World design is so much fun that I can keep playing around with my designs from morning to night and not get bored. There are many tools that allow you to create terrains. Some are game engine based and some are independent software. World creator, World machine, and Gaea are the top 3 independent terrain generators that you can create beautiful terrains with. We will compare the features, performance, price and pick a winner.
Features
| Features | World Creator | World Machine | Gaea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Node Based | No, Layer based | YES | YES |
| Design features | Transform, Erode, Stamp, Sculpt, and Paint | Transform, Erode, Stamp, Sculpt, and Paint | Transform, Erode, Stamp, Sculpt, and Paint |
| Procedural generation | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Free version Available | No | Free for non-commercial Use | Yes, With limitations |
| Erosion | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Export to game engines | YES | YES | YES |
| Support from devs | Good support | Devs are non-responsive | Good support |
World Creator Vs World Machine Vs Gaea Performance
All these terrain generators have all the features that you would want. But when it comes to performance you should know how long the changes you make in your terrain take to get applied. The new Terrain generators are GPU accelerated and provide almost instant results. What is the use of having a powerful machine if the software does not take advantage of the hardware?
Basic System Requirements
- Windows 7 (64 bit)
- 4th Generation Intel Core i5 or equivalent AMD processor
- NVIDIA 760 GTX with 2 GB VRAM or equivalent AMD GPU
- 8 GB System RAM
- DirectX 11.1 capable graphics card (Windows 7 does not support the full DirectX 11.1 features list)
- 600 MB disk space
- Simulation mode requires Windows 8 / DirectX 11.1
- Microsoft Windows 10 64bit
- Quad Core AMD or Intel CPU 2ghz or greater
- ATI or NVIDIA graphics processor
- 8+GB system RAM
Gaea:
- Windows 7 – Service Pack 1 (6.1.7601)
- Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300
- 16GB RAM
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 / AMD Radeon R9 280
- 10GB HDD space
GPU Powered
Using GPU power for graphics processing makes the software more efficient than using CPU power. With the help of multicore GPUs, modern software are able to render terrains almost instantly. World creator and Gaea use GPU processing to make them more performance efficient compared to World Machine.
If you are ok with little lag or you lack a powerful GPU in your system then this might not affect your decision much. But it feels good to see instant results rather than waiting around to see what the changes look like.
This won’t affect you much if you are planning to work with low poly terrains. There are many low poly terrain tools that are available if Unity is your game engine.
Final verdict
It’s a difficult choice between these three as all the features are almost the same when you look from a buyer’s point of view. But, based on certain key points you can decide which software you should use. Let’s go through them one by one.
| Scenario | Software |
|---|---|
| Not for Commercial use | World machine |
| I don’t want to pay but I want a good performance | Gaea free version |
| Node-based software with GPU powered | Gaea or World creator |
| I am totally new, and I want something easy to learn | World Creator |
| I want detailed control over terrains | Gaea or World machine |
I would go with World creator as it is the most user-friendly option available and its very fast as its 100% GPU powered. Gaea is a close second when you compare things overall but the poor documentation makes it difficult to learn. The only reason I would select the World machine is when I want a powerful terrain generator for free. If you are using Unity then you might also want to consider Gaia as an option. You can check out our post on the best Unity terrain generators for more details.