Texturing & Biomes
Height paints the picture. Slope tells the story.
How Texturing Works
Terraformer uses a height-and-slope based texturing system. Each biome preset assigns four texture layers to different elevation bands:
- Low — base elevation (sand, dirt, grass, depending on biome)
- Mid — middle elevations (forest floor, rocky soil, dried earth)
- High — upper elevations (exposed rock, gravel, alpine meadow)
- Peak — highest terrain (snow, ice, bare stone)
The system blends smoothly between layers based on vertex height. Steep slopes get additional rock textures regardless of elevation — because cliffs are rock, not grass.
Biome Texture Sets
Each biome comes with pre-selected textures from a curated library of 2K PBR materials:
| Biome | Low | Mid | High | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain | Forest ground | Rocky terrain | Exposed rock | Snow |
| Desert | Sand | Cracked earth | Red ground | Worn rock |
| Arctic | Ice sand | Frozen soil | Blue-grey rock | Deep snow |
| Forest | Fallen leaves | Forest sand | Grass & rock | Worn rock |
| Beach | Coastal sand | Sandy rocks | Grass blend | Snow cap |
| Grassland | Coastal sand | Grass & rock | Rocky trail | Snow |
Texture Blending
The blending between elevation bands is smooth and continuous. There are no hard lines between sand and grass or rock and snow — the transition zones use linear interpolation based on normalized vertex height within each band.
Slope-based overrides add rock textures to steep surfaces. This means a grassy hillside will show exposed rock on any cliff faces, regardless of what height band they fall in.
Textures are applied during generation and updated when you change biome presets. If you sculpt significant elevation changes after generation, regenerating textures will update the blending to match the new terrain shape.