Gaea vs TerraWorld 2023
Gaea
quadspinner.comTerraWorld 2023
terraunity.comSide by side
| Figure | Gaea | TerraWorld 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Map Generators | 8.3 (#4) | 7.6 (#13) |
| Integrations | Gaea provides bridges for Unreal Engine and Houdini; the Gaea2Houdini plugin requires a Professional or Enterprise license. | The FAQ says TerraWorld works with Unity’s terrain system and compatible third-party solutions derived from that system, and names EasyRoads3D, Vegetation Studio Pro and RAM in its compatibility question. |
| Maker | QuadSpinner is a bootstrapped software studio based in Questa, New Mexico, founded in 2008 by Dax Pandhi and Cynthia Najim. | TerraUnity says it is a Metaverse and GIS technology company founded in 2021. |
| Purpose | Gaea is a terrain design platform for VFX, games, and virtual production. | TerraWorld 2023 is a node-based real-world 3D scene generator for creating digital twins of natural environments on Earth. |
| Support | Support, maintenance, and minor updates are included at no additional cost, and the company says it does not offer a guaranteed support SLA. | The maker provides a TerraWorld online help page, tutorials and a Discord channel link on the product page. |
Plans
Gaea
- Indie$99, paid once
- Professional$199, paid once
- Enterprise$299, paid once
- 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.
TerraWorld 2023
TerraWorld 2023 has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.