monitor I can already see a 18KmX18Km high res terrain ....
Come on .. that's awesome ... congratulations .. I did not think to have such professional tool on my Unity Editor and just for 59USD. Thanks

 

Hi,
is there any option to download openstreet ( or similar ) data overlapping with the terrain ?

 

Hi antoripa, thanks, glad you like it. The Runtime API in development is going to put your dynamic high res terrains into the gameplay as you are in an endless world with no boundaries