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

Hi, i am curious is there any date when Gaia 2.0 will be released? where can i see its roadmap?
I hear v2 can generate/spawn object much faster. I need it for my big terrain.

Btw, i had this error when spawn object using spawner helper:
"Assertion failed on expression: 'lodGroupIndex < 0x7fff"
What does it mean?

 

You've reached the LODGroup limit of 32K. See https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...-errors?_ga=1.240921475.1849277416.1481871263

Also, you can vote on this to get Unity to make it higher priority.

 

Any sneak preview info on how multi-tile support will work in 2.0? I'm trying to envision what kind of level sizes would be possible and anything that would effect planning with multi-tile, to plan map design.

 

What platform do you have in mind? Since I'm not the asset developer I havent had an opportunity to try the system the new Gaia uses yet, but I am a compute shader bore on the forums so can probably clarify a few things.

I havent used OpenGL on Windows and I havent used the Unity Linux Editor but I believe that support for newer OpenGL versions was added to the Unity Editor as of 5.3, so I would expect Compute Shaders to work but havent actually tried myself.

Compute Shader support for macOS is in the Unity 5.6 beta, although you need a system running macOS Sierra and that supports Metal to get it working. This I have tried and its working pretty well.

For mobile devices Compute Shaders should work on Android devices that have OpenGL ES 3.1, and with Unity 5.6 on iOS devices that support metal. But since I'm assuming that Gaia's use of Compute Shaders is only for generating terrains in the Unity editor, this and other info relating to the platforms your Unity game/app will run on and whether they have Compute Shader support is not actually relevant, you just need the machine(s) you run the Unity Editor on to support it.

 

Hi Adam, I bought Gaia yesterday, was great, lovely. I was wondering how to get rid of the green triangles on the broadleaf trees, not all branches have them but some on all broadleafs.
Also today the spawners seems to be not working. I have been getting no textures, trees, buildings, grass, etc on the terrains.
Please advise.

 

You probably need to regenerate materials. If you click on the tree prefab you'll see a button in the inspector for Regenerating Materials.

 

@AdamGoodrich might be scares today for good reason

I just wanted to extend a HUGE Happy Birthday to the man that brought us cool assets.
He has become a good friend of mine in this last year for which I am grateful for.

We each have different stories to tell about or use of them of joy, happiness, and fun.
Hope we still see many returns and lots of great projects in the future
Cheers
Cobus

 

Thanks Cobus !! Gaia (and I) owe a lot to Cobus - his advice and support has helped me incredibly, and his friendship, and the friendships I have gained in the community have been the highlight of my time on the asset store

Please read the getting started guide. This is an issue with SpeedTrees which is easily resolved.

Pretty much impossible with no information to go on. Make sure you have not accidentally set your terrain y value to non zero.

I have not tested the boundaries of this yet. More terrains means more memory and resource consumption. I will explore different techniques to manage this.

Loving compute shaders! I have implemented a system that supports both multi core and gpu compute, so even if your platform does not support GPU comute, Gaia will support it.

 

One thing I'd like to see included is a premade "DefaultResourceSmall" set up for a small level, 512x512 say(with Adam making it as he knows the best spawn setups), as some of us are using Gaia for making a stage type level, like I did in the featured asset video.

I think this actually is a small request of something that has been overlooked, and would make for great fresh flood of pics showing what can be done.

Please at least consider it, as it would be fun to test as I can think of a bunch of stamps that would be great used in this manner.

 

d'oh of course Gaia isn't exactly a run time asset. That totally escaped my mind when I was talking about that. I personally have a Macbook ( can't recall which OS but recent ) and a newish PC so have both eventualities set there myself. I was thinking run time use of computer shaders which I read a while back that only supported up to a certain version of OpenGL ES but I couldn't recall which version and I thought Unity only supported to the version below it at that point I read it. So yes, maybe upgraded since then as Unity has been changing quite a bit recently.

 

Just purchased GAIA. Look forward to learning it. A few questions:

1. I'm building a 'camping' VR scenario. I don't need the full 2048 terrain populated and instead I'd like to do an 'extreme' population of say 256 units instead. Is this possible and are there any good tutes on it?
   
   
2. Is it possible to use GAIA to create a shag carpet with custom instances? If not, what would be a good tool for this?
   
   
3. Are there other "instancing" programs that can work on a smaller scale?
   
   
4. Can Unity generate better looking forests with GAIA in deferred mode. IOW, can I bake maps onto trees and grass? I don't need the dynamic qualities (moving and swaying).

TIA!

 

I like this idea. Will add a bunch of useful presets to the next release.

Super happy with performance so far - you never know - next version may be

You can change the terrain size and settings. You can also set maximums on the spawners as well so that they wont do more than you want.

I must admit i am a little lost

Lindear deferred is what I usually use. You can also change the settings on Speed Trees to stop them from swaying.

 

Thanks for the quick answers, Adam! Much appreciated.
Just a couple more. Forget the shag carpet-- it was in reference to be able to populate a given model with WHATEVER at very very small scale. I suppose not.

1. I figured out how to turn off wind for the trees, but I can't figure out how to turn off the 'always facing camera' tree leaves for the one tree (the taller tree doens't do it). Do you know if this is possible in the demo mesh, or do I have to purchase SpeedTree to do this?
2. Any way to darken the tree trunks a bit more? I know about post effects, but I'm wanting to just darken those trunks.

Thanks again for a marvelous program! Years ago I wrote a book for e-on on Vue ( https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3788438/Create3DLikeASuperhero.pdf ) and it was SO MUCH harder to do what you're doing now. Kudos.

 

Hi, I was trying to get the USGS shaded relief but when I click on this option it doesn't show, means it clearly shows a blank image.I attach the file of this option image.Please help me out.

 

Hello Adam,


i m not sure if this option exists in Gaia but is possible to add terrain to mesh feature in new version ?

++

 

Probably have to buy the Speedtree Modeler. It is very nice, well worth the investment and you can make your own trees or adjust purchased Speedtrees. Plus, you get free trees every month! I love it.

 

This feature exists now in the Utilities menu, as do a lot of other handy things. I recommend people look at what else Gaia has to offer - its a lot more than just a terrain stamper.

Another feature that is worth exploring because it can make a massive difference to the look of your scene is the water flow mask exporter. It traces where water would flow in your scene and creates a mask from it. You can then use this mask with your favourite grass texture to show the influence of water in your scene i.e. grass / moss will often grow more readily in damper environments. Here is an example.



Be sure to check out here as well - lots of examples of things you can do with Gaia in there: https://www.facebook.com/proceduralworlds/photos/

 

thanks, i ll check.

++

 

Hello, first of all i have to say im really happy that i choosed Gaia, its really awesome.

But now the Problem:
Our team is trying to create a Action RPG, so we need several Maps for this.
The Plan was that i create the maps with Gaia, and then export it so my team can import it into their Project, because im for the Maps and they do the coding.

I tried to export the terrain, this doenst work. Then i tried to export the scene (including all dependencies), this seemed to work but when i try to open the scene (after importing to a blank project) it tells me "Oops! The image you have selected is not a valid stamp preview! [...]"

And i got another question, is it possible to change the quality of the created map? Because i would like to have it a bit more "simple".


I hope you can help me.
Or is the map really only useable if i cope the complete project including assets and so on?

Thanks very mcuh!

 

JollyMixum said: ↑
Also today the spawners seems to be not working. I have been getting no textures, trees, buildings, grass, etc on the terrains.
Please advise.
Click to expand...
Pretty much impossible with no information to go on. Make sure you have not accidentally set your terrain y value to non zero.
Hi Adam,
y value is not non zero. rendering issue.
Assets/Gaia/Scripts/ExtensionSystem/Extensions/CameraAndLight.cs(54,28): warning CS0618: `UnityEditor.PlayerSettings.renderingPath' is obsolete: `renderingPath is ignored, use UnityEditor.Rendering.TierSettings with UnityEditor.Rendering.SetTierSettings/GetTierSettings instead'
Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Utils/Utils.cs(230,31): warning CS0618: `UnityEditor.TextureImporter.grayscaleToAlpha' is obsolete: `Use UnityEditor.TextureImporter.alphaSource instead.'
Assets/Gaia/Scripts/Utils/Utils.cs(231,31): warning CS0618: `UnityEditor.TextureImporter.normalmap' is obsolete: `normalmap Property deprecated. Check [[TextureImporterSettings.textureType]] instead. Getter will work as expected. Setter will set textureType to NormalMap if true, nothing otherwise.'
Please advise. Many Thanks.

 

Adam, can you check your Gena thread? Questions have been building up over there and no one has been responding. Thank you in advance.

 

Another cool terrain to add to my collection. Default Settings A few stamps, hills, mountains to raise and valley and river to lower. If you fancy a closer look see, I've included a zip file containing the session details to recreate it.

 

Warnings are.. just warnings and do not affect the product. Its been tested working on Unity 5.6 even. They are caused by API changes in Unity from version to version, and if you just click Yes when importing to have Unity automatically fix the problem, but can also still show warnings. I will remove them in next version of Gaia.

I still don't have any actual information to go on in order to help you out. Please drop me a PM and we can do a Skype session to sort you out. Most issues are misunderstandings on how Gaia actually works.

It's nice to see someone finally pick up on the sessioning system

The sessioning system allows you to replicate an environment - accurate down to the blade of grass - by sharing and then playing the session!

The only caveat is that you have to have the same assets in your project as the source project for it to work.

 

So I'm having a issue with the reflectionprobe.updates. I was wondering if anyone else has run into this before? I deleted the grass and I still small lag spikes but not as bad as it was. I'm using a 2000x2000 terrain.

 

Hard to tell in your image as you don't go down a level but I have seen the grass culling issue as well. I spoke to one of the Unity terrain engineers about it and he confirmed it was grass that was causing the spikes. From memory they need to allocate and deallocate lots of memory and this is what causes the stutter - I am not sure this actually anything you can do about it as this is just the way the unity terrain system works.

 

Ill go down a couple levels of testing tonight on it and get you images on it. Yea it seems that is a giant issue. Do you known if they'll optimize grass anytime soon?

 

Apparently the terrain system is ancient (who knew ?? ) and is a patch on top of a patch. I don't know whether they will fix this one or create a completely new one.

For most FPS type game play you will never see it, but for fast coverage of lots of ground for things like flight simulators you will. I noticed it especially when I was building Pegasus as I cover a lot of ground quickly. I thought it was an issue with my maths, but when I removed all grass it was 100% smooth. Profiling just proved what I was seeing.

 

I'm under the impression they want to create a new one. A Terrain System is listed in the research section of the Unity Roadmap, could be a long time coming.

 

I know of someone who is making a kickass terrain system for the Unreal Marketplace. The Unity Version will follow shortly after If memory serves me right.

Edit: I pressed submit too soon...

I am curious @AdamGoodrich - Will the 2.0 version of Gaia support multiple terrains?

If so will it take advanage of plugins such as world streamer?

 

Hi Adam
Thanks for your help offers. From what you have said, I realised my problem was peculiar to just me. So I started a new project then imported Gaia from the Asset Store again instead of copy and pasting the Parent Gaia folder into the Assets folder of a New Project.
Now the spawners work fine again. I am glad I didn't waste any more of your time and look forward to Gaia 2. Thanks for a very well made and great Gaia !

 

Is there more information on this terrain system? I'd like to see what they are doing in Unreal that might end up on Unity.

 

Sure - check the link below. I do not normally link to other assets in other people asset chats as I do not want to hijack their topic.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?111512-Landscape-Architect

If this is not OK @AdamGoodrich let me know and I will delete the link.

 

This is same guy that made dungeon architect - which is really nicely designed asset. It is no small feat to make an entire terrain engine from scratch because there is far more to it that making height-maps. Hats off to the author if he does this and it performs well.

From a technical perspective he needs to make it work in Unreal in C++ with one set of challenges, and then port it to Unity and C# with a whole other set of challenges.

And yes, don't delete, but do please keep this forum focused on Gaia. Did you see the drone link - amazing! There is plenty I have not yet released publicly about Gaia 2 yet, and I think it will be pretty special.

Also, if people have ideas, papers, interesting techniques, then please pass on to me via PM. I review everything and if I can I will add the concept to the product then I will. My goal is to make Gaia the tool of choice for the Unity engine. In particular I want to add erosion to Gaia 2.0, and if you have links to interesting and novel techniques then please send them through. WorldMachine is hands down the best erosion tool at the moment imho. I want to get to that level of sophistication.

Apparently stamping is a good idea - this implementation is very cool

 

Hi @AdamGoodrich ,

I came across this addon for Gaia that I found mighty impressive. It's a pain having to generate your own noise maps outside Unity to and to come back to Gaia get it in order and then use your stamp to see it's not quite what you hoped for. But this addon lets you create your own stamps in editor then and there and it's pretty amazing.

I just wanted to double check with you if you have any intentions to bring this sort of functionality into Gaia 2.0 (free upgrade or else ) before I go ahead and buy this addon.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/59208

PS: I hope it's alright to share an addon link.

Regards,
Tharindu

 

impressive dedicated editor tool !!

i understood Nathaniel name in the videos ?

I think the new way for the terrain is the possibility to sculpt (dig) and smooth the world. I don't know if "unity terrain system" is the best now. Maybe, meshes terrain is the future ?


++

 

Hi,

I can't find any solution for my problem. Is there any way to decrease/remove the blend between different terrain textures?
I really just want a sharp cut between them (like in the second screenshot).

Thanks in advance, cheers!

 

Initial guess is that you would have to customise the way the textures decide where to draw. So rather than have them blend down to a low percent on the border, perhaps set them to 0 and the other at 100 so it would be more of a contrast. It might not give the effect you are looking for but I believe that is the way the Unity Terrain decides what texture goes where, based on texture weighting.

I'll have a quick dabble and see if the theory pans out but I am sure Adam will be able to confirm if it is possible and how to do what you want.

 

The above images are the effects of the different rules ( except for Random ). None of them are that close to what you are looking for so hopefully Adam will be able to point you in the right direction or explain why it isn't possible.

 

Howdy, I'm working with World Streamer and I need a way to slice up a 100km x 100km map into 250m x 250m tiles. I also need the ability to paint/mold terrain over the splits as if the terrain was still in one piece(seam stitching). I'm not interested in the auto terrain functionality or any of that jazz. Will this tool suit my needs? Thanks for your time.

 

Hello, how can i export the complete map (Terrain + placed objects?)
If i only export terrain im loosing alle the houses i placed...

 

Test

 

Forums are working again I see

 

Yep there was a post with an image that broke the forum.

 

I wonder ... imitation is the sincerest form of compliment. Anyways, its been really nicely executed

Standard unity terrain will not do edges this sharp. You would need to make a custom terrain shader.

Yes World Streamer does this.

Gaia 1.5 can not do molding across splits. Gaia 2 will support this.

Not yet. Gaia 2.0 should be ok.

I would imagine you need to do this : https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/HOWTO-exportpackage.html

 

Hi any idea why trees look strange when close up? See this screenshot below. I followed the Quick Start guide without any other assets, changes.

 

This looks like some sort of Post FX conflict. Speedtrees do not normally do that.

 

Indeed it was caused by ambient occlusion in the Unity post processing behavior. Thanks for the pointer.

 

it should be good if you save a little time for an alternative interface of Gaia like Drone tool

+++

 

Still didn't get a reply so I assume the question got lost in the sea of posts. I was wondering if Adam has any plans to include the functionality provided by the Pro stamps for Gaia add on on the asset store for gaia 2.0. I wanted to go for the asset but would be a waste of cash if gaia 2.0 came out with it included. the add on let's you create stamps in editor using a few noise functions and performing various operations.

 

How can I get gaia to add colliders to the trees after I hit play?