Build your Worlds Dynamically with this Procedural Nature Pack
I have done a lot of stylized nature and definitely some more natural looking ones but this is the first procedural landscape creation pack I have looked at.
The procedural nature of things like this is a force multiplier if done correctly, giving you the ability to turn a relatively small set of assets into double or triple that.
As you will see in the pack, I think PurePolygons did this one right.
First off, being free is always going to earn brownie points. This one WAS paid in the past and was priced at $60 so being free now is a huge saving on that. It definitely feels like it has that price tag in value after digging around inside it.
Check out the developers video:
The folder hierarchy is pretty good, there are a lot of things separated that may not need to be but there are also a ton of moving parts to making any one of these pieces work properly so this may be entirely necessary.
The back is beautiful and shows the level of polish that you can achieve with it, keep in mind that with all the splines and the blending materials you can build with this kit and get any number of solutions.
Water is fantastic from this pack, it uses the depth and angle to increase or decrease the speed while adding different effects to it like foam for waterfalls or whitewater.
With the moss being a blendable material that you can use via vertex painting to blend in and out, it gives you an immense amount of power in making your scenes unique and lets you change things on the fly. You could use this anywhere really, on rocks and grounds utilizing different textures, even some GT ones if you have the urge.
A lot of work has gone into the materials for the pack, the water has a lot going on in its graph but as I highlight in other packs, this makes it a pretty awesome learning tool. The water master material alone teaches some good lessons on why certain materials need to be built in engine at the shader level rather than just relying overly much on a substance to do the heavy lifting.
The results are fantastic and strange though. While some of the material instances do not leave much room for control the water has a lot of levers to pull and toggles to switch to get the best results.
And the splines are a ton of fun to mess with. Anything build with these will be procedural like you see here. After watching how its done in the video I started messing around with them on my own and you can make some really awesome root and tree systems.
PurePolygons has a few packs in their catalog and they seem to be pretty well regarded so check them out!
Some Pros to force your hand
- Free and super high value on top of that.
- Beautiful and chock full of effects and assets.
Some cons to take away.
- The materials can be dense and in some cases, easily breakable. Use carefully.
- Heavy use of materials like some of these could make the scene hard to work with.
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