Terrain

Part of Map Making Tools

Terrain

The terrain is generated automatically based on your chosen Generation Engine (see Creating and Managing Maps). Once the base topography is established, it can be freely sculpted using the terrain brushes.

Terrain Tools for the Standard Terrain Procedural Engine

Engine Parameters

Depending on your selected engine, different sliders will be available to tune the procedural generation:

• Global Settings (Standard / Flat only)

  • Sea Level: Set the baseline sea level. This updates the map to show the new coastline. (Note: Advanced and Guided engines handle sea level mathematically to preserve tectonic and vector boundaries).

• Map Transform (Standard only)

  • Use the zoom and nudge buttons to change your position in the infinite procedural model. Both groups feature a central reset button to return you to the original coordinates.

• Topographical Detail

  • Detail (all except Flat): Determines how smooth or intricate the rocky detail of the model will be. Higher values take longer to generate but yield highly detailed textures.
  • Stretch (Standard only): Higher values stretch mid-elevations while compressing high and low elevations, allowing for larger, flatter plains.

• Macro Structure (Advanced / Guided only)

  • Tectonic Plates (Advanced): Controls the underlying tectonic model. Higher values create more frequent mountain ridges and valleys, but will not significantly alter the global coastline.
  • Coastline Fracture: Bends and distorts the edges of the continents. Higher values create undulating bays and peninsulas, while lower values keep landmasses rounder.
  • Continental Shelf: Dictates the steepness of the coastal drop-off into the ocean. Increase for shallow tropical waters; decrease for sheer cliffs plunging into deep ocean.
  • Continental Grouping (Advanced): Adjusts the global threshold for land vs. water, dictating whether the world forms large continents or archipelagos.
  • Continent Scale (Guided): Controls how far inland the terrain must travel before reaching its maximum peak height.
  • Erosion: Determines the physical size of the features. Low values give rugged features while high values create smoother, eroded terrain.

Tip on Performance: For the Standard engine, keep the Roughness/Octaves slider at the default (or lower) for rapid prototyping. Increase it to 8 or 10 right before exporting the final image to yield highly detailed textures. For the Advanced and Guided engines, the heavy macro-math means generation will always take a few seconds, but the results are highly realistic.

Edit Terrain

Regardless of the engine used to generate the base map, you can always use the non-destructive edit tools to manually sculpt the topography. Brush tools work similarly to those in standard graphics packages:

• Brush Size: The radius of the brush tool.
• Brush Strength: How quickly the brush is applied.
• Brush Feather: How much the brush is blended with the surrounding terrain. Feathering increases towards the edges of the brush.

Brush Modes:

• Raise Terrain: This brush increases the elevation of the terrain beneath it.
• Lower Terrain: This brush reduces the elevation of the terrain beneath it.
• Smooth Terrain: This brush "averages" the terrain elevations under it.
• Slope Up: This brush takes the starting elevation and then increases elevation as you move away from that point.
• Level Terrain: This brush levels the terrain to match the exact elevation at the centre of your click, smoothly feathering into the surrounding landscape.
• Slope Down: This brush takes the starting elevation and then decreases elevation as you move away from that point.

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Next: Biomes — biomes depend on the terrain, so it's worth sculpting terrain first.