Creating an environment with terrain allows you to generate and customize organic materials within the 3D space that look and behave like natural materials from the real world. Using the tools in the Terrain Editor, this section teaches you how to generate and sculpt terrain for a small island where players spawn and begin navigating your game.
This is the one chapter where you must work directly in Studio instead of relying on Assistant. Terrain creation is a creative process, and it's difficult to exactly reproduce brush strokes, shapes, and material edits with AI.
Don't worry if your environment doesn't match the sample Island Jump game perfectly. As long as your terrain supports the gameplay and goals of your game, differences in appearance are both normal and expected.
Create the island
The first step in creating your environment is to create a small island that players will spawn to when they start the game.
- In the Terrain Editor, click the Edit tab and then click the Draw tool.
- Set Brush Size to 32.
- Set Source Material to Sand.
- Click in the viewport near your spawn location to drop a sphere of sand.
If you can't see the sphere, zoom your camera out until your spawn location is smaller.
Shape the island
If you keep the island in its current spherical shape, players would have a difficult time navigating without falling off the island.
- Switch to the Flatten tool.
- Set Brush Size to 18.
- Set Flatten Plane to Fixed.
- Set Fixed Y Plane to 0.
- Click and drag across the top of the sphere until you have a level surface.
Now switch to the Sculpt tool. Set Source Material to Sand. Click and drag your mouse around the island's edges and below the water line to make the island look more natural.
The Draw tool adds or subtracts material based on the brush's position, while the Sculpt tool only grows or erodes terrain that already exists. Use Draw to create new shapes and Sculpt to refine them.
Create water
To create a large body of water, this tutorial uses the Fill tool, which replaces all material within a selected region with another material.
- Switch to the Fill tool.
- Under Selection Settings, set:
- Size to 1800, 5, 1800 (so the water reaches the horizon).
- Position to 0, -15, 0 (so the water sits below the top of the island).
- Under Material Settings, set:
- Fill Mode to Replace.
- Source Material to Air.
- Target Material to Water.
- Click Replace to generate the water around the island.
Apply materials
Now that you've created the base shape of your island, use the Paint tool to apply grass materials to the terrain and give the island a more natural appearance.
- Switch to the Paint tool.
- Set Material Mode to Paint.
- Set Source Material to Leafy Grass.
- Drag across the middle of the island to lay down a grassy field, leaving the edges sandy.
Add finishing details.
- Change Brush Size to 3.
- Change Material to Grass.
- Drag along the edges of the leafy area to add visible blades. Make sure to leave space in the center for the spawn location and the first few platforms you'll build in the next chapter.
Finally, position the spawn point.
- In the Explorer, select SpawnLocation.
- Using the Move tool from the toolbar, drag the spawn point towards the edge of the island so there's room for a launch platform. The sample game uses a position of -127, -3, 9, but anywhere near the edge works.
For a more custom look, you can replace default terrain textures with custom texture assets using Material Overrides.
Playtest
Once you are happy with your island's appearance, playtest your game to check the scale of the island.
Click Test from the dropdown menu in the toolbar and then click Play. Run around the island and see how it feels. When you're done, click Stop.
If your character spawns facing the wrong direction, such as toward the ocean instead of the center of the island, rotate the SpawnLocation object and playtest again until they spawn the way you want.
Next up, you'll learn how to create a playable area for players to follow in order to reach the highest platform.