Environmental terrain

Studio's Terrain Editor lets you generate and sculpt detailed and realistic terrain environments such as mountains, bodies of water, grass-covered hills, or a flat desert. Terrain is made up of grids of voxels which are 4×4×4 stud regions in the 3D world with a set material.

Using the editor tools, you can easily generate and edit terrain either at a voxel or region level with the option of importing a heightmap and colormap. For more precise, dynamic, or procedural terrain editing, you can also script terrain creation.

Terrain materials#

The following default materials are available for terrain, and you can also apply custom materials. Materials affect both the shape and appearance of terrain in the world; for example, animated grass renders only on the Grass material and the Water material ripples and shimmers with a subtle motion.

Water appearance#

By default, terrain water ripples, oscillates, and shimmers with a subtle motion.

To customize the color and motion of water:

1. In the Explorer window, navigate to the Workspace, then select the Terrain object.

   

2. In the Properties window, customize the appearance of water through the following properties:

   Property	Description
   WaterColor	Adjusts the overall hue of all terrain water in the game.
   WaterReflectance	Adjusts how much water surfaces reflect the sky and surrounding objects from a value of 1 (high) to 0 (none).
   WaterTransparency	Adjusts how transparent water is from a value of 1 (clear) to 0 (opaque).
   WaterWaveSize	Adjusts the size of waves from a value of 1 (large) to 0 (none).
   WaterWaveSpeed	Adjusts the speed of waves from a value of 100 (turbulent) to 0 (still).

Grass animation#

While most materials are static, you can add animated blades of grass to the Grass terrain material. By default, grass sways gently in a simulated wind, and you can adjust the direction/strength of its animation through global wind.

To add animated grass to the Grass material:

1. In the Explorer window, navigate to the Workspace, then select the Terrain object.

   

2. In the Properties window, toggle on the Decoration property.

   

3. Adjust the grass length by entering a value between 0.1 and 1 for the GrassLength property.

   

4. Adjust the direction and strength of its animation through global wind.

Custom terrain colors#

Each terrain material is assigned a default color, but you can customize any material's color to better fit your game.

To customize any material color other than water:

1. In the Explorer window, navigate to the Workspace, then select the Terrain object.

   

2. In the Properties window, expand MaterialColors. All materials display with their RGB code.

   

3. For any material, either input a new RGB code or click the color box to open the colors popup.

Generate terrain#

Using the following tools and methods, you can generate large areas of terrain procedurally through tooling or scripting, or automatically based on a heightmap and colormap.

Generate tool#

The Generate tool allows you to procedurally generate terrain in seconds. This is useful if you want to create a large map and fine-tune terrain details.

1. In the editor window, navigate to the Create tab and select the Generate tool.

   

2. In the 3D viewport, move/resize the selection region in which to generate terrain. Alternatively, expand the tool's Selection Settings and enter values into the X/Y/Z inputs to set a specific size and position.

3. In the tool's Biome Settings section, choose the following biomes to include in the new terrain:

4. Click the Generate button.

Heightmaps and colormaps#

A heightmap is a 2D representation of a 3D terrain map, as viewed directly from above. Brighter areas of a heightmap result in higher terrain, like mountains, while darker areas result in lower regions, like valleys.

An optional colormap, along with a heightmap, converts colors to terrain materials using a color key.

1 pixel in a heightmap represents 4 studs in Studio, and Studio supports a maximum of 4096×4096 pixels in either .jpg or .png format.

To import a heightmap and optional colormap:

1. In the editor window, navigate to the Create tab and select the Import tool.

   

2. In the tool's Map Settings section, click the import button and choose the image you want to import as a heightmap.

3. In the tool's Material Settings section, select a terrain material or, alternatively, upload a colormap.