2. Setup Tab

The setup tab contains settings that control the setup of the Gaia application itself. It will be selected automatically in the Gaia Manager when there is an issue with your installation, but can be left alone usually after the initial installation. The setup tab contains 3 panels with different functionalities which are explained here:



Gaia Maintenance

This panel only contains a button to restart the maintenance process of Gaia. This is an automated process that normally runs on opening the Gaia Manager for the first time after the initial installation or an update. The maintenance process performs the following operations:

 Sets up the Layers for Layer based distance culling
 Puts the prefabs that come with Gaia in the correct layer
 Performs file deletion and renaming tasks
 Adds any new Gaia Biome Presets and Spawners to the Gaia Manager

You should normally not need to run this maintenance task manually unless you are being instructed so by support.

Render Pipeline Settings

 

Unity supports running your own rendering pipeline or using one of the 3 predefined ones:

• Built-In Rendering
• Universal Rendering Pipeline (URP, formerly known as LWRP)
• High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP)

Your Unity editor is set up to use built-in rendering per default, and Gaia will be set up for built-in rendering initially as well. If you want to use one of the two other rendering pipelines, you can do so by switching pipelines and updating Gaia's internal shaders to the new pipeline from this panel.

Please Note 1: Using the SRPs is not recommended for Unity beginners as using those pipelines come with their own challenges and limitations you need to master. Doing so while just starting out with Gaia / Unity will make your journey more difficult than it needs to be. 

Please Note 2: If you decide to use the SRPs please note that all materials and assets you use beyond the Gaia vegetation items and the water need to be compatible with your target pipeline. Gaia cannot set up materials from other asset packs or convert shaders written for a different pipeline automatically for you. 

If you decide to use any of the SRPs, make sure you have the appropriate render pipeline packages installed from the package manager. select the desired pipeline from the dropdown and click the "Upgrade Gaia to...." button.



Gaia will be updated to use this pipeline now. You will be prompted to save your scene if it is currently not saved. After this process is finished, an additional red button will be displayed to start the shader installation process. Click this button to update Gaia's vegetation and water shaders to the new pipeline:

This should complete the switch to the desired pipeline. New scenes that you create will now utilize Lighting and Water that matches the capabilities of the selected rendering pipeline. If you switched on an existing Gaia scene, it is recommended to setup the runtime elements for the scene from the Gaia Manager Standard Tab (-> 3. Runtime) again to make sure it is set up correctly for the current pipeline.

If you should decide you want to turn back to built-in rendering you can do so from the Render Pipeline Settings Panel as well and reverse the installation:



XR Support

Gaia allows you to set up a special Player Type using the Unity XR Interaction Toolkit which makes it easier to use your scene in Virtual or Augmented Reality. You can create a Gaia scene and run it in VR directly without having to figure out how to set up a VR controller. Make sure that you have the Unity XR Interaction Toolkit installed from the package manager, then click the "Activate XR Support" button in this panel. You can find more detailed information about the setup process here: Setting up XR Support (Virtual Reality) in Gaia



From this point on you can then use the XR Controller type when setting up a Player from the Gaia Runtime tab, or when switching the Player type directly in the scene hierarchy: