Table of Contents

Quickstart Video
Help and Support
Installation & Render Pipeline Support
Creating your first World
Using the Stamper on an already existing terrain
Customizing Biomes and Spawners
    Swapping out Art Assets
    Customizing where Art Assets spawn / How spawn rules work
    Building a Biome from scratch
Advanced Topics
    Setup
    Editing / Workflow
    Misc / Tools

Quickstart Video

This video is a 5-minute introduction to using Gaia (Pro) 2021. If you are new to Gaia, then please watch for a quick overview.

Help and Support

Gaia help is built directly into the application. Click the small question mark button to get descriptions of the settings of the tool you are using. There are often links to additional resources as well.



You can also hover over the labels of input fields to get a short description of what that setting does:



Still stuck?

1. Make sure you review the information from the tutorials below.
2. Search the Canopy Forum - chances are that someone has already asked your question.
3. Consider asking other Gaia users on our Discord Server. 
4. Make an account here on Canopy and put a post in the Gaia Forum.

Please note while our support staff do their best to monitor the forums, we are often not notified. We work during the week like everyone else, so if we don't get back to you within 48 hours, please send Bryan a link to your question on Canopy as a reminder.
 

Installation & Render Pipeline Configuration

Gaia / Gaia Pro can be installed like any other unity asset, however, because of the complexity to do with pipelines support, there is also a configuration process.

You start the installation from the Unity Package Manager, or, if you downloaded Gaia as part of your Canopy subscription you import it via Assets > Import Package > Custom Package.

Please refer to the Quickstart Guide in the "Procedural Worlds" folder of your Gaia installation for detailed render pipeline setup instructions, or watch the video for your target pipeline:

• Installing and running Gaia in Built-In (Standard) Rendering
• Installing and running Gaia in URP
• Installing and running Gaia in HDRP

Creating your first World

After installing Gaia, you can create your first world. World creation in Gaia happens in the following steps:

1. Defining a world size (and potentially setting up Terrain Loading in Gaia Pro)
2. Creating a heightmap (Terrain shape, mountains and valleys)
3. Spawning a "Biome" (a collection of terrain textures, vegetation and objects)
4. <Optional> Adding additional runtime features such as water, lighting, player controller

These steps are not 100% absolute and do not need to be performed in this exact order, it is always possible to e.g. to change the heightmap later in development.
It is also possible to edit or customize your biome so that you can spawn your own assets on the terrain, but this is a more complex topic that is described further below.

The heightmap for step one can be created with two different tools:

• Semi-automated generation with the World Designer: The world designer is a tool that allows you to generate a world from different parameters by adding terrain features like mountains or valleys to a basic world shape to generate your world.
• Manually create each terrain feature with the Gaia Stamper:  The Gaia Stamper is a tool that allows you to add and blend terrain features into a terrain, e.g. raising a mountain or cutting a valley into the terrain.

It is possible to combine the two tools as well and use the stamper on an unity terrain created from the world designer (or any other source).

To see how to create your first world using either of those tools please see the following videos. Both videos will show spawning the biome and adding runtime elements as well.

Using the Stamper on an already existing terrain

If you are working with an already existing terrain, or you originally created your world with the world designer, note that it is possible to add a spawner to your scene any time from the advanced tab in the Gaia Manager:

This brings up the stamper as a tool in the scene that you can use to make further edits to the scene.



In this way it is possible to create a scene with the world designer first, and then call the stamper in to make manual adjustments. Likewise the stamper can be added to a scene that contains an unity terrain that was made manually or with a different terrain editing tool.

It can be tricky to blend in stamps on already existing terrains. This online article has more information about how you can add terrain features with the stamper that integrate nicely with the already existing terrain:

How to mix and blend stamps on an existing terrain
 

Customizing Biomes and Spawners

You probably noticed during the creation of your first worlds with Gaia, that tools like a biome controller and spawners are added to your scene:

• A Spawner is a tool that spawns resources on your terrain, including terrain textures, trees, terrain details (grass) and objects. Each resource is represented by a "Spawn Rule" in the spawner that determines what is spawned and where it is spawned to.
• Multiple spawners can be grouped up in a biome so that a set of matching assets can be spawned together. The biome controller is the tool that collects multiple spawners and makes them spawn together at command. It is possible to spawn this set across the entire world, or in a restricted area of your world only so that you can have multiple biomes in your world.

Of course you do not need to stick to the art assets that come with Gaia / Gaia Pro. You can fully customize the biomes, and / or create your own biome from scratch.

Swapping out Art Assets

To swap out art assets on an existing spawner, select the spawner and check for the "Spawn Rules" section. Each spawn rule represents one resource that is being spawned on the terrain. By opening the resource settings, you can see the prefab / texture etc. that is used in this rule:


You can swap out the used asset by selecting a different prefab / texture etc. Gaia will automatically swap out the resource on the terrain and use the new asset now in this scene. Changes that you make this way will only affect your current scene, but it is possible to save the spawner settings into a file (see under Advanced: Save & Load in the spawner) so you can re-use the settings in other scenes.

Customizing where Art Assets spawn / How spawn rules work

To influence where Art Assets spawn on the terrain, you need to get familiar with the Mask System in Gaia. By default, an unmasked spawn rule will just spawn anywhere on the terrain. This means that e.g. a tree spawned by this rule would appear under water, over water, on slopes, etc. 
By adding masks to the spawn rules you can combine multiple restrictions to spawn your assets in a more logical fashion, e.g. adding a height mask ("Do only spawn over water") with a slope mask ("Do only spawn on flat areas") to get better results for your spawning.
It is possible to set masks on the spawner or at the biome level as well to influence multiple rules with a single mask.
To edit a spawn rule's mask, open the spawn rule and look at the mask settings. If you click the eye icon, you can see a visualization of the currently active masks for this rule:



You can then add or remove masks to get the spawn rule to spawn where you want it to. Remember that there might be masks on top of the spawner or in the biome controller that could also influence the spawn rule. For a full description of the available masks, their effects and their settings please see this article:

Introduction to masks

To learn more about the Spawner and the Biome Controller tools, please see these articles:

Spawner Introduction
Biome Controller Introduction

Building a Biome from scratch

You can build new biomes and spawner from scratch and use them in other projects and scenes. We created a tutorial series for this that goes both in the technical details as well as some design aspects of creating a full biome. Please see this series if you are interested in building your own biome:

Biomes and Spawners - Intro and Installation
Biomes and Spawners - Texture Spawners
Biomes and Spawners - Game Object Spawners
Biomes And Spawners - Trees and Grass, Biome Creation

Advanced Topics

Setup

Setting up XR Support (Virtual Reality) in Gaia
What files are stored in the "Gaia User Data" folder?
Reducing the installation file size of Gaia Pro 2021

Editing / Workflow

Terrain Loading & Streaming in Gaia Pro 2021
Using the Gaia Scene View Panel
How to mix and blend stamps on an existing terrain
How to stamp a single stamp across multiple large terrain tiles
Change the world size of an already existing world
Blend two terrains seamlessly together
Understanding the height and slope mask curves
Spawning complex objects / Points of Interest
Hiding Game Object Spawns in the Hierarchy
Spawning multiple Biomes
Using the Flora Detail System

Misc / Tools

Using the Floating Point Fix
Session Manager: Review and Playback Edit Operations
Using the Gaia Scanner to import Stamps from textures, meshes and other terrains
Convert Terrains into Low-Poly style, export meshes or create impostor terrains
Resource Helper Tool
Spawn Extensions: Calling GeNa from Gaia
Creating Gaia eXtensions for Gaia 2 / Gaia Pro
 

This means the tutorial content and especially the videos recorded for the 2023 versions of Gaia are still valid for Gaia for Unity 6 and Gaia Pro VS.

For tutorials for the older 2021 versions of Gaia, please see:

Gaia / Gaia Pro 2021 Tutorials Overview (Legacy)

Table of Contents

Quickstart Video
Migrating from Gaia (Pro) 2021 to Gaia (Pro) 2023
Help and Support
Installation & Render Pipeline Support
Creating your first World
Using the Stamper on an already existing terrain
Customizing Biomes and Spawners
    Swapping out Art Assets
    Customizing where Art Assets spawn / How spawn rules work
    Building a Biome from scratch
Advanced Topics
    Setup
    Editing / Workflow
    Misc / Tools

Quickstart Video

This video is an introduction to using Gaia. It covers creation of your first world, adding in a stamper for manual terrain shape editing, adding runtime elements like lighting, etc.  If you are new to Gaia, then please watch for a quick overview.

If you are then hungry for more tutorial videos please see our video tutorial playlist here:

Gaia Tutorials - Landscape & World Creation for Unity

For more information in text form, please keep on reading below.

Migrating from Gaia (Pro) 2021 

While you cannot install the newer Gaia versions directly over the older 2021 version, it is possible to migrate to the newer Gaia version by following a couple of steps. Please find more information about this in this guide:

Migrating from Gaia 2021 to Gaia 2023

Help and Support

Gaia help is built directly into the application. Click the small question mark button to get descriptions of the settings of the tool you are using. There are often links to additional resources as well.



You can also hover over the labels of input fields to get a short description of what that setting does:



Still stuck?

1. Make sure you review the information from the tutorials below.
2. Search the Canopy Forum - chances are that someone has already asked your question.
3. Consider asking other Gaia users on our Discord Server. 
4. Make an account here on Canopy and put a post in the Gaia Forum.

Please note while our support staff do their best to monitor the forums, we are often not notified. We work during the week like everyone else, so if we don't get back to you within 48 hours, please send Bryan a link to your question on Canopy as a reminder.
 

Installation & Render Pipeline Configuration

Gaia comes with its own water and vegetation shaders which also support the Unity scripted rendering pipelines  i.e. URP and HDRP.

If you want to use one of these Pipelines, you must set up Gaia for that specific pipeline. If you install Gaia in a project that uses its target render pipeline already, Gaia will automatically adapt to that pipeline during the installation process.

Should you need to switch render pipelines after Gaia has been installed, Gaia needs to be switched to the new target render pipeline. To make this easier for you, we have mostly automated this process in the Configuration Tab in the Gaia Manager:

In the Render panel, you need to do only two things:

A) Select the pipeline you want to use and click the button to “upgrade Gaia to this pipeline.” This will change the Gaia tools and functions to the respective pipeline. This process can also be reverted later.

B) After configuring the rendering pipeline, click the “Install Shaders” button. This will install the shaders for the current pipeline. If the correct shaders are already installed, this button will not appear.



The pipeline setup process is now done.

Please note: The Unity-recommended scriptable render pipeline (SRP) is now URP. Please see this forum post for more information.

All materials you use beyond the Gaia vegetation items and the water must be compatible with your target pipeline. Gaia cannot set up materials from other asset packs for you.

When you start building a scene in one pipeline and then switch to another, you might need to re-apply Gaia runtime modules such as lighting or water because these usually contain elements specific to that pipeline.

When switching pipelines, it is possible to revert to built-in rendering later and then switch to another pipeline again.

We STRONGLY recommend backing up your if you are switching pipelines, as the different versioning of the pipeline API’s can cause all sorts of problems unless all the assets in your project support them.

Creating your first World

After installing Gaia, you can create your first world. World creation in Gaia happens in the following steps:

1. Defining a world size (and potentially setting up Terrain Loading in Gaia Pro)
2. Creating a heightmap (Terrain shape, mountains and valleys)
3. Spawning a "Biome" (a collection of terrain textures, vegetation and objects)
4. <Optional> Adding additional runtime features such as water, lighting, player controller

These steps are not 100% absolute and do not need to be performed in this exact order, it is always possible to e.g. to change the heightmap later in development.
It is also possible to edit or customize your biome so that you can spawn your own assets on the terrain, but this is a more complex topic that is described further below.

The heightmap for step one can be created with two different tools:

• Semi-automated generation with the World Designer: The world designer is a tool that allows you to generate a world from different parameters by adding terrain features like mountains or valleys to a basic world shape to generate your world.
• Manually create each terrain feature with the Gaia Stamper:  The Gaia Stamper is a tool that allows you to add and blend terrain features into a terrain, e.g. raising a mountain or cutting a valley into the terrain.

It is possible to combine the two tools as well and use the stamper on an unity terrain created from the world designer (or any other source).

To see how to create your first world using either of those tools please see the following quickstart video if you haven't already: 

If you are working with an already existing terrain, or you originally created your world with the world designer, note that it is possible to add a spawner to your scene any time from the advanced tab in the Gaia Manager:

This brings up the stamper as a tool in the scene that you can use to make further edits to the scene.



In this way it is possible to create a scene with the world designer first, and then call the stamper in to make manual adjustments. Likewise the stamper can be added to a scene that contains an unity terrain that was made manually or with a different terrain editing tool.

It can be tricky to blend in stamps on already existing terrains. This online article has more information about how you can add terrain features with the stamper that integrate nicely with the already existing terrain:

How to mix and blend stamps on an existing terrain
 

Customizing Biomes and Spawners

You probably noticed during the creation of your first worlds with Gaia, that tools like a biome controller and spawners are added to your scene:

• A Spawner is a tool that spawns resources on your terrain, including terrain textures, trees, terrain details (grass) and objects. Each resource is represented by a "Spawn Rule" in the spawner that determines what is spawned and where it is spawned to.
• Multiple spawners can be grouped up in a biome so that a set of matching assets can be spawned together. The biome controller is the tool that collects multiple spawners and makes them spawn together at command. It is possible to spawn this set across the entire world, or in a restricted area of your world only so that you can have multiple biomes in your world.

Of course you do not need to stick to the art assets that come with Gaia / Gaia Pro. You can fully customize the biomes, and / or create your own biome from scratch.

Swapping out Art Assets

To swap out art assets on an existing spawner, select the spawner and check for the "Spawn Rules" section. Each spawn rule represents one resource that is being spawned on the terrain. By opening the resource settings, you can see the prefab / texture etc. that is used in this rule:


You can swap out the used asset by selecting a different prefab / texture etc. Gaia will automatically swap out the resource on the terrain and use the new asset now in this scene. Changes that you make this way will only affect your current scene, but it is possible to save the spawner settings into a file (see under Advanced: Save & Load in the spawner) so you can re-use the settings in other scenes.

Customizing where Art Assets spawn / How spawn rules work

To influence where Art Assets spawn on the terrain, you need to get familiar with the Mask System in Gaia. By default, an unmasked spawn rule will just spawn anywhere on the terrain. This means that e.g. a tree spawned by this rule would appear under water, over water, on slopes, etc. 
By adding masks to the spawn rules you can combine multiple restrictions to spawn your assets in a more logical fashion, e.g. adding a height mask ("Do only spawn over water") with a slope mask ("Do only spawn on flat areas") to get better results for your spawning.
It is possible to set masks on the spawner or at the biome level as well to influence multiple rules with a single mask.
To edit a spawn rule's mask, open the spawn rule and look at the mask settings. If you click the eye icon, you can see a visualization of the currently active masks for this rule:



You can then add or remove masks to get the spawn rule to spawn where you want it to. Remember that there might be masks on top of the spawner or in the biome controller that could also influence the spawn rule. For a full description of the available masks, their effects and their settings please see this article:

Introduction to masks

To learn more about the Spawner and the Biome Controller tools, please see these articles:

Spawner Introduction
Biome Controller Introduction

Building a Biome from scratch

You can build new biomes and spawner from scratch and use them in other projects and scenes. We created a tutorial series for this that goes both in the technical details as well as some design aspects of creating a full biome. Please see this series if you are interested in building your own biome:

Biomes and Spawners - Intro and Installation
Biomes and Spawners - Texture Spawners
Biomes and Spawners - Game Object Spawners
Biomes And Spawners - Trees and Grass, Biome Creation

Advanced Topics

Setup

Setting up XR Support (Virtual Reality) in Gaia
What files are stored in the "Gaia User Data" folder?
Reducing the installation file size of Gaia Pro 2021

Editing / Workflow

Terrain Loading & Streaming in Gaia Pro 2021
Using the Gaia Scene View Panel
How to mix and blend stamps on an existing terrain
How to stamp a single stamp across multiple large terrain tiles
Change the world size of an already existing world
Blend two terrains seamlessly together
Understanding the height and slope mask curves
Spawning complex objects / Points of Interest
Hiding Game Object Spawns in the Hierarchy
Spawning multiple Biomes
Using the Flora Detail System

Misc / Tools

Using the Floating Point Fix
Session Manager: Review and Playback Edit Operations
Using the Gaia Scanner to import Stamps from textures, meshes and other terrains
Convert Terrains into Low-Poly style, export meshes or create impostor terrains
Resource Helper Tool
Spawn Extensions: Calling GeNa from Gaia
Creating Gaia eXtensions for Gaia 2 / Gaia Pro