Create another terrain next to a current one

[sergiogf93]

Hello,

I have a terrain created with Gaia, and now I would like to exend it by creating another one next to it. Is there a way to do this in a way that the current terrain is not lost? And maybe it somehow adapts its borders to the new terrain? Is there some tutorial on this?

Cheers.

[sergiogf93]

Just to add some more information, I would like to add a new terrain next to another one I already generated using Gaia. I want to be able to select on which side of my current terrain this new terrain should be added, and I want the current terrain topology not to change too much, I guess just in the intersection with the new terrain.

I see that with the Manager I can add extra tiles, but it seems I cannot select on which direction the new tile should be added. And when I press Update Terrains it just adds a flat terrain, and I don't see where I have to go to make the biome to spawn in this new terrain, which in any case is on the wrong side.

[Bryan]

There are two ways of doing this. 

1. The simplest way is to click the terrain go to neighboring terrains and just click and add. 
Although this is Unity's way of adding new terrains sometimes isn't the most efficient. 
This also depends on how many you are going to add because you may want to terrain-stream them. 

2. I would go to the scanner tool in the Gaia Manager. 
This can be found in the advanced tab in the manager - tools. 
Drag in the terrain and then create a stamp. 

After that is done you will want to create a multi-terrain setup using the Gaia Manager. 
Then use the stamper (not world designer) then stamp the terrain. 
From there you would have more terrain to play with and its accounted for when you want to do streaming. 

Either option will work but it also depends on how many you want to add. 

[sergiogf93]

Hi @Bryan, thanks a lot for your answer. That helps me to figure out a way to do this, using the second suggestion.

I am however having an issue with the stamper, maybe I am misunderstanding how to do it. What I want is to scan my current terrain as a stamp, and then stamp it on the new larger terrain so I don't lose my current one.

To do this, I open the Scanner, drag in the current terrain, and Save Scan.

In order to check that is working, I now open the stamper, press Flatten (so as to start with a fresh terrain), and use the scan I just made. I set the operation type to `Stamping/Set Height` and press Stamp. But the resulting terrain is not the same as the one I had scanned due to two reasons.

First, there seems to be a loss of some offset on the y-axis, as in, the new stamped terrain is lower than the original one.

Second, the y-scale seems to also not be correct? The stamper transform has a scale of (100,5,100) but I have to increase the y-value to 18 in order to obtain the same terrain. I see the scanner has a normalize checkbox, but it does not seem to solve this issue.

Do you have some idea of could explain this behaviour? 

Cheers

[Bryan]

I can make a quick video explaining this. 

 

[sergiogf93]

Thanks @Bryan that would be great,

[Bryan]

@sergiogf93 

Here is a link to the video: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Ds_6PpzoEabpDBCaEIqfI1jK4nMmpph/view?usp=sharing

Let me know when you are finished so I can delete it as well. 

[sergiogf93]

Thanks @Bryan, that's very helpful.

I have just one last issue. I have a terrain with some assets placed on it. Now I want to expand it and I want to use the Scanner approach. I then scan the terrain, and just as a test, I try to apply the stamp using the produced texture trying to recover the original terrain. 

I then open the Stamper, drag in the texture and set the mode to Set Height. I also flatten the terrain but I think that should not matter. My issue is that the resulting terrain does not match the original one, since now the assets that I had on it are not properly laying on the terrain and stuff like that. It seems I could recover the original terrain if I offset and rescale the stamper. But I wonder if there is a setting where I can just stamp the terrain just as it was scanned.

Cheers

[Bryan]

as long as the size is the same it should be the same. 
The only other thing is if you changed any textures by hand it would not account for that. 
The objects should be in the same place as well if you scanned the terrain and made it the same size as long as the stamp is now in the same position. 

 

[Bryan]

Also, make sure that where you are stamping that it starts at 0,0,0. 

 

[sergiogf93]

@Bryan I recorded a quick video just doing the scan, flattening the terrain and stamping it. Without modifying the y-offset and scaling I don't seem to recover the same terrain. Could you check if I am doing something wrong?

[Bryan]

Hmmm, I will have to check with the team, but what you can do is click on the session, and play the session. 
After you play the session click on the stamper and then set it to the height that you want. 
Then copy the Y on the scale. 

Then on your scanned version, you paste that value in and stamp it. 

Then it will be the same height. 

 

[sergiogf93]

Hey @Bryan, I guess this is related to the issue, but when if I flatten the terrain and then I replay the session (removing the last step where I flatten the terrain), I also don't recover the original terrain. I instead get what I would get by stamping the scanned texture. I need to see if there is something from the original terrain that is affecting it's scale

[Peter]

Hi @sergiogf93 & @Bryan, I looked into this a bit and found multiple things:

1.) There is indeed a way to influence where the Gaia Manager creates new terrains when you hit "Update Terrains". If you have gizmos enabled in the scene view, it shows you where your current, already existing terrains will be in the new setup (magenta boxes) and where the new terrains will be added (green boxes). Here I'm increasing from a single terrain to a 2x2 setup, bottom left is the existing terrain, the new terrains would be to the top and to the right:



(see also the info at the bottom of the scene view for the color coding of the boxes).

If you do not like the position or the layout of the terrains being generated, you can influence this with the small box in the bottom right of the scene view. Applying an offset allows you to push the position of the existing terrain(s) around:



It is also possible to toggle checkboxes to remove single terrains from being created:



If the only concern was the position / layout of the new terrains, I think it should be possible to adjust it this way and get the output that you want without having to deal with the scanner / stamper.

2.) I still looked into the scanner / stamper issue regardless and found the following:

If the setting for "normalize" is turned off in the scanner AND the stamper is set to raise height and the y scale to 53, then the stamp result should match exactly what the input terrain was, here is my test terrain before:



And the resulting visualization through the stamper with the stamp I got from the scanner (Raise Height, Y-scale=53)



What I currently cannot explain is why it needs to be 53. I had expected it would need to be 50 because the stamper should then be at the maximum possible terrain height on the raise height operation if no stamp is applied, and the non-normalized stamp should then the reduce the height exactly as it was recorded again. I would need to dive into this more to find out where the additional "3" in stamper scale are coming from, but I hope the two methods described work for your case.

[sergiogf93]

Hi @Peter, thanks for your reply. Indeed this helps me with adding new terrains in the places I want to.

But now is there a way to use the World Designer to shape those new terrains without touching the already existing one? Or do I need to use the stamper then?

What I mean is that I want to use the World Designer on the added flat terrains while somewhat keeping the terrain I already had. I understand I would probably need to do some smoothing by hand on the edges of the existing terrain. But I think there is no way to have the World Designer ignore one of the terrains? Maybe I can just use the World Designer separately on each of the new terrains.

[sergiogf93]

Hi @Peter, @Bryan any update on this?

[Bryan]

On 1/27/2024 at 3:03 AM, sergiogf93 said:

Hi @Peter, thanks for your reply. Indeed this helps me with adding new terrains in the places I want to.

But now is there a way to use the World Designer to shape those new terrains without touching the already existing one? Or do I need to use the stamper then?

What I mean is that I want to use the World Designer on the added flat terrains while somewhat keeping the terrain I already had. I understand I would probably need to do some smoothing by hand on the edges of the existing terrain. But I think there is no way to have the World Designer ignore one of the terrains? Maybe I can just use the World Designer separately on each of the new terrains.

Sorry for the late reply. 

You wouldnt want to use the World Designer because if would destroy you existing terrains. 
Instead you would want to use the Stamper. 

You can add the stamper in if its not there by going to the Gaia Manager - Advanced Tab - Tools - Stamper. 

Then from there, you would want to add masks (after choosing a stamp) to make it blend with the existing terrain. 
I always suggest using a distance mask. 

Here is an example: 

Here is my existing terrain. 
I have the distance mask set on the influence to local. 
The Axes is set to square (if you are having a problem with this set it to circle - sometimes its easier). 
Then set the mask space to local. 

Note that you may need to adjust the transform (move the stamp up and down) to hide edges.