Roblox Smooth Terrain Efficiency HELP

Hello ROBLOX Developers,

My name is Cenosity, as there are almost no people that know me on here! I would like to introduce myself as a terrain developer here on the platform, but I do not want to get too fancy in professional names, because my work is not exemplar, but rather decent.

Forming MY Smooth Terrain

Part 1.
Open your Studio Terrain Tools, and click the “Add” button. This allows you to place terrain down in Roblox Studio. This is what I use to create my hills, and shape out terrain. NOTE Once you chose an increment to build with (I typically prefer half way across the scale) screenshot it, and do not change the increment, or else all your terrain will not be lined up, and it will look like a mess, after 10+ hours into your work. Use this tool, with the SQUARE, to place all base-terrain down. I tend to place the first layer down, then work my hills, and mountains up after.

Part 2.
After placing your first layer down, I will start to form the shape of the map, typically adding larger mountains to separate the sections off. I do this by using the ADD tool on top of the terrain that is already there. Every-time you go up, make sure to go in more and more, to make the effect of a hill.

Part 3.
To make the stacked terrain look like a hill, you need to fill it in, and give it shape. Example below: Same increment using CIRCLE

Part 4.
I personally use the grow tool to form the smooth “hill, or most of the time, large mountains.”


OVER 10 HOURS OF WORK!

I put over 10 hours of work into just making the mountains look smooth… THIS IS TIME CONSUMING!!

Beneficial ways to Make Larger Terrain Masses

Idea: The use of Roblox Smooth Terrain to generate large hills, ie. Mountains, through a plugin, or script, etc.

How do YOU do smooth terrain QUICKER? Do you even? Or do you do terrain by hand, taking a lot of time? PLEASE give me suggestions, or even, how I can improve.

And, how is it that you, when using terrain, make large mountains, maps, and hills, while being fast, clean, and efficient in your work? I’ve tried for so long to find new ways to do it, but by-hand is the only way I’ve ever gotten to figure out how to do.

If you guys have any suggestions, or have any different ideas, that would be greatly appreciated!

9 Likes

If this is a tutorial this should be in #learning-resources:community-tutorials

2 Likes

This should be in #learning-resources:community-tutorials. Ask a Lead Top Contributor to move it for you

1 Like

This is not a tutorial! I’m asking for help on how I can do my terrain differently in a way… I’ve outlined the steps or “parts” I take to do it, but am asking questions about the final product at the bottom. I have not created this as a “tutorial.”

I would consider looking into heightmaps, with the recently added heightmap/colourmap importer, you can now create detailed terrain quickly and efficiently.

There are a multitude of different external programs you can use to make heightmaps, such as World Machine and Gaea, These programs have a free version, although you will have a limited heightmap resolution at the end (513x513 for WorldMachine and 1024x1024 in Gaea’s case), the majority of the time, this is not a major issue, but if it is, you can usually tile your terrain.

Whilst I have only recently heard about Gaea (It was only released relatively recently), it looks like a good choice to use, primarily because they offer a free commercial license for the lowest 1024x1024 tier, wheras World Machine is only for non-commercial use.
You are able to sculpt the terrain as well (Which can be very time consuming in WorldMachine).

I believe you can also use Blender, but that might not be as straight forward as the others Don’t quote me on that.

7 Likes

You can also use various plugins to accelerate sculpturing the terrain into the desired form. Here is some of the plugins I heavily use:

@Fastcar48 Part to Terrain plugin

@Wordlydev’s Old terrain tools
https://www.roblox.com/library/423287595/Old-Terrain-Tools

3 Likes

You can use build v4 plugin to achieve a similar result to what you want.

exemple: https://gyazo.com/4c085a69e243d056d50752bab181b172

7 Likes

I find part-to-terrain to be one of the worst terrain plugins there is. Unless you’re making large maps, with a flat baseplate, other than that, PERSONAL preference, I like to do it by hand.

Thak-you for the feedback, and plugin suggestions! I’ll have to check out the Old Terrain Tools!!

That actually looks like it could work VERY well! Especially when creating large terrain maps- which I do for commissions. Thank-you for the input. This is why I posted here, to see what the community used, rather than my own. This is almost sort of what I was looking for. Thanks-again!

1 Like

How do I get to the terrain editing tools from that plugin, may I ask? I’ve tried looking through it…

1 Like