Unite Berlin 2018 - Worldbuilding in Minutes Rapid Procedural Terrain & Scene Creation

Learn how to quickly build game-ready worlds without needing to code. Veteran developer Adam Goodrich will show you how to create, amplify and then optimize your content to deliver game worlds that not only look beautiful, but also perform well. This session is for Unity artists, programmers and studios who want to see what is possible with the latest cutting-edge procedural content-generation tools.
Speakers:
Adam Goodrich, Procedural Worlds

[@user-gl1ls1jx3h]

Sooo.. is this just a commercial for Gaia? Seems like this talk is mostly about how to use their software.

[@AdamGoodrich]

We promised to do a practical demonstration of how to make environments in unity - and we used our own tools, and others to do this.

[@Ne0mega]

I'm sold. Buying it right now. Looking forward to the tiling system. EDIT: I regretted it later. They charge upgrade fees, but did not mention that. Rip off.

[@Ne0mega]

Just bought the CTS too. XD EDIT: 1 year later. REGRET. CANT USE. EVERYTHIGN REQUIRES UPGRADE FEES NOW. WARNING.

[@AdamGoodrich]

@@Ne0mega Free forever is not a valid business model unfortunately.

[@arcase6]

Bit disappointing that this talk is basically an ad. Will consider buying in the future if I need to make large maps, but personally I don't think this tool would be useful for most games made outside of the context of large open world games. Would have enjoyed seeing a talk on the basics of how procedural generation is done without pre-existing tools and how one would go about incorporating procedural level generation into a game.

[@AdamGoodrich]

Interestingly, that's exactly what I am demonstrating.. i.e. how we can use procedural tools to generate levels for games. Procedural generation is a very deep subject, and by definition, it is impossible to do without tools.

[@KimerawebGranada]

Thank you for this awesome software. I have a lot fun with it :)

[@abukaleem6099]

huge effort (God Bless You)

[@danhphan8516]

Great!Thanks you 💜

[@erikchumbley3014]

It's cool, but the title is misleading. Very few things demoed here were procedural.

[@AdamGoodrich]

Hehe.. this is what I call artist driven procedural - which imho is superior to pure procedural, as it allows the artist to express their vision. Before Gaia, i made several pure procedural systems and there is only so much you can do with what is essentially a random process, and the magic of Gaia is that you can actually control it.

[@patriknordberg1259]

I had a couple of questions. 1. Is there any way to get overhangs in the terrain other than adding extra assets? 2. Connected to the first question, but is there any way to get tunnels or caves in the terrain? 3. Would it be possible to use this for huge worlds where the terrain could be streamed in and out? 4. Is there any smart LOD handling for the terrain? 5. Is it possible to use it for spherical worlds? 6. Can the topology of the terrain be changed in game in real-time? Sorry for all the questions but would love to hear an answer from Adam.

[@AdamGoodrich]

Sorry for slow reply. This is not our YT channel, so we don't get notified. Unity terrain does not support overhangs, so you need to add other assets. With CTS we will shortly be introducing mesh blending, so you will be able to merge meshes with your terrain to get overhangs. Unity terrain does not do caves so you will need to use meshes to generate them. CTS allows you to paint holes in your terrain. With respect to streaming for huge worlds, we will have an announcement in the next few days, so keep an eye out for it, but i guess you could say yes ;) We won't support small spherical worlds in the foreseeable. Gaia 2 will do real-time terrain manipulation.

[@patriknordberg1259]

Thanks for the reply, and don't worry about it - just happy to get a response at all :) Many of the answers was as I expected, especially regarding overhangs and caves. I guess this is the limitation of using a planes based terrain compared to for example a voxel based one. But interested to understand more about the mesh blending you talk about. And cool to hear you have plans for some sort of streaming solution and real-time terrain manipulation. If you have any info regarding LOD handling for the terrain I would be interested to hear more. Again thanks for the reply, appreciate it!

[@Zicore47]

I got Gaia 2 and CTS, both area really powerful and nice tools, easy to learn hard to master I would say. I just hope i don't need to pay upgrade fees for Unity 2020.

[@GameDevNerd]

How do you feel about Gaia as a real professional tool for commercial game development at a real job? Is it worth it, and flexible enough to be useful for a wide range of things?

[@apehouse3261]

I just want to know how to make infinite terrain. Is there a way that Gaia can do that?

[@maximilianherz]

Use MapMagic 2

[@apehouse3261]

@@maximilianherz thanks so much

[@ahmedmohsen4775]

gaia is in asset store?

[@johanandresacostaortiz444]

Ahmed Mohsen of course

[@ahmedmohsen4775]

free? :D

[@efekaanaltas]

Ahmed Mohsen why don't you check yourself?

[@ahmedmohsen4775]

i couldn't find so im asking ?

[@NeoShameMan]

Always disappointing to see infinite works next to repetitive, the problem is a design one, small authored game can be repetitive too. It's all about architecturing the right progression, that is in scale rather than in details.

[@jonksmodels]

Unite Berlin? i thought it was going to be a documentary about the berlin wall?

[@SeanBotha]

lol that aged badly NMS is still going strong and is now seen as a great success story instead of a failure back then

[@IndieGamesWTF]

Nice Gaia show of but it would have been more interesting to see something more oriented to "learn how it is done..." instead of "how you can do stuff with my tool"

[@igorov3d331]

nice, doing this in front of lots of people & internet with an unsaved scene name "untitled`*" and then spawn grass....luckily it ended well

[@The_Eno]

I wish Adam Goodrich made this for ue4 :(

[@AdamGoodrich]

Actually, we are considering this at the moment!

[@blueezreal7757]

:D

[@user-su8vg7rv2b]

………

[@sabiplaypuzzles7332]

And 5 years later, the Gaia 2018 version is still better than Unity's BuildIn Terrain system. The overhaul of Unity's internal terrain system can be found in the roadmap under the "Under Consideration" category. As is well known, it will take about 2 more years until a halfway usable version will be published. Then about another 1 year until basic features are submitted to actually use it. Unity is just embarrassing.

[@GladerDev]

True, but Unity3D sure beats building a multiplatform game engine from scratch imo. Even if the terrain sucks ass, and it does, compared to 3rd party solutions and Unreal Engine's layered non-destructive terrain system.

[@tamizhankeyframe6365]

Without Gaia unity terrian ! System not good look !

[@rogercabo5545]

only a hype.. there are better tools on the asset store

[@rogercabo5545]

@@phantomdragonstudio2393 : World Creator Pro best ever!, Cascade, and so many more..

[@AdamGoodrich]

@@rogercabo5545 And yet Gaia is, and continues to be the best selling and most popular terrain tool ever ;)

[@ashwanishahrawat4607]

Game Dev TEACHER eyy? I had a Cringe every time he moved his cursor to select transformation tools "Move, Rotate, Scale". every time! You are giving a TALK Sir! You are wasting lots of hours finding a HEIGHTMAP that you like. Come prepared what you wanna show please.

[@AdamGoodrich]

Actually, I had just travelled for about 24 hours straight to get there, was chronically short of sleep, and the stuff I was supposed to present had not been delivered as promised.

[@Ivan-bk9xs]

i had a "Cringe" reading the way you write

[@ashwanishahrawat4607]

@@AdamGoodrich I apologize for my words sir 🙂 I understand that everyone's life is filled with tremendous amount challenges, It's not easy to be at your best the whole time. I'm just a kid who forgot how hard it must be and got emotional. Thanks for keeping your calm in your explanation and letting me evaluate my mistake.🤗

[@ashwanishahrawat4607]

@@Ivan-bk9xs It's okay brother, we both have rights to feel Cringe and express it. I hope to do better next time.