Creating 3D Maps: Terrain

The Terrain tool sculpts the shared landscape directly in the viewport. The same height data is used in top-down, 2D Iso and 3D views.

Select the hill icon in the tool strip, then choose Raise, Lower or Smooth. Drag across the ground or hold the pointer still to keep applying the brush. Adjust Radius and Strength with the panel's minus/plus buttons. [ / ] also change radius; Shift temporarily switches to Lower. Lower stops at height zero. Each stroke is one undo step, and Esc cancels an active stroke. Camera pan, orbit and zoom remain available through their normal controls.

The circular cursor follows the terrain rather than walls or props. The brush can adjust an existing hill made with terrain control vertices; those vertices remain available for precise editing through Edit Vertex.

MZ ground materials and painted path compositions stay in world coordinates as the landscape changes. Use the Rect tool to paint and compose a winding path over a hill. Stairs, walls and upper floors retain their own geometry and construction heights. Select a ground MZ material before sculpting a new map to use it as the default ground; otherwise a neutral ground appears until a material is painted.

Shape Terrain with geometry

Use the Linedef / Edge and Sector / Face tools in a top-down or 2D Iso view to draw editable terrain guides. Select a line or sector, open its Edit Linedef or Edit Sector action, and edit the [terrain] section in its right-hand action parameters. Set enabled = true (Shape Terrain) to make the geometry influence the landscape. The same terrain is rendered in 3D and used for ground picking, walking and shadows.

Graded corridors

For a linedef, set:

• Start height and End height: absolute ground altitudes at the linedef's start and end. Height is interpolated along its length. Give adjoining segments matching endpoint heights to form a connected graded route.
• Corridor width: the full width of the graded strip. Half lies on either side of the line. A zero width makes a ridge-like guide.
• Edge blend: the additional distance on each side and around the endpoints over which the strip joins the surrounding landscape. Larger values make gentler slopes.

The linedef action parameters use:

[terrain]
enabled = true
start_height = 0.0
end_height = 1.2
width = 1.8
blend = 2.5

Leave the action's other sections in place when editing these values.

Draw several connected segments for a winding approach. Each segment retains its own height settings. Moving its vertices or dragging the whole line reshapes the ground immediately. Endpoint heights are stored on the line; they do not move the vertices vertically or turn them into independent hill controls.

Plateaus and hills

Close a polygon with the Linedef tool, then select the resulting sector:

• Plateau fills the polygon at Target height, with a smooth transition outside its boundary over Edge blend world units. It works for a building site, terrace or clearing, and follows concave boundaries.
• Hill rises inside the boundary. Its edge meets the surrounding ground; the interior reaches full influence at Edge blend units from the nearest boundary. A narrow shape with a large blend distance therefore has a lower peak. Reduce the blend distance for a fuller top.

For example, the sector action uses:

[terrain]
enabled = true
mode = "Plateau" # "Plateau" or "Hill"
height = 1.2
blend = 2.5

Target heights are absolute world altitudes. A target below the surrounding landscape lowers it. Ground is clamped at zero. Overlapping sector targets blend without depending on storage order; graded corridors then shape their routes across those regions. Terrain brush strokes remain a final layer of world-space sculpt offsets, so sculpting can further adjust an enabled shape.

The separate floor_height parameter (Floor / tile height) places an elevated tile or floor. It does not enable a terrain modifier. Ordinary named areas continue to act as logical regions until Shape Terrain is enabled. Disabling the modifier removes its influence and keeps the geometry and settings available for reuse.

MZ terrain materials, tile overrides, painted paths and organic stamps stay in world coordinates and follow the resulting ground height. Shape Terrain controls height. Use the selected geometry's [terrain.material] TOML section for a material that follows the guide, with path width or area inset and soft/noisy edges. Rect and Paint strokes remain at their authored world positions. See terrain material settings for complete path, verge and rocky-area examples. Each inspector edit and geometry move uses normal map undo/redo. Save/reopen retains the guide and its parameters; no generated terrain mesh must be saved.

Try Unending Night

Open test_projects/UnendingNight.eldiron. The scene starts in daylight with a wider view of the inn and its eastern grounds. Follow the worn MZ trail from about (12.5, 12.5) toward the new terrain examples:

1. Terrain Plateau, around (21.5, 14): select the named sector in the region tree, change Target height or Edge blend, and walk across it.
2. Terrain Hill, around (23, 23): compare its inward slope with the plateau's outside transition. Move a corner to change the hill's footprint.
3. Terrain approach 1–5: use the Linedef tool to select the graded segments beneath the winding trail. Change an endpoint height or width, or move an endpoint. Walk up and back down; the MZ path stays on the terrain.

Switch to the 3D camera to inspect the same surface; the saved camera looks at the examples. Authoring sectors and linedefs uses the 2D/iso views, while the Terrain brush also sculpts directly in 3D. Terrain resolution is shared through terrain_subdivisions; enabling Shape Terrain uses at least four subdivisions per world unit. All cameras consume the same facets, including sculpt strokes and terrain exclusions.

See Procedural Materials for ground and path authoring, and Creating 3D Maps for buildings and other geometry.