Orrery Terrain · limits
Know these before you design around the terrain
Most are deliberate choices that keep editing fast and the same on every machine. Each item links to the guide chapter with the details.
- By design will not change
- Not in 1.0 may come later
- Experimental supported, may change in a minor version
- Tested limit what was run, against what is accepted
Shape and rendering
Heightfield only
One height per point, so no caves, overhangs, arches or floating islands. For a tunnel the terrain cuts the hill and opens a hole at the mouth, and your game places the tunnel mesh. Bridges, retaining walls and building shells work the same way. Guide: Limits
By designNo Nanite
Nanite geometry cannot be rebuilt while the game runs. The terrain draws with its own vertex factory and continuous level of detail. Guide: Limits
By designHardware ray tracing near the view
Within r.OrreryTerrain.RayTracing.Radius (400 m by default) of each view, ray tracing uses a simplified version of the ground (every fourth ground point by default), so reflections, shadows and lighting from ray tracing see it. Beyond it, only far-field traces see a coarse grid. Software Lumen and virtual shadow maps remain fully supported. Guide: Limits
By designShader Model 5
The heightfield renderer needs Shader Model 5 or higher. Hardware below that uses the simpler mesh tier. Guide: Concepts
By designPlatforms
| Platform | Status in 1.0 |
|---|---|
| Windows 64-bit | Built and tested: editor, game, and multiplayer on a listen server with four players on one machine. |
| Linux | The runtime modules build, but no Linux server has been run. Not supported in this release. The editor module is Windows only. |
| Mac, iOS, Android, consoles | Not supported. |
Size and detail
One terrain per world
A world has at most one terrain. A second terrain actor is refused with a warning. Guide: Concepts
By designWorld size
The largest world run is 64 by 64 km at a 1 m cell, the World64 sample and the hero map. The New tool accepts up to 2048 tiles a side, 260 km at a 1 m cell; nothing above 64 km has been run. Guide: Limits
Tested 64 kmCell size and edit detail
The cell is 0.25 to 16 m. Edits can be finer than the natural ground, with an Edit Subdivision of 1, 2 or 4. Guide: Performance and quality
By designPaint and layers
Four layers per post
Paint layer ids 0 to 255. Each post holds up to four layers, and painting a fifth replaces the lightest. Guide: Materials and layers
By designPainted layers far away
Painted layers show on the near terrain. The far field draws only the material's automatic rules, so painted ground far away falls back to the rules. Guide: Limits
By designEditing and multiplayer
Edits run on the authority
A listen server or a single-player game. A client's edits go to the server as requests. Game code cannot edit an editor world's terrain; the editor mode's tools do. Guide: Multiplayer
By designDedicated servers
Listen servers only. A dedicated server's own setup (its guards, keeping the ground resident from the players' links) is not built, and no session against a Linux server has been run. Guide: Included in 1.0
Not in 1.0Reconnecting players
A player who reconnects receives the edited ground again. Downloading only what changed since they left is not in 1.0. Guide: Included in 1.0
Not in 1.0Sculpt limits
By default a brush step over a 100 m radius or 2 m of strength answers Refused and changes nothing. You can raise the limits on the terrain actor. Guide: Sculpt at runtime
By designUndo
The undo ring keeps 32 strokes by default. Each player undoes their own strokes, and an undo is refused when another stroke has written over the same ground since. Guide: Multiplayer
By designGround that is not loaded
A commit over ground that is not loaded is refused until the tiles arrive. Use the async nodes or an invoker. Guide: Concepts
By designSaves and the natural ground
A save loads only over the natural ground it was made on. Baking editor edits changes that ground, so a save or a multiplayer join made over the old ground is refused, so the save does not load and the client cannot join. Guide: Save and load
By designThe same ground on every build
Identical on every build
The core that applies every edit compiles with precise floating point on every target, and edits replay in integer maths, so the editor, Development and Shipping builds, Windows (MSVC) and Linux (clang) get a bit-identical edited ground for the same edits. A dedicated server has not been compared yet. Guide: Limits
By designDifferences between builds
Your own code's maths, because game targets compile your modules with fast floating point on Windows. Only slope-angle queries and ground-follow rotations use the platform's maths library; they can differ in the last digit between Windows and Linux and are never replicated; the edited ground does not differ. Grass and scatter, which are placed on each machine and not replicated. Guide: Limits
By designParts marked Experimental
Experimental parts
The grass system, the tile store, the PCG module, the net layer, texture brushes and stamps, live spline features and the brush-target extension V2. They are supported, but their API may change in a minor version, with a changelog line. Guide: Guide
ExperimentalBrush masks
8 to 2048 samples a side, at 8 or 16 bits. A terrain holds up to 64 MiB of masks; past that, Register Brush answers OverBudget. Masks are not saved, so register them again after a load. Guide: Limits
ExperimentalStamps
By default a stamp over a radius of 1000 m, a height of 1000 m or 1024 edit tiles is refused. Change the limits in Settings > Sculpt Limits. Guide: Sculpt at runtime
ExperimentalBrush masks in multiplayer
A server takes stamps of up to 2048 edit tiles a second from one player, and a join carries up to 32 MiB of masks. Players upload masks only if your edit policy allows it, at most 4 masks and 4096 KB a player, 2048 KB a mask, 256 KB/s. Guide: Multiplayer
ExperimentalLive spline features
One component drives one corridor or one plate. Nothing rebuilds by itself at run time, so call Rebuild when an edit ends. A plate's outline has at most 2048 vertices, and the async rebuild fails after 30 s by default. Guide: Plates and corridors
ExperimentalGrass
Grass is derived from the ground on each machine. It is not saved and not replicated, and it does not run on a dedicated server or under -nullrhi. Guide: Grass
ExperimentalEditor and import
Bake before you cook
Editor edits live in an authoring layer. A map with an unbaked layer does not cook cleanly; the cooked game lacks the authored ground, and the cook logs an error until you bake. Guide: The editor mode
By designAuthor limits
The editor brushes are capped at a radius of 2000 m and a step of 10 m by default, in Project Settings > Orrery Terrain Editor. Guide: The editor mode
By designImports run in the editor
Heightmaps, elevation models and Landscapes are imported in the editor, with Manage > New. A game cannot import a heightmap while it runs. Guide: Import a heightmap
By designLandscape import is one-time
It reads heights and paint layers once and does not keep them in sync. It refuses rotated Landscapes, non-square cell scale, unloaded components and more than 256 paint layers. Guide: Limits
By designThis page follows chapter 11 of the guide.