World Creator - Terrain and Landscape Generator

I have an i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 16GB RAM, 64 bit, a 256 SSD running Windows 8.1

Just thinking myself about upgrading to a better system as it is already 2 years old now

 

Nope, I run the light gray skin all the time (easier to read the smallprint). I've switched back to the dark gray until you all get this figured out.

 

OK ... it has been fixed together with some other smaller issues - we will upload new update next week Wednesday. It will now also be possible to disable terrain generation so that the terrain is not created entirely from scratch - saves a little time. Also, single textures and objects (trees, details and so on) can be enabled / disabled now.

 

Having fun playing around with this. A small bug, though - When you add submeshes to the trees, they are generated as if the terrain is always positioned at 0,0,0. This will leave them hovering around the origin if your terrain is not at that location.

 

Thx, I will check this

 

Is it possible to use this at runtime to generate terrain on the fly - or is it editor-only?

 

Hi - thx for writing. Currently it is editor only

 

Do you have a support forum to report bugs, or a bug reporter somewhere? There's several small things that I would like to report.

Overall, I'm having a blast. There was a bit of a learning curve (I recommend creating a "quick start" manual, that covers creating your first terrain). But now that I know what to do, I find it very easy to create interesting terrains. I'll post some pics later if anyone is interested.

 

Awesome ... yes, we have a forum dedicated to World Creator only: www.world-creator.com/forum

You can also report bugs, issues, ideas and suggestions to: support@bitethebytes.com - we will answer very quickly.

Much appreciated, thx,
Stefan

 

Are there any plans for making this code-driven and able run at run-time?

Thanks for quick reply

 

Not yet but you are not the first who is asking ... we will consider this as it makes sense due the GPU generation but we first will implement all other upcoming features that are listed on our website before we will take this step - but it is definitively a good idea!

 

Hello everybody,

get a first peek at our upcoming tilling system in World Creator 2: http://www.world-creator.com/forum/...r-2-Awesome-Tiling-System/?postID=133#post133

 

Lost my terrain after upgrading to WC 2.01. What is the proper way to upgrade to a new world creator version ?
I deleted the whole folder and imported the new version from the asset store. Should i only overwrite the old version ?

 

Actually it is just upgrading and it should work without problems You must not delete the World Creator folders. Best is to save your terrain as a preset and load it after upgrade. Please write to support@bitethebytes.com and explain what exactly happened - we will react very quickly and fix it.

Thx,
Stefan

 

Ok, thank you. I make a new terrain now, i wasn`t happy with the old one anyway.

 

BTW, check out our new videos on our website: www.world-creator.com

There is one more specific showing the upcoming tiling system of World Creator

 

@nanthrox

Request - on the height parameters, instead of using 0-1, it would sure be easier to use if that value was in world units."0-600" for terrains with a height of 600, for example. That way I don't have to do the math in my head when trying to tune placement -- instead I can just drop a game object into the scene and see the actual height at the location I'm tuning parameters for.

 

That is a good idea - we will include an additional label where you can see the world unit value - thx

Also, do you already have access to our FTP?

 

No, but I would like to!

 

Great - just send a mail to support@bitethebytes.com together with your invoice so we can register you on our FTP. You may also use the World Creator forum to post issues, suggestin and ideas. It is way more easier for us to follow a single forum than on multiple ones

We have finished today our tiling core system and will start tomorrow with the UI integration - maybe we get something finished tomorrow for beta testing - I will post an announcement in the World Creator forum.

I will set up your FTP tomorrow, early in the morning then after I have received you mail.

Thx,
Stefan

 

I bought the standard version and was so impressed - im upgrading to pro right away

I have used Terrain Composer for years, ive also tried GAIA, World Machine, and now this. Its interesting to see how each product has some different features. Terrain Composer has basically endless possibilities and control when it comes to populating and mixing/masking layers. But it is missing terrain generation. World creator has excellent terrain generation and less complex procedural population options, but i actually really appreciate the simplicity. Its very clear how to use the slope and height filters which are basically what ive found to be the most useful in getting something up and running.

The most important benefit to me is that i can now create worlds inside unity instead of running to World Machine (another product i like) on a pc emulator on my mac, iterating, exporting the heightmap back to mac etc... This is a real time saver for artists.

One suggestion: Right now i am using my current unity terrain as the input for World Creator. This lets me get the exact same terrain i had before using a strength of 1, and then overlay world creators filters etc. But when i try to recreate the terrain using a heightmap as the input instead, it seems to combine it with an underlying auto generated terrain so i get something that is kind of a combo of both even at full strength. It would be cool to be able to maybe use a heightmap AND disable the auto terrain creation if we want to use just an already established height map.

Anyways i am very excited. I just submitted my game to apple but i will be replacing my current terrain with the world creator terrain the next update because its letting me create basically the same thing but with simple procedural options.

Great work.

 

WOW, thank you very much - great to hear that World Creator is doing a great job - it will become even better and better over time

Simplicity was very important to us and currently we are adding some 'helper' stuff to visualize before generation starts. Also the Tiling System has been finished and we will start UI integration next week - looking forward to it as I never saw something like that before (on our website you can see a short video showing some basic capabilities).

Regarding the Input Terrain: did you try another Input Terrain Operation? Maybe the 'Average' selection might help in that case. Your suggestion is really good and we will dig into this - thx a lot!

Have a nice weekend,
Stefan

 

nanthrox, for Pro users are you considering using the GPU for real time preview of effects as I watched your videos and having to click on the regenerate button must get tiring

 

It is considered, yes, but only for the preview. Trees and other objects cannot be done in realtime with that speed - we have also just got finished a few more features like applying filters within a specific height range - looks awesome and some helpers (visualizers) while changing height values and so on ... oh yes, our Erosions will work entirely on the GPU

 

Great news! Sedimentation and erosion will be great features also - any ideas when those will be ready?

 

The erosions are currently in progress and we estimate to finish the very first one this week until Wednesday. As soon as they are available I will create a video and upload it onto our FTP so you can all beta test them. Tomorrow I will upload also your feature requests

 

Donations of unwanted equipment like that are gladly accepted here

 

Just bought Pro Thank you.

In case this helps anyone on Unity:

I received this error "Shader error in 'CanyonFilter.compute': Current target build platform does not support compute shaders" for all the filters when i imported the Pro files over the standard (probably because i am using this on IOS). Everything still works and the error dissapeared after clearing it.

The first time i used standard and the first time i used pro, when i generated terrain etc every step took like a tenth of a second, so the "generating" popup would flash on each step, a hundred time over a minute. At first i thought "i love this, but generation on CPU is slow, so i will have to learn to be patient". All this to say when i reopened the project the delay was gone (in both standard and pro experiences) and now i get smooth fast generation.

So if you encounter either of these issues dont worry and push forward

I just uploaded my game to the App store. But i like the world creator abilities, so ive been switching my terrain over to a world creator terrain based on the originals height map for the next update. My terrain has really gotten around. Created in Vue, exported as heightmap and modified and eroded on PC emulator World machine on mac, round tripped to Unity and Terrain composer, and populated with TC, and now in World Creator

 

Thank you

Yes, compute shaders are not supported on Mac by Unity but this will change as Unity stated a few weeks ago - hopefully it will not take that long

Wow, your terrain really got around

Enjoy World Creator, new update might be available this week containing the Erosion system together with a first peek of Sedimentation and some nice enhancements

 

After upgrading to Pro masks were not working.

Because i'm on IOS Unity compresses the textures, but to World Creator gives an error that the masks are in an unsupported format.

The fix is to change your mask texture to ARGB32 or RGB24 - (there are some more valid options in the error message but I cant remember them

Posting in case it helps anyone.

 

Thx, we will check this

 

Here's some pics of a level I'm working on - this is generated with World Creator, and the trees are speed trees. Still plenty of work to do on it, of course:

 

Really nice ... you gotta post them also in World Creator forum (Gallery) - thx for these two pictures

 

Beautiful. Im a huge fan of grass growing on rocks like that.

I like how the side look so bumpy. Is it a Gametexturetexture and is there more than bumpmapping on that, or did you manage to generate real bumps on the steep sides somehow?

I want to go sit on the rocks on the right in the top pic Maybe go fishing?

 

It's just standard texture+Bumpmap, but I'm using a triplanar terrain shader, it lets you have so much more definition at steep angles. It's a bit more heavy on the video card, but you don't have to add as much detail meshes, so overall I think it works out.

 

Here's a scene I've prototyped with WC to test AQUAS 1.3

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You gotta post that to our forums at http://www.world-creator.com/forum

Looks awesome!!! - really nice work!

 

Here's another one for you:

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I spent quite a bit of time on this one, but I think, it's definitely an improvement:

​

 

Looks really nice - will try myself again next week

 

Asset with a price of 190$ just doesn't support multi-terrains?

 

The description clearly states (also our website) that it is an upcoming feature. Custoers of the Pro version also have access to the very first prototype that includes that feature already. Also, our tiling system supports the abilty to create seamless tiles of different terrain types and not only of a single terrain type. Check our website for more information and a small video showing that feature.

 

Distingo and World creator make good stuff working together''

 

Can we move mask map on terrain and scale it?

 

Oh wow sorry, big big sorry - the main World Creator forum can be found here: www.world-creator.com/forum and I did not check the Unity forum since a few weeks.

That sounds like a really cool idea - please write it to our forum as a feature request and we will get this running as it really makes sense

 

Is there a way to do the following?

I want to create a very large continent, let's say 8km+, ideally based on a 2D shape/map I create myself. The difficulty is doing so at a large enough size and in a high enough resolution. I can't just create separate tiles and try to glue them together to achieve this. The terrain needs to be created in one go, so that it flows naturally. I can then slice it up to make each section easier to work with.

Is there a way to do this using World Creator? To generate an entire continent, and then put mountains here, flat areas there, etc? I've tried so many methods to do this, but I've yet to find one that really works.

 

Yes, of course. Please check out our tutorial videos on our website: www.world-creator.com - especially Tutorial #5 shows the Tiling System in action (

)

To apply custom mountains you can use the Input Terrain feature of World Creator (Tutorial 6:

)

There are no limitations and all what you are asking for is possible

You may also check and join our forum as we mainly use that one: http://www.world-creator.com/forum/

 

I have a problem.

Only the first tile supports unity terrain input.

Nothing happens to the second tile when i assign another terrain input.

WC Terrain Tile 1 = input Unity terrain 1
WC Terrain Tile 2 = input Unity terrrain 2 ... nothing happens when i click generate.

Also reatime option is not working at all.
When i make changes to the input nothing happens.

Edit:

Wow another issue. after editing mask a few times it now ignores the mask and nothing happens when I click generate. I think this plugin is all round broken.

I know there's issues with unity 5.4.1 and maybe some of the fixes in 5.4.2 might solve these problems. I just hope unity would release these fixes asap instead of holding onto to them or at least as a patch.. arhh one project already on hold because similar issues with another's pligin and now a new project and again 5.4.1 breaks another plugin..

I think its a good time to take a break from unity and play around a bit with unreal.

How is the UE4 version coming along?

I'm using Unity 5.4.1

 

Hello,

the input terrain feature is limited to one input terrain only, also for tiles. The upcoming standalone version will aloow multiple input terrains and we will update the Unity version with that new feature soon.

Regarding the mask - we never experienced that and we use World Creator a lot all day so I do not think that it is an issue with the plugin. Please contact support@bitethebytes.com to get access to our FTP server where you can download the latest patches - if it is a bug in World Creator we will fix it or maybe it has been already fixed

Unreal will come in 2017. Currently we are developing the standalone version for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Please visit also our official forum at www.world-creator.com/forum

Any issues, bug reports, suggestion or whatever you have in mind can also be sent to support@bitethebytes.com

The support staff is extremely fast and eager so you would not have to wait 24 hours until a first response usually.