Overview
Generators provide a set of tools that allow you to quickly create or modify your map in a variety of ways, including automatically placing ground tiles, eroding terrain, blurring terrain, and changing parameters of the world.
This guide covers what types of Generators are available, what they do, and how to use them.
Accessing the Generators
Generators can be accessed by navigating to: Main Menu > Scenario > Generators
- Auto Tile automatically applies ground tiles to a map on areas such as clifs, mountains, and hills.
- Erode Terrain applies a natural erosion effect to the terrain.
- Gaussian Blur Terrain smooths and flattens the terrain.
- Random Scenario re-generates parts or all of your map.
- Scale World sizes up or sizes down terrain features on your map.
- Shift World raises or lowers the depth of your map's ground level.
- Slope World tilts some or all of your map at an angle.
Auto Tile
Auto Tile is a tool that allows you to add tiles to a map in rough areas where rock, dirt, and similar elements would appear.
This can be easy and fast way to quickly add basic ground textures to a map's slopes and peaks, which would otherwise be covered in plain textures.
To add an Auto Tile effect to your map, perform the following steps:
- Select Auto Tile from the Generators menu.
- In the Auto Tile interface, beside the Layers entry, click the Downwards Arrow button.
- In the Collection Control interface, click the Add button.
- A blueprint interface will appear. Select a tile blueprint using the interface provided. You can also set the Height and Slope parameters where this texture will be added.
Once you have selected the blueprint and parameters you want, press OK.
- A new AutoTileLayer will be added to your layer list. You may repeat steps3 and 4 to add additional layers.
- Once you are ready to apply the generator to your map, press OK on this interface and OK on the next interface.
The generators will then be applied to your map. This may take 10-20 and cause the the editor to be unresponsive as it processes your request.
- Once you see the effects of your generator, you may return to the generator interface and modify the parameters to get the effect you want.
Blending Auto Tile Texture Bands
To create a natural-looking gradient with slopes when creating your auto-tile layers, overlap the height and/or slope ranges of your textures.
When used with the right rock, sand, and stone textures, this will create bands of texture that give the hills and/or valleys of your map a natural-looking feel.
This creates an effect that resembles the image below, with sand, rock, and stone layers covering elevated slopes.
Auto Tile Examples
If there are no Min or Max set in the height and slope, ground tiles will blend together using only their texture height information.
If some Min and Max values are used, the generator will apply textures to steeper slopes or higher tops.
Erode Terrain
The Erode Terrain generator smooths out harsh lines and ridges on your terrain, simulating natural erosion processes and producing more natural-looking cliffs and valleys.
This can be a useful tool for making your mountains, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, and similar terrain features look more realistic.
To erode your terrain, perform the following steps:
- Open the tool by navigating to: Main Menu > Scenario > Erode Terrain
- Using the Erode Terrain tool, set the parameters you want to apply to your map.
- Once your erode settings match the effect you want, press OK to execute the erode process.
Gaussian Blur Terrain
The Gaussian Blur Terrain tool can smoothen slopes on a terrain, flattening and smoothing out extreme peaks, ridges, and similar features.
To add a blur effect to your terrain, perform the following steps:
- Navigate to: Main Menu > Scenario > Gaussian Blur Terrain
- Set the Standard Deviation of your blur effect. This determines the strength of the blur effect, 1 is a minor bur effect, while 5 is a very high effect.
Once you have set your desired blur level, press OK.
- The blur effect will then be applied to the terrain on your map.
Blur Effect Examples
Example of terrain with no blur effect.
Standard Deviation set to 1.
Standard Deviation set to 5.
Generate Terrain
The Generate Terrain tool can re-generate aspects of your map, or if desired the entire map by allowing you to re-access the Terrain Layout Tool.
To access this tool, navigate to: Main Menu > Scenario > Generators > Random Scenario
This will open the Random Scenario interface.
You can use this interface to set the parameters of the changes you want to make to your map.
Once you have set these parameters, press OK to re-generate the map using the parameters you entered. The parameters and their effects are listed below.
Random Scenario Parameters
The settings and tools along the top are the main ones you will use to re-generate your map.
- Biome: Allows you to switch your map to a new biome.
- Custom Layout: Opens the Terrain Layout Tool to completely re-generate your map. Using this tool will completely un-do any changes you have made to your map, so it is recommended you only use it early in a map's design before you have put a significant amount of work into it.
- Layout: Allows you to switch your map to use a pre-set layout of an existing saved map.
- Size: Changes the size of your map.
The Generation tools allow you to control what parts of the map are re-generated, versus which parts remain the same.
Scale World
The Scale World can scale the terrain's height, making hills, ditches, rivers, mountains, and valleys either higher or lower.
To scale the terrain in your map, perform the following steps:
- Navigate to: Main Menu > Scenario > Scale World
- Using the Scale World interface, select the level of scale effect you want to apply to your terrain.
A value of 1 has no effect. Values less than 1 will shrink terrain, and values higher than 1 enlarge terrain.
- Once you set your desired Scale, press OK to apply it to your map.
- The scale effect will then be applied to your map. Note that higher values scale all terrain, including river and lake beds. This can have the effect of removing the water in those features if the terrain is raised above the water line.
Scale Terrain Examples
Base terrain features with no scaling.
Scale World set to 0.5
Scale World to 2
Shift World
The Shift World tool can elevate or lower the terrain on the entire map.
At default, a new map's default terrain height is 10m from the bottom. This allows you to carve ditches, rivers, and valleys down up to 10 units. If this is not high enough for your purposes, this tool allows entire map can be shifted up to allow more room.
To shift the terrain up or down on your map, complete the following steps:
- Navigate to: Main Menu > Scenario > Shift World
- Using the Shift World interface, set the Delta value. This value controls how many additional units that will be added to the height of the terrain.
- Once you have set your delta, press OK. The terrain will then be raised a number of units equal to the Delta value you set.
Note that any water markers you have placed will not raise with the terrain, so your lakes and rivers will likely run dry until you re-fill them.
Slope World
The Slope World tool can angle the terrain of an entire map.
To slope the terrain of your map, perform the following steps:
- Navigate to: Main Menu > Scenario > Slope World
- Using the Slope World interface, select the Grade of the slope, which controls how steep the terrain.
You can also set the Rotation of the slope, which controls the direction the terrain will slope in.
- Your map will then be sloped to the degree you specified. Note some objects such as rocks, water, and resource nodes may not track correctly to the new slope elevation and may need to be adjusted.
