World Creator - Terrain and Landscape Generator

New Terrain and Landscape Generator is coming soon to the Unity Asset store: WORLD CREATOR

Check here: www.world-creator.com

Hello everybody, just wanted to let you know that a new terrain and landscape generator is coming to Unity within the next few days. It has already been submitted and we are waiting for approvement.

This one has really awesome features like:

• GPU terrain generation
• enhancement of existing terrain data such as Unity terrain and custom heightmaps
• terrain masks for creating multiple terrain types on a single Unity terrain
• texture masks
• object masking
• procedural planting of trees, grass and custom objects
• slicing capabilities
• import and export capabilities (PNG, RAW 8, RAW 16 and more)
• maximum supported resolution for a single terrain up to 8192 pixels
• ships with 100 (!!!) textures from GameTextures.com and with over 40 beautiful different trees
• full tiling support for extreme large areas consosting of multiple terrains
• erosion
• sedimentation
• rivers, lakes and seas
• and a lot lot more

It is the second version of World Creator that has been redeveloped from scratch. The first version was used by many games and movies and finally it is now also available to Unity developers soon.

Below are some nice screens that were done within a very few minutes - generation itself takes just a few seconds regardless of map size due GPU accelerated generation.

We are also creating some videos and I will post them this week. Ideas, suggestions and critics are welcome - what do you think?

 

Yay! I have been waiting for this. Can't wait until it is out.

I would like to see some videos of this in action in Unity, rather than in Unreal. The two are very different. Any out yet?

 

Working on it ... I think I get one finished today!

 

Waiting!

 

Price?

 

Just created another terrain with World Creator. This time I have used SpeedTree

 

There will be a Standard and a Professional version of World Creator for Unity available - both run on Personal and Professional versions of Unity without restrictions.

An Ultimate version is also planned but so far only for the Stand-Alone release, not Unity yet.

The Standard version will have less features but by far enough for creating such terrains and landscapes as you see in the images above. The Professional version will have terrain masks, texture masks and planting masks, together with GPU generation support and some other very powerful features like terrain tiling and sedimentation.

The Standard version is planned to be below 100 EUR and the Professional above 100 EUR. Both version will ship with 100 textures and some really nice trees and grass blades

 

According to your website it will be $149 for the Indie version and $499 for the Enterprise version. So has that changed? I don't see anything about masks not being included with the Indie version. That is quite a jump for hundreds of dollars and some masks.

Is that the standalone version only? If so, why would one buy the Unity version if it has a lot fewer features? Masks are really important and for $45 we can get those in Gaia, Terrain Composer and a now Landscape Creator. We can get easy landscaping and plating with Gaia and soon tile slicing, which is already in Terrain composer.

The only benefit I see with WC is the erosion and spline building of landscape features, both of which are available with World Machine for less money than your professional version. I like your erosion better (I tried the demo for WC 1) but not sure it is worth the cost if I have to use other assets for masks and tiling, etc. I could even add Geoglyph to the cost of WM and still be under the cost of WC.

So that lovely picture you show of the Unity editor with WM is the really expensive version, not the $149 or whatever version? I would like to see a picture of the editor for the less expensive version that us indies can actually afford.

Rather disappointed as I have been looking forward to this for a while now. So, the stand alone version, is the Indie version more fully featured than the Unity Standard version?

All these different versions are confusing. I wonder if you could give us a charge showing the differences between the features on the Unity versions, both Standard and Pro and the Stand alone features, Indie and Enterprise.

From what I can tell, what we get from the Unity version is the ability to landscape and texture our terrains based on heights. We won't get this in the Stand alone version but still get the erosion and terrain height building...and the masks. We won't get masks unless we buy the Pro version, which will more than likely cost somewhere above $100 and probably much more if similar to the Standalone pricing.

Based on what I THINK will be in this, I recommend that people buy Gaia or TC for plants, trees, and textures, and get the Stand alone of World Creator or World Machine for erosion and height map creation. You may not think masks are important but when you try to create roads, or mask off a texture area, or raise and lower a part of the terrain, etc., you will really want the masks.

Please let me know if I am wrong about this. I will probably still seriously consider the Stand Alone version when it is out...if I don't break down and upgrade WM first. lol

 

Very pretty! Is this Unity or Unreal?

 

This is Unity

 

Hmm, wondering about something...is the Unity Pro version closer in features to the Stand alone Indie version?

Also, please don't think I am complaining about the cost, because I think $100 Euros is fair and I would happily pay $149 for the Indie Stand alone. My concern is what the $100 actually gives users that the $45 does not. Maybe just simple erosion, without sedimentation?

Granted, I am a geologist, so sediments are lovely to me. But deposition can have a huge impact on the realism of erosion. Seems to me the results will be less than World Machine without deposition features.

Don't know..just very confused by all these versions and lack of details.

Oh, and by included trees, I suspect you do not mean Speedtrees.

 

You missunderstand a lot

The Unity versions and the Stand-Alone versions are the same except that the Stand-Alone version will be capable of handling larger resolutions as this is restricted by the Unity terrain!

Also, what you are talking about regarding Indie and Enterprise refers to World Creator 1 - this is World Creator 2.

The Standard version of World Creator 2 will have no masking for terrains which means, you will not be able to create multiple terrain types on a single terrain map! Masking for texturing is available of course.

Roads will be handled different - we will use filters for that and not masks as they are resolution dependent and filter are not.

If you are using Unity you will not need the Stand-Alone version. This is only for people who are not using Unity nor any other game engine. The Unity version of World Creator is the ultimate terrain and landscape generator - not comparable to others ... pretty sure a video will clear up many things to you - working on it.

 

Just forget the current Indie and Enterprise version as they refer to World Creator 1 - and this is World Creator 2. All features of WC1 will be available in a much more advanced level in WC2 plus many additional new features.

 

Some more screens - Arizona desert style

 

Obviously!! But you guys make it very confusing. lol I do see that I quoted WC 1 not, WC2. But...in my own defense, I clicked on the WC2 button and somehow was there.

I realize I won't need the Stand Alone but I don't mind using it. So would love to see a comparison between Stand Alone and Unity's version. Even if Stand Alone costs more, then I might prefer it.

 

Hello can we buy the unity version direct from you?
Unity asset store staff are known to be very slow releasing new assets.

We was looking forward to testing this out this weekend but it's not going to happen. it could take weeks..

 

This application looks really beautiful and powerful. Any demos of WC2? I am only WC1 on your site. Also, have an eta on the asset store release date yet? Looking forward to getting a copy!

 

Thank you very much ... currently we have no demos available but we have been approved and there is only one thing we have to change before we get a GO for asset store so I expect it to be released next week if everything goes well after the update

 

Thx a lot - We have been approved and we only have to change one thing so I expect it to be released next week - it really will be a very powerful package ... I am using it all day by myself and simply love. I know also what more features are coming next and cannot wait by myself to present them in depth soon

 

hahaha I bet your having lots of fun. We had fun just watching your video demonstration, Well done on that by the way.
If you didn't make that video you would be spending far too much time answering the same questions again and again on this forum.

I really like how you setup the UI. it has wide complex features but yet it looks so simple to follow and there's no need to read docs.

Keep up the great work guys. we're lucky to have these tools available to us in the near future.

 

@nanthrox Wow, just wow!! Could not believe that functionality was possible in Unity until I saw the video, excellent work . Its been a while since I saw something so organized and clear to understand in a new asset.

Can you please let us know the price of the asset (as you mentioned that it was approved so I am assuming that the price has been fixed). Thanks.

 

It was a hard work and we could have come out a lot earlier (September 2015) but we wanted to create a fully functional product which JUST WORKS as expected and that does its job perfect. World Creator was already well known for its awesome proceduraly terrain generation capabilities but also for its oldschool GUI. The new version gets rid of all problems, introduces new powerful features and using it makes simply just fun because it is incredible fast (you saw that in the video - I will create another one which will show GPU generation then you will see what I mean).

The Standard version will be $89 and the Professional version will be $189 - both will include 100 textures from GameTextures.com, 50 Unity trees, 2 World Creator Terrain filter packs including many terrain filters, 15 grass blades, some noise maps and other stuff. The Professional version will fully support GPU generation and the creation of multiple terrain types on a single map.

We will release more and more filter packs that will contain more sophisticated terrain filters - it will also be possible to develop your own filters using the World Creator SDK and sell them on the store.

We also have a powerful tiling system running which is just awesome and you will not have to regenerate everytime the entire terrain which will speed up things a lot! It is currently in prototype state but we expect it to be ready within the next weeks.

Erosions will follow next (by water and sand) and we are also porting our sedimentation system - last one will be only fully supported in the Professional version of World Creator. There is just so much more that I could write a book

 

Hi
Hopefully one can upgrade Standard Version to Professional!
That would made the decision much easier. Looking great!

Cheers
Michael

 

Yes, you can upgrade of course

 

@nanthrox Thanks for the detailed reply. Looking forward to future videos , however for me the video you have shows me a global picture and I am very happy with its features. Thanks also for the prices, it helps with allocating the budget. Any chance of an introductory couple of days sale ?

 

To be honest I did not check the discount functions of the publisher asset store site

 

I am sad...I had the video ready to watch after my hike and came home to find a nasty attack on me in another forum. I have wanted World Creator 2 ever since I saw it. Now I am concerned about the professionalism of this company. So..do I spend a lot of money on a product created by a guy who obviously felt the need to go to the forum of another asset store product and attack me, a person who was basically just trying to say that there are many terrain tools and the more in our toolbox the better. My opinions, based on the scanty info about WC 2 at the time were attacked...and it seemed as though Nanthrox thought I was attacking his product.

Sadly, that was not true. I was and still am impressed with the product but not with the people involved with promoting it.

Stop and think about the people behind the keyboard. Next time, contact me privately and please do not insult me because of an opinion I gave on another assets' forum about your product. Be professional.

 

Sorry - never meant to attack anybody. I just was saying that Landscape Builder is not World Creator. Never thought that things would escalate such.

 

You have every right to defend your product even in another competitors thread. Just as anyone has the right to have an opinion about your product in another thread.

I think you've conducted yourself in a professional manner and I'm looking forward to getting my filthy hands on this awesome tool.

Keep up the great work.

 

Possibly that is true. If his product was actually being attacked.

However, if you read my post, I was actually saying that the two products do have some overlap but also do different things. I said GOOD things about World Creator. The attack was unwarranted because I did not attack World Creator. I simply compared the two based on the information available at the time of the post, which was before this thread was opened and when information about WC 2 was scarce. I was responding to someone worried it was a competitor.

I need something that gives me great erosion. Gaia is very different from WC..doesn't do the same things. My conclusion was that WC would be a great compliment to Gaia, not that one was better than the other. I already use World Machine and in my opinion the two are more similar than Gaia and WC.

Possibly, it was a language thing or Nanthrox just read through my post believing I was attacking so not really getting the gist of the post. I don't know. All I know is that I was attacked by the guy who is making a product I looked forward to buying for weeks.

To his credit, he did apologize this morning in private. So I accept that apology in public. Good luck with your product.

 

Please consider if other people care or even want to read about personal issues, everyone (we don't). Use PM. Don't reply to this, it's a moderator note.

 

No worries. I am done.

 

Hi
Its live! Wish you great success!
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/54631
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/55073

Cheers
Michael

 

What GPUs did you test against?

 

We have tested on an AMD RADEON R9 M290X (Mac end 2014) and on a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (PC). If you switch to GPU and generate by using the Preview button you get the fastest possible generation even for very large resolutions.

If you generate using the Generate (GPU / CPU) button the terrain is generated on the GPU but texturing and landscape is generated using CPU (as not possible on GPU). However, the data has to be copied back to the CPU and fed into the Unity terrain object which means that the terrain has build internal things (lod levels for each chunk) that takes a little amount of time o course - we cannot do nothing on this as this is Unity terrain internal stuff. But anyways it is really fast even for very large resolutions - far faster than World Creator 1 which took minutes for 8k maps.

 

Thank you very much - we are looking forward for feedback and are eager to improve it and making it better.

 

Does this work on OSX? Does this include sample scenes for the pictures shown above? I often find it easier to take an existing sample and modify as opposed to recreating the style from the beginning.

 

Yes, the plugin also runs on the Mac version of Unity (GPU generation is not supported because Unity is not supporting ComputeShaders on the Mac - but they will very soon from which I have read).

We did not include scenes but have some terrain presets included that you can use to start with. It is really really easy to use and propably you will not even need to read the documentation.

 

We have finished a prototype of our terrain tiling system and we will start to port it to the latest version of World Creator - you will be able to create really huge terrains - the funny thing will be be that you will also be able to create not only squared terrains

 

Great news - will this be in the Standard version as well as the Pro version?
Do you have a chart that lists the differences between the two versions?

 

Wow. Watching the tutorial video and I'm blown away. I really like that it's possible to create a rough sculpture and have your tool output a very detailed version of it, which means non-artistic people like myself can create amazing terrain that looks like what we envision.

 

Not having a chart yet but I will create one and upload on our web-site - good idea, thx!

The tiling system was planned to be only available in the pro version as it is a very significant feature enabling almost unlimited terrain sizes.

The 8k maps of the pro version will be replaced by the tiling system - the standard will be limited to 4k maps without tiling.

 

Exactly ... this was a feature request of a customer of World Creator 1 somewhere January 2015 - we liked that idea very much but we had to redesign all our filters and the entire generation system - and it works very well so far.

But there is still more room for improvements regarding this feature which we will implement within the next updates.

 

Been watching this since I heard about V2, and was blown away by the video on the pro version. I hope to find an excuse to use it at some point. Would love to see more screenshots - especially the minecraft version, because, well, I'm a voxel guy.

Congrats on releasing!

 

One customer had problems with pushing some sliders to maximum values resulting in heavy creation calculation regarding planting so please be careful with the Object sliders especially regarding occurance and density and the sub meshes.

We will include ESCAPE possibility and hint for possible heavy planting issues if sliders are set to very high values. We do not want to limit the number of objects you want to place but at least warn about such issues.

 

Thank you very much. Actually I wanted to create some more videos today but I got stucked by answering many questions through email - rest of my team is also answering questions. I think I will have to stay up until late night to answer more and maybe I get the time to create a video.

Minecraft screens are no problem - I will post more later after my kids are in bed

 

Some Minecraft type terrains created with the Minecraft filter ... the first one shows the Grand Canyon in a Minecraft style

 

Purchased! Working with it now. One observation - the font color you used for all the information is extremely hard to read with the light gray theme. The dark gray theme is only available to Pro users (of which I am one, so I can switch).

 

Can you tell me what the specifications were for the PC that your running the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 card in? Just want to see how much hardware I will have to upgrade to get similar performance.

 

Oh yes, I see ... I am wondering why this is so as we were checking this and the comments should be black ... did you first start it using the pro version of unity and then switched to the personal version? That might explain that and I will fix it asap ... however, if you close the World Creator window and reopen it again the colors should be fine I guess.

I will fix this, thx