Creating New Terrain

You can use the LevelEditor Terrain Editor to create custom terrains. For example, you can quickly add or modify outdoor terrain, such as mountains, rivers, forests, and plains, within a level. Starting with an empty level or a level that already has some basic terrain defined, you can use the Terrain Editor to:

• Raise or lower terrain
• Flatten terrain
• Smooth terrain
• Add noisy terrain
• Add decorations and layers to terrain

The following figure shows the Terrain Editor window.

To create new terrain, perform the following tasks:

1. Open the Terrain Editor window: Select Window -> Terrain Editor.
2. Click the Browse button () at the top left of the Terrain Editor window to open the Create New Terrain dialog, as shown in the figure below.
   
3. Specify a name for your terrain in the Name field. This name allows you to switch quickly between defined terrain types using the dropdown listbox at the top left of the Terrain Editor window.
4. Specify a height map for your terrain. Click the Browse button () for the HeightMap field to open a Windows Save As dialog to specify a new height map for the terrain. Click Save in the Save As dialog to specify the new height map file; this file is not created until you click OK to close the Create New Terrain dialog.
5. You can import an existing height map to define the resolution, cell size, and scale height for the terrain or you can specify custom values:
1. To specify an existing height map for the terrain, click Import HeightMap to open a Windows Open dialog. Select the height map file and click Open. Height map files typically have a .dds file type. The existing height map defines the resolution, cell size, and scale height for the terrain.
2. To specify custom values for the resolution, cell size, and scale height for the height map:
• Specify the number of units for the vertical (Col) and horizontal (Row) dimensions of each cell.
  You can specify between 129 (128+1) to 8193 (8192+1) units.
  The default resolution specifies Col 513 and Row 513.
• Specify the cell size.
  You can specify between 0.125 to 32 units.
  The default cell size is 2.
• Specify a scale height for the height map.
  The default scale height is 1.0.

As you modify the height map resolution and cell size, the Create New Terrain dialog shows the terrain size and total number of vertices for the terrain.
The minimum terrain size is 16.1255 x 16.125 units (16641 vertices); the maximum terrain size is 262176 x 262176 units (67125249 vertices). The default values for height map resolution (513) and cell size (2) define a terrain size of 1026 x 1026 units (263169 vertices).

6. Select Activate terrain editing () to enable terrain editing within the Design View.

In general, smaller values for resolution and cell size define smaller levels, whereas larger values define larger levels. A larger scale height lets you raise or lower terrain more quickly, with less granularity, whereas smaller values require more clicks or drags to achieve a similar effect with greater granularity.

For a demonstration of how to use the Terrain Editor, view the “Terrain Editor Features” video, either on the GitHub site or on SHIP.