Reducing the installation file size of Gaia Pro 2021

Gaia Pro comes complete with multiple biomes and extra assets, which can take up a lot of hard disk space. While this is less an issue on a single, standalone computer, this can lead to problems if you have size limitations in your source code repository/backup system, or have limited bandwidth available to upload the entirety of Gaia Pro into one of these systems. This article explains which parts of Gaia Pro you can safely leave out during the Import or delete afterward from your installation folder to save space.

Note that the deletion of files and folders of course takes away some of the functionality of Gaia in turn. If you, for example, create a terrain with the forest biome trees and plants and then decide to delete those from the Gaia installation, those trees and plants would disappear from your terrain as well.

The following instructions show the import dialogue of Gaia Pro and explain which folders can be left out / deactivated during import. Depending on what features you want to use there are multiple options available to reduce the size of Gaia Pro. These options can be combined as you see fit.
If you have Gaia Pro installed already, the same instructions still apply, but you would instead just delete the installed folders instead.

All deletion or non-importing can be undone by importing the Gaia Pro package again - you can choose there to import all or some of the missing files again.

Please check below the picture to see what boxes apply to you.



 

1. Option 1 (Red boxes): Removes assets that you would replace

If you choose to not import these folders, you can save the most space in one go, but you will not have any assets left from the biomes or the extra assets to use in your project. Highly recommended if you don't intend to use any of the Gaia assets anyway and you plan on replacing them with your own. This would mean you would need to replace the vegetation, buildings, audio, etc. 

If you choose to remove the Standard Assets you will need to add this VIA package manager or add them back in with a reimport...

If you choose this option, you will run into the issue that the Gaia Manager does not find any Biome Presets to display and will show an error message in the console. To prevent this, simply create an empty Biome Preset from the scene hierarchy "Create" Menu.



 

Option 2 (Green box) Depends on your project requirements

The ocean textures are responsible for displaying the wave structures on the Gaia water shader. Since Gaia comes with a lot of those, you can save some space by removing this folder. You will still be able to use the water shader if required, but the water will look rather flat and there will be no caustics effect underwater.
Recommended if you don't intend to use the Gaia water shader. 

Option 3 (Blue box) Removing the Stamps Folder

The stamps folder contains all the default stamp images that come with Gaia. If you are done with stamping already or you want to use your own stamps anyway, you can remove this folder to save some space. Note that if you remove all stamps and create a new terrain, your stamp browser will be displayed empty then.

Option 4 (Orange box) Removing the Skybox textures

The sky and lighting setup of Gaia comes with a couple of skybox textures that you can remove if you are using another Sky / Lighting asset or are using your own skybox. 

Option 5 (Grey box) Style/ Pipeline/ Platform 

 These boxes depend on the style of the game, the pipeline you are going to use, and the platforms you want to develop. 
Starting from the top if you plan on developing Synty Style or Low poly then you keep this but remove the rest. 

The XR box is for those that want to develop on VR and AR, you will need to keep this if you plan on doing VR or AR. 

In the material package, you would want to remove the other pipelines that you are not going to use, note that you need to keep one of them. The standard is the built-in render pipeline. The same goes for the next two grey boxes remove them if you don't need HDRP or URP.