Skip to main content

Environment Areas

Environment areas are used to set up different environments for different areas of a map. They are commonly used for time of day changes, new sun angles, or different locations in a map.

View the Environment​

  1. Open the Environment Editor from the main window by going to Windows → Editors → Environment Editor.
  2. Open an environment by clicking Open → env/[SELECT AN ENVIRONMENT] → OK. This allows you to preview the environment in World Camera.
info

For more information on specific environment settings you can adjust, see: Environment (Env) Settings

Create an Environment Area​

  1. In the World Editor, right-click to pull up the context menu.
  2. Go to New Entity → Volume → env_area to add an environment area to your map.
  3. Press F4 to toggle rendering the environment volume in your perspective view.
info

You may need to enable Show Environment Areas in your View Options. Enable this option by going to Tools → View Options in World Editor.

  1. Change the size and shape of the environment area:
    • Click outside the volume near the edge you want to move, then drag your cursor to change the size of the area.
    • Use the orthographic views in the World Editor to see the full shape and size of the environment area.

Assign an Environment to the Environment Area​

  1. Select the environment area entity, and open Entity Inspector.
  2. In the Entity Inspector, click the Env Effects decl attribute. A filtered Asset Browser list will pop up, displaying available environment decls.
  3. Select an environment decl to set the environment for the environment area.

Rebuild Triggers and Volumes​

  1. Go to the Build tab in the World Editor.
  2. Select Rebuild Triggers and Volumes to update the volumes so that they will work in engine and in the editor.

Helpful Tips for Environment Areas​

  • You can have many env areas within a map. Generally they should not overlap to ensure that the desired env is being used at any given location.
  • The default env of a map can be set by navigating to the top refmap of the map and setting the Env Settings attribute from the Entity Inspector.
    • This will decide what env is used when the player is outside of an env volume.
  • Env areas that make large changes to the sun direction or color will require additional setup to make sure that the lightmap and shadow cache matches.