Dev Diary #127 - New Terraforming ImprovementsThu, 7 May 2020
tl;dr- New Terraforming Improvements
- Flatten will be a powerful tool
- Sandboxers will have more fun
Hey there Ylanders!
We have some exciting news for the terraformers out there, those who want to reshape the land itself to their own image. The terrain tools are getting a major overhaul and many improvements. You may have seen the Major General giving a stellar review of the new tools in the video, but there are so many new features coming, we have to cover them a bit more here too 😊
So first thing’s first. As you might have noticed, we have switched Add, Remove, Flatten and Paint to a 2D brush. This brush will always rotate according to the angle of the terrain it is pointed at. You can really get creative with this brush and it opens up new untold possibilities for terraforming.
Also, flatten is getting a lot of quality of life improvements. So while in the past you had loads of limitations with flattening, like the ability to only flatten horizontally, now you can adjust it to your preferred angle. This makes, for instance, mud house building possible like shown in the video 😁 Flatten has really become a powerful tool to use in the Editor.
The same has to be said about Paint, which used to have a lot of the same limitations as Flatten, but these have been removed and the tool has been significantly improved. Now you can paint pretty much any surface without any limitations.
Another great addition is the Direction lock, which locks in your brush, once you press down the mouse and keeps it at the same angle, making consistent terrain much more easier to create. This function can be turned off any time, but it is a really cool addition to your terraforming arsenal.
We are also looking into making objects connect to the new terrain type, so you don’t have floating flowers above your new canyon, but we are planning that for 1.4. But it is in the works 😁 All of the above though also applies to sandbox and the terraformer gun, so you sandboxers out there will have great fun also 😊 The tools aren’t so complex in Sandbox mode and so versatile, but they’ll be a great improvement to the past version.
So overall some great additions, that I think all of you will have loads of fun with and I can’t wait, what you’ll create with them 😁 But until then stay classy but most importantly stay safe Ylanders!