Getting started

Install TerrainForge, start a Terrain Definition from a preset, preview it, build a take and import it as a World Partition landscape.

From nothing installed to a landscape in a new map. The Automation Forge getting started covers the hub and the account; this page starts after that.

Install through the hub

In the hub's Plugins tab, pick TerrainForge and press Add & install. The open toolset installs in the same click. TerrainForge itself is a paid plugin and is named until it is on your account; while it is in preview, its checkout costs nothing.

forge install terrainforge

In Unreal, open the Automation Forge toolbar menu, tick TerrainForge under Installed (and TerrainForgeToolset if an agent will drive it), and restart the editor. Edit → Plugins works too.

Create a Terrain Definition from a preset

In the Content Browser: Add → Automation Forge → TerrainForge → Terrain Definition (from preset).

The picker lists every preset with a small hillshade of its output, drawn by the native engine in the background and cached. Choose Alpine valleys (eroded) for a 4 km eroded mountain range, or any of the classic ones, and press Create. The asset opens in the TerrainForge editor.

Terrain Definition, without "from preset", opens with a starter mountain graph instead.

On a definition you already have, Start from preset in the toolbar replaces the graph and world settings in one undoable step. It keeps the definition's embedded sources and clears its GIS provenance. It is disabled while a build runs.

Preview

Select a node in the Flow graph and the Terrain viewer shows it, with Live preview on. Double-clicking a node previews it too.

The preview grid is 129, 257, 513 or 1025 samples. "Preview grid. Builds use the toolbar's resolution." A 257 × 257 preview comes first, then the size you asked for.
Pin keeps previewing one node while you select and edit the nodes that feed it.
In drainage water mode, the preview of the graph output also draws its lakes and rivers.
The viewer draws at most a set number of vertices per side; it says so under the view. A full 4033 mesh needs a lot of memory, so raise it on purpose.

Previews are quick looks on a reduced grid. A build computes the take at its own resolution, so a graph that previews well at 513 is still worth checking at 2017 before a 4033 build.

Build a take

World & biomes holds the world every build uses: map size, output grid, simulation grid, lowest and highest height, seed, which map edges water may leave by, and the water mode. It shows an estimate of the build's peak memory before you start.

Press Build terrain. The resolution beside it is World settings, Native 2K · 2017² or Native 4K · 4033². Start at 2017; 4033 is several minutes on the CPU.

The Build monitor tab during a take build of TD_AlpineEroded, marked RUNNING at 38 percent. A summary row reads elapsed 2 min 43 s, time left at least 4 min 28 s, pass Base, nodes 6 of 16, memory 13 GB and VRAM 3.6 GB, one warning, and 'Base: Erode (level 3 of 4)'. Below, a table lists every node with its state, progress, time, time left, the device it ran on and its memory: Main range, South-east massif, Rolling hills, Ranges, Ranges on hills and Glaciers are DONE on the CPU; Rain erosion is RUNNING at 42 percent; nine more nodes are QUEUED with estimated start times. Collapsed sections for maps written and warnings, and past builds, sit at the bottom. — Read the Ran on and Memory columns: they say which device each node used and what it held, which is where a slow or failed build is diagnosed. Time left is the engine's own estimate over the nodes still to run. Rendered by the plugin's UI test, not captured from a live build.

The Build monitor tab follows the build node by node and keeps the last twelve builds of each definition. Cancel stops the running build; takes that finished are kept.

The result is a new take. A changed graph or world setting marks the last take out of date; the take itself stays.

Import it as a World Partition landscape

On the Export tab, under New level, give a content path that does not exist yet (it starts as /Game/TerrainForge/L_Terrain) and press Import as new level.

The importer creates a new World Partition map with:

the landscape, at the take's resolution, with one paint layer per layer of the take, their weights summing to 255;
a landscape material that paints each layer a flat colour, for inspection;
the take's lakes and rivers as engine water bodies, their beds already carved;
a directional light, sky light, sky atmosphere and height fog;
a provenance record on the landscape, tagged TerrainForge.

It refuses, before it creates anything, when there is no current completed take, the path exists, the open map has unsaved changes, or Play In Editor is running.

Bigger takes

Take	In the editor	Nanite
Up to 4033	Yes, if the memory guard finds room	On
8129	Yes, if the memory guard finds room	Off, with a warning; enable it on the proxies afterwards
16321	No: the headless commandlet	Off

The memory guard estimates an import's peak and refuses one that will not fit in free memory, saying how much it needs and how much is free.

The commandlet has no resolution cap. It builds the landscape one streaming proxy at a time, so a 16321 take peaks near 8 GB rather than the 45 GB a whole import would need:

& "<UE 5.8>\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealEditor-Cmd.exe" "<project>.uproject" `
  -run=TerrainForgeImport `
  "-TakeDir=<absolute path to the take folder>" `
  "-Level=/Game/TerrainForge/L_Large" `
  -unattended -nop4 -AllowCommandletRendering

Add -VerifyLevel=/Game/<map> with the same -TakeDir to check a saved map against its take at every vertex. It writes <map>-verify.json and exits 0 only when heights, paint weights and bounds all match.
Build Nanite afterwards in batches of at most 16 proxies: -run=WorldPartitionBuilderCommandlet -Builder=TerrainForgeLandscapeBuilder -FirstProxy=0 -ProxyCount=16, then the next 16, until the reported total.
-NoMemoryGuard turns the guard off for the commandlet.

Export without a level

The Export tab can also bind a take's files to Landscape layers, PCG masks, textures and water geometry, and write them as assets without creating a level. Suggest bindings binds biome layers, PCG masks and water files by name; Validate checks them; Export assets creates a new Terrain Export Bundle with the textures and layer infos it names. No level is switched.

Biome masks add up; PCG masks overlap. Weight-blend only a complete, normalised group of layers.

Start from a real place instead: GIS.
Learn what each node does: node reference.