Gaia Pro 2021 & Unity + Plastic SCM... Best Practices

[kr4k3n]

We're loving Gaia and have built a terrific scene, but when I checked in the changes, the Gaia file size is... significant (5+ gigs). Our repo is capped at 5g total, so we need a solution so that our dev team can see the beautiful terrain!

 

Is there a way to automatically package the Gaia assets in the project so I'm not trying to push everything, but still keep the amazing Gaia functionality?

 

I'm sure I could hand select each asset but, I'm betting there is a better way. Help?!?

[Peter]

Hi @kr4k3n, I do not have experience with SCM, but assuming you can select folders to include / exclude from the repository, you can consider to NOT include the "Procedural Worlds" installation folder, but only include the "Gaia User Data" folder instead. This folder contains all your working data (e.g. terrains, scenes, texture setups, etc.) that makes up the actual work that you performed when building your scenes.
In case you need to restore the repository on a different machine, you can clone / download the repo and then install the Gaia package, and everything should still function as before.
When you make that step it would be good to perform a test where you act as if you had a new team member who needs to have the project installed on their machine to test if you can fully restore the project from scratch with the SCM repo + installing Gaia again. You could also consider keeping a backup copy of the Gaia installation package as well so you can always install that exact version that you used in your project as well. If you downloaded Gaia from the asset store, you can find the package in the  locations mentioned in this article:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AssetStorePackages.html

[kr4k3n]

The SCM is just managing our branches / version control. My restriction is simply the file size. 

 

Thanks @Peter - I’ll try your suggested method. 

 

It doesn’t make sense that each member of our team would need a Gaia license, right? If so… Gaia become cost-prohibitive. 

[Adam]

21 hours ago, kr4k3n said:

It doesn’t make sense that each member of our team would need a Gaia license, right? If so… Gaia become cost-prohibitive. 

 

Technically speaking, under terms of asset store EULA, every member of your team should have a license. This is how we make it cost effective for smaller teams.

 

However, for indies we do not enforce this. I would say, your approach should be fair use... if for example three people in team use it, then that's how many licenses you should have, rather than everyone in team having one.

[kr4k3n]

Thanks @Adam and @Peter for the clarity!

Let’s have an amazing ‘23!!