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

Hello! It says on the asset store, that 2.0 will support "large world multi-tile". What do you mean by that? Is it a multi-tile editing or is it streaming terrains in runtime? By the way, how long will the sale last?

 

Hi, No streaming. Just that multiple terrain objects will be editable. Each tile will be a terrain object. For steraming in runtime you will need to use an asset like World Streamer.

As for how long the sale will last, only the author, @AdamGoodrich will be able to tell you. But personally if you ask me, I got gaia when it was 50 bucks I think. It's a steal at the price it's already in so I'd say go grab it. Do your research before you get the tool though

 

Well, sorry, but I live in Russia with very high inflation and a whole instability in payment on jobs. It's just very hard for us. Of course I'm gonna be a despicable guy who wants to save some money and I'm ashamed of it too.

 

Well I come from Sri Lanka. You can't complain anymore than I can lol don't worry. If there's anything more you need to know about gaia before purchasing just ask the author or the community. We'll be happy to help.

 

I will probably keep Gaia on sale until version 2 releases, but that's taking longer than anticipated, and the asset store don't like extended sales. As much as anything else this is to encourage me to get it out ASAP.

Currently beating my head against compute shaders and erosion. I have it working on CPU and partially working on GPU. There doesn't seem to be a lot of good info out there on them.

 

Tell me about it. I've been trying to figure out how to benefit from them for my cubesphere subdivision but alas, no example code for that type of functionality .. so tons of research to see how I could do it.

 

You are explorers of the new frontiers.

 

And problem resolved - first cut of GPU based erosion - needs work but already mighty fine... and essentially instant

 

@AdamGoodrich

How much do you recommend World Streamer for GAIA performance gains? Like, any chance of GAIA adding such streaming support at all in the near future? Or should I just stop being a cheapskate and get World Streamer (<< starving Indie).

I have a level in mind that is is definitely something that will require streaming..

 

Hi, is there a beta version for multi tile stuff available?

If not is there a usable workflow, like will we be able to connect single tiles made right now when it comes out?

Just trying to plan for when I'll be able to redo the terrain.

 

I am about 6 months of full time work into Gaia 2 so far and have no idea what it will take to do streaming, so no, after Gaia 2 is out and stable I will take a little break. After that who knows

Gaia 2 picks up what you have and runs with it, so you should be fine. You could probably create the new environment and just substitute your tiles for one of the tiles made by Gaia 2.

 

As long as the tiles' seams align for stitching, we should be golden.

 

Um yeah thats a point - Gaia 2 does stitch tiles together, but doesn't blend them. You could easily correct anyway by using some masked stamps to sort out the seams.

 

I'd bet "stitch & blend" will be the first feature requested if it's not there...maybe some sort of sampling of the adjacent few meters of neighboring tiles? I'll be curious to see how you deal with significant elevation differences at the seam, as well as craggy cliffs spanning tiles.

 

Not 100% Gaia related but since you are posting preview's on this thread, I thought I'd ask whether or not this new shader you're working on will support terrain holes?

 

Hey all,

Just wanted to share that after a long time of using Gaia and Adams great tools we're finally coming to kickstarter with our Project "Rise of the King"! Can't wait to see the New updates to Gaia =) Adam I appreciate all the work you've done! =)

 

Unity terrain does not support holes so any system that does holes is essentially a hack that somehow needs to disable to the terrain collider in order to work. On the rendering side we hadn't considered adding holes, but I don't see it as being a major issue. Not sure about the collider side of things. Will speak to @NatureManufacture and see what he thinks.

This looks amazing Jeff!!

 

Gaia 2.0 - Dynamic stamp creation with thermal and hydraulic erosion - love it!

 

Hi there Adam, I know you must get this a lot but I'm putting my project on hold until the release of version 2 - is there an ETA on when this might be?

 

There is somewhere between one and two months of work to go. There are some specific things I want Gaia 2 to be able to do, and you don't really get an instruction manual for what I am trying to create

 

Great work Adam, can't wait for Gaia 2. Looking forward.

 

I have been privileged to get a peak at many of the improvements and new features.
It is going to be an Epic release

 

What are the recommended water systems that Gaia folks have experience with?

Requirements:

• Buoyancy and current effects on floating objects
  
• Terrain-following flow, especially respecting elevation and gravity
• Large scale, as in kilometers, not little ponds or tiny short runs
  
• Dynamically responsive to obstructions (bridge pilings, boulders, lumpy terrain, run-time debris, etc.)
• Works with indoor and outdoor lighting, e.g. sewers, raging rivers, aqueducts

Ideally I want to specify a source point and flow rate, typically in cfm, and fluid type, e.g. water, and have it just work, with flow rate adjustable at run-time. Multiple sources may merge at confluences, and may divide by terrain, pipe diversions, etc.

Imagine a spring fed high elevation pool that spills down a mountain over terrain, filling a carved river bed, splashing over boulders, through a canal system, carrying small boats or debris that's tossed into it.

 

Hi Everyone,

As you know, their are some samples included in the Gaia install from the Village Exteriors Kit to enhance the out of the box experience of having top class assets to get you going right away.

This is just to announce that the Village Exteriors Kit is on the MADNESS SALE that started today



Be sure to not miss it

Cheers
Cobus

 

Nothing exists that can do these things unfortunately. I would love to be wrong so please share if you find something.

 

This looks like a good start, but no idea how it was done.

 

I can help answer Buoyancy. The rest can be done but since the water is not actually water you have to make sacrifices. Fluvio (www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/74799) can do what you want and then just combine it with Aquas and a nice terrain shader like RTP or ATS Ultra 3.0...or possibly the future Gaia 2.0 (hopefully). You can really get a good approximation of what you want. Large scales as well.

1) Buoyancy....prepare yourself....lol
Make your own. I have tested several and they ALL miss specific things in reference to the simple base stuff. Here is how you do it.
First of all....come to grips with the acceleration and dampening curve. Yeah....I know...lots of math right? Not so bad actually. So the general rule of acceleration and then making certain the acceleration does not over shoot the 'Set Point' is take 1% of a number and then add it to 99% of a previous value over an interval. This ratios can actually be anything you want as long as it adds to 100.0%. What happens here is you sharpen or flatten a curve between 0 and some value you wish to attain.....say....the Y value of a transform. When you add dampening to this transition ratio you can influence and control the velocity state between two values. Y Hi and Y Low. And as your Interval (could be FPS or better yet 25ms) ticks by and as you change the Y Value the math curve automatically dampens to attain you new value....or Set Point. I know....what the F are you talking about Olander!! lol Ask yourself....what is Bouyancy at it basic form? You got it....some kind of lag in the movement of an object that has weight. So change the Weight (Ratio) and Interval (Lag) and dampen that movement....What do you have? Bouyancy.....can be used for many many things that apply movement.
Here is the function (C#).

Code (CSharp):

1. //Dynamic Dampening of a Float via Speed Percent(Rounded to 3 Decimals)
2.         //Note: It is highly recommended to run this function from a timer at ~50ms (See Above Example)
3.         //      the same may be stated about any type of dampening. This will remove variable scan rates
4.         //      out of the equation. Very steady dampening rates are calculated.
5.         //fInput is dampened to fTarget value of scan cycle time
6.         //The value begins quickly then naturally settles in the closer fInput gets to fTarget
7.         //This is excellent for Moving and Rotations to deaden out bobbles.
8.         //Only uses Math to get the job done....no LERP or Quaternions...just real math.
9.         //Tip: You can change Dampening Levels on the fly to attain various curves.
10.         //Note: This for real world dampening of pumping and air systems where analog bobble
11.         //      is a very common headache to deal with.
12.         public static float DampenFloatByPercent (float fInput, float fTarget, float fSpeedPercent)
13.         {
14.             float fVar = 0.0f;
15.             float fDampenRate = 0.01f;
16.             int nConv = 0;
17.             float fInputMin = 0.01f;
18.             float fInputMax = 99.99f;
19.             float fScaleMin = 0.0001f;
20.             float fScaleMax = 0.9999f;
21.  
22.             //Inputs
23.             float fInputRange = fInputMax - fInputMin;
24.  
25.             //Scale
26.             float fScaleRange = fScaleMax - fScaleMin;
27.  
28.             //Rate Per Scale
29.             float fRate = fScaleRange / fInputRange;
30.  
31.             //Output
32.             if (fSpeedPercent < fInputMin)
33.             {
34.                 fSpeedPercent = fInputMin;
35.             }
36.             if (fSpeedPercent > fInputMax)
37.             {
38.                 fSpeedPercent = fInputMax;
39.             }
40.             float fOut1 = (fSpeedPercent - fInputMin) * fRate;
41.             float fOut2 = fOut1 + fScaleMin;
42.             fDampenRate = fOut2;
43.  
44.             //Get rid of floating point precision errors (3 decimal used)
45.             fVar = ((fDampenRate * fTarget) + ((1.0f - fDampenRate) * fInput)) * 1000.0f;
46.             nConv = (int)fVar;
47.             fVar = (float)nConv * 0.001f;
48.  
49.             return fVar;
50.         }

So....to test this function simply make some code and toggle between two different values. I would set up a cyclic rate that you can set up to give your the proper amount of lag and not be suspect to your variable FPS....This is a very accurate cyclic timing technique that is not FPS calculation error prone. Once you get the hang of toggling between values and seeing the floats go to and fro....you will instantly see the benefit of this. And it calculates very fast.
At the top of the script....variables:

Code (CSharp):

1. [Header("Scan Data and Control.")]
2.     [SerializeField] private float fDeltaTime;
3.     [SerializeField] private float fScanControlledCycleRate = 0.5f;
4.     [SerializeField] private float fScanControlledCycleRateAcc = 0.0f;

Down in the Update portion:

Code (CSharp):

1. //In Play Mode
2.         if (Application.isPlaying)
3.         {
4.             //Frame Time Check
5.             fDeltaTime = Time.deltaTime;
6.  
7.             //Accurate Scan Cycle Rate
8.             fScanControlledCycleRateAcc += Time.deltaTime;
9.             if (fScanControlledCycleRateAcc >= fScanControlledCycleRate)
10.             {
11.                 //Do Dampening Function or any Cyclic in Here
12.  
13.                 fScanControlledCycleRateAcc = fScanControlledCycleRateAcc - fScanControlledCycleRate;
14.             }
15.         }

2) Terrain-following flow.....
Best Way.....manual brush painting with opacity blends. On a 4k x 4k map it takes roughly 4 hours to brush out the flow map then export as a splat and color map.
Otherwise....in direct reference to Gaia....export the heightmap to L3DT or World Machine then have them make both the flow maps and the color maps based on the textures of your choice. L3DT is not expensive and does really great work. Once you are done....import back into Unity and use a brush to touch up your color map. Export the splat and you are ready to flip between chosen textures and terrain shader.

3) Large scale, as in kilometers, not little ponds or tiny short runs.....
With Gaia 1.1 (I think) I have tested up to 25k x 25k (625km2) and Unity just cannot handle the memory of this size but more so....you must go 100% away from terrain base objects....everything must be in GameObjects and none of it painted with terrain tools....including Gaia. Also...you need more than Unity 5 culling....you need specifically frustum (camera view) and spherical (distance) culling plus LOD groups set on every 3D Game Object (Unity 5 LOD Groups is pretty nice....set Culled at ~10% screen size for most items)....even if you only have 1 LOD for a mesh.....set up a Group....just do it. lol
Recently I have been able (Unity 5.4+) to reliably get 8k x 8k (64km2) working at 60+ fps with the above techniques (5.3 and prior 8k would crush the fps). I am currently working on a new permanent playable area of 64km2 for each of 7 different planets. Looking promising....with Zero Chunking required. I shall work with Adam and do some demo stuff on this....Gaia+GeNa+Pegasus
But wait! What about Water? Yeah....well...now that you have everything else running really well....now Water will work properly.

4) Dynamically responsive to obstructions (bridge pilings, boulders, lumpy terrain, run-time debris, etc.)......
Water FX and panners. Get your texture tools out and makes some water foam transparent textures. Now make a panner FX that 'moves' the water. Size it properly with your 'Rock' and add it to the prefab. When/If the rock touches the water turn on that FX and set the Y to the height of the water. Simple and effective.

5) Works with indoor and outdoor lighting, e.g. sewers, raging rivers, aqueducts
Indoor/Outdoor Lighting....Aquas works good enough. Hydroform is also nice. Playway water also is good.
Sewers....use the Rock Technique or Empty GameObjects and FX panners.
Raging Rivers....use the Rock Technique or Empty GameObjects and FX panners.
Aqueducts....use the Rock Technique or Empty GameObjects and FX panners.
All 3 mentioned above work well for all of these. Good enough. Never...repeat....Never...simply use Clear Water. Always drop things on top of the water and let them float with your new handy dandy buoyancy script. Use 1 LOD and cull these at 25% as well as the script. This makes the water more interesting as well as keeping the eye from focusing on the strange water anomalies.

And there you (and others) have it.

Cheers
O

 

Hey - if you want to back a cool game, and also see what can be done with Gaia in the hands of real talent then go check out and back this game by Jeff Simmons.

I have watched him working on this for so long that its nice to finally see it all coming together. It would be lovely to see it get up and backed:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806160598/rise-of-the-king

 

Very productive day today on Gaia 2! Nailed hydraulic erosion, and added in masking

Following 10k x 10k, real time preview on GPU - added fractal and tweaked, added terraces, masked it with the preview image from one of the standard mountain stamps, added a touch of thermal and hydraulic erosion... a really lovely result for all of 5 mins of playing !!

 

It took me a few days longer than estimated but here we go:

Adding your own textures creates a unique feel to your Gaia (with or without MegaSplat) terrains. It takes some time to create and pack the textures (Channel Packer!!) but once you have the knack for it the fun starts. I made a few mistakes on the route so I added a few slides at the start of the video to explain the steps.

I've used Map Lab to create the map textures and also show some alternatives including Substance Bitmap2Material and using Gimp with some plugins. The latter will require some manual effort (for tiling and smoothness maps).

The demo scenes also use Suimono and Tenkoku. As posted before I also used the Unity Post Processing asset.

 

I would to verify if the upgrade from v1 to v2 will include this GPU compute functionality or if it will be a separate add-on purchase.

Will newer v2 owners get it included for free?

 

Since it's mentioned as a part of the next upgrade, and V2 will be free for current users, I think it's safe to assume that that means it will be part of the next upgrade for free

The march update has been pushed a bit though due to technical issues that Adam has posted he needed to solve first, so really it's the classical "it's done when it's done", but he's said it will be done soonish, so probably within 2-3 months is my guess?

 

Hi,

I think it better to wait for @AdamGoodrich to reply to the question personally.
With it specifically saying "separate purchase" I don't think the exact opposite can just be assumed.
It is now sleep-time in Aus, so lets just hang in there

Cheers
Cobus

 

Happy to verify this. The gpu compute capability won't be free, but will be offered as separate pluggable assets for sale.

Multi threading and multi tile however will be and these alone represent a significant advance in the product. There is plenty more new goodness coming as well.

With respect to timing I will release it when it's ready. Delivinering quality and maintaining the trust of the community is far more important to me than hitting an arbitrary timeline.

What I can say is that the new and cool stuff I am working on has so far wowed those that have seen it, and I am working huge hours to deliver something that I think the community will love.

 

Sorry about that, I was clearly mistaken. :/

 

Truthfully, working with compute shaders is a very specific skill that takes time to acquire and having worked a bit on it before, I don't think it's really fair to ask for a free upgrade on that I however hope it'll be an affordable feature, because I am sure it'll make life very easy and add more power to Gaia.

 

Hi,

How can export the whole terrain (including vegetation, mountains, water etc) using gaia? I have created a "Gaia Environment" in one project and need to use the same in another project.

 

Thanks for the clarification Adam. As a possible customer I'm weighing the options based on features and cost.

I read that you are adding "Runtime Generation" and "Multi-Tile" to v2... does that mean that I can do "infinite terrain generation in-game" I assume I would need the Pro GPU compute in order to do that quickly enough but would this be possible?

 

Save your scene to a folder, move all terrain objects to the same folder and then export it - disable exporting dependencies - in your new project make sure Gaia and any other dependent asset is installed first before re-importing. This is standard unity import / export behaviour. Sorry cant be more specific, not really somewhere I can test at moment.

Great question.

The answer is no - if you want to roll your sleeves up and get coding with the API then you could get to yes - however its not something I will explicitly be supporting in the next release.

I may change my mind on this further down the track after it has been in the market for awhile.

As at right now Map Magic is probably your best bet.

 

Wow Is this coming for Gaia 2.0 :O or as a separate thing ?

 

Gaia 2

 

Yep. It has taken a substantial amount of effort to master, and now that I have I really could not be happier with the results. It really is something amazing to have real time feedback as you explore and create your environments.

I will share some video of it when it is closer to release

 

Hi,

I searched for an answer to this, but don't know what is happening for sure, Everything was working fine, I didn't want to start a new scene, so I deleted the basic terrain I had in scene. I created a new terrain, and it shows up as all white and strange looking upon adding stamps. Playing the session results in an all white terrain with details that are hard to see. New scene, new project, nothing changes. Is this a Unity bug or could I have accidentally clicked on something that caused this?

 

Looks like your textures and resources are all messed up.

Was the correct resources file selected when you created the terrain?

 

How would I know/can I check?

 

Why does my trees all the sudden have green squares in them?

 

I can help you with that, having asked the same question on here before.

You have to 'apply and generate' the trees. Don't panic - it takes 2 seconds.

You have to go to assets, Gaia, 3rd party Samplers, Speedtrees, click on all of the green and white icons (the first on the list is Broadleaf_desktop) Under the inspector just click the apply and generate button and they are fixed.

Then just do it for the other ones.

If you have also downloaded the trees elsewhere using Unity Assets you might have to do them in there as well - there is a chance you have imported the same trees twice into your project.

Hope this helps,
Guin

 

I agree there ... trying to figure out how to create a patch in a compute shader and then convert it into a mesh is taking longer than I expected. I totally understand the need to get something monetary out of it. And yes, hopefully an affordable feature.

 

Okay, I'm not sure what happened, but I re-downloaded and re-imported, and it's working fine now. I'm good. Thanks!

Just re-importing did not fix it. I had to actually download the asset package again first. That fixed it.

 

Much thanks guinUK. My guess i probably forgot to do that when I started a new project and installed GAIA the 2nd time. It was probably in the tutorial to do that which I didn't follow the 2nd time doing it.