Anyone know of a block terrain editor? Basically I want to generate a terrain with blocks (guess you can call them voxels, but I’m not using a voxel system) then be able to hand place additional detail. The idea is I’m making a blocky RPG (there’s no digging so I don’t need voxels and only need 1 block depth for terrain) and the built in terrain seams to only be able to do traditional (I’ll be placing blocks 1 by 1 to add detail after generated with noise).
I’ve reviewed Qubicle Constructor, but can’t get much information on its terrain generation feature as it doesn’t work in the free Basic version of it. If anyone has any ideas am certainly open to suggestions (commercial based is ok).
The reason for doing this is I like the look, feel, and just general style of such gameplay but I want to focus more on the RPG and less on the digging holes everywhere (I’ll have building, mineral nodes, etc…) so creating the terrain as a mesh should reduce performance hit significantly instead of pointlessly generating it. I also want to hand place towns, roads, etc… not something easily done when generated at run time.
Now what you do is load up WorldPainter. This will let you create your heightmap based terrain (you can import an external created heightmap if you want). Once you’re done export it to a Minecraft world. Now load up MCEdit and begin editing your terrain, making fixes, and adding further detail (do not add tress, plants, etc… do that in Unity as they’ll export poorly). Once you’re complete load up Jmc2obj and load in your new map. Now export it (it’ll be .obj; ensure it’s set to an object for each chunk or you’ll hit vert limits). Tada, you now have a mesh terrain that’s block based. Import it into Unity, set the import settings to have collisions, then apply the texture to the chunks (you’ll need to export this as single file from Jmc2obj then set the UV file as the single text in Jmc2obj before exporting the map so it’s UV mapped).
Basically you’re using MCEdit as your level editor. Minecraft is just there to provide the noise algorithm and stock assets (you’ll never load in Minecraft, do not load your level in or it’ll mess it up with foliage and crap). Do not use Minecraft assets in your game (you can use them for mockup); you’ll need to make a Minecraft texture pack and specify it in Jmc2obj so it can be used as the textures on export.
I’ll have some pictures for later of my completed imports in Unity with stock Minecraft textures for now until I’ve made my own texture pack. Basically the only solution I could find for creating reasonable levels. When doing this I suggest cleaning out blocks that no one can see in MCEdit to improve performance, but it does the trick.
Works, but only for small chunks of terrain unfortunately so only able to get terrain like 1/3 the size of default terrain plane. Have to say that’s quite disappointing. Looks like best approach (for me at the least) is to create meshes of details I may need such as mountains and import as needed. If anyone has any other suggestions I’m certainly open ears.