Landscaper Terrain Tools

Hi

I believe you should be able to rapide create and improve landscapes in Unity so I created Landscaper Terrain Tools. Landscaper Terrain Tools (LTT) is a set of tools which work with the terrain in Unity to help you create better scenes. This is a quick videos which demonstrates LTT's features:

Here is a features list:

1. Easily create terrains using perlin noise, option for creating an island
2. Textures terrains based on height, supports a cliff texture
3. Plant trees and grass based on height and steepness at a certain density
4. Add water which has edge fade and shoreline foam effects to your scene
5. Place objects based on height, denisty and steepness
6. Paint objects onto your terrain using the singular placement tool
7. Create a fences along a defined path where each fence panel is rotated correctly
8. Create a path along a defined path where a texture is applied and foliage is automatically deleted

LTT is only $20 see it on the Asset Store

Check out the screenshots on the Asset Store page for more information and the video below provides a user setup and options guide:

If you have any feedback or questions don't hestitate to post them. Thanks

 

I'm really liking this. Just one problem with the tree placing. It's fine with a full altitude range but when I adjust it from either end to try and not have any planted at lower altitudes, I start getting a strange pattern like in the image. The grass seems to have the same problem.

 

Does it work from runtime script or is it just for the unity editor ?

 

Hi guys

I'm sorry you're having this problem FractalCore i've never seen it before. If you give me the resolution settings for your terrain I may be able to see why this problem is occuring.

LTT is just for the Unity Editor and doesn't work at runtime.

Thanks

 

This looks really promising as a simple but powerful alternative to more elaborate (and expensive) terrain solutions like Terrain Composer or RTP3. After watching the videos, I have a few questions/comments though:

1. How do you adjust terrain texture tiling? Do the textures you select in LTT get added to the actual Unity terrain texture list as well, or are they only available in LTT? If they get added to the Unity terrain textures, tiling could be controlled there, but if they aren't, you should really include a tiling control.
2. While talking about integration with native Unity terrain, what if I use World Machine or some other 3rd party tool to create height maps, and import them to make a Unity terrain, or if I use something like Terrain Toolkit to add erosion effects? Can I still use LTT to texture and populate the resulting terrain with trees and vegetation afterwards?
   
3. Another possibly useful feature would be a tint control on each texture layer, allowing users to better match coloring between layers they are blending, such as between different vegetation layers, or between the cliff rock and overall ground coloring.
4. I like the simple water solution provided, but Wave Creator has a few more options, and might be preferable for anyone who also owns it. A tick box in the water panel to use WC, if installed, instead of the native LTT water, might be cool, allowing LTT to to control the water height, but using WC for everything else. I realize this isn't strictly necessary, as anyone who wants to can just ignore the LTT water and use WC instead, but it might be a subtle way to encourage future users to get BOTH.

I'm still sitting on the fence on this one, as I already have a few terrain solutions in place. I'm still seriously considering it though. As with Wave Creator, the simplicity of setup is a huge plus, allowing users to obtain similar results to more elaborate programs, but without all the fuss. If you develop it the way you've done with WC, it has the potential to be a "must have" app. Best of luck with it SP0KK0!

 

Hi FargleBargle

In answer to your questions:

• You can adjust the terrain texture tiling the normal way through the terrain script as all textures applied to the terrain have to be on that list.
• You can create the terrain topography anyway you want and all the other tools will still work.
• I will think about implementing a texture tint although it think it will be complicated to implement.
• I thought about adding Wave Creator settings into that panel for people who have purchased it but decided against it because I wasn't sure how many people would own both assets. I will consider adding some WC settings for a future update.

Thanks for the comment

 

Thanks for the info. Terrain tiling and 3rd party tool integration were the really important issues for me, and I'm glad they're covered. The rest of my suggestions were just wishful thinking. Texture tinting is something a lot of other terrain tools don't do either, which means I often end up doing it in Photoshop if needed, so it isn't really a "required" feature in LTT. And Wave Creator integration, while it might be nice, wouldn't be a problem to do without either.

 

The same terrain size as in your youtube video. I was following along.

But I've just imported it into a new scene and it worked fine. Not sure what it was, but seems good now.

Once again cool asset. I just tried the Wave Creator one too. FINALLY, simple floating objects that just work.

 

Great, I'm glad it works now, it was quite an odd glitch. I'm pleased you like Wave Creator too.

 

Can LTT create a batch of seamless terrain tiles? I need a tool that can produce a 4x4 grid of terrains.

 

Hi DoctorMobius thanks for your interest in LTT, unfortunately it only has support for generating one terrain. Thanks

 

Hey,i'm really interested in this tool,i need a good island generator,do you plan on improving the Generate Island function?

 

Hi

Thanks for the interest in the product. What new features would you like to see in the Generate Island Function? I'm open to suggestions and if they're viable i'd be more than happy to implement them.

Thanks

 

I'd like to see more realistic islands,with cool coastlines,etc.Maybe bigger than 4kx4k.Also,i want to know if its possible to generate more than one island in the same scene.
Do you have some pics of islands that can be made with this tool?I really want to buy itl!

 

Hey SP0KK0,

Taking a look at this and it looks really helpful. Incredible price too.

I already have terrains but just need to place trees, details, and objects. The path tool will be a thrilling bonus. My question is can you use this extension to place all these objects and then remove any connections with the terrain to the extension? I am making environment packs for the asset store and I can not, of course, include your pack. I know for sure I will not be able to use your water in the pack which stinks but the placement tools are the target.

If you can do this I will be buying this tonight. Hey. Will probably still buy it anyway. Can at least use it in the demos.

Thanks

 

Hi guys

In regards to Rick-'s island question: I'll work on some island generator features for future updates. The way I would create more than one island is to use the normal terrain generation in LTT then use the lift terrain tool which comes standard in Unity. I would use this tool to raise the terrain in two places thus creating two islands and still having the bumpy fractal surface. I will post some screenshots of islands in the next few days.

In regards to Baldinoboy island question: Excluding the water there are no connections between the terrain and LTT, you are free to remove LTT from your project at any time and your terrain will still work and look like it did.

Thanks, all questions welcome.

 

Awesome. Thank you. Three more question. Hey you said all questions welcome. I am going to have a lot. I have watched the videos a couple of times and noticed a few things to ask about.

I noticed there is no detail placement only grass texture. Is there going to be a way to place detail meshes like the grass? I like to use meshes for the grass instead of the default grass planes.

Is there a way for when mass placing objects to align the objects to the terrain? Like it automatically rotating the rocks by the xz axis so that it is matching the hill angle.

Also could you put in a way to control the steepness placement for an individual tree, grass, or rock. Like if I wanted a palm tree to be on a cliff but a jatoba tree to be on a more flat area. I guess you can do this by 0ing the density of the trees you do not want too steep, raising the steepness, using add to map setting, and place.

Okay. A couple of those sounded more like requests than questions. Sorry. You have already put a lot in this and are not charging much. Just needed to ask. Keep up the awesome work.

Thanks

 

This looks like a great system. I have 2 questions:

1) Is it possible to use this system on multiple terrains i.e. not to create multiple terrains but to texture and place objects onto multiple terrains created
2) Is it possible to use custom shaders/materials with this or only to assign different textures?

 

One more question after my previous and Hamesh81s'. When placing the trees can you control the color variation? I noticed in your video there does not seem to be any variation, which I honestly prefer than to have black trees with the normal mass place. Just want to make sure it will not make any trees that look burnt.

Thanks again

 

Hi guys

Here is a screenshot of some islands I made with LTT for Rick, this took me around 20 minutes to create:



In regards to your questions Baldinoboy, I could well add a feature which places detail meshs in the next update instead of just grass textures, i may also add auto-alignment for mass placing objects where there are automatically angled to the same gradient as the terrain. You could add trees at different steepnesses using the approached you said, I could add steepness settings for each tree but I don't want to clutter the interface so I shall think about it. I could add some color variation for trees as well as grass, I agree. I shall look at implementing much of this in the next update.

In regards to Hamesh81, unfortuantely LTT only works if you have one terrain in your scene at one time. You can use it on different terrains in different scenes but not more than one in one scene. You can use a different Shaders for the terrain if you want to.

Thanks

 

Thank you for the reply. Sorry again to ask for so much. Thank you for your system.

Oh. I was not asking for color variation. It would be cool if it could be controlled(unlike Unitys' mass place trees system) but I honestly do not like Unitys' color variation as it only controls the brightness not any colors. So it is not a feature I need but if it could be controlled it would be good.

Thanks again

 

Hey,thanks for the images,i like this islands.
I want to know if you created them only procedurally,or you did some tweaks with the Unity terrain system?
You said that you can have only one terrain per scene,but,is there a way to have more?
I also would like to see a way to add more objects in the Place Objects tab,so,it will be easier to place different objects in the scene,instead of needing to switch them every time.

 

Trying out LTT and it does wonders. I used L3DT to make the terrain and LTT to place my trees on it. Have not done detail, rocks, or paths yet. Will try that later. For the trees it probably saved me a few days of work. Here are a few screenshots of my islands:







The only problems I had were that the the same trees like to bunch up with each other. So there will be 5 of the same tree within a couple meters apart. It is not LTT fault. The terrain system just needs random rotation for the trees. Will not be as noticeable then.

The other problem I had which again has nothing to do with LTT is there are so many trees and each tree has a collider. So when walking thru the scene there is some skipping. Hopefully this problem will be fixed in Unity 5 with the new PhysX.

All in all this system in a major time savor. $20 that will save me way over 20 hours of time

Thanks

 

I tried using the path tool but there is no way to make one.



It is doing this with my custom terrain. I tried using it on a new empty terrain and the option to make one was there. The fence tool does the same thing. Not sure why it is doing this.

I checked and it works on another custom terrain. Do not know why it does it only on this terrain. I have shrunk it, deleted the trees, and other things. Still will not give the option.

 

Hi

Rick-; I created the islands by creating a normal fractal terrain using LTT and then increasing the height of the terrain in two places using Unity's terrain editor to create the islands. Unity allows you to have as many terrains as you want but currently LTT only supports one terrain per scene. I take your point on the object placement system, I shall probably make it like the other options where you can store multiply objects at once so you don't have to keep swapping settings for each object.

Baldinoboy; Those islands look good, I will look into random tree rotation for the next update. That glitch with the paths is a little odd. Did it at some point give you an error when opening the window? I think this can be fixed by opening the LTT Terrain Data text file for that terrain and copying and pasting this piece of code into that text file:

Code (CSharp):

1. 1
2. null
3. 0
4. 0
5. 0
6. 0
7. 4
8. 0
9. 0
10. 20
11. 20
12. 40
13. 40
14. 60
15. 60
16. 1
17. null
18. null
19. 5
20. 0
21. 4
22. 0
23. 0
24. 20
25. 20
26. 40
27. 40
28. 60
29. 60

You should have the directory of the object you are mass placing somewhere in that text file once you find that there will be 5 numbers after it, keep these numbers and delete any after them, then copy and paste the code above into the end of that text file.

I hope this fixes that problem, if not send me the text file and I will be able to see why it isn't working. I need to figure out how it happened in the first place though.

Thanks

 

I tried editing the file but I could not get it to work. Maybe I placed them in the wrong place. There are no errors in the console from your plugin. Attached is the .txt.

About the tree rotation. I do not think you can get that working without re witting the terrain system. That is not your problem but Unitys'. Hopefully they will get on that eventually.

Thank you for the help.

 

Hey SP0KK0. I found an easy solution. Do not know why it does this but here you go.

Copy the terrain data-delete the previous terrain-place copied terrain in scene-fence and path settings work-delete old terrain data-.

It works. Do not yet know if the problem will come back in the future but if it does just redo previous process. It only takes a minute.

Edit - after re opening Unity the fence and path tools do this again. Whenever I am ready to place the path I will just copy it again so it is not a problem. Seems like it is a problem in the terrain data and not with LTT. Weird

 

Hm,having only one terrain on the scene is a bit of a problem for my project,does it work if i use another scene to make the other terrains,and then,place these terrains in the scene i'm working on(as a prefab)?

 

Yeah, Just make a scene for each terrain and edit them there. The main scenes' terrains will be updated as the terrain data is saved as a prefab and not dependent on a scene(except for the terrain material). For the placed objects and fences just save them as a prefab and place them in the new scene. Align them with the correct terrain it should work.

 

Thx for the reply,i'll try it out!

 

Hi

Thanks for sorting out Rick-'s problem much appreciated. I think this txt file should work for you as long as all your trees are still stored in the same place as they were. These problems are a bit fiddly to debug so I hope this works for you. Thanks

 

Thanks. Will try it out.

 

It did not work. Fence and Path tool still hiding.

Whenever I am in need of a path I am just going to do that copying thing I mentioned above. That makes the fence and path tool available until you restart Unity.

 

Hmm, it's as if for some reason it doesn't save the text file between Unity restarts, does the text file noticably change from when you exit Unity to when you open it again?

 

Hey. Sorry for the late response. The data does not change when reopening.

It is the darn scene. Seems to be at least. I can copy the terrain and use another scene and no matter how many I restart Unity it does not lose the ability to make fences and paths. No problems with other terrains in other scenes either. Must be a bug in this scene save.

 

Hey SP0KK0,
I'm Finding LTT really useful but as you can see we're creating an island and also have the same issue with the path maker tool specifically.

 

Just bought, great stuff! I was hoping to use this on prebuilt terrains I made. Its a shame that this doesn't allow you to place details (grass) on selected terrain texture(s) instead of placing depending on terrain height. Could this be a new feature?

 

Hi guys

Thanks for buying LTT Reegles and ZeoWorks. I'm determined to get to the bottom of this path problem. Reegles if you could send me the terrain data text file that terrain is using (which is found in the terrain data directory of LTT) I may be able to see where the problem is coming from.

Zeoworks that could will be a feature in a future update, I very much appreciate the feedback.

Thanks

 

Could you make a demo showing an island with water?
Thanks

 

I sure will make a demo it will be up tomorrow.

 

I just purchased LTT and it's a great tool and at a great price. After using it for a bit there were some things I was wondering about:

Water - It would be nice to get a "regenerate" option. A thing I was finding was that once the water was generated, if I modified the landscape, I basically had to delete the water and re-create it, losing all my water settings.

Grass - A density slider would be nice here (like for trees). Even at an amount of 1 it's completely carpeting my terrain.

Fence - Having an option to be able to create straight lines would be really helpful. I realize that you can "straighten out" the current pathing, but it is kind of a pain rather than just setting points and having them connected with straight lines.

Future Feature: River Maker - In the same way that you can create Paths, which is an awesome feature btw, it would be great to be able to use the same pathing mechanics to carve a river (or maybe even a ravine?) in the landscape. Maybe with some options to control depth, textures, etc?

Regards.

 

Here is your webplayer angel_m: Webplayer

Hi FrostyNomad, you can regenerate the heightmap of the water without creating it again by clicking the 'Regenerate Heightmap' button in the inspector of the 'Water' object. If, when planting grass, an amount of 1 is carpeting your terrain you could lower the 'Detail Resolution' of your terrain in the terrain settings and re-plant the grass and that should fix that problem. I'll consider adding a straight fence option and a ravine / river tool (especiallythe latter) to LTT. Thanks for buying LTT and your feedback.

 

Hi spokko
I'm making a scene that have 1 terrain in it. i want it looks nice. after a try of terraincomposer , i think it's not my cup of tea. i want a more "simple/clean" gui tool while still can done most terrain works i need.
then i found your gem. it looks better then other terrain tools to me. then i saw the 3 tutorial videos in your youtube pages.
here are my questions:
1
the tutorial video show you create an island style terrain from a normal flat 1000*1000 shape default terrain.
I wonder if i use it on an exist terrain, will your tool ruin it's major shape?
for example, i made a terrain which have a mountain, and the area around the mountain is more flaten.
so, if i use your tool to modify this terrain , will the mountain and the flaten area be radomly change to something else?
i want the main shape of my terrain remain, and want use your tool to add/create more nature terrain shape details.
does your tool can done it?
2
from the video, i see your tool save data to a txt file. so,wether the terrain you create can live without the txt and your plugine or not?
for example, if i create a terrain use your tool, and copy the unity terrain file to my other project, will the terrain[and texture, tree, grass,object on it] still work?
3
the water looks nice, but have no reflective of surrauding landscape, are you going to add a optional water with reflective in future?

 

Hi bbsbot

Thanks for your interest in LTT. I will be adding a feature in the next update which means the user can add roughness / bumps to their ready made terrain but at the moment you can't modify your existing terrain with LTT although you can still use all the other features, such as placing foliage, on your existing terrain. If you want to add bumps to your terrain you could use the standard terrain raise height tool but use it with a spotty / uneven brush and apply it to parts of your terrain although it will take a while to create your preferred appearance. The terrain will still work in another project if you just transport the terrain file over. The txt file saves all the settings for LTT so if you transfered the terrain file over but didn't transfer the txt file and opened LTT it would have all the default settings loaded. I might add reflection to the water however I have another asset called Wave Creator which has water with waves with reflection and other features and I don't want to overlap the two assets too much.

Thanks

 

Hi Spokko

1
glad to see the feature of add roughness/bumps to ready made terrain without ruin the main shape is in the to do list.
2
another suggestion is "special zone"
forexample, Use a drag and drop Zone[it maybe a colored cube that may change the size/shape] to place certain objects only in certain areas; forexample, user use your tool builded a forest with trees, then user want one area of this forest have no trees, but grass and bush spawn there. then user can define a zone object[have several option box to choose certain grass/flower and bush objects] in your plugine's gui, then drag this zone object into the forest , and drop it at the desired place that user want, then press a "build/generate" button, it's done. by this feature, user may define where is deep forest, where is city, where is.....and get it very quick.
3
about water reflection. the unity pro water allready have it, but usually it may increase drawcall to about 2 times.
your water without reflection still looks ok. if you add a optional reflection water, i want it have mini drawcall bringing, otherwise no need to use it.
4
do you have a clue to get rid of the txt file? may you add the datas directly into the unity terrain file that user create?
5
when you add trees/grass/objects in your plugine and place them in terrain, i wonder if the same objects also added to the default unity terrain editor at the same time or not? because i wonder after use your plugine to place objects, if i still can use the unity default terrain editor to remove/change some of them or not?

goodluck.

 

The trees that you place with this script will show up in the trees section of the terrain. So will the grass. Also you can remove or place more with the terrain tree painter. Just remove the trees you do no want in a certain area with the brush. Granted the terrain tree painter is severely limited(cannot select more than one tree at once) but it still somewhat works.

If you have Unity pro and can use pro water what else could you do? I believe you cannot do real reflections without copying the drawcalls. Unless you are wanting to use cubemap reflection. That would be cheaper but of course no real reflection. I am not 100% sure but I think the dev is using the free version of Unity so real-time reflections would be kind of hard to setup.

 

Thanks for the reply , baldinoboy
and about water. yes, i can not do real reflections without double the drawcalls. I do not mind if it's a real reflection or a cubemap one. but i do not know how to make a cubemap relection on water.

 

Cubemap reflections can still look decent. I also have no clue how to set this up but it would be a cool feature for SP0KK0 to put in.

 

I could add a 'special zone' as bbsbot suggests, I will probably add it to the long list of improvements I will make in future updates. You can get rid of txt file but then when you next open the LTT window none of the settings will be saved as they are stored in the txt file which has been deleted.

I could add non-runtime reflections using a cubemap like I do in Wave Creator in a future update.

Thanks for the posts guys.

 

I just buy this asset yesterday, here is my feedback.
1
this tool looks very handy, like the simple/clear gui.
2
I usually get a "no response" when enter playmode. suggest make this tool more stability.
3
about the txt file, after a few try,i know the unity terrain file can live without it, just LTT need this txt for saving date.
that's ok.
4
look forward to your cubemap like water.