GAIA - AAA terrain generator, procedural texturing, planting and scene creation

Very nice

Are the trees speedtree ones ? (especially those with snow on them)

 

So what is the normal price and the current sale price, as I can not see any difference?

 

Normal price is $45, current sale price is $29.

 

Thanks for all the replys! I posted here with little hope that this issue could be resolved but now I have many new ideas and suggestions to tinker with, so I still have hope I will be able to make my plateau-style terrain work somehow.

Regarding your questions / suggestions:

I think about using a mesh just for the cliffs, this would still allow me to use Gaia to populate the world with details like trees etc. Also I'm currently painting the terrain in GIMP as a heightmap which is very quick, I fear that modeling the terrain as a mesh would take me too long.

Heightmap was 1025, See all settings here:


.

No, I did not. As far as I know Vsync is visible in the profiler as "WaitForTargetFPS" and I did not see it when testing the problematic terrain:

Dropping the terrain resolution to 513 has a similar effect on the framerate. Originally I wanted to avoid reducing the resolution since this would make the "terrain cliffs" for my different height levels even uglier. But if I now decide to use meshes for the cliffs instead of forming them out of the terrain, I can choose whether I use a smoothed down 1025 resolution, or the "sharp" 513 resolution and hiding all the edges behind cliff meshes. I must experiment a bit to see what works better.

When you put it that way, it really makes sense: If you smooth a terrain all out to the max, you end up with a flat surface which can be rendered with 2 polygons. Somehow I was thinking this would increase the poly count, probably because I was mentally comparing it to the subdivision process in 3D modeling when you want more triangles for a "smoother" model, but this is a different process after all.

Thanks for the tip. In this case the cliffs were part of the importhed heightmap already, but maybe I can use this in my new improved terrain workflow.

I noticed this setting and it makes indeed a huge difference in performance. I have the issue however, that with my isometric perspective on the terrain it leads to visible pop-ins of different levels of detail. Hard to explain in words, but if you scroll across the landscape in an isometric view you could constantly see the terrain changing while moving.

Thanks again for all your replies, now it is back to work for me. I will post an update when I manage to create something presentable.

 

Really nice colors in that scene.

Plus you are right about the vsync it does do more than just affect the stats readout. When switched off my player character flies along at a crazy rate. When I put vsync on it keeps it it more normal. Something to consider when building to different platforms.

 

It was just a thought that crossed my mind. If you need to look at vsync it's under EDit > project settings > quality. Listed as vsync count.

From Adams post thought it looks like you have highlighted something that is definitely worth knowing. Thanks for posting

 

Hi all you Gaia supporters, Gaia itself is on sale at the moment

Just wanted to bring to your attention some of the 3DForge assets that are available on SALE.

The Village Exteriors Kit is part of the current MADNESS SALE
It is the package that the good looking sample buildings have been drawn from.

If you kept an eye on the forum thread you would know that with the release of the next FREE update, the Castle and City Wall update, Gaia integration will be delivered as well. that will mean easy placement and POI usage.

This is a GREAT chance to get the package for really cheap.


BLUEPRINTS:
For those that already have both, have launched the first Premium BLUEPRINTS package on the Asset Store and it has been very well received. Users love the idea with which to get more handcrafted designs.

This package contains both Interiors & exteriors. Future Premium BLUEPRINTS will have packages with Interiors and other wit exteriors only as well.

Grab this Premium BLUEPRINT PB Sword & Shield Inn from here.
The YouTube video on the package page is of what the inside looks like

If you don't have the Village Interiors Kit yet, well, you in luck, for that has been placed on a large -33% discount.



Enjoy this Premium BLUEPRINT

Cheers
Cobus

 

I experimented around a bit today with my cliffy isometric terrain and I might be up to something: I downloaded a free cliff asset from the asset store and created spawn rules in Gaia that closely stick to the slopes in my terrain. I then spawn the cliff asset around the slopes with Gaia. Afterwards I select all cliff parts on the same level and give them the same height so they match up better. The result is as follows:


Scene Overview, I only made rules for the first 3 slope levels




In-game view with default FAST settings


In-game view with FANTASTIC settings, AA off, tweaked the shadows a bit

There is still a lot of room for optimizations, both visually and performance-wise. But this looks and performs already better than my first "problematic" attempt, so I will investigate further into using meshes as cliffs in my terrain. Thanks again for all your advice so far!

 

Yeah.. It is all pretty much trial an error. Even following step by step through optimization guides, there is always going to be that one asset you use which is different than what the author used or when you add something additional, everything gets thrown out of whack. You seem to be on a good path though! Keep up the awesome work!

 

Hi Adam,

I am very interested in purchasing Gaia, it looks absolutely amazing.
I have one question: will the 2.0 version you're currently working on be released as a new and separate version, as some asset providers do? Or will I be able to automatically obtain this update/upgrade if I buy the current version?

 

Hi,
The version that Adam is working on is the normal version with the promised Raodmap items, think Multi Tile only to still be added. Go Grab Gaia NOW !!!

 

Thanks - Gaia can save you a lot of time and you can get great results immediately as all the assets shown are included.

Most likely version 2 will be free, or if I do charge for it the upgrade price will be minimal. Version 2 will contain multi - tile support.

Before version 2 comes out I will be releasing version 1.6 for FREE. This will include a bunch of new sky assets, plus some new lighting code to take advantage of them. I am also considering integrating the new Unity Cinematic Image FX - as they make that much of a difference to the overall effect and look of your scenes

Aim is to have version 1.6 out in the next few weeks. Here are some image to give you a sense of what you will be able to achieve with the next version

Note : this scene took literally 10 minutes to put together from scratch and is running silky smooth at a capped 60pfs on mid range hardware that is about 3 years old now!





Check how the farm is fully conformed to the terrain - this is a massively and powerful feature of the spawning system. I will have a lot more cool news to announce here soon.

 

I love GAIA, too!
Yes grab it now
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42618
(Check you pm Adam )

 

Cool!
I'm getting it right now, thanks for the quick response!

 

Hey thanks! The main big trees and ones with snow on them are Speed tree yes. Some bushes are legacy ones.

 

Thanks, looks very cool

 

#tip For those of you who are new to Gaia, there is a substantial number of video tutorials which you may not be aware of.

In the tutorial below I show how you can import high quality satellite terrains height maps into Gaia. Who knew that Las Vegas could look like this

 

Gaia eXtensions!

One of the key features of Gaia is its Gaia eXtensions system (GX). A Gaia extension is a 3rd party asset that is compatible with Gaia, and for which there has been an integration written you can easily use that assets from within the Gaia GX tab.

An extension is either a tool or an art package that makes sense within the context of scene generation. So a tool might be a water or sky asset that can be automatically installed and configured via Gaia, or an art asset such as textures, grasses, trees or 3D models that can be spawned by Gaia.

Why is this useful? Because it saves you time by doing 95% of the work for you! Applying the extension becomes as simple as using Gaia.

There is already a nice list of extensions, and a whole lot more are in the process of being integrated, and they will be documented here. Take a look at : http://www.procedural-worlds.com/gaia/gaia-extensions/.

These pages will be improved with better content and images that show off what can be achieved via the extension with Gaia over the next few weeks.

NOTE: There are a bunch of assets that say they are Gaia Compatible, but which aren't, and in the majority of cases the author has taken my logo and used it without my consent. The few exceptions to this are 3DForge (who will be shortly), Easy Scatter and PolyWorld. These authors had the good manners to ask

 

I've been thinking of grabbing World Composer for real world terrain, but seeing that you can do that in Gaia (I missed the tutorials) is making me think twice now.

 

Gaia is surprisingly deep - most people probably don't know that it can do landscapes based on perlin and ridged fractals as well... my challenge is to communicate how much it actually can do

 

Hi Adam,

A small tutorial or small sample of the integration code would be great to have in the "How to Create a Gaia Extension" section on your site, this would help a lot getting started on such an adaptation.

I am interested to adapt both Sky Master ULTIMATE v3.4 and InfiniGRASS v1.7 latest versions (and InfiniTREE 2 when it releases) to the system since now are both in a mature state for that, so a kickstarting sample would be great to help with, if possible.

 

Yep no problems - I purchased ifinigrass and had some problems with it so some help would be much appreciated

 

Sure, let me know for anything. I have some new features in the latest version to help split larger terrains to multiple managers for lots of grass for example. I can also take care of that the best way, so if there is some inteface code to use (or guide to use it) i can do a first implementation and then refine from there.

I will send a link to Sky Master ULTIMATE Beta as well when it is ready if you want, the Beta starts later this week or early the next

 

I put some more content into the 'How to Create An Extension' post.

If you are creating art based assets, or just want to convert your complete setup into a script that you can share then take a look as Gaia includes a special tool to automate all of this - it really isnt much more than drag and drop to set up.

I will add more content about doing code based integrations tommorrow.

 

Great, looking forward to that and will start on conversions. Thanks

 

So why are extensions cool... well let me share a few images from turboscalpeurs grasses integrations with his grass packs which will be released shortly. His grasses are hands down the best grasses on the asset store

It literally will take you all of a few mouse clicks to get these working in your scenes - no configuration required!

Turboscalpeur followed the process I described in the art asset extension post back a few posts to do this - so its all his work and its stunning in my opinion - love it!

 

Thanks for pointing out Adam , just by seeing/learning your Tutorials and your Advises, i must say the GX are pretty awesome to do and so so useful! even in order to keep some settlings from an Asset. Thanks a lot for this!

These Screenshots are showing the Grass from the HQ Photographic Textures Grass Pack Vol.1 GX Extension for Gaia i'm currently working as well^^

Hope to deliver it the most sooner as possible

 

Based on the way nasos supports his products I think encouraging good developers like him to integrate their products with gaia could only do good.

 

While not specifically Gaia related - Gaia is a tools that is all about outdoor level design.

Here is a link to a set of slides from GDC on some of the learnings in modular level design from the Fallout 4 team from GDC:

http://www.slideshare.net/JoelBurgess/gdc-2016-modular-level-design-of-fallout-4

 

Hello, an amateur here, this might sound a little silly but how do i get these external assets like the Tenkoku dynamic sky or villiage exteriors kit to show up in the installed button under the GX tab or do i just use them seperately?


Also as soon as i click the 3rd option under the standard tab which is create player, wind, water and screenshot i get this funky water color, anyone knows why?

 

I have seen this as well... and am digging into it... another customer had it as well. Looks like Unity has done something weird with their water asset.

 

It may just be that you don't have Unity Water installed, or maybe have an old version that no longer matches the version of Unity you're using. The other possibility is that the version of the Water asset you should be using has been overwritten by an older one imported by one of your other Unity assets, and no longer matches the version of Unity you have. In either case, the first thing I'd try is to delete and re-import the Environment assets, to make sure they're properly installed. Make sure you find and remove any other versions that may be included in "Standard Assets" sub-folders of other assets in your project as well. The pink color usually means Unity can't find the appropriate material or texture, but re-importing the Water asset should reconnect it to the water prefab. You may also need to delete and recreate the water in your scene afterwards.

 

Okay thank you for that advice, ill try it today, i have the latest version of free unity so i dont really think its a matter of outdated water asset.

Ill follow your advice otherwise ill reinstall unity and see if that solves the problem.

 

When you install other assets, you have to be careful what you allow them to install. Sometimes asset publishers include standard assets in their packages. When this happens, you may think you have the latest water version when in fact you have replaced it with an older version by installing that asset. I've got in the habit of unchecking standard assets when I find they have been included in packages.

Have you installed any other packages other than Gaia and the standard assets since you created your project?

 

This drives me daft. I wish they would make sure they don't share/overwrite standard assets.

 

Hey @AdamGoodrich just got Gaia and am EXTREMELY impressed. Got no problems at all. Worth every penny

 

I just follow the official tutorial i first import gaya, then import the "effects" assets then the "character" assets then the "enviornment" assets.

Following everyone's advice i started a new project reimported everything and its the same again, this is a little annoying. Is there any other solution you guys could recommend? The final option for me would be to uninstall unity and install it again and see if that helps.

 

That would probably be something I'd try if I hadn't put in any other 3rd party assets. I might even go as far as re-downloading the standard assets package for the unity version I'm running and reinstalling fresh. Or, if you are planning to use a better water system, just install it and ignore the Unity water issue. I know both AQUAS and Suimono have Gaia integrations.. Some of the others may as well, those are the two that I own and they are both integrated.

 

okay if i buy aquas or suimono water system how do i integrate them with gaia? There are so many others i see under the GX tab in the gaia manager that i would like to buy but i dont relly know how to integrate them with gaia. Any advice on this? And thank you very much for all your help Shawn


I am sorry if my questions are a little silly, i am a little new to this

 

After you buy and import an asset into your project that has a Gaia integration, you should then see it listed in the GX button under Installed. Currently you probably only see Procedural Worlds listed if you click installed. My stamps packs, AQUAS, Suimono, or whatever other Gaia-ready assets you have installed will be added to that list as you install them. At that point, dependent on what the asset author built into their extension, you will have a lot of options available.

Chris(AQUAS) and Justin(Suimono) have made their extensions so that you can simply click a button and the water system is added to your scene. Most of the time when I'm doing my images for my stamps packs, that is all I need to do and I have awesome water, with either asset. But you are still able to go into their panels and further tweak the waters to suit your needs.

And hey, no question is too silly. We all have to start somewhere, right?

 

Don't worry! Its ok to ask questions. If you have them installed, they should show up under the GX -> Installed tab. Then they will auto-setup when you click on the buttons. Thats how it should work.

 

OK @AdamGoodrich I have a suggestion. Could we have it so that we can create certain paths between different Points of Interest? Like a dirt path between a ruined temple and a harbour for example?

 

So i have a question. When Gaia generates tress and so fort. Is there a way to force gaia to generate trees from my own packs? or a way to choose what kind of a tree mix i would like to add? I have a winter tree pack i would like to use with gaia

 

Yep - there is a whole lot of videos on my you tube channel - they cover most aspects of what you will do with Gaia.

 

I know how to spawn the trees and stuff, But i can't figure out if there is a option of what kind of trees i want to spawn, since it will use the trees that come with gaia. Also, when i generated the player, water etc..there is no water more of a weird pink/purple background.

 

Does Gaia include all of the trees in "Desktop Trees Package" ? I'm still planning on buying it.

 

You can do that now with masking - check the videos out to get a sense of how to do it.

 

I would be happy to sell you them at their normal rate, plus 50%

No, Gaia does not come with all of the SpeedTrees, as they belong to SpeedTree, and sell for considerably more than Gaia

However, I have done integrations with Desktop Tree Pack 1, and Desktop Ground Cover Pack 1, so if you own them, using them with Gaia is easy.

You can get the SpeedTree inegrations and see the extensions / integrations that have been done so far at http://www.procedural-worlds.com/gaia/gaia-extensions/

There are a bunch more coming in the very near future.

 

Ceto ocean system works perfectly with Gaia also, while it does not have a GX extension, it's just drag and drop a prefab into the scene for infinite ocean.

 

Yep, Gaia is vanilla unity, so it works with most things. Making integrations is quite simple. I will approach the author of Ceto again. He wasn't particularly receptive the last time I approached him.

There are already integrations with AQUAS, and Suimono.