Biomes and vegetation

A biome determines what grows on a stretch of terrain: trees, grass, rocks.

The biome bake

Computing the terrain produces biomes along with the relief. This is the step that gives your world its natural look.

Since version 0.8 biome computations have been rebuilt: rendering is noticeably better and the load on your machine is lower.

Refining after the bake

Two tools let you retouch baked terrain, in real time since 0.8.

Sculpting

Sculpting is for finishing touches: rounding an edge, digging a cave entrance, levelling a building site.

Sculpting inflates your save files

It is CPU-heavy and noticeably increases the size of your saves. For a major relief change, go back to your landforms and run another bake: it's faster and much lighter.

Biome painting

Painting changes what grows: turning a patch of forest into a clearing, exposing rock on a slope, clearing ground for a village.

Vegetation and performance

Vegetation generation is the heaviest operation in Menyr. Two behaviours worth knowing:

• Detail vegetation (grass, pebbles, twigs) appears after trees have generated across the whole map
• It only appears around the player, not across the entire map

On some machines its generation can cause stutters. Caching is planned soon, which will considerably lower the CPU cost.

Controlling vegetation

Since biome painting arrived, placing an asset no longer clears vegetation around it automatically. That gives you full control: clear the area with biome painting if you want it clear.