I want to create AAA loking terrain and use for this assets, to save time.
Probably someone use same assets and can give advice.
Use Gaia previously but after search decide that Terrain composer 2 is better.
Will this pack of assets work together without bugs or better not even try it, at all?
AAA-looking terrain requires AAA-class terrain engine. Hint: default Unity terrain system does not fit that bill.
If you can’t make a very small mesh with the terrain look you have in mind, you won’t find a tool to do terrain for you, basically a hell of a lot of how good a terrain looks is down to your textures and eye for what makes a pleasing looking terrain.
Reason I’m talking like this is because you put AAA in the text there. AAA requires AAA textures for a start.
Agree, i need to add to a list
6. AAA textures pack
Anyone have experience in working with this assets list?
I compare Unreal Engine 4 and Unity with assets, don’t see much difference.
You can get the “AAA” look with many hours of work + AAA Textures + RTP + Unity terrain, however you will struggle with performance.
Also when you compare your scene to battlefield, you will struggle with faith in Unity.
You could use WorldMachine for example. Make a Terrain there, export the .raw and textures out of it and voila - you have better terrain inside Unity.
Project Wight was shown at Unite 2016 and imo it has AAA looking terrain:
Not sure what that means though as there’s plenty of AAA games with awful looking terrains, but the terrain in project Wight is comparable to the modern Battlefield games imo, i.e. some of the best terrains you find in games.
It’s made with very off the shelf Unity assets and they discuss it here:
Edit: Hmmm, apparently the Unity forums or the Youtube embed botches timestamps when embedded, but the part where they’re discussing it is at 1:28:46
To answer your question see below
time and effort, i would derive the height map from either a sculpt or from a tool like world machine, but after that it is just lots of time and effort into polish. Also its not all terrain some of the best looking terrain i seen is a mix of heightmap based terrain system, with lots of hand made meshes mashed into it.
Thanks for video.
About this demo, they use RTP and Unity new lights\camera effects.
Great assets alone won’t make your terrain magically fantastic.
The reason AAA terrains usually look great and convincing, is only partly due to the assets and tools used. Most of the time it all comes down to the skill and taste of the environment artists working on the terrain. Sure your terrain might have super-crisp, 4K textures, fancy shaders and innovative tech under the hood, but what good is it for in case your terrain’s composition, lighting, setting or sense of scale is bad?
Basically, if you’re bad at drawing, buying expensive pencils doesn’t make you any better.
My goal isn’t to discourage you from trying to make terrains. Also, I’m not aware of your artistic skills, so what I’ve said may not apply to you, but I’m just saying that there’s more to making good looking environments than just assets. I come across certain types of discussions far too often, where people are only concerned with assets and high resolution textures, but they lack the understanding of even the most base-level concepts of art, thinking that the assets they paid for are going to suddenly make their work shine.
Er actually it is a discouraging post because you’re not actually going to get AAA terrain without AAA assets to start - period. It just is illogical otherwise.
So you’ve said that he needs mad skills (which I agree with) but you still need the assets unfortunately. There’s no short cut.
I never said that assets aren’t needed, though. I’m just saying that people shouldn’t expect their work to become fantastic after getting their hands on some assets without grasping the essential skills first. That may not apply to the OP, but it’s very common in general.
Oh i would quite dissagree with that one, good pencil can make you a lot better on certain area. Think of Photoshop vs Substance painter, poor artist will most likely not be able to create decent PBR hard surface material in PS, but with only few clicks he can create stunning material in Substance. That is example of specific tool lifting artist in whole different level, if we specify that at end all it matters is end result and not the “real skill”.
The skill is relative becouse getting final product out in certain tool can require “great skill and time” and in other tool it can be completly different story. If he gets correct directions its actually not collosal task at all to pull AAA terrain.
Cheapest time wise (+decent quallity results) method for someone who is relatively new on all processes that require terrain design would be:
-use Megascans or Substance store to acess AAA stacks of great and nearly ready to go materials/textures. Cost bellow 50 bucks. Few clicks here and there in Designer/Painter and you adjust material to your best liking. Done, that can be done with barely no 3d modeling or texturing experince.
-second step using raw satelite data for terrain heightmap, plug that into Mudbox or Zbrush for mesh generation, rebake better heightmap out and plug it into Worldmachine/Terragen 2. Take day to learn ins and outs of WM/TG, create all flow maps and main color map for terrain. Use exported splat map to do painting job in engine for to avoid artist error.
-third step use Substance store/Asset store/Marketplace/Megascans to get some ready to go rocks (asuming that they have rocks that fit that terrain).
-fourth plug all together in engine, placing the rocks does require a bit of artistic effors but not anything too heavy.
Above method could be very friendly to remove artist error with good probability. What it does not include however is the other X variables that do contribute to final render eg lighting, vegetation, post processes, else but that wasnt the part of OPs question i guess.