Overview

The World Creator Bridge for Blender allows you to seamlessly import your terrain creations into Blender for use in your Blender projects.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Installation


The Bridge relies on an external module to load images. Therefore an active internet connection is highly recommended during installation. Once the required module is installed, the internet connection is no longer needed. If you do not have an internet connection, please make sure you meet the requirements listed in the Offline Installation section before installing the addon.


Start Blender, go to Edit → Preferences, press the Install button and select the .zip file you got from extracting the downloaded Bridge. You should now see the Bridge in the Add-ons list. Tick the box to enable it.

Restart Blender. The external Python module needs to be downloaded and loaded into memory after installation. This step is only needed once.


Offline Installation

The online installation is highly recommended. This is not a full guide on how to install without an internet connection. These are just the requirements that need to be met for the bridge to work. Knowledge of Python is therefore required!


The bridge uses Pillow, which needs to be placed somewhere in Blenders Python environment. The bridge installs it internally in the user's scripts folder under \addons\modules\, which you can get from the Blender Python console via bpy.utils.script_path_user(), but any other environment path of the Blender Python installation should work.


Also important if you only know Python and have never used it in Blender before: 

All this doesn't refer to your normal PC Python installation, but the one that comes with Blender. On Windows this can be found in [BLENDERS INSTALLATION DIRECTOY]\[VERSION NUMBER (e.g. 3.5)]\python\


Parameters


  • XML File 
    Locate the .xml file for the desired sync project. For WC 22 and above, this file is located by default at
    [SYSTEM DRIVE]:\User\Documents\World Creator\Sync\


  • Obj Name
    Specify the prefix for all terrain objects created by the bridge. Modify this parameter if you intend to import a second terrain, otherwise, the old one will be overwritten.


  • World Scale 
    This parameter determines the scale factor for the terrain. (Default: 1 pixel in World Coordinates in width equals 1 meter in Blender)


  • Height Scale 
    Specifies the factor for scaling the height of the terrain.


  • Interpolation 
    Enables height-map interpolation. Interpolation is only applied on single-tile terrains by default, as it results in artifacts on the seams of multi-tile terrains.


  • Auto Subdivision
    The subdivision of the generated mesh is automatically adjusted to the resolution of the synchronized heightmap to reduce sampling artifacts.


  • Subd Viewport/Render 
    The level of terrain subdivision can be set.


  • Import Layers
    Switch between using individual terrain layers or a baked colormap in the generated material.


  • Adjust Clipping
    Automatically adjusts the clipping distance of the viewport camera to ensure the whole terrain is visible. (Specifically changes the viewpoint camera and not the rendering camera!)


  • Reset Objects
    Allows you to protect any changes made to specific terrain objects from the synchronization process.
    Note that this only works if you keep the original names!


  • Reset Materials
    Allows you to protect any changes made to specific material layers from the synchronization process.
    Note that this only works if you keep the original names!


  • Renderer 
    Enables you to choose the rendering engine for which the bridge will create materials.

    The bridge only supports the OctaneBlender addon and not Blender for OctaneRender. Currently, the add-on is available for download via the Otoy forums. Additionally, please check Otoy's download section as the addon may be released there in the future. Ensure that you start the Octane render server when using Octane.
    Note that Octane is limited to 12 individual blending layers, so please consider this when creating your terrain.


  • Invert Normal
    This option inverts normal maps for Octane materials.


Workflow Example

This example illustrates the process of rendering terrain in Blender. The Canyon sample file that comes with World Creator will be used for this purpose. These steps can be applied to any other World Creator project.



Sync from World Creator

Click the sync button in the application bar at the top of the main panel to export all necessary data from World Creator automatically.


The World Creator scene before the sync


Sync into Blender

To open the bridge interface, press N in the viewing area and select 'WC Bridge' from the sidebar on the right. Then, click on the Synchronize button located at the bottom of the panel.


Synced terrain in Blender


Since the Import Layers option was activated, all material layers from World Creator are now available as separate groups that can be modified further within Blender.


To give our terrain a winter look, we will transform the top sediment layer to resemble snow. To do this, open the Sediment subgroup and add a Mix node with a white color between the colormap and the output. Although we could achieve a more precise outcome using World Creator, we will stick to Blender for the purpose of this guide.


Synced terrain with altered splat maps in Blender


The terrain should now appear as shown in the picture.


A significant advantage of using the bridge is the enhanced iteration speed between World Creator and Blender that it offers. To demonstrate this more clearly, alter the terrain's seed value to 1 in World Creator, resulting in a new scene that adheres to the original terrain's design patterns.


To preserve the snow cover modifications in our Blender material, we must deactivate the Reset Materials parameters in the bridge settings. The bridge consequently scans the terrain materials for existing subgroups, retaining any changes made to them in tandem with reloading all appropriate new textures. To make this work, you must retain the original names of the subgroups.


You can use the same workflow at the object level, where you are able to include more modifiers to the terrain mesh. For this purpose, you must keep the Subdivision and Displace modifiers and the original mesh name.


Material changes applied to a freshly imported terrain with a different seed


Upon changing the seed and resyncing the terrain into Blender, this is what you should see now.