So as of now, developing with smooth terrain can be quite frustrating. Today I had my first attempt at large-scale use of smooth terrain and I have noticed some obvious flaws and oversights to the tools and how they work. The following is a list of features for specific tools I would love to see implemented or added onto existing features to make the process a little more smooth and easier.
Region Tool:
The region tool is a great tool for smooth terrain and definitely improves the development process, but it lacks obvious features that would greatly improve its use. The first issue that comes to mind is the region size restriction. The region size restriction seems to be roughly 500 cubic studs (I am not sure what this is in voxels). I am currently developing a map that is much larger than this size restriction and if I need to resize the entire map if it ends up being too big or too small for what I need, currently I have to resize and move many chunks, hoping that they all fit in the end. This would be greatly improved if I could select the entire map and resize it all at once.
The region tool also lacks the ability to move the region itself, but not the terrain within it. Currently, if I make a mistake and my region is not located in the right spot, I either have to resize the region until it’s in the right spot or make it all over again. This can be quite frustrating, especially if the region is only off by a few voxels. I believe being able to move the region itself would be quite beneficial in solving this issue.
Generate Tool:
The issues that I have with the generation tool is that it seems to have lost many useful features that it had before smooth terrain was developed. When we had the previous “blocky” terrain, we were able to set the height of the terrain which water would be generated below. This was quite useful for making a large map with a few small lakes and ponds scattered around the place. Another useful feature that was lost was the ability to set the amplitude of the hills. The current terrain generator makes the hill biome quite level without a great variation to how high each hill is. If amplitude would be implemented again, there would be a greater diversity to how high each hill would be and would allow developers a greater freedom when generating terrain. Thickness of the terrain base being generated was also removed. Previously, you could set the thickness of the base and the bottom of the terrain would be that many voxels thick with any hills or mountains above it. Now, there is no such option so the base of any terrain being generated is pretty thick which could cause a great deal of lag. If there is too much lag, the lag could be alleviated by removing the unnecessary terrain, or could be prevented by setting the thickness of the base before generating.
Water Fill Tool:
This tool currently does not exist on Roblox but would be an amazing addition. If a tool would be developed to allow developers to click on any point on terrain and fill it up with water until it reached a desired height, the creation of ponds and lakes would be greatly improved as the water would not have to be filled in manually. The generation tool and water biomes could be used, but this tool would allow developers to fill water in where and how they would like it. This would provide developers with more freedom with the design of their terrain and would be a great step up from what options currently exist.
If any of these features are currently being worked on, I apologize for not being aware. I don’t keep up with updates as much as I should.
EDIT: Also displaying the dimensions (and position) of the currently selected region would be very helpful. I found myself counting the size of the region so many times yesterday that I found myself needing this feature.