Two questions about GTS

[vdeijk]

GTS seems like it would be a great fit for my game, Mars Commander (https://vdeijk.itch.io/mars-commander), since Mars has no vegetation, thus making the terrain itself more important. However, I have two questions. 

One of the features of GTS is height blending, but doesn't URP already do this? I set up height blending in my project yesterday, and it works fine. So what is the advantage of GTS's height blending? Is it that I can use it with more than 4 texture layers? That would be an advantage. 

Secondly, I'd like to cover part of my terrain with sand, as this would be appropriate to the setting. Can I use GTS's snow effect for this? Or is there some other way to make this work? 

 

 

[Isaac]

Hi @vdeijk, Yes you are right that Unity already has support for height blending in URP, and yes GTS does allow up to 8 layers currently to be height blended. GTS's height blending is similiar to Unity's, as you have access to a blend factor, but it also allow additional per layer control over the height map's range through the parameters of contrast, brightnes and increase:

As for the sand, whilst GTS does not currently have a option for global sand cover, yes you could use the Snow Settings to achieve this effect. Swapping out the snow textures for sand textures, and setting the minimum height to 0 (or lower if your terrain falls below 0) can achieve a sand cover effect:

You can make the effect slightly more sophisicated by altering the slope blend and min height:

Note that height blending isn't yet supported with the Snow Settings, but this may be added in an update soon. 

[vdeijk]

Sounds like a very useful tool! Thank you. 

[Bryan]

No problem! Please let us know if you have further questions!