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TerrainComposer to create AAA realistic terrains [beta version released]

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by eagle555, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Terrain Composer, An Unity3d Extension Tool for making AAA Terrain(photorealistic)/Scene in just minutes…

    TerrainComposer version 1.02 with documentation is availible for $90. TerrainComposer is also availible at the Asset Store. The price might go up in the future. For purchasing visit my site.

    Visit www.terraincomposer.com for more information and screenshots.





    A runtime video showing some demo scenes created with TerrainComposer.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DluFi3zVTYM&feature=youtu.be

    A new youtube video showing different terrain decorations (beach,desert,forest,jungle,mountains) on the same Terrain Tiles (Island). Also trees/bushes/grass placement and object placement of stones/trunks/leaves. And a short runtime demo of the jungle at the end.



    First youtube video (much more will follow):



    Second multiple terrain exploration youtube video:


    Terrain Composer is an Unity Extension Tool that enables developers to compose AAA quality Unity Terrain. It uses the standard Unity Terrain. It's also a Scene/Level/City/Village Composer. And with a few clicks you create astonishing results. It has a friendly GUI interface and is very easy to learn. Creating terrain that normally takes days or weeks to make, with this tool it only takes a few minutes! Saving you tons of work and time. Speed, quality and realism is the strength of this tool. And it’s curve, layer and filter based! The possibilities are endless. The layers and filters can be used for example to blend splat textures on height, random, degree, normals or an image etc. A small change in a curve or filter gives a totally different terrain. It has many features. One of the features is that it allows unlimited colors being added over the terrain using a colormap. So instead of the limitation of splat textures, it gives your terrain more color variation and a much higher level of realism. Another feature is that you can add shades to the terrain blended with the colormap or the splatmap, using for example a cloud texture. This gives another added level of realism. It allows fast placement of any objects like rocks, trees, bushes, grass, houses, fences, etc were you can use an image as a blue print and a color for each object. For placement every detail can be selected: scale range, rotation range, position range, even the colors of trees can be selected from a range.

    Another feature is that it has the ability to create instances whitin instances to many levels. For example if you want to place houses in your level. You can use an image as your map (top view), and specify were you want the houses to be placed. You can select more spots, and Terrain Composer can choose randomly from those spots, or whatever condition you prefer. Once a house is placed you can run another area setup which you make for that house. It can be an image (map) from the garden for placement of trees and bushes around the house, a shed, a road to the front door, etc. It will be even possible to randomly place furniture in the house. And then you can even take it futher, for example a table is placed (you let Terrain Composer choose a table from a list of tables) inside the house. And then you can run an image(map) for placement of chairs around the table, things on the table, like a plant, diner plate, laptop, etc, etc. In this way you can create a whole Scene at once, but with the variation and quality you need.

    Here’s a list (not complete) of the features:

    Here’s a list (not complete) of the features:

    Compatibility:
    ■ Works with Unity 3.x and 4, as well as free version and professional version.

    User Interface:
    ■ Easy,flexible and colorful user interface.
    ■ Complete hierarchy database.
    ■ While generating terrains it's still possible to continue working in Unity.
    ■ Activation/Deactivation for each group/component/output.
    ■ Edit Layer and Description names.
    ■ Save/Load whole setup, layer groups, layers, color ranges and generated textures.
    ■ Copy/Paste/Swap any component within the hierarchy.
    ■ Undo/Redo for deleted components.
    ■ Import/Export generated output to Texture (Normalmap, splatmap, colormap and heightmap).

    Terrains:
    ■ Supports Multiple (unlimited) Terrains which can be created automatically.
    ■ Import/Export .Raw 16bit heightmap files.
    ■ Imports large .Raw files with resolution >4096 and spread them over multiple terrains.
    ■ Automatically arrange positions of multiple terrain to one big tile, or rearrange when changes the size, with one click.
    ■ Use real World data heightmaps.
    ■ Use real World satelite images.
    ■ Automatically seach and add terrains from the Scene with one click.
    ■ Fast resolution/size/splat/trees/grass and detail assignment and apply to multiple terrains.
    ■ Parameter edit on mulitiple terrains.
    ■ Create a custom square area for each terrain, or create one square world area over multiple terrains.
    ■ Control the loop steps of each area according to any resolution (heightmap/splatmap,etc)/unity/custom for required detail.
    ■ Option to automatically stitch terrain borders.
    ■ Automatically add a neighbour script to all the terrains to get seamless tiles with one click.
    ■ Automatically add a parameter script for distances of basemap/tree/detail/etc to all terrains with one click.
    ■ Reset buttons for heightmap,trees and detailmap.
    ■ Active/Deactive each terrain.

    Tools:
    ■ Measure terrains.
    ■ Stitch terrain borders.
    ■ Slice a terrain into more terrains.
    ■ Smooth terrains.
    ■ Filter Images (e.g. Satelite) on colors and export the texture.
    ■ Create Heightmap/Pattern Textures.

    Layer outputs:
    ■ Heightmap.
    ■ Colormap.
    ■ Splatmap.
    ■ Tree.
    ■ Grass/Detail.
    ■ Object.

    Ouput options:
    ■ Create unlimited amout of layers.
    ■ Create unlimited amount of filters within each layer.
    ■ Create unlimited amount of subfilters within each filter.
    ■ Use filter and curve settings to create any kind of blending, it works on all layer outputs.
    ■ Object placement from blueprint or any filter option, specifying scale range, rotation range, position range, different colors (trees), distance between each object, rotation map,etc, etc.
    ■ Automatic parenting with placing objects, automatic combine children meshes for optimum performance.
    ■ Place instances within instances.

    There's many more features and soon I will add more to the list.













     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2013
  2. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Thank you Chad, I'm glad you like it :).
     
  3. xandeck

    xandeck

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    Looks really nice. What about performance? Do you have any video of a game test? Also, how can we handle textures or objects if we put a single player in terrain? I am worried more about performance.
     
  4. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Well it just uses Unity Terrain and you can use your own shaders, I recommend Lars his shaders. I use it for my own game and it's working really nice with good framerate, the 1 terrain will give about 100 frames/sec when you have 4 terrains with 2048 resolution it's about 70 frames, it depends very much on your system. It doesn't differ anything from Unity, it just places the objects and creates the textures you normally have to paint by hand. I will make a demo video about game view a little later, proberly somewhere next week...But that screenshot with the 3 f15's yets is running about 50-70 fps using 9 terrains of 2048 resolution...
     
  5. xandeck

    xandeck

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    Nice, thanks for the info... waiting for the video :)
     
  6. madmike6537

    madmike6537

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    So it sounds like from the replies that this doesnt handle the actual terrain objects any differently than unity terrain editor right? I am looking for some options to access terrain objects other than terrainData.
     
  7. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Yes true, it just doesn't do anything out of the ordinary to any objects, etc. Just nicely parent and group them together to your liking, and the possibility of combining meshes, for higher framerate. Say you let TC place 1000 rocks in your scene, it will automatically calculate how much meshes it can combine, parent them together and apply a combinescript to the parent. If 50 rocks would place in one combine group, it creates 20 groups. But this is all optional. I'm not taking about terrainData objects but normal objects. I prefer normal objects as they can be combined or they can use a LOD system.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2012
  8. eagle555

    eagle555

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  9. ChadH

    ChadH

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    Videos are very informative and I refer to them when I need a little extra nudge in the right direction :)
    Very pleased with the product and most of all the kind and generous support of the developer.
    Thank you again for a GREAT product.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2012
  10. BrUnO-XaVIeR

    BrUnO-XaVIeR

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    Result looks amazing, but GUI is so confusing.
     
  11. ChadH

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    It really is not that confusing.
    There is a set of parameters that you must understand. Once you understand them, it applies to all of them.
    I have been using it and the learning curve is really very simple.
    Exploring all the possibilities of this is truly something.
    If you have a basic understanding of values, filters and layers (which everybody should understand these if they are using Unity) then it is really very easy to use and navigate.
     
  12. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Yes Chad is right. It's very easy to learn and I created and designed it with that purpose for it to be easy. It's not just some common tool, there's more then 10.000 lines of code behind it, and months of brainstorming and programming to make it easy/flexible and very powerfull. Once you understand the basics the same layer/filter/subfilter system applies to all the 6 ouputs as well as importing and exporting, making this an all in one kind and very unique within the Unity extension terrain tools. I'm very exited about my tool and for this price it's just a give away...The videos I showed so far is only 5-10% of what this tool can do. Soon I will add video3...



    http://www.terraincomposer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/export.jpg

    Here's just some export examples made with TC, heightmap/slopemap/normalmap/combinations of those/etc. There's even the possibility to make topview images from all your objects in the scene on different scale for the use of object placing. E.g. put a building make a capture, and start drawing your placement map...
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2012
  13. billpaterno

    billpaterno

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    I purchased this a few days ago. The documentation is a bit thin but I expected that in beta. It would be nice to have a video or doc that goes through a complete process. I am really looking forward to using this tool. And Nathaniel is really responsive which made me take the plunge early.
     
  14. ChadH

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    I do have to say that this asset just gets better and better the more I use it.
    Honestly and truly, the possibilities are ASTRONOMICAL !!!
    I have been using this for a little while now and am still discovering new things about it everyday.
    There is no other asset out there that can do all of this.
    The dev has included so much into one package
    I honestly did not think it was possible to do ALL of these things in just one asset
    I guess I was wrong :)

    Documentation is a little light, but I know the final version will be much more detailed
    The videos are always nice because we can see the potential of it all
     
  15. eagle555

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    Yes the documentation is what I'm working on at the moment, it will have everything in it, also will there be example scenes and example setups as you can save and load...And I will create a lot of videos on youtube...
     
  16. ChadH

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    Just got the latest Beta update and this is my take on it:
    Can any one say "Swiss Army Knife" of all terrain editors?
    The abilities that have been incorporated into the latest update is impressive to say the least.
    The option to be able to INDIVIDUALLY blend your terrain textures is especially nice.
    Maybe you want the dirt to blend with the grass on very gradual scale, yet want the crass to blend with the cliff on a more dramatic scale.
    It is all possible with this tool !!
    Being able to duplicate a layer and adjust individual parameters on EACH layer allows for some amazing results.

    I won't even begin to describe the "Random Curve" filter....
    I will leave that for another post.
     
  17. ChadH

    ChadH

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    I guess I am going to be a "regular" poster on this thread :)
    I have just started to utilize the Trees part of this asset and it is very flexible and allows you some amazing placement options!!!
    I have been able to place trees according to Steepness, terrain texture, maps and more.
    This asset keeps getting better the more I use it.
    It is ALMOST like there are too many options, but you can never have too many options :)
    Let's just say that this asset is like a Ferrari.
    If you can drive a car, you can use this asset.
    If you want all the power of the Ferrari (this asset), all you have do is use it !

    More to come....
     
  18. elias_t

    elias_t

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    ChadH, good to know your impressions. Perhaps post some screenshots?
     
  19. ChadH

    ChadH

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    Great idea!!!
    I will put some together and post soon :)
     
  20. ChadH

    ChadH

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    Notice in the above screenshot that you can select how dense or sparse you want your trees.
    You can also adjust the height of them and place them only on certain areas.



    The above screenshot not only gives you an idea of the trees, but also how well the terrain can be blended.
    This is especially easy with the new Sliders for the Mix rate.
    Now you can select how much of which terrain blends with the other ALL INDIVIDUALLY !!!
    Absolutely fantastic and gives you unparalleled control :)
     
  21. elias_t

    elias_t

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    These look good!

    I notice though that it suffers from blendmap resolution. For example in the 1st screenshot the road on the left looks pixelated.
     
  22. ChadH

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    I see that also.
    The reason for the road on the left looking "blocky" and pixelated is that I used a low resolution image map.
    I was just throwing something together to show the tree placement.
    Wasn't too concerned about the terrain detail at the time I made the screenshot.
    The second image shows the terrain much better.
    Will make sure to use better resolution image maps in future screenshots :)
     
  23. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Well Chad thank you very much for all you're positive feedback :D. I'm really glad you enjoy it, and with every update it gets even more powerfull :D. I just gave TC to an artist who did some incredible and amazing work for me. I hope he will share some great screenshots what he can make as a professional artist with TerrainComposer...
     
  24. ChadH

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    That would be great to see what an artist can do with this !!!
    I am just a 'newbie" at this and I can create some nice looking stuff.
    Hoping he will also share :)
     
  25. eagle555

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    Yes indeed, tomorrow I will add a youtube video about making splat textures using this terrain as an example. Here's some screenshot I made some days ago:





    The possibility to create more different terrain decorations within the same terrain, I used 4 different decorations on the same terrain...
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2012
  26. ChadH

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    The images look great !!!
    I am looking forward to all your videos (they make it a little easier to understand)
    They are like watching a Bob Ross 30 minute painting class :)
     
  27. ChadH

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    I have been working on some new scenes
    Hope to post some screenshots for everyone soon !!!
     
  28. eagle555

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    Last edited: Dec 19, 2012
  29. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Last edited: Dec 21, 2012
  30. ChadH

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    My scenes do not look this good :(
    A little more practice and they might :)

    I will post tomorrow
     
  31. Dogcomplex

    Dogcomplex

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    Holy crap Eagle, that's fantastic!!
     
  32. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Thank you :).
     
  33. eagle555

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    Last edited: Dec 30, 2012
  34. eagle555

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    I've created a new youtube video tutorial/demonstration of what is possible:

    A new youtube video showing different terrain decorations (beach,desert,forest,jungle,mountains) on the same Terrain Tiles (Island). Also trees/bushes/grass placement and object placement of stones/trunks/leaves. And a short runtime demo of the jungle at the end.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iRZCZm99kA
     
  35. GamePowerNetwork

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    Hi,

    In all of your videos it seems the terrain is already made. Can you show the terrain actually being made? (not trees and textures)

    Thanks!
     
  36. eagle555

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    Hello,

    Yes I will show this later when I have finished programming the erosion filter.
     
  37. eagle555

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    Last edited: Jan 12, 2013
  38. Archania

    Archania

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    Very impressive! Keep it up.
     
  39. Tinus

    Tinus

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    Looks great! I might have to get this.

    @eagle555: Is ChadH part of your company or is he just really excited? It's... convenient. ;)
     
  40. eagle555

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    Thanks, Chad is one of my first beta testers who bought TerrainComposer about a month ago. And yes he's very enthousiast about it :) .
     
  41. eagle555

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    It's now possible to buy TerrainComposer directly from my site, I added a paypal buy now link button.
     
  42. GamePowerNetwork

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    Does this come with Runtime tools?

    For example can I do terrain stitching during runtime using an API? ... if not, could you think about adding that feature?
     
  43. ChadH

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    Sorry I have been away for such a long time. Personal stuff came up, etc.
    @Tinus, I just wanted to let you know that I can see how it may appear to be "convenient" about my relationship with eagle555. All I can tell you is this:
    I have purchased probably EVERY terrain asset available and not one of them come close to the possibilities of Terrain Composer. Yes, I have made some glowing reviews on this thread, but that is only because of the FANTASTIC job eagle555 has done with this. Not only is the asset great, his customer service and attention to any of my petty concerns were addressed immediately.
    If anyone is considering purchasing this asset, you will NEVER regret your investment :)
     
  44. houndie

    houndie

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    Couldn't agree more. It is hands down the best terrain asset that I have ever purchased or seen. The possibilities are endless.

     
  45. eagle555

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    Last edited: Feb 1, 2013
  46. eagle555

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    It's all possible but I have to make an API reference documentation for it. All the functions are called from an monobehaviour script, so it works all in runtime.
     
  47. Venged

    Venged

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    I just purchased from your site and did not receive anything telling me how to download the file.

    Robert
     
  48. ChadH

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    I do not mean to speak on the dev's behalf, but ...
    I'm sure he'll get back with you ASAP.
    Time difference and all :(
    It is a great product and has a lot of possibilities.
    I am sure he will get you the info you need as soon as he is up and awake :)
     
  49. eagle555

    eagle555

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    Hello Robert,

    I send the TerrainComposer package by mail, if I am awake. I'm living in the Netherlands. So there's a time zone difference.
    I'm going to make it give a link after purchase that would be better.
     
  50. Venged

    Venged

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    Thanks! Yes that would be nice.