Terrain Resize and Horizon Options??

[Mike P]

Hey.. Was wondering if you have any best case scenario options for adding terrain to be used as horizon terrains if you will.  For example, have a small scene world (4x4) tiles and its elevation relative to the water is higher so if the player walks remotely close to the edge there is a clear depiction of the edges of the terrain verses any background mountains I just plop in there. Trying to figure out best approach for adding same texture terrain as base Gaia terrains and then putting background mountains, etc.. on them for distance visibility.

Additionally, I have tried to increase the size of the world using the Gaia Manager from 4x4 to 6x6 and shifting the existing tiles one tile x and y as well as selecting the "recenter on update".  When I do this, it creates the new tiles around the previously 4x4 grid (perfect), but then it does the following:

1. Raise the previous 4x4 tiles from their previous level which was like 333, to an unbelievable height that just re-scales the entire world to weird heights and levels.
2. Forces the new worlds water level, previously at 244 to like 980(+/-).
3. The new terrain tiles it just put around the original 4x4 grid/terrain is all flat(fine) and at level 0. and can not be stitched using the Gaia Stitching tool.  Below image is before re-texturing after the resizing.

 

Below is after re-texturing and note 0,0 or lower-left corner terrain is missing?????

 

Any suggestions on how I can correct this?

1. Thanks!

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Mike P
adding more details

[Mike P]

Was wondering if there are any suggestions PW might have to correct this, add new terrains to existing world, as I've mentioned above it's not working so good.  In addition looking for some suggestion on the fake horizon with a small world like the one here in my test. I thought Gaia had the ability to generate specific imposters to serve this purpose however after tinkering around with imposters this is not the case.  And you just can't add terrains like you would normally via Unity's add neighbors tool.  This would be a nice feature to add to Gaia so you can add one or several tiles where you finally want then in the end...

 

But anyhow back to the original questions asked several days ago.....

Thank you

[Bryan]

Yeah, this is an interesting case. 
For imposters its created as you found out from the terrains that are already in the scene. 

This is a common problem for these types of worlds. There are a few ways to combat this though. 

In regards to the world designer, you would want to change the Height Scale located in the world shape. This will decrease the heights of the mountains. 

What my suggestion is: use the terrain scanner tool in the Gaia Manager- Advanced- Tools- Terrain scanner. 
Then copy your existing terrains and create heightmaps of the world to use later. 
Recenter on the world designer and find something that you like. 
Lower the Height Scale on the terrain, and if this lowers your original terrains farther then you want you can then add the normal stamper through the Gaia Manager. 
Gaia Manager- Advanced- Gaia Terrains- Add Stamper. 

Then you can stamp your original terrain. 

The other option is a cheeky trick that developers use. 
Add vegetation on the edges to hide the edge - and then add a plane with a collider with out a render. 
The good old invisible wall trick. 

You could also add additional terrains through the world designer and re center on update. 
When they are created even if they are flat you could then make the imposters and remove the actual terrains and keep the imposters. 
To save performance you could potentially just make some mesh terrains as well with terrain mesh exporter. 

Again delete the actual terrains that surround the original terrain. 

There are quite a few ways to achieve this, really its about what you want the player to see and some imagination hehe. 

[Mike P]

Thanks for the detailed response Brian. Much appreciated.  I will have to think about some options off of what you said.  Right now it's not an issue as I'm just using a simple 4x4 or 8x8 size world. But eventually will be making the larger scaled world where all this will certainly apply. 

Thank you again!

[Bryan]

No problem!