bootcamp: world machine

This amazing application enables artists to create bespoke landscapes in minutes

Create bespoke landscapes with ease using this software

Creating a convincing landscape for a scene can be a hugely involved process, especially as it often tells a lot of the story itself. Landscapes are complex, whether you’re working on a film or a game, and are only truly believable when they feel like they have literally evolved over millions of years.

World Machine is a brilliant standalone piece of software that enables the artist to design a landscape scenario that they wish to see, and then export it to a digital content creation application or game engine – with height and texture maps or as 3D geometry – to create a convincing base for a scenario.

Using World Machine, the artist has complete control over the shape of the landscape, with islands or mountain ranges at either end of a slider, but it is in the natural weathering tools where World Machine really comes into its own. Erosion is added via a range of nodes which work with the landscape generation nodes to create convincing, geologically correct formations in a matter of minutes.

As World Machine is an artist-driven tool it means that landscapes that would not be achievable on Earth can be created, which allows World Machine a freedom that some other landscape tools, which are based on real mapping data, simply cannot match.

While the software’s user interface and initial workflow can be somewhat daunting to the new user, the basics are reasonably straightforward when the learning materials have been absorbed. World Machine is in active development, with a range of UI enhancements and speed improvements featured in the latest batch of releases.

World Machine has a variety of reasonably priced tiers, which includes a free version to allow artists to experiment with this compelling and rewarding application. Here we detail some of its many useful features.