Learn

Most likely, you aren't simply interested in creating terrain for its own sake - you need to get your terrain from World Machine into your other applications. Here's a list of workflows, both generic and specific, to help you along.

Choose your Workflow

(Generic) 3D Rendering Software (Generic) Game Map Creation
Terragen 2 Vue Unreal Engine Crytek Engine
Unity

... and more specific workflows to come!

World Machine To Vue

You can create both terrain and ground texture for Vue from within World Machine. Although there are many possible ways to do this, the following is one easy workflow.

Within World Machine

  1. Create your World

    Create your world. Consult all of the other learning resources for help in this. In general, you want to create a world that looks the way you want completely within world machine. You can save the world file and rebuild the world later if you need to make changes.

  2. Setup Outputs

    For terrain, you will need a Heightfield Output device. Select TIFF as the output format.

    For color, a Bitmap Output device. The BMP format should suffice for color output.

  3. Build and Export

    Build the world, creating the high resolution heightmap that will be used by Vue to create the terrain. The higher the resolution the more detail, but the slower your build and render times will be. 512X512 is good for quick terrains, while a high resolution terrain will give you much more detail and depth.

    After building, you must export to your files. The "Export Terrain files..." option from the File Menu provides a convenient location to do both.

Within Vue

Terrain

  1. Once inside Vue, create a Standard Terrain, and enter the terrain editor.
  2. Choose a resolution that matches the resolution you selected in World Machine.
  3. Reset the terrain, then choose the Picture terrain type from the list of terrain types. Click Load, then Browse to the directory where your terrain heightfield is located. Select it.

Your terrain has now imported succesfully into Vue!

Texture

You can also import colormaps into Vue from World Machine. You can either use the texture directly, or as a great base that is then further extended by Vue's built-in texturing functions.

  1. Click on your terrain object and choose Edit Material
  2. Either add a new layer, or select the Default Layer, and choose the Color&&Alpha tab. Change the coloring mode to 'Mapped Picture'
  3. Click Load then Browse to your exported terrain bitmap, and select it

You have successfully textured your terrain! It should now look identical to within World Machine.