BiteTheBytes releases World Creator 2024.1
BiteTheBytes has begun its World Creator 2024 releases, the latest annual series of updates to the GPU-based terrain generator.
World Creator 2024.1 adds a new rivers system, carving river valleys through terrain, plus Polygon Layers for raising or flattening terrain, three new filters, and a bridge tool for Blender 4.1.
(Full disclosure: it was actually released earlier this month, but we’ve only just spotted it.)
A procedural GPU-based terrain generator used by leading games and VFX studios
A GPU-based terrain generator combining procedural and manual editing workflows, World Creator has been used by artists at games and VFX studios including Blizzard Entertainment, Crytek, Blur Studio and Cinesite.
The software began life as a plugin for the Unity game engine, before evolving into a standalone application in 2017, and becoming independent of Unity with 2022’s World Creator 3.
Artists create terrain using a layer-based workflow, sculpting or stamping the basic 3D forms, and generating linear land forms like mountain ranges, rivers and roads along vector paths.
The terrain can be modified using a large set of filters, including those mimicking the effects of erosion and sediment deposition, previewing the results using World Creator’s built-in ray tracing renderer.
Users can export terrain to DCC applications and game engines in 3D formats like OBJ, FBX and glTF, or as 2D texture maps, including height maps and flow maps, with support for 32-bit EXRs.
New rivers system carves river valleys based on slope angle and water flow
The main new feature in World Creator 2024.1 is the new Rivers system.
As the name suggests, it carves river valleys through terrain, with users able to generate the rivers automatically, from hand-placed source points, or from scratch for greater control.
The width, depth and sinuosity of the river is determined by the slope of the terrain at each point along its length, and by flow parameters controlling the throughput of water.
Users can also modify the results with parameters to control river and valley shape, and overall settings to control branching, lake formation and sea level.
Other changes: Polygon Layers, new filters and performance updates
Other key changes include the return of Polygon Layers, for creating custom raised or flattened areas in terrain.
The feature was previously available in World Creator 2, where it was known as Shape Layers.
There are also three new filters, Hexagons, Squeeze and Rocky Layers.
Under the hood, performance has been improved, and for users of non-NVIDIA GPUs, there have been fixes for “all AMD issues”.
The Bridge Tools – the integration plugins for DCC applications – have also been updated, with a new plugin for Blender 4.1.
BiteTheBytes puts its changelogs in its customer portal, so you can only view them if you’re an existing user, but you can find more details of the new features in the online documentation.
Availability and system requirements
World Creator 2024.1 is available for Windows 7+ only. Integration plugins are available for Blender 2.93+, Cinema 4D R25+, Houdini 19.0+, Unity 2022+ and Unreal Engine 4.26+.
Perpetual Professional licenses cost $289; Company licenses, for firms with over five employees, cost $2,489. Companies can also rent the software for $1,289/year.
Read an overview of the new features in World Creator 2024 on the product website
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