Hope this is in the right place. I’m trying to gauge interested in a tool I am working on. It’s a height-map generation tool which would allow you to generate terrain height maps / splat maps and color maps all from within your browser. It would be based upon the SaaS model where you pay a monthly fee to get access to the features. The features I’m thinking would include:
Powerful Node Based Editor
Realistic erosion abilities
Background processing of render jobs (
Built in community support
Instant online collaboration
Automatic Version Control
I’m really wondering if this type of tool would be useful to people here?
The current website is http://www.terrain-builder.com/ I’m just trying at the moment to capture email addresses of people who would be interested to tell them when I have something you can log in to.
How does it compare to something like world machine (which is free) or other rather cheap terrain generators which can be bought for a one time fee on the asset store?
Tell me more about what it does and makes it standout from other products on the market.
Price will hopefully be less than $10 a month. Would you buy at that price if it had all the features plus more of word machine ?
Thanks for the reply I’ll keep all that in mind. I’m planning on at least feature parity with world machine (plus more !). Also world machine isn’t free the free version only allows small 512 resolution maps.
In terms of the tools available from the asset store you’ll be able to do all of the features in the browser without opening unity. I’ve used a good few of them and I would prefer not to open unity to create heightmaps.
World machine is free. Limited features. But non the less, still free.
It sounds like terrain builder is solely for generation of terrain; a browser based “world machine”. What I would want to get me to stop using my current terrain workflows would be complete integration with unity. Can your product generate my terrain as well as populate it with my game prefabs?
What can it do that other products can’t?
What makes your product better than others on the market?
Why should I want to ditch my current one-time-payment plugins and pickup a monthly subscription of yours? Sell me your product.
Do you have screenshot or a video of what it can do?
There would also be a “free” but limited version like world machine and the other products.
I don’t think you quite understand, I’m currently building the product so there are no screenshots / videos. Yes the product would be solely based on creating terrains. If you want complete integration within unity then you’ll be stuck with the stuff you’ve already bought from the asset store no other external tools will help you here I would personally recommend Word Creator (Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making).
In terms of what the product can do I’ve already given a list of things in the original thread. I’ll go through you list here (bear in mind this product does not exist at the moment):
What can it do that other products can’t? - As the generation method is in the browser the servers takes care of creating the build i.e. it’s in the background you can tell it to create a builder and continue to work on the terrain model. So you tell it to create a build the server takes care of this (in the background) and stores the results for you to view. The system will automatically create a new version every-time it does a build allowing you to go back and check old builds (including the source “node graph”) without having to save anything locally, all handled in the tool.
What can it do that other products can’t? - You will be able to collaborate in real time with someone else on your team so allowing two people to edit a terrain at the same time I’ve not seen this in any of the tools from the asset store. Merging / branching would also be taken care of in a similar fashion I can have two people working on a terrain at the same time with various different control techniques.
What makes your product better than others on the market? - The plans are to allow you to create full terrains and part generation functions (macros) and publish these out to the community. So I could create a moon type project and share it within the tool and as a user you could go and see how I made that moon like project and use it yourself. You could create a hero mountain and let others use that in their projects … etc The other tools I’ve seen only show you examples or you have to trawl through youtube / etc to find ways of creating unique looking landscapes.
Why should I want to ditch my current one-time-payment plugins and pickup a monthly subscription of yours? Sell me your product. - Not sure I’m allowed to “sell” you the product. I would say if you want a collaborative tool with all the features I’ve listed then that’s what I’m trying to create.
I should also mention that I was looking to capture interest in a tool like this and get feedback about the features you currently think are missing from the tools you use at the moment.