EmberGen vs Gaea
EmberGen
jangafx.com
Gaea
quadspinner.comSide by side
| Figure | EmberGen | Gaea |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $99/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 7 |
| Spec score · Visual Effects Software | 8.1 (#9) | 8.1 (#10) |
| Exports | The product page lists final renders, motion vectors, six-point lighting, normal maps, and depth maps among exportable data types. | Gaea exports heightfields, meshes, point clouds, textures, masks, and other terrain data. |
| Purpose | EmberGen is a real-time tool for creating fire, smoke, explosions, and other volumetric effects. | Gaea is a terrain design platform for VFX, games, and virtual production. |
| Simulation | EmberGen uses the GPU to simulate and render effects with real-time feedback. | Gaea provides physics-driven terrain simulations including erosion, debris, glaciers, rivers, snow, and vegetation. |
| Support | The maker offers trial support through Discord or email and lists documentation, tutorials, forums, and email support for users. | Support, maintenance, and minor updates are included at no additional cost, and the company says it does not offer a guaranteed support SLA. |
Plans
Gaea
- Indie$99 a month
- Professional$199 a month
- Enterprise$299 a month
- Community EditionFree
- Indie$99, paid once
- Professional$199, paid once
- Enterprise$299, paid once
In their own words
Gaea
Gaea is a Windows terrain design application for VFX, games, and virtual production. It builds terrain from procedural forms, imported data, or hand-drawn elements, then applies simulations for erosion, debris, glaciers, rivers, snow, and vegetation. It can produce terrain-aware color, textures, masks, material zones, vegetation data, and flow maps. Exports include heightfields, meshes, point clouds, textures, masks, and other terrain data. Bridges connect Gaea with Unreal Engine and Houdini; the Gaea2Houdini plugin requires a Professional or Enterprise license. Gaea also offers node-based compositing and a hybrid render engine.
The Community Edition is free for non-commercial use. The listed perpetual-license prices are $99 a month for Indie, $199 a month for Professional, and $299 a month for Enterprise; each is described as a one-time price. Gaea requires Windows, an AVX2-capable CPU, and at least 16 GB of RAM. CPU-only operation is supported; GPU compute needs CUDA 12.5 or higher or HIP 6.0 or higher.