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

It's the kode80 clouds here: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/released-kode80-volumetric-clouds-ver-1-1-0.371747/ and yes it's volumetric.

But since WorldExplorer release, we have implemented our own cloud system which reacts to any lighting conditions of our upcoming day/night cycle system in TerraWorld. You can see a very short early preview of the clouds here:

 

I just opened in 2017.1 and if I hit any of the TerraLand buttons on the main menu bar under Tools it crashes Unity.

Is this suppose to be able to work on Unity 2017.1? The last release of your product appears to be over a year ago?

 

Same thing happens with me. Unity 2017.1 on MacOS.

 

No, TerraLand is an active project and gets its updates frequently time by time. The older version of the asset in the AssetStore is because we only release most stable versions in there so you have to do the following to get latest updated packages.

As TerraLand is already available for Unity 5.6 and up for a while now, to get the latest packages, email us and send your AssetStore's payment Invoice No. and your login info on our website after registration from here: http://terraunity.com/my-account/

So that we can manually setup your account to have access to the latest download links for your packages.

The packages in your account on our website come as separate packages so you may not need to import additional packages.

Are you aware of the TerraLand's Runtime API as part of TerraLand product? If not, please check the following links to get the latest package:

http://terraunity.com/worldexplorer

The Runtime API features is also available in your account after registration. One upcoming key feature in Runtime API is the dynamic loading of endless elevation/imagery data from online/local data servers which is suited for large projects which the area is so big and can't be in a single static scene. TerraLand Runtime can already generate terrains dynamically in runtime from ESRI servers through internet connection and cache of data will be added as an option in future versions to load data from any user-generated online/local places.

 

Read the above post and if you are still experiencing issues, let us know the details so that we can help you out in them. As the 2017.1 recently came out it may be possible to face these problems due to Unity's API changes, so we need to get full proper reports to sort out the issues.

 

Hi, I should have noted that I am using the latest packages from your website, not the Asset Store. It appears that "TerraLand – TerraLand 2.1.2 (Unity 5.6+)" does not crash, only the Runtime API does.

 

Yes we got multiple reports of the same problem in Unity 5.6 and up for the Runtime API. So we are in the process of removing existing bugs and make it compatible for the latest Unity versions.

The release will be there in a few days and we are going to announce it here, so keep an eye on this thread.

Please note that TerraLand's Runtime API is still in its Beta stages and not a stable product to be used in finished projects. That's why it is still not included in the AssetStore version of TerraLand. But hopefully the Runtime API will get its heavy development through the upcoming days and weeks so it will become practical in your projects as we have made a lot of improvements and removed plenty of bugs and have rewritten some of the features from scratch for better performance.

 

Hi,
I sent you a message via your contact page as well. Some pre-sales questions I have.

I tried running the demo from http://terraunity.com/product/terraland/ on Unity 2017.1 but get errors:
Assets/TerraUnity/Common Files/Standard Assets/Scripts/Utility Scripts/MeshCombineUtility.cs(130,38): error CS1061: Type `UnityEngine.Mesh' does not contain a definition for `GetTriangleStrip' and no extension method `GetTriangleStrip' of type `UnityEngine.Mesh' could be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

This was an empty project I imported the demo package into.

Also I tried the world traveler demo from http://terraunity.com/worldexplorer/
Pulling up Grand Canyon I saw gaps between terrains. They didn't look stitched at all.

Edit: Gaps appeared to be a stitch smoothness issue.

Edit2: I just tried to buy it off your website but it keeps saying

• \"Please solve the Captcha to continue!\"

and there is no Captcha visible at all. Believe me, I've checked. *sigh*

 

Hello? I got no reply to my contact through your site or this?

 

Sorry for getting back here late, we are in the middle of moving the office to another building so we've been super busy with that.

Which demo are you referring to? TerraLand has no public demo projects. TerraLand's 2 demo projects of "TerraLand Tournament" & "WorldExplorer" come as unity packages to be imported in Unity after purchase but you can download their builds from our website for free:

FREE Download TerraLand Tournament: http://terraunity.com/terraland-tournament/
FREE Download WorldExplorer: http://terraunity.com/worldexplorer/

I guess you have imported the demo of the TerraCity which contains the "MeshCombineUtility" script. This demo is a very very old one as TerraCity is making its transition to our upcoming new product which you can find some information of it in this thread. TerraCity has been updated to its latest version internally but it is not released for public to be reserved for the above mentioned future product.

Yes as we stated earlier, TerraLand's Runtime API is still in its Beta stages and not a stable product to be used in finished projects but currently is is getting its heavy development so it will become practical in your projects as we have made a lot of improvements and removed plenty of bugs and have rewritten some of the features from scratch for better performance.

The gaps, misalignment and stitching smoothness issues are known problems and have bugs that has been already worked on and fixes will be there for the next update. There are even some other useful information regarding the Runtime API in previous posts that worth reading.

Would you please let me know which page are you referring to? There is only one Captcha you need to solve for the registration but nowhere else!

Also we have our daily payments through our website without any issues, so tell me exactly where the Captcha is so that I can help you out in that.

 

The demo errors came from the TerraLand demo package via http://terraunity.com/downloads/

Demo scene download http://terraunity.com/freedownload/TerraLand_Demo.unitypackage

It says, demo download, so I did and got the error as specified.

 

Now I see which demo you are referring, Yes the demos in this page are outdated and for earlier versions of the products. As TerraLand's demos are coming as separate projects, you can download their build demos from these links as I mentioned earlier:

FREE Download TerraLand Tournament: http://terraunity.com/terraland-tournament/
FREE Download WorldExplorer: http://terraunity.com/worldexplorer/

And you can have these projects' source after your purchase.

FYI, the TerraLand demo project in the Downloads section of our website which you mentioned is nothing special but just a simple terrain with satellite images on it similar to this live demo of TerraLand product:

http://terraunity.com/TerraLandWebGL/index.html

So for the achieved environments using TerraLand, stick with the 2 provided demo projects.

 

As already answered this question through email, I'll put it here so maybe other people find it helpful too:

Recently we've added the Captcha solver in the registration page to prevent bot spamming.

As you did not register on our website before the purchase, so please first register on our website from here: http://terraunity.com/my-account/ and then simply login and make the purchase.

It was due to the missing Captcha solver in the shopping page while it also tried to register you on our website as a part of your purchase. Anyways, thanks for the report, I'll notify the web designer team about this.

 

Hi all
In some Google Maps area`s i have a very good zoom Level , but in Terra Land Downloader i can set in the Resolution Mode only "Medium" the terrain Texture in Unity (TerraLand) look not so good like in Google Maps.
What can i make to get a better zoom level quality?

I get the message:
"There is No Available Imagery At This Zoom Level"

But in the Interactive Map i can zoom to Level 19 my TerraLand downloader load only Level 14 !?


and:

How can I combine my 4 Terrains and my 4 Satellite Images to one Terrain/ Images

 

Regarding the zoom levels, 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.

Please check these information to get started:

General Info:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2478547
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-4#post-2813587
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-2#post-2640264
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-5#post-2878638

Similar Usecase:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-4#post-2805045


But hopefully in TerraLand you can also use the "TerraLand Terrain" component to use your own custom elevation/imagery data files if you have higher resolution data available. Take a look at the following links to get started:

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/t...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-4#post-2826055

Regarding the combined terrain and images, in TerraLand there is a component called "TerraLand Terrain" which is accessible through Unity's top menu => Tools => TerraUnity => TerraLand => Terrain. Fire it up and you can find various processors that generate/edit new or existing terrain(s) in your scene.

In order to combine your 4 terrains or any number of grid terrains in your scene, just insert the terrains prefab in the "Terrain Chunks" field of the "Offline Data" section in TerraLand Terrain's UI. By doing this, all processors will operate on the inserted terrain tiles seamlessly. Go to the "Export Elevation Data" section, select desired heightmap format and click "Export Data" button so that TerraLand creates a single heightmap file from the inserted grid of terrains in the selected format in your project.

You can then use the "Offline Data" section again, insert your created heightmap into its proper field in there (supports heightmaps in Ascii grid, Raw & ESRI's Tiff formats) and press the "Generate Terrain" button at the bottom of the UI to generate new terrain(s) as setup in the "New Terrain Settings" section out of the inserted heightmap.

Note: if you have any single or multiple terrains inserted in the "Single Terrain" or "Terrain Chunks" fields of the Offline Data section, the heights will be applied on these inserted terrains. So if you want new terrains to be generated in your scene, firstly you have to empty up these fields as the information is shown in a green or red info bar at the top of the UI.

Hint: There is also a "Terrain Splitter" section in TerraLand Terrain which does the opposite of the above mentioned process when you want a single terrain to be split into a gird of tiles as multiple terrain objects in your scene with automatic stitching.


For combining and stitching the downloaded satellite images, there is no built-in way in TerraLand. But as these images are available in your project as imported textures (under TerraLand => Downloads => "downlaod date folder" => Satellite Images => "each terrain tile folder"), you can take them and edit them in any external imaging programs such as Photoshop and apply own editings.


There are also other ways to re-texture the single terrain in your scene. Insert the single terrain in "Single Terrain" field of the "Offline Data" section in "TerraLand Downloader" and as you already have the coordinates/information/preset for the area, you can simply setup your settings in the "Satellite Image Downloader" section and press the "Generate Images" button below and TerraLand starts to texture the single inserted terrain in your scene.

The other way is to insert the single terrain in "Single Terrain" field of the "Offline Data" section in "TerraLand Terrain", go to the section "Image Tiler", insert the folder containing all satellite images for the area into the "Tile Images Folder" and press "Image Tiler" button to start texturing the inserted terrain in your scene.

 

ok, thx for your answer

 

Any idea on when the new future product version you mentioned will be out (TerraCity or TerraLand)?

 

Hi all

in Maps Maker i will make a Splatmap with 9 colors.
but with Automatic mode i get only blue, red, green and alpha output colors
when i will pick self a color like orange or purple it swich back to blue or red.
How i can use 9 output colors in the Maps Maker?

(Unity Version 2017 and 5.63)


and i get this error:
Assets/TerraLand Tournament/Scripts/PauseMenu.cs(29,14): error CS0101: The namespace `global::' already contains a definition for `PauseMenu'

with desable the PauseMenu.cs i get the next error....

 

It's a good question. Currently the 4 colors (Red, Green, Blue and Alpha) limit in TerraLand's MapsMaker is intentional. As Unity's built-in terrain shader detects splatmaps based on their RGBA channels similar to any standard splat shading systems, generated splatmaps in MapsMaker are containing 4 colors of Red, Green, Blue and Alpha, whether the selected filters are 4 or more.

But having different colors for the output map as a landcover may be a good option for many as you, however not applicable in Unity's default terrains shaders but maybe for any custom shaders or outside of Unity. We'll try to implement this option in the next TerraLand update.

As already answered this question through email, regarding the received errors, seems like you just imported some assets (scripts, folders, models...) twice or there are already scripts with the same names in your project and in this case, it shows you a warning that the "PauseMenu" script already exists, so you have to remove the duplicated one or if there are other scripts with the same name, just rename the scripts. This behavior only happens if you don't import packages in a fresh empty project.

 

The new future product you are referring will contain our all latest solutions in one package containing of improved versions of TerraLand, TerraTrees, TerraCity & TerraEnhancer plus many advanced assets such as custom terrain and organic shaders, automatic day/night system, realistic clouds rendering and much more.

I can not tell any exact date for the release date of this product for now but all I can say is that it will definitely be out before the end of this year as it is under heavy development on a lot of new features and implementations never seen before in any other products up to now.

 

Your website is not reachable from from Vietnam. Same problem as last year. It works via a proxy though.

 

I remember the last time you encountered this, thanks for the report. Would you please tell me what error do you receive in your browser?

And were you able to browse the website at all or did it happen just recently?

 

I get the error message "The connection has timed out".
I did not check the site for a while so I don't know when it stopped working.

 

Thanks for letting us know, I have redirected the issue to the web designer team.

 

Hi! I'm attempting to use Terra+3 for a work project. TerraLand 2.1.2 works great! We can happily download terrain data and display it in our application.

But neither TerraCity nor TerraTrees work in either Unity 2017.1 or 5.5.4 on my Windows 10 dev machine. When I try to open the editor (e.g. Terrain | TerraTrees), the Terra DLLs fail with errors like:

get_pixelLightCount is not allowed to be called from a ScriptableObject constructor (or instance field initializer)...

If I'm not mistaken, putting code like that in the scripts constructor has been illegal starting with Unity 5.4. Maybe it can be fixed by moving that code out of the constructor to one of the Event Functions (e.g. Awake(), Start(), etc...)?!?

Any thoughts on getting TerraCity and TerraTrees to work in Unity 2017.1? Thanks! ;-)

 

We already talked regarding the old public releases of TerraTrees & Terracity in this thread and Terra +3's.

These products are old and may not work in latest Unity versions. However, they have been updated internally but not released for the public yet as they are reserved for our new upcoming product which these plugins are just a part of it. The upcoming package contains our latest technologies and improved products working together in one place. It is free for our current Terra +3 users until the release date and also upgradable to current TerraLand users with a discount.

As you made the purchase for these 2 plugins which are part of the above mentioned upcoming product, we may have granted access to TerraLand product in your account on our website too and you are considered as a current Terra +3 user to have a free transition to the new product upon its release.

 

Hi ! im trying to download areas form 1 degree x 1 degree because i need to generate an offline database from Argentina, but when i try to set in :

AREA LOCATION

latitude = -38.5
longitude = -61.5

i can't set those values i dont know why

then i try to select the area size for example ( 1degreex1degree)

top -38
btm -39
left -62
right -61

and i got the same problem.

am i doing something wrong ?

 

It's a good question as sometimes you need to insert arbitrary geo-coordinates for the area's Top, Left, Bottom & Right points. For instance exact 1x1 degrees as in your case.

It seems that you have the Interactive Map window open while trying to change the Latitude & Longitude values in Area Location, the Interactive Map window always overrides user insertions. Just close this window and then setup the coordinates manually, then you can bring up the Interactive Map window again centered at your desired point.

Thanks for reminding this, we will add a warning message while this window is open to avoid user confusion in the next update.

Seems like there is a bug in this feature, just found it myself now. We will review that part and will fix the issue for the next update.

For future reference and also for the others to know how to setup desired arbitrary coordinate values for the area, in Area Size section, select "Coordinates" option so that you can insert desired values manually as shown in the following picture:

​

However, this is currently broken and will be resolved soon.


Also by pressing "Terrain Bounds" tab at top right of the UI, you can check terrain area's boundaries of Top, Left, Bottom & Right points and to avoid user confusion again, this section is for preview only and you can not change these values.

​

 

@TerraUnity I'm working on a boat racing game/sim and most of the race courses are in bays, lakes, and rivers which don't seem to load any bathymetry data. Is there a way to raise all terrain with values greater than 0 elevation, so my water plane can replace areas of water on the terrain?

I'm unable to use the raise/lower tool to lower the water areas because they're already at 0.

Edit: Nevermind, I found this script http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/RaiseHeightmap and just modified it to also take a threshold value, so anything under the threshold doesn't get raised.

 

@skaughtx0r Sorry for the late reply. I was going to write you an exact similar script to get what you need and found that you already found the solution.

Actually TerraLand's obtained elevation data does include bathymetry data but as the resolution below water level is very low (around 900 meters per pixel) so it's kinda useless and needs further enhancement to achieve finer details. The mentioned script in the wiki is useful to others who need this kind of setup.

Would love to see what you will come up with your implementation.

 

@TerraUnity

I've attached the script if anyone needs it.

 

So is it possible to see where I can achieve which resolution for my elevation data? For example, I would like to know if a certain place in the US has 3meter resolution, or 30 meter resolution. Can I preview this somewhere?

 

I also sent you an email, because I purchased it back in 2015 (Atleast thats what the website says, I am sure it was 2013 though) and I would like to get the latest version for 5.6. Thanks.

 

Hi There ! im wondering if terraland includes some tool or if you know how to place some Game Object having its coordinates (lat,long). For example i have El Obelisco in Buenos Aires ( 34° 36' 13.70'' S , 58°22'53.73'' W) and i wanto to place it but i dont know its cartesians coordinates.

 

When will the Unity 2017 compatible production ready release be published on the unity asset store? Previous posts from June suggests soon?

 

Here you go:
Interactive map of ESRI's World Elevation service coverage
ESRI's Elevation coverage map info

Following is the interactive map for the World Imagery service if anyone is interested too:
Interactive Map of ESRI's World Imagery service

Following picture is the high resolution coverage map for the World Imagery:

​

 

As TerraLand is already available for Unity 5.6 and up for a while now, to get the latest packages, email us and send your AssetStore's payment Invoice No. and your login info on our website after registration from here: http://terraunity.com/my-account/

So that we can manually setup your account to have access to the latest download links for your packages.

The packages in your account on our website come as separate packages so you may not need to import additional packages.

 

This post is exactly what you are looking for:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/ter...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-6#post-3084315

Download the provided sample package in this post and check it for yourself. You first need to do the following as mentioned though:

 

It's already available since early May through our website:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/ter...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-6#post-3061511

Info regarding the delay on release from AssetStore:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/ter...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-7#post-3150473

Where it says it will be there after a stable version of our Runtime API. So simply register on our website, make the purchase directly from there or in AssetStore, notify us about the purchase if it's from UAS and get the latest package downloads after sending us the payment information like everybody else does.

 

Hi, thank you for the answer. I do not have a Asset store invoice, as I never purchased Terra Land on the asset store. I purchased it before it was available on the store.

A very long time ago.

 

I remember your name as one of the first supporters In this case it may be possible that the latest packages already sit in your account panel on our website. If not, send us your login info and we will update your account access.

 

Hi there, first of all thank you very much for answering so quickly !
i have two more questions :

how may i get and save continious terrains ?

For example i want to get all Argentina elevation data, in chunks of 100km x 100km
i ask this question because i've tried to get squares of 1degree x 1 degree but the tool has a bug as you said in previous posts.
Its very difficult ( almost impossible ) to get one by one with the show map option, and the terrains never get 100% continious

And the second question is if it is some way to locate objects without having the terrain center located on unity's (0,0,0) world space coordinate.

i ask this because i got all Argentina's south by setting the terrain dimension = 1000Km x 1000Km but when i use the script you mentioned the terrain is so big that looses precition.

Thank you very much again !

 

I really want to try this, especially MapMaker, for the conversion tools...BUT, I need at least 8 splat maps (like unity)..Can you Please just double what you have? Splat1 / Splat 2.. [;-)...ie.(generated splatmaps in MapsMaker are containing 4 colors of Red, Green, Blue and Alpha..)..could I alter your code?,or maby run a satellite map through MapMaker twice? to achieve the same result..2 splat maps per Terrain


implement this option in the next TerraLand update?

 

You are welcome

If you want to have multiple chunks of terrains for the specified area each tile with its arbitrary metric dimensions, the options are already there and you can simply do this implementation.

Watch this part of the TerraLand Downloader's video tutorial to get started:

As in your case which you want the whole data for Argentina (which is not recommended as explained later) you need to firstly

• Insert center of the location by directly typing Lat/Lon coordinates or through the Interactive Map
• Specify the Area Size. Set the size value a number which is dividable to 100. e.g. 800
• Go to New Terrain Settings section
• Define total number of chunks by setting "Tiles Grid" value. In your case set it to 8x8 so that you will have 64 terrain tiles each with 100km x 100km dimensions*

* A PO2 value is recommended for the Tile Grid value so that no resampling of elevation data will be applied and you will get smoother gradients in your heightmaps.

So you can have the combination and a bit of calculation to setup the whole area divided in specific number of tiles each with its desired dimensions. So for example you can have an area with total size of 400km2 with Tiles Grid value of 16x16 which results in 256 terrain tiles each covering a 25km x25km area size. Please note that a balance of total number of terrain tiles in relation to each tile's resolution is needed for performance considerations.

Also as hinted earlier, generating bigger areas such as a country will generate inaccurate heights due to the limitation of total heightmap resolution in a static scene (Usually the max value is 4096) and that's why we put the maximum of 1000km2 limit for the Area Size which is still a big number for this and does not give good results.

But there's still a way to minimize the precision issue you mentioned and that is another useful option in TerraLand. In Area Size section of TerraLand there is a checkbox called "Units To 1 Meter". If this option is enabled, it means that every 1 unit in Unity will be considered as 1 meter, so a 100km2 terrain will cover 100000 x 100000 units in Unity's world space. But as you have the option to disable this feature, you can then go to the New Terrain Settings section and give desired arbitrary XY dimensions for the total area size in Unity's units by defining "Area Size Units" X & Y values. So the smaller these 2 values are, the closer the edges of your terrain is to the world center as the zero position which consequently yields more accurate geo-reference operations as implemented in our previous script.

Also in the WorldExplorer demo of TerraLand's Runtime API, we have a script called "FloatingOriginAdvanced.cs" on the main camera so that it handles the floating point precision issue by offsetting the world elements around the player to the world space origin after a defined distance. As TerraLand's Runtime API has no limits in the concept of the area size and user can fly from hundreds to possibly thousands of kilometers during the gameplay, this feature is mandatory. But as the offsetting operation takes place quickly once needed every time the player travels far from the center, users cannot notice that and it feels like the player is in a seamless environment around him.

 

As explained here before:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/ter...eal-world-gis-data.377858/page-5#post-2956710

you are right about having MapsMaker analyze and generate splatmaps twice out of a single satellite image. So in each of the 2 setups in MapsMaker, you set proper settings to output desired colors with a splatmap of 4 layers so that you will get 2 splatmaps with total of 8 layers and apply these generated splatmaps with the existing ones in your terrain data using the script in the above mentioned post.

Actually, we have developed many advanced splatmap shaders both for terrains and meshes which does these color filtering plus many other features int them. These shaders will be available in our upcoming product which you may have heard of. But for the TerraLand, we stick with Unity's built-in terrain system's standard shading which needs multiple splatmaps each containing RGBA channels as layers if you go above 4 textures on terrain as explained here:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/ter...from-real-world-gis-data.377858/#post-2485204

 

Relating to @fraaan14's question above regarding contiguous terrains, my question is closely related but has a different motivation.

Since my subject area is a coastal region where the land follows the angle shown below -- it's a waste of terrain space to calculate the square area shown when I can only use the contribution from the three smaller square regions in red:



That is, I want to generate a mosaic of patches that minimize the amount of water included, as I am visualizing only land in this case.

How best should I proceed?

As @fraaan14 pointed out, framing the tile regions with the interactive map is a non-starter, for obvious reasons. However if I enter manual lat/long extents will the resulting terrains match exactly at the border? How many digits do we need to carry out the lat/long to achieve this sort of seamless tiling across separately computed terrains?

When I try to enter specific values in via AREA SIZE:COORDINATES, TU changes my value once I move to the next field. There must be something I need to set, but I don't know what it is.

Setting a center point and using AREA SIZE:METRICS could work, but offsetting the center point like this isn't accurate since the earth isn't perfectly spherical.

The above is simplified for the purpose of illustration; in reality I would want to create many (smaller) tiles over a larger area, again to minimize the amount of ocean included in the terrains -- which is why I'm hoping there's a nice and simple way to lay out such a mosaic, e.g.: a text file containing a list of bounding regions that TU can import...

From what I see, TU must respect the map projection orientation, so while rotating the whole map would be an acceptable way to select a single contiguous region, I don't see how that would be possible in TU.

 

Yes, the Interactive Map is there only for visual references and cannot be used for mosaic implementation at all. You can manually enter coordinates to match the borders but why doing this when there's already option for that as TerraLand does it automatically? Read to the end to get the easiest built-in solution.

As already stated, currently there is a bug in these fields which will be resolved in the next version.

Yes, that's true. setting center points, matching borders, stitching terrains, respecting orientations and spherical surface plus so many other factors to be taken into account is a great hassle. And surely at the end of the day you won't get the results you are looking for.


So what is the solution?

The answer is simple as doing such implementation is already available in TerraLand. And it has been stated many times before:

The above steps is considering to generate a 800km x800km area with a specified center point in 64 terrain tiles automatically stitched together each covering a 100km x 100km region.

The only extra step which you need to do after such implementation is to simply delete the terrain tile objects in your scene which covering water areas and are not usable to save performance and achieve what you need.

In your provided screenshot, you have defined a 2x2 grid for the area, which gives 4 terrain tiles in the end. So after terrain generation, you need to delete the terrain tile from the scene at the bottom-left corner and have the 3 usable tiles remained in the scene. However, as already stated, you have the option to give arbitrary grid size for terrain tiles so that bigger value will result more tiles and finally more controls over them if needed.

The "Tiles Grid" value in the New Terrain Settings section can be 1 as a single terrain and 2x2 (4 tiles) to 16x16 (256 tiles), 32x32 (1024 tiles) & 64x64 (4096 tiles). Please note that higher value and higher tiles count will add more drawcalls to your scene, so use these numbers with care and consider balancing calculations before setting them.

 

Hi, has there been any update on the Runtime API for 2017? I'm seeing the same files (v1.0) in my account on the website. Thanks.

 

Thanks @TerraUnity for your fast, detailed and helpful reply. I was thinking of your 'divide and delete' approach, naturally enough, and agree it's a straightforward approach. I think you realize that to minimize the ocean area in my above example, I'll need to dice the grid into the top end of TU's range, which brings the draw overhead you note here and elsewhere.

I recognize that a rotation value for area size is not supported but that would be a great option for minimizing the terrain wastage for coastlines and similar cases where the area of interest doesn't fall along lat/long lines. That would solve the need for lots of tiles, some culled.

On this point do you have any handy reference (or just advice) about how large terrains perform on a few sample systems (assuming GPU choice is most salient)? Apologies if that's covered elsewhere but I didn't see anything on this via search.

Thanks again and please expect a good review from me.

 

The Runtime API has been improved a lot and includes a lot of bug fixes now, also it is now compatible with Unity 5.6 and later, so it is getting close to get out of Beta. But still waiting for the core TerraLand plugin as it is updating too. The list of main features that we are working on the core plugin is as follows:

• Cache elevation/imagery data for later use in previously navigated locations
• Custom user elevation/imagery data loading from online/local servers to generate worlds
• Unique plugins to support compatibility before 5.6 versions and later versions in a single package

As these features are shared between the core plugin and the Runtime API, we decided to pass this step and then publicly release the updates both in our website's accounts and AssetStore package. So you just need to wait a bit longer until we finalize the updates. We will let you know about the update releases in here.