7.Details

World Creator allows you to import your own custom assets, such as textures, 3D models, and a lot more. Through our website, you may download the World Creator Asset Library that contains tons of royalty free assets that we created for you together with our partners. You may not re-sale them, but you may include them into your own productions for free. More and more free assets will be added over time so make sure to check the library from time to time.

Creating Detail Layers

To apply a detail, you first must create a layer by clicking on Add Layer. You can add as many layers as you want – there are no restrictions in number.

Layers can be enabled, disabled, re-arranged, and, removed.

Each layer has a Name, an Area and a list of Details. Naming a layer might be of interest if you plan a large and complex terrain. An area is used to specify a specific region using a blend map (mask) which is used to apply the details of this layer.

Adding Details

Click on Add inside the selected layer, to open the Details Library:

To add a detail, you either press Add or Add & Close. Add will just add the selected detail to the specified layer without closing the Detail Library. That way, you can keep on adding more and more details. Add & Close will add the selected detail to the specified layer and close the Detail Library.

Each detail can be enabled or disabled. With Duplicate, you can create a full copy of the currently selected object. Remove will delete the selected detail and Remove All removes all details from the layers’ detail list. With Change, you can quickly change the detail.

Detail Properties

Each added detail has its own specific properties which are used by World Creators’ detail placement technique:

Tagging

With Tag you can tag your detail (e.g. give it an ID). It does not have any impact on detail placement but might be of interest when importing World Creator projects into another application.

Type

With Type you can choose how World Creator should render / handle the detail.

Height Offset

Use the Height Offset to offset the height of the detail. With that you have a bit more control for fine tuning the height per detail.

Ground Tint Strength

The Ground Tint Strength tints the detail with the ground color of the details’ position. The higher the value, the more the ground color affects the detail.

Size Locked, Width Range, and Height Range

The Size Locked option causes the relationship between Width Range and Height Range to remain the same. These two ranges of values define the width and height of a detail, i.e., every detail that is placed will be scaled differently inside the defined value ranges.

Alpha Cut-Off

The Alpha Cut-Off is a threshold with respect to the details’ alpha channel. The higher the value, the more the detail will be cut-off

Color Grading

Within this section you can adjust the coloring for the selected detail. World Creator will then colorize the instances of the applied detail randomly using the specified gradient. With that, you can create many different color variations of the detail on your terrain (e.g. grass typically has different colors).

Align to Terrain

Align to Terrain aligns the detail to the terrain surface.

Detail Distribution Properties

The detail distribution properties define at what specific locations a detail is placed. If an area is used, these properties only affect those locations that are covered by the blend map (mask) of the area. Else, the entire terrain is affected.

Most features will get only visible if you activate them, such as Cavity, Noise Select, Height Range (which further unfolds the Height Noise feature) and the Follow Sun Direction feature.

Use Texture

It is possible to use already placed textures to simplify the distribution. For example, it makes sense to place certain details only on grass textures. Simply check the Use Texture option and select a texture of your choice and the distribution will be applied.

Cavity

The Cavity is used to apply a detail either along the peaks (convexity) or along the carves (concavity). You can choose between Convex and Concave to list additional properties.

Steps indicates, how many pixels are considered for the whole calculation. With Step Size, you can set the distance at which to start the calculations. Strength indicates the strength at which the operation affects detail placement.

Follow Sun Direction

Follow Sun Direction will let you to place details on your terrain depending on the sun light direction. With Invert, the detail is only placed on the shadowed parts of the terrain. Additionally, you can use the Smoothness to further adjust the blending between non-shadowed parts and shadowed parts.

Noise Select

The Noise Select is used to randomly apply a detail across the terrain surface, simulating a more natural look and feel.

With the above displayed values, you can adjust the noise distribution to your needs. We suggest enabling the real-time mode to quickly see all changes made.

Height Select, Smoothness, Noise and Relative to Ocean

With Height Select you can specify the height range, in which the detail is applied to. Use the Height Smoothness value to smoothly blend the height range. To prevent the height range value from forming a noticeable and visually unappealing border, you also have the option of assigning a Height Noise.

With Relative to Ocean checked, the Height Range value becomes a relative value depending on the currently set ocean level (which can be set in Scene / Ocean). That means, that each time you change the ocean level, the height range will automatically adapt its value.

Slope Select

With Slope Select you can specify the angle range (Slope Range in degrees) in which the detail is applied to. The angle transitions can also be stretched and blended with the Slope Smoothness value.

Angle Select

With Angle Select you can specify the angle (Angle in degrees) in which the detail is applied to.

Seed, Probability, Density and View Distance, and Fade Out Distance

Seed lets you control the random value generation. Changing that value will result in different detail locations. The Probability is the frequency expressed as a percentage value. The higher the value, the higher the frequency of details being placed. Directly related to it is the Density. The higher the value, the closer the details will be placed relative to each other.

The View Distance indicates at what maximum distance to the camera, the details will be displayed. The higher the value, the more does World Creator has to render and the higher the performance impact.

Fade Out Distance lets you control the distance in which the details will fade out (they get less the farther away from the viewer).