[Released] ATLAS - Next Gen Terrain Editor - essential tool for creating beautiful worlds

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Atlas is a non destructive, next gen terrain editor. It allows you to treat stamps such as mountains, dunes, craters, volcanoes, roads and rivers as regular prefabs.

As long-time Unity users we have been working on a new terrain editor that overcomes the shortcomings of a purely brushed vs purely generated technique.

Available on the Asset Store

Website | Documentation | Tutorials

For Support use this thread or get direct help at Discord

Based on all the feedback we received we decided it was about time we revamped the tutorial experience entirely.
There are additional tutorials planned so suggestions on things you’d like to see are definitely welcome.

Our new tutorial new series covers the following topics and you can access every single one by clicking the individual link below.

Introduction
Takes a look at the basics of what Atlas is.

Install Package
Goes into more detail on how to install the package into your Unity project.

Terrain Set Up
Explains how to set up your Unity terrain and the terrain layers that come with the package.

Preview Volume
Shows you how to make sure that you can edit your terrain in real time.

Increasing Resolution
A look at how you can increase the resolution of your terrain to 4K.

Placing Stamps
Here you’ll learn how to place your first stamp.

Blending Stamps
All the information you need about the different blend modes.

Brushing Stamps
A couple examples on how the brush gives you even more control when building your world with the stamps.

Splatmapping
Gives all the necessary information about splatmap control in Atlas.

Structuring Stamps
Use cases where we go over the best practices for structuring your scene.

Getting a Sense of Scale
Demonstration on how Atlas helps you get the scale right.

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Sounds (and looks) cool, but where’s are the details?

How does this compare to existing tools like Gaia (1 or 2), MapMagic?

Are the terrains hightmap based? Voxel? Something else?

Does it support navmesh agents?

What about vegetation? Speed Tree?

Caves? Overhangs?

So many questions, I know – but I’m evaluating planet terrain generation right now for my project and these are all fresh on my mind.

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Hi BetaMark, welcome to the thread.

Atlas is a terrain editor that applies directly onto unity terrains, or any terrain solution that accepts heightmap, splatmaps etc.
This means that navmesh, vegetation and trees are supported out of the box.
A more in depth look will be revealed shortly after the trailer, so stay tuned ^^

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Thats awesome to hear Looking forward to hearing more details. I’m subbed to the youtube release video - is there anywhere better to get notified on the release and updates?

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Good point BetaMark, you can follow us on our socials. And we have added a mail subscription box to the website, just drop your mail if you want to get notified, thanks! ^^

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Will it be integrated with Microsplat?
I see some roads, is there a spline system included and maybe rivers?

I will be following your development.

Edit: Is there a Discord server planned? On the website, the link leads nowhere.

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Hi mick129,
Nice catch on the splines ^^ this is something we can’t go without, they are just too useful. From what we can see it probably works with Microsplat, unless Microsplat requires something more than a unity terrain in order to work? a Discord server is definitely planned just not right now.

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There are many ways I guess to integrate Microsplat but the most important part is to have a way to tell what texture to use and remain constant from a map to another.
Otherwise some grass texture could become sand and vice versa.

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Does this only work in editor, or do you support runtime generation/ editing of terrains?

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We do use the regular splatmap flow so i think we are all good here ^^

This tool is an editor extension. It is possible to get it to work at runtime, but keep in mind that changing a 4K terrain heightmap will surely create a lag spike.

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Hi guys!
Thank you for your interest so far, we know there are a lot of questions waiting to be answered. We would like to announce our first video which will become available very soon. Stay tuned and get a more in depth look on what exactly Atlas is and what Atlas can mean to your project!

Trailer: Link

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When will this be available in the Asset Store?

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That looks like you took stamps and turned them into rotatable volume additives. That’s definitly got my eye. What’s the initial cost expected to be and when is a release or beta period?

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If all goes well somewhere around January.

We are currently past the beta testing period. As for the initial price we have some ideas but no data to back them up so we will be doing more homework on that soon.

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I really like this non-destructive way of stamping terrains.

Will the stamp object also contains information about vegetation placement？Like I have a green hill stamp and a dune stamp，they can just merge together？

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leveling landscape by curves looks awesome ?
Does anybody know if GAIA 2 have it ?

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Gaia does but it’s not that helpful that video showed a much more advanced version of it

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Atlas is equipped with full splatmap control, so a grass hill will indeed blend with dunes.

We have played around with vegetation data inside the stamps themselves but have voted against it. In most cases you want vegetation based on the final result of your terrain and not based on the internals of the individual stamp itself.

For example: you could stretch out your stamp height wise, increase the slope on some areas and no longer want threes there. So we figured that for vegetation a “selector” stamp type would fit better, where you can select a particular splatmap and then select a slope from x angle to y angle. These selector stamps are a concept we are playing with and will enter the project later on.

Our current solution is a scattering system that allows you to populate your terrains based on their final splatmaps and heightmaps. But nothing is stopping you from using any other tool available that can scatter vegetation on unities builtin terrain ^^

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Can’t wait to get my hands on this tool. Cloud you please take my money now？I dont think my wallet can survive Christmas.

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Glad you are excited! :smile:
More disclosure about features coming soon