Back to World Creator School...

Today I am putting down my tools and going back to World Creator. I have a workflow, I think it works and I enjoy using it. Great? Not great. That is a recipe for halting your development. What don't I know? What functions or features have I brushed over, that could improve my work?

This will be a really big post because I want to record as much information as possible for future reference.

Etienne M. Mountain Range

Etienne is one of the World Creator community's stars. His work impresses everyone, and he's been generous enough to share insights into his workflow.

Here's how he tackled a mountain range:

1. Sculpt mountain peaks using the dot brush with reduced strength.
2. Use the regular brush to lift up the ground under the peaks. Create a smoother transition between the mountains and the lowlands in the foreground.

3. Add some gentle hills in the foreground.

4. On the Global Biome set the Global Strength to 0.6

5. Filter as follows: Basic Erosion - Ridged. Rocky - Wide, giving more cliffs and rock outcroppings. Then Advanced Erosion: Wide Flows. 
6. Simulation Layer. Oh gawd this is so important and I didn't do this! Use sand simulation for the sediment build-up at the base. Not too much spawn! 

Materials

1. Dirt layer. Cavity: Convex, lower threshold and increase strength to smoothen the transition between mountain and dirt.

2. Rocky layer. Roughness, turn the strength down to almost zero.

Roughness. Low Strength

3. Dirt Flow layer. Apply a flow that works the way you want. Fine for deep cut streams, with more flooding and deltas in the lower regions.
4. Snow level 1. Slope layer. Height distribution with distortion to break up the snow boundry

5. Snow layer 2. Cavity-concade. Height distribution with Perlin nose. Realism!

First attempt

Sheesh! This almost set my PC on fire. 31GB of VRAM gobbled up. Almost certainly a combination of terrain resolution, the number of big masks and the fact that the render is of the whole mountain range.

By contrast, this was a quick render that didn't use nearly as much VRAM.

Is it time for me to grasp the nettle that is the new BETA? It works in a way that offers a lot more control over biomes, but I found it very hard to use and, not surprisingly, it was unstable.

That was a few months ago. I think that the beta has moved on. I should get my hands dirty!

BETA 

World Creator 2025 has moved to a new biome system, and I don't fully understand it yet.

Two biomes (Square blocks in the middle and hex blocks around the edge) have been painted via masks. That is very cool!

Two masks! The top mask painting covers all the biomes underneath.


Grey terrain - Global (base)

White terrain - Biome (Applying mask1)

Red terrain - Biome1 (Applying mask2)