Does anyone have any experience with terrain?

I'm pretty new with the Unity and C# and, after a couple weeks of prep, I decided to dive straight into an FPS. Because I'm still new and I'm not even that confident with Unity, I didn't - and still don't - want to spend any money. A couple of days later however, I hit one huge problem. Graphics. I understand that there's no chance that I'm going to be able to get anywhere near AAA graphics, but I would like my terrain to look half-decent. Does anyone know any good, free, (preferably open-source) terrain-creating programs? I've already messed about with Unity's default, but it doesn't seem to do the job; it uses two many draw-calls, and it's super buggy. Thanks!

 

Terrain naturally has quite a bit of draw calls.

You could easily use a Mesh made in a 3d program, but you're gonna have to program a shader for vertex painting (vertex colors).

But if you use the built in Unity terrain, unless it's changed. Try not to use more than 4 textures on each terrain, at least that's what I've always read, dealing with Splat-maps or something.

But go to the Asset store and look for a asset called World Builder. It's actually pretty decent and FREE!

But the other route, which is called World Machine (Google it)
You can create virtually any terrain you can think of (without caves, etc). But it's free, only limitation I know of is exporting height maps for free version is 513 x 513, but it takes getting used too, it's node based creation. But it's the best free version out there (that I know of).

 

Increase the pixel error in the terrain to increase performance; also increase tree billboard distance and play around with the other settings. In other words, don't just accept the defaults since they aren't necessarily optimal for what you're doing. What bugs do you think it has? As far as I know it's quite stable.

--Eric

 

...Nope.

As to your actual question, I'd listen to Eric5h5. The defaults for terrain are usually sub-optimal.

There's other packages you can use for FPS world building. It's $100, but I highly recommend ProBuilder. It lets you quickly and easily create artificial geometry, which seems like something you'd really be able to use in a FPS.

As far as graphics quality, practice makes perfect.

 

Sorry I don't think anyone around here has used this "Unity3d" thing before.

(I couldn't resist.)

 

I can't resist pointing out once again that there's no such product as "Unity3D".

 

There is, actually. The Unity3D engine is used for WWII Online; however it's nothing to do with Unity. Although Unity Technologies did license the trademark from them (since Unity3D was around first and the names are pretty similar).

--Eric

 

Maybe that's why Bibleebob is having difficulty with terrain; he's using the wrong engine.

--Eric

 

Check out the example projects on this guy's blog:

The first post here: http://scrawkblog.com/category/textures/ about texture mapping shows an advanced technique for using (and creating) wang tiles so you don't see your textures repeating, there's a link to an example project......

http://scrawkblog.com/category/terrain/ The first post has a project for giant terrains with high detail and the project files are there to download. The project at the bottom has a tool for putting terrains together and fixing the seams.

 

As long as the URL says so I will keep calling it Unity3D.

 

Lol, sorry; I posted this on another forum as well, and I forgot to change the top line. And yes, I know it's only called Unity, but most people recognise it as Unity3D.

 

Thanks! As for bugs, my terrain corrupted twice for no known reason. Now that I think about it though, it's just as likely to be a problem on my end. Also, do you happen to know any good introductory tutorials for it?

 

Thanks! I'll check out ProBuilder, it sounds pretty cool. I guess I could maybe invest in it later on if it suites my needs.

 

Changed it.

 

Thanks, I'll have a look at both.

 

Probuilder for making architecture, Worldmachine for making landscapes.
But seriously, get Probuilder.
I swear by it, it is the best thing on the asset store