Gaea School: The basics

 This morning, I intend to throw myself into an all-morning intensive training session to get an overview of Gaea's basic operations and workflows.

Gaea UI (v2.3.0.1)

Main Menu

On the top bar is Gaea's main menu. From here, you select:

File

Edit

Graph
Node

Preview

Tools

Help

Viewport

The top panel is Gaea's viewport, which displays the terrain you are creating. Note above that the map view is activated via the viewport menu, so that you get a top-down view as well as the 3d view. You can change the main view to 2d.

Viewport resolution. 1k by default. 2k and 4k are available, with corresponding performance costs.

Control the viewport with:

 WSAD keys: Basic movement 

Mouse scroll wheel: Zoom in or out

Alt+Left Mouse button+ Mouse movement: Orbit

Infinite Graph

Gaea's procedural magic flows from this node-based graph. There are many node types and rules governing how they can interact. This is going to take some time to learn.

The key points:

• Each node is a heightfield processor that performs a single task. By connecting several nodes, you can create an elaborate program or "recipe" for creating a complex process.
  
  
• Node graphs can only go from left to right, never the opposite. They represent a one-way flow.
  
  
• Split your terrain graph across multiple tabs using Portals and Chokepoints. This allows you to separate concerns, such as creating the main shape, colour production, and exporting masks. 

See Portals and Checkpoints.

Properties Panel

To the right is a vertical panel that contains the parameters for your selected node. This is where you tweak any available properties. It's context-driven, so the properties change depending on what node you select.

Watching Time

Quadspinner YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@quadspinner

Introduction to Gaea 2.0: https://youtu.be/3fGU98Hn5Us?si=xIjx6tBZ0hxWYgH9

Starter Guide Video - https://youtu.be/2BMOmQJTXsQ?si=GE2PPZdPapuvlY4a

Gaea to Blender workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJmrgPHqGI


Another quick output!

Not to hard to use. Just so many options and parameters.