Overview
The World Creator Bridge simplifies importing terrains from World Creator to your preferred rendering application for processing and editing.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Overview
- Supported Applications
- Bridge usage instructions
- Internal Functionality of the Bridge (Including DIY Guide)
Supported Applications
Detailed descriptions and usage guides for each bridge can be found in their respective sub-article. Currently, the use of bridges is supported by the following applications
If you cannot find your preferred Digital Content Creation (DCC) or workflow, please contact our support team or leave a message on the Discord server. If there is enough demand, we will cehck what is needed to implement it.
Bridge usage instructions
The Bridge allows you to import terrain seamlessly by clicking two buttons. To start, load your terrain from World Creator. Then click on the sync button in the application bar at the top of the main panel.
Location of the Sync Button
Upon pressing the button, World Creator automatically exports the necessary files to recreate the scene within another application.
To complete the syncing process, click the Synchronize button in the user interface of the bridge for your respective program. The bridge loads all relevant maps and sets up the terrain for your 3D scene based on the parameters selected within the bridge interface.
(Refer to the documentation for installation instructions specific to your bridge).
The World Creator Bridge interface in Cinema 4D
Internal Functionality of the Bridge (Including DIY Guide)
If you wish to create a custom version of the bridge, either for a different/custom DCC or with additional functionality specific to your workflow, you will find all relevant information about the bridge's internal processes here.
When you click the sync button in World Creator, all relevant information and maps are exported to the Sync directory. This directory is located by default at "Users\[...]\Documents\World Creator\Sync\".
Here you will find the following files:
- XML Info (bridge.xml)
Contains relevant terrain information such as resolution, size, minimum and maximum height, number of tiles, as well as details about splat layers.
- Height map (heightmap_x_y.raw)
The heightmap is available in raw uint16 format. If you are unable to load raw format and have access to Python, you may try using Pillow. This conversion tool is used by Blender, C4D, and Houdini.
- Color map (colormap_x_y.png)
The colormap stores the color multiplication values of World Creator and the gradients of the materials.
- Texture map (texturemap_x_y.png)
This map is similar to the colormap, but it also includes all texture and material information. In essence, this is a complete precomputed colormap of the terrain.
- Splat map (splatmap_x_y.tga)
Contains the splat layers. Depending on the number of layers, it contains a maximum of 4 layers, which are stored in the order R->A. The number and names of the splat layers can be found in the bridge.xml file,
- Assets
All assets referenced in the scene are stored here. The names are the same as in the bridge.xml file.
All the bridges do from here is convert the information into a usable scene asset in each program and offer some additional options (e.g. different renderers, material setups).