Best 3D Terrain Generation Software

[@AtrusDesign]

Hello, I am the author of the image you used in thumbnail. Thanks for showcasing my work among others amazing terrain creations, it’s always nice see our own work appreciated 😊. For who is curious: terrain created and texturized with World Machine (using my own macro), rendered in Vue.

[@itzDrizzyyyman]

So many links in the description not one mentioning you 😢😂

[@AtrusDesign]

@@itzDrizzyyymanI see just now your comment. Thanks for solidarity 😊 but I don’t need it. I am quite known in my field, I really don’t need this kind of advertising. But it’s always a pleasure to see my work used. Yes, of course it would be correct to credit the author.

[@Crimsin19937]

For those wondering: Gaea: 99$ World creator: 149$ (289$ for commercial use) World machine: 119$ VUE: 20$/month, 199$/year. (75$/month, 750$ year for commercial. No perpetual licenses) Terragen: 299$ Instant terra: 149$

[@The_Toonimator]

Thanks for this. Would've been good if the video mentioned an the prices too. I have a really old perpetual license of Vue. I wonder how much had changed. Use to be really good 15 years ago. 😂 much.

[@olpkol]

or free Bryce.

[@HiLoMusic]

Great breakdown.

[@HiLoMusic]

@@MatveyMotion just get geae, they don’t charge much, it’s the most professional tool and they offer lifetime updates. No maintenance bullshit like these others are pulling.

[@Crimsin19937]

@@MatveyMotion I mean, if you ever want to monetize or sell your products, they check your licenses. You can get in real trouble doing that.

[@CrisBlyth]

This is a great video.. One thing. Terragen is a complete planet generator, not just rectangles... you can go from ground level to space, including atmosphere and planet-wide clouds.

[@Xathian]

When I make very large landscapes I like to use both Gaea and WorldCreator. I make the individual terrain features like crags and and mountains in Gaea then use those maps to create large maps in WorldCreator because I love its tools to interpolate between terrain features and build out a larger map from individual ones. Absolutely cannot wait for GeoGen though, I am a huge fan of EmberGen and love the workflow, GeoGen stuff we've seen so far has looked amazing.

[@red4666]

can you show us an example of your work? i'm curious to see what your workflow and end product looks like? =)

[@alamondefield2823]

TY ILY your one of my favorite game design Tubers. Just switching from Unity to UE and was working on my terrain kit when this made my day week and month. TY

[@kiwivi21]

From my use, world creator is very good for someone who isn't particularly great with nodes/wants a very hands on approach. Gaea is cheap, looks amazing, can do an insane amount of tasks and create some of the best looking terrains (outside of maybe Houdini). And lastly have been testing Geogen and it's quite interesting, I have found it fairly overwhelming at first as there are so many nodes to do such small things but after time have been able to create some very interesting projects. I would say for terrains it can't yet fully compete with world creator and Gaea but isn't too far away especially as it's only in closed alpha and not even full release yet. I would say at the moment what sets it apart is the ability to make amazing looking planets and to be able to make materials (have built materials such as walkway bumps similar as the ones they showed off, concrete tiles, Lego plane and couple others. I would definitely keep my eye on it especially if it releases at a good price. I have tried a couple others such as world machine but find the UI fairly dated and take a lot longer to get high detailed terrains compared to some of the newer solutions (doesn't mean they aren't capable just wouldn't recommend as much for your first terrain creation software. Lastly in regards to the video, seems a lot of the footage of worldcreator 2 which is 2 generations old (missing 2022 and 2023) it has improved a decent amount since then.

[@AgentTheWookie]

Thanks for this message, it's useful!

[@maximusgerardin]

wtf that's my video at the very beginning I was really not expecting that! Made my day, except I was not credited but I'm fine about it no worries

[@WaspMedia3D]

Yeah I saw one of my vids being used as b-roll just randomly one day, but it was some UFOs on the moon I made in 3DSMax, and it was being used in a UFO video, so I thought ... nice! It must have been convincing enough :)

[@JasonAdank]

Based on my experience of these choices, Gaea and World Creator are the top contenders.

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

Awesome! I always wondered what kind of terrain software was out there. Thanks!

[@junechevalier]

This is why I love Houdini. It is a great terrain generation software, on top other things. And it costs less than Terragen.

[@GameDev1]

World Creator 2023 is also an option. And a very good one at that 🙂

[@robertmoran]

Wonderful reviews. Thank you. :)

[@abody3D344]

That's very very useful tutorial , thank you so much

[@danielstryver8388]

Can't wait for Gaea 2

[@lenxie4501]

houdini terrain is also a good choice, especially when you need full control and want create terrain errosion fx animation .

[@Everything3dAnimation]

Thank you soo much ! can you do a video on how to master shading nodes and materials ??

[@metasamsara]

world creator is way too expensive for a casual user

[@SkintSNIPER262]

If you live in a 3rd world country then yeah

[@NightVisionOfficial]

​@@SkintSNIPER262 150$ is expensive, for an Indie license with no commercial use. They are basically giving you a demo version of the software, for a price. At this point I would learn how to use Substance Designer, and try making terrains with that 😂. Costs 150$, I can also make models and Materials, and I have a commercial license, for life.

[@SkintSNIPER262]

@@NightVisionOfficial lmao no it isn't

[@NightVisionOfficial]

@@SkintSNIPER262 Oh well, then gift it to me 😂.

[@metasamsara]

@@SkintSNIPER262 It's half the price of my rent, in a first world country (western europe), and I guarantee you I won't get full 15 days of use for it in 1 year license. I would insta buy this software at 40eur, especially if it was on Steam I would consider max 60-80eur since the license would be easier to keep around in my Steam account.

[@rezo856]

I love world creator and terragen the most 😎👌🙏

[@ArIyan_yt]

Can you pls also make best vegetation or tree generation software?

[@cs1045]

He didn't already?

[@MostafaMohamed-bc9wh]

Easy. Speedtree

[@zedeon6299]

Speedtree

[@TorQueMoD]

A hugely important aspect to consider is the render times. I've been using World Machine for years, but it takes FOREVER to render out really high resolution tile maps because it's limited to CPU rendering. I've been trying to export a 64Km2 8x8 tilemap and it's been running for 14 hours and is still only at the half way mark on an intel 13600K with 32gigs of ram. I'm actually considering grabbing World Creator simply because it supports GPU rendering.

[@lucensius]

Layers may be easy, but nodes are always superior when it comes to professional workflows and the need for control.

[@polyroots.studio]

Thank you for this, i think im gonna give GAEA a try,

[@yhiu92]

you forgot houdini. they heightfield nodes for terrain, and we can combine with building + road generator to make whole city

[@Sekhmet6697]

It would be nice if you could mention for each software what platforms are supported, and whether they have free or trial versions. Right now the only free available option for Mac seems to be Vue.

[@RedefineFX]

No mention of Tyflow? 😢

[@knl654]

i used world machine log time ago, and got familiar with its node based generators, now i am planning to buy gaea, its same as world machine but way ahead.

[@jorgennorberg7113]

Are there any free SW for experimenting/learning with?

[@adriank8792]

I use Gaea a lot. I believe that right now it's the best terrain generator out there. Certainly better than World Machine which was my previous favorite terrain generator, but even with the latest updates, it feels old and limiting

[@HiLoMusic]

Gaea is having a 2.0 release in Q1 2024 and it looks very promising.

[@hiru92]

any similer tool for linux ?

[@virt_to_phys]

any opensource alternatives?

[@kevinvonbriel]

I heard VUE is free now

[@medoshadow2242]

Terragen is good but.. Gi flickering Not resolved yet

[@akeel_1701]

No Gaea for Mac... Bummer!

[@HiLoMusic]

WC3 is quite good but Gaea may still be better. I'm thinking it'll become the quintessential terrain generation software in 2.0

[@ethanwasme4307]

I like using gaea for data maps, until they get macros it's hard to recommend. Houdini is probably the best recommendation, not sure why it's not included when you have Geogen :P

[@realmoonknight]

houdini has a steep learning curve

[@ethanwasme4307]

@@realmoonknight i agree, but if you're only using the terrain tab you can learn to do everything world machine and gaea can in an afternoon... it's when you want cross communication between the half dozen toolkits it has, each requiring its own university class 🥲🤣

[@jmbaug1229]

​@realmoonknight you are misleading your audience...

[@ChristmasEve777]

Hmmm.... is there a solution out there where you can just give the terrain generation software a grid of biomes (forest, swamp, mountains, ocean, plains, etc) and it just generates an entire random world for you, big or small, broken up into terrain tiles that can be loaded/unloaded by your game engine? If you don't like what it generates, just build again. Of course, there should be some parameters you give it besides the biome grid but the grid would be the absolute minimum. I'm surprised no one has come up with this idea yet. For those of us whose time is consumed writing code, this would be fantastic!

[@ChristmasEve777]

It could come with many assets for all the biomes already included but you can remove/disable any or add your own. Out of the box, I'd love to supply a simple grid of, say, 16 x 16 biomes and tell it to generate 256 1024x1024m tiles from it with the click of a single button. If someone can do this, you would dominate the market!

[@Zombiac1]

Is Vue the only one that is capable of importing real satellite data? Are there other terrain generators that were not mentioned here that can import real satellite data?

[@Zombiac1]

Disregard. I found my answer. My apologies lol. There are several that are capable of this. The one I am reading about right now is World Creator.

[@KADstudioArchitect]

Where is Tyflow?

[@hound_of_justice]

Currently im using Tyflow within 3ds Max for this type of work but i was and am playing around with the idea to try out Gaea.

[@altavision8]

Hello, excellent video... I have discovered programs for the first time that I didn't know existed... a question... I would like to create a mountain with height data from Google Earth, generate a map and use it in landscape Unreal Engire... but I can't find it... Which of these programs can import data from Google Earth to generate landscape?

[@cgmax7]

i would prefer World Creator its fast and easy

[@Astreides]

is there free or share solutions? I am an indie developer and very interested not to reinvent the wheel, but can't find any solutions for even a share(

[@Xero_Wolf]

VUE is currently free

[@keriatin5338]

Nothing can top houdini

[@bUildYT]

bro forgot houdini :O

[@B.B.Digital_Forest]

Bentley has released VUE, Plant Factory, and their Plant Catalogs for free. But there will no longer be any future developments to the softwares. But if you don't have a lot of CPU cores it's pointless to use them.

[@smurfia_ava]

❤❤❤❤😊

[@altavision8]

Any free program to generate terrain from Google Earth height data?

[@d1namis]

Bryce 7 Pro is the best, it's about 20$

[@The_Toonimator]

How is Unreal engine terrain (with plugin or marketplace add-ons) generation in comparison to these?

[@JasonAdank]

UE doesnt generate terrains in any kind of procedural way. Youd have to sculpt it with brushes.

[@bjmgraphics617]

Gaea is gimmicked priced purely on psychological pressure. I don't like that and I won't buy anything that does that. World Creator is a bit expensive for a basic license without commercial use. I say buy the basic and gamble against yourself that not sell your game on Steam and for some freakin reason you do sell, you then buy a commercial upgrade license. WM is simply expensive. Vue is like a pizza the more toppings or features or capabilities you want the more expensive it is. It's confusing to see exactly what you really want, and it's a rent only software. Terragen is for Mac as well as for PC. It looks good but a bit pricey. Instant Terra looks dated and the order screen of this date said only the Pro license is available and you'll have to contact them. Geogen can be bought by rent to own that is if you subscribe for total 18 months which you'll be granted a perpetual license. Hmm I think I'll choose between Geogen and World Creator for most bang for the buck and get professional results.

[@Sp-fn5zi]

Unreal engine 5?

[@roldanduarteholguin7102]

Export the Azure, Power Apps, Copilot, Chat GPT, Revit, Plant 3D, Civil 3D, Inventor, ENGI file of the Building or Refinery to Excel, prepare Budget 1 and export it to COBRA. Prepare Budget 2 and export it to Microsoft Project. Solve the problems of Overallocated Resources, Planning Problems, prepare the Budget 3 with which the construction of the Building or the Refinery is going to be quoted.

[@yasai101]

a bit of a lazy video. no mention of upcoming gaea 2.0 or wc2023. you showed a lot of outdated stuff.

[@flexydex8754]

and no pricing even

[@felixtheyter9398]

@@flexydex8754 he never mentions the prices on these list videos, it's just how he is I guess

[@1d17m21sN103d51m01sE]

World Machine is totally not stable. Every Windows update makes it worse.

[@Ingus-q7l]

im sorry, but these are pathetic, for people who want to CONTROL the entire thing, instead of it being auto generated use blender, sculpting and alphas

[@SYEDAZAMSHAH-m6b]

Gaya hard to learn.