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

More progress on POI spawning:

You now have complete control over the direction they face - you can lock it to a specific direction, or randomise it between two directions.

 

Is it possible to have interactable trees with gaia? The problem with using terrain features to spawn trees is that they become a part of the terrain and that means they no longer have tags or other game object properties. I guess one way would be to spawn them trough the gameobject spawner, but I wonder if there is a better way.

Perhaps it would be possible to copy the exact same rules from the tree spawner to the game object spawner so that the trees (gameobjects now) spawn exactly as they would if they were terrain trees.

Any thoughts on this matter?

 

You mean to chop down and destroy etc? if so then yes, you will just gave to go into every tree that is placed with GAIA and put the chopping or whatever script it is on to that object! I seen a video on such on YouTube, but its really a problematic thing as you would have to do EVERY tree unless you find a more easier way, ie spawn every tree with a script attached before placement. I could be wrong but like I said, I'd seen such before on a video so.

 

Well, you add the prefabs that you want Gaia to spawn, so adding a tree with said script on I think 100% doable

 

That is exactly what I mean.

Lets say I have my tree prefab with all the scripts and goodies in it. I dont think I would be able to spawn that prefab with the tree spawner becouse the tree spawner blends the trees with the terrain, making them loose all the components they have, maybe with the exception of mesh and collider.

EDIT: The collider is actually incorporated in the terrain collider.

The only way I see to do this is to use the gameobject spawner to spawn those tree prefabs, in wich case I would have to tweak the rules so that the trees still look spawned in a natural fashion.

 

Have you actually tried it yet? like @S4G4N says and explains and points out its possible.

 

No, I mean area bounds check is not working. Some trees will always overlap their upper branches, even if I set bounds area to 100meters. I have no idea what's going on, they have colliders.

 

you guys know of this site

http://www.mb3d.co.uk/mb3d/maxTextures_Home_-_Free_Seamless_and_Tileable_High_Res_Textures.html

 

Yep. Add script to tree, spawn as prefab in game object spawner. To get it to spawn like tree just set up its spawn criteria to match tree spawning. This is how I did the growth example in my videos.

 

Ah, trees and chopping them down. This is a subject near and dear to my heart

If you use the Unity built in trees, yes as far as I can tell Unity creates one big honking collider and merges the tree colliders with them. I suspect it uses a big loop internally doing a Graphics.DrawMesh to actually draw them. This causes a big problem if you remove them, because it has to recreate the terrain collision mesh now without the tree info. I found this in the past to be very slow. Not only that...sometimes, it is not possible to know exactly which tree you are chopping, since the collider is no longer associated with the tree.

I went ahead and did a project where I just created a tree gameobject instead, with a simple capsule collider on it. I did not have scripts on them at creation, I was worried that that would be too heavy. Instead, upon hitting the collider, I would add and activate any scripts on the tree I felt were necessary. This was with Unity trees, so it handles the billboards.

Once I switched to speedtree trees, I think I saw some more benefit because and unity handle the trees using LODs and such. So it was even easier, just toss a bunch of gameobjects out there.

If your project is such that only the player needs to worry about tree collision (not animals or npc ai), then you can improve performance by only putting colliders on the trees near to you, and the rest have none.

 

Those are two very clever ideas!

So if I understand correctly you would add the scripts to the tree once you start interacting with it and remove them when your done?

 

I just started doing some terrain generations with Gaia and I'm seeing low resolution results from the terrain itself. Typically, when I make terrain using the normal terrain sculpting tools, the terrain looks nice and smooth, but the stamps from Gaia end up resulting in some very noticeable pointy areas for the hills. What would I change in Gaia settings to get a smoother terrain from the stamps?

 

A couple more things.

Multi-Tile
I see some talk about the future of multi-tile terrain support in Gaia and it's relevant to my upcoming project. From all I'm hearing, the talk relates to having an existing setup of multiple tiles, but I'm more interested in tools to go from a single tile into multiple tiles after the terrain has already been perfected. I believe I can do this in Terrain Composer, but I really despise the complexity of that tool so I'm curious if Gaia will eventually support this. The idea would be to take a 4096x4096 Gaia terrain completely generated, textured, and with spawners, and then slice it up into 64 512x512 sections with each of these terrains able to stand on its own even if the others aren't loaded.

Global Colormap and Global Normal Map
I am probably going to be using ats Colormap Ultra for terrain shading. I also have RTP, but am experiencing some issues and am looking at ats colormap ultra as a replacement. Anyway, in order to use ats colormap, it requires a global colormap and a global normal map. They suggest that you generate these in a tool like World Machine, but I don't have that tool and certainly would rather not get it. I also believe I can generate these maps in Terrain Composer (or even RTP), but again, I really despise Terrain Composer's complexity. So, any possibility of getting global colormap and global normal generation support in Gaia?

 

Lots of ways to do this - pre smooth the stamp before applying it ( take a look at the stamper it has a Smooth Stamp control) - reduce its height (i mostly do this anyway as i prefer the perspective) - post smooth the entire terrain (show terrain helper - smooth).

The existing 'hidden in inspector' mechanism allows you to define the tile sizes, and the number of tiles. When I expose this I will also explore terrain slicing to make smaller chunks. There are other tools though that specialise in this and in terrain streaming - so had never really considered slicing a feature worth pursuing.

Gaia has focused largely on 'stock unity' so I haven't done much with these. In the new version you can export flow maps, splat maps, height maps, shore masks, texture masks, terrain as obj meshes. It would be trivial to also export a normal map. Not really sure how to go about doing a colour map though. Any ideas welcomed.

Before you spend your cash also check out Distingo. Its been submitted to the asset store, priced at $10, and is very nice. In my play with it so far, while it supports colour maps etc imho you don't need them.

 

I'll try the smooth stamp control. Sound promising.

OK, I'll use Terrain Composer for this part then.

Distingo looks promising, but I did already buy ats Colormap Ultra a long time ago. It was only $10 as well and also includes geometry mesh blending with terrain, terrain decals, parallax and bump mapping, etc. Although for $10, I may give Distingo a try anyway at some point. For now, I'll just see if I can get the global colormap and global normals maps from either Terrain Composer or RTP.

 

Hi Gaia fans.
I posted a feature request to Unity that consists of making possible for every grass texture to override the default detail distance in such way that big or salient bushes might be rendered more far away than "common" grass. I made three pictures of different details at different distances (grass 100, flowers 180 and weed 250). I also made a quick and dirty "kind of blending" with gimp.

I consider that using this might result in a progressive revealing of the details. Particulary, I hate how details are revealed right now in the distance.

If you think that it would be useful, please, vote at
https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/grass-override-detail-distance

 

Seems like a nice idea - and by controlling which grass does what you could also probably minimize the associated overhead.

 

POI almost completed - grass clearing and replanting all automated. An issue with rotation solved - now conforms to terrain really nicely. It's fun just roaming around and finding these

 

What is the POI feature exactly?

 

I call it Point of Interest or POI. You design interesting features you would like to spawn - in the examples above, small farms. And then you drag and drop that entire cluster of objects into the resources file and Gaia will treat the entire collection as if it were just one resource.

GAIA uses normal fitness checking to determine where to spawn them, and then will spawn them in those locations in your terrain that match their fitness criteria.

They are highly configurable so you can make each one different to the next - and they can conform to your terrain - so they look like they were built there.

They also have the ability to re-texture and replant the terrain in the local area as well - so you can make the plants and the base match the thing being spawned.

With this you could do rocky outcrops, shrines, graveyards, mystical tree groves, farms, villages etc... Build up your own library of cool and interesting stuff - and just spawn it in.

Gaia is all about saving you time so you can focus on your game play - this is another expansion on that - and is very powerful!

 

Thanks for explaining the details. The ability for it to conform to the terrain is a huge time saver. I look forward to this new feature.

 

Does the spawning of these clusters need to be random, or could a pattern be used, so that the farmlets are spawned at equal distances apart?

 

The spawners are very flexible - I used every location and jittered to spawn these - this enabled me to traverse the entire terrain and place approximately at every 90 meters. You can lay out in exact lines if you want.

 

Great idea!!! I'll vote for that

That gave me an idea: If you use Speedtrees for trees you can actually do it now somewhat yourself....

1) Spawn Speedtrees as gameobjects which is ok because unity handles billboarding/LOD on those..
2) You then have the terrain tree system to use for larger grasses / bushes... For instance you could use this trick to create them: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/be...s-runs-as-fast-and-looks-just-as-good.339792/
3) They will then have the tree distance... and you could even have a different / simpler billboard for it...
4) .... and you have the usual detail system for the smaller grasses...

I'll try as soon as I have time I did try the trick above creating great looking grasses - perhaps it will work for bushes/scrubs as well

Jesper

 

Love to see how you go with this

 

I know Gaia 1.5 doesn't support multiple terrain tiles but I'm hoping someone has an answer on this.

When I spawn textures on each individual terrain tile, I end up with what looks like texture atlas bleeding on the tile seams as seen below.

Any ideas how to avoid / fix this?

 

I get that sometimes, but it happens on a single terrain. Basically a thin strip on one edge of the terrain doesn't get painted, and just uses the default base texture. I think this is what has happened here.

 

I saw this the other day. Will have a look into it.

 

Another person on the Gaia beta team has an awesome asset that helps with this. It is called Trees Manager System by @ElroyUnity. It has a lot of different features including network syncing via most of the more popular network systems and includes tree chopping as well as tree regrowth.. Definitely check it out if that is something you are looking for. It works on both terrain and game object trees as long as the original tree prefab that the terrain tree or game object was created from has been configured for the system. Here is his forum thread and asset store links.

 

For those of you considering creating and publishing your own assets, here is an article that I contributed to on the Unity Blog on Launching A Successful Product on the Asset Store.

The Unity article is a balanced article from a number of publishers. If you would like the full text of what I contributed then check it out here - its essentially a hit list for asset store launch and marketing - which could just as easily be applied to Game Launch and Marketing.

 

Nice article. I love how you say Skyrim inspired you to make Gaia. Here I am making a game also inspired by Skyrim and other similar games and I'm using your tool to help me get there.

 

HAHA, same with the Village Exteriors Kit
That game just set a benchmark for many people on many levels

 

'Swamp..' Much of this is placed by hand but I love getting immersed in these scenes..

 

Kia ora

Sorry I know this should maybe in the main forum all I got there is what feels to me like a fob off. I need what I can do to fix it not an opinion that say nothing to help, this thread is where I have found some of the best helpful people, so rightfully or wrongfully here I am.
I have no idea whats going on here, I built this project got the texture blends looking great, dropped Tenkoku in (which seems to have a very yellow cast) set it to 12:00 midday. I then added the 3rd Person controller and a third person char
and hit play

I have no idea how or why the graphic setting where uncheck and I don't understand why when stopping the play mode I end up in 2D mode and even less idea why the light build did what it did.

 

Mind listing the assets your using? Thanks

 

Most are from the 'Ancient Environment' package by 'Manufactura K4' on the Asset Store. Read the Reviews though. The package has not been updated for Unity5. Can still be used with a lot of mucking around.

 

I have that pack and it is a decent asset. But be warned, the publisher never, and I mean never, answers e-mail questions. You get absolutely zero support for any of his products.

 

NICE! Love the lilypads! those the speedtree ones or from somewhere else?

Edit: Just saw you mention Ancient Envrionment Pack. Assuming these are from it?

 

Sounds like maybe your Main Camera got switched to Orthographic projection. If you look at your Main Camera and usually (if not always) the fourth field is Projection. Make sure it is set to Perspective and not Orthographic. Other than that, I'm not sure.

Did you follow the install instructions for Tenkoku and the 3rd Person Controller. Sometimes assets have requirements of you telling which camera you want to use. It could be when you dropped the controller in, it automatically picked a special camera setup by Tenkoku thinking it was your main camera or something weird like that... Not saying it is the case but those are the two things I'd look at.

 

And that is why he has missed out on several hundred dollars worth of asset purchases from me, even though they would have been perfect for my project. It's a pity, but after spending hundreds of dollars on unusable and un-updated assets, I now only purchase those that are new, have support, and have a forum.

 

Thanks for the help Shawn, got it sorted for some reason Unity set the default to 2D, I changed that deleted the char and camera and started over so now I just gotta trim up the Graphics

This map BTW is the original Hoddminir map done by the team over at Dark Creations that have been putting a lot of their resource's up for download to mod Skyrim,. well worth a check out to get inspired

 

Glad your up and running again

 

I am the same - have spent a stack of $$ on stuff that is unusable. Active forum is a biggie for me.

 

Awesome

 

These are still rough - but I have to say - the upcoming 1.5 release is going to be awesome

All POI placed procedurally and all assets and POI included with the 1.5 release. The technique to make POI is also very simple - so you will easily be able to make them with your own assets.

 

Snap.

That's one of the reasons the asset store window needs updating to allow us to create folders etc like on steam. One folder for deprecated or useless assets. Only once seen a developer offer refunds and that was vBugs dev. I picked it up for a real good sale price and the last version update he posted is working well. So in the only instance I have seem a refund offered the package is really nice and the last update(currently) works! Shame it went under.

Oh the irony!

 

Don't know what happened there. I emailed a couple of years ago with a question and had a good few responses. Since then he has fallen off grid. Shame as his work is really nice. A good balance between performance and looks.

I saw on is asset store linked website (facebook) a few months back that he had had private problems. I hope they weren't too bad. I would rather have bad customer service than want bad for people.

 

Hi @AdamGoodrich,

The POI functionality looks great. Don't know if it has this capability but if each POI had a public variable linked to it then we could copy in an array of our own gameobjects. Mainly thinking of villagers.

So I could create a list/array of random npc's/villagers/cattle and drag that into the POI, or even have the POI pick up the list itself at runtime. Also the POI could compare it's own size, eg town or lone cabin etc, with the array size and spawn a comparable number into it. So as to not have empty towns or vastly overpopulated hermit cabins.

Just a thought

 

Yea, that was a shame. I also got a refund.... Didn't know it still worked
On the other hand we shouldn't expect all assets at any price to stay supported and up to date at any time. Some are really cheap and as a developer it is probably demanding to keep them error free and up to date forever.

For instance I have Silverlining Skies - it was deprecated after 2 years - I accept the developers explanation that he cannot put in the time required to support a package costing 40-50$ at the same time as having almost the same product sold as an entire programmer environment for professionals for an entirely different price.... We have to accept that priorities change... We don't get refunds for a lot of stuff we buy in life that is outdated after some time

But true.... I also check if assets have a forum and an active developer before buying..

On another note,,... Did anyone try this asset for terrain slicing/streaming .... https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5982

Jesper

 

Totally agree. I think we have to be realistic. If an asset fails it's the same has any business model failing. There comes a time to end it. That's why it's good when devs make them free and open the community maintenance.

I didn't ask for the refund for vBug as i paid a really low amount for it and it's still working for me, although the vbug thread shows others haven't been able to get it working. Really nice tool as well. Being able to rewind through frames etc as more than been useful on my project.