Give a top-down project real height: raised ground, cliffs, stairs and ladders, seen at a tilt.

Diorama View

Diorama gives a top-down project real height. Ground can be raised into plateaus, cliffs have sides, and players reach higher ground by stairs, slopes and ladders. The game shows it at a tilt instead of from straight above, so you see the front of a cliff as well as the top of it.

It is one setting for the whole project, and it is off by default. A project that leaves it off looks and plays exactly as it did before. Players have no switch for it, and the camera does not rotate in a Diorama world.

Diorama is for top-down projects. An isometric project can keep the setting saved, but it does nothing there.

Where to Author It#

What	Where
Turn Diorama on or off	World → Rendering → Diorama (height and perspective)
Tilt, field of view, square tiles, view distance	The same block, shown once the switch is on
Top-down view mode (needed first)	World → Rendering → View Mode → Top-Down
Raise and shape the ground	Map Editor → open a map → the Height tab (only while Diorama is on and the map is top-down)
See your heights and where they block walking	The numbers and arrows on the flat map, and Show passability in the layer menu (the eye)
See it tilted	Dry Run or Play from here, or the published game. The map editor itself always draws the map flat

How To Set It Up#

Open World and go to the Rendering tab.
Under View Mode, pick Top-Down if it is not picked already.
Tick Diorama (height and perspective). The camera controls appear.
Leave Tilt and Field of view as they are for a first look, or type your own numbers. The allowed range is printed beside each box.
Click Save Changes. If the map editor is open it picks the setting up straight away.
Open a map and select the Height tab. Raise some ground (see below), then press Dry Run to walk it.
Publish when you are ready. Players already in the world do not need to reconnect.

Before step 3 on a live world, make sure your game server is updated to this release. A managed server updates itself the next time nobody is playing; a server you run yourself needs the new build. Until then the published game treats every height change as a wall, and the Rendering tab warns you with "This game server does not support Diorama yet."

The Controls#

Control	Allowed	What it changes on screen
Diorama (height and perspective)	on / off (starts off)	Gives top-down maps real height, seen at a tilt instead of from straight above.
Tilt	20 to 60 degrees (starts at 50)	How far the view leans over from straight above. A higher number makes cliff sides look taller and the ground look shorter.
Field of view	0 to 45 degrees (starts at 30). Less at a very low tilt, and at a steep tilt while Keep ground tiles square is off. The box prints the range for the tilt and tile setting you have right now and stops there	How strong the perspective is. A higher number makes things farther up the screen look smaller. 0 turns perspective off.
Keep ground tiles square	on / off (starts off)	On keeps a ground tile square in the middle of the screen, as in the flat view. Off lets the ground look shorter the more the view tilts.
Set how far the view draws and View distance	off, or 16 to 96 tiles	Off uses the default: 64 tiles ahead of the player on computers, 40 on phones and tablets. On, the ground fades out before the distance you type. A phone never draws further than 40 tiles, whatever you set (a lower number is honoured). A lower number is lighter on weak devices; a higher one only shows more when players zoom out on a big map.

Whole numbers only. A number outside the range is pulled back into it when you leave the box. The camera values are stored only while Diorama is on: turn it off and save, and the numbers go back to their starting values next time.

Raise Ground, Slopes, Stairs and Ladders#

Select the Height tab (after Events in the layer tabs). A row of options appears: the tool, and for some tools a height or a direction. The Pencil, Rectangle and Circle apply the tool; the Bucket and Eyedropper do nothing on this tab.

Tool	What it does
Raise	Lifts each cell half a block per stroke, up to 16 blocks.
Lower	Lowers each cell half a block per stroke, down to 0.
Set height	Puts each cell at the height you pick, 0 to 16 blocks in half blocks.
Slope	A ramp. The tile's own height is its low edge; it rises one block toward the side you pick.
Stairs	Steps, with the same rule as a slope. They behave the same when walking and differ only in looks.
Ladder	A tile you stand on. You enter it from the side opposite the one you picked and climb to the ground on the picked side, however high that is. Its other two sides are closed.
Flat	Removes a slope, stairs or ladder from the tile. The height stays.
Cliff art	Paints the tileset selected in the tileset panel as the picture on the sides of the raised tile. Tick None (remove the art) to take it off.
Direction	Auto, North, East, South or West. Auto points the shape at the higher ground when exactly one side of the tile is higher.

Select the Height tab and choose Raise.
Drag the pencil or a rectangle over the ground you want higher. Stroke again to go up another half block. One block is one tile tall.
Choose Stairs, leave the direction on Auto and paint the tile at the foot of the cliff.
Where no side or several sides are higher, Auto leaves the tile alone: pick a direction yourself and paint again.
Choose Cliff art, pick a tileset in the tileset panel and paint the raised tiles.
Press Dry Run and walk up the stairs.

Good to know:

A character steps up or down half a block on its own. A whole block is a cliff: it needs a slope, stairs or a ladder. A slope or stairs is entered from its low side; its other two sides are closed.
Painting tiles on the Floor tab does not change height while Diorama is on. New floor you drag out from a plateau takes the height of the cell where your stroke began.
One stroke is one undo step. Copy, paste and stamps carry heights, slopes, stairs, ladders and cliff art with the tiles. The Lock layer button works on the Height tab.
Cliff art is only a picture; it never changes where a character can walk. A raised tile with no cliff art shows its wall tileset if it has one, otherwise a plain side.
Stairs that rise toward the bottom of the screen are seen from behind in the game, so a character walking up goes out of sight behind the top step. The options row warns you in amber. They still work.
A tile with no ground painted on it has no height. Paint ground under everything a player can reach.
Diagonal steps work on level ground only: none onto, off or beside stairs, a slope or a ladder.

Reading Heights on the Flat Map#

While Diorama is on, the map editor draws small marks over the flat map. They are not part of the map and never appear in the game or an export.

You see	It means
A number in the top-left of a tile	The ground is that many blocks high. Ground level has no number.
A white arrow	A slope, rising one block in the arrow's direction.
A white arrow with two bars	Stairs.
An amber arrow	A slope or stairs that rises toward the bottom of the screen.
A small blue ladder	A ladder, climbing toward the side its tip points to.
A tick in the bottom-left	The tile has cliff art.

Hover a tile and the line at the bottom of the map says the same in words. The marks hide when you zoom out until a tile is smaller than 20 pixels. In a Diorama project Show passability also draws a red line on every side a character cannot cross because of height.

What Changes in the Game#

Everything that walks obeys heights: players, monsters, NPCs, pets, moving map events, pushes and dashes. Clicking the top of a plateau that nothing leads to shows "Cannot move there". Dry Run follows the same rule.
The camera follows height. It rises with a character climbing onto a plateau. Players can still zoom. On a small screen the closest zoom can stop a little early.
Players cannot rotate the camera. The Camera Rotation setting under World → Controls → Movement does nothing while Diorama is on, and the rotate buttons are hidden on phones.
Lights, shadows and weather follow the ground. A light placed on a plateau lights the plateau. Shadows lie on the ground under the feet. Snow, wet ground and ice climb plateaus, slopes and stairs, and rain and snowfall land on the ground under them. Time of day and night colour work as before. Cliff sides do not collect snow or cast shadows, and a light does not know about walls: a lamp behind a cliff still brightens its front.
Effects lie on the ground. Area warnings, casting circles and the click marker are drawn on the ground at its height, and a wall or tree in front hides part of them.
Phones and tablets always run the lightest Diorama mode. If a device cannot draw it at all (for example no WebGL 2), the game falls back to the flat view; heights still apply to movement.
Turning it on or off changes the view for players already in the world, without a reload.

Turning It Off#

Untick Diorama and save. The editor asks "Turn Diorama off?" first, because maps keep their heights but play flat, and every height change becomes a wall until you turn it back on. Players standing on raised ground may be stuck there. Nothing in your maps is deleted: tick the box again and save, and every plateau, stair and ladder works as before.

Things That Catch People Out#

What you see	Why, and what to do
The Diorama switch is greyed out, with "Diorama needs the Top-Down view mode."	The project is isometric. Pick Top-Down under View Mode on the same tab first.
"Lowered to 36: the widest this tilt and tile setting allow." under Field of view	You changed the tilt or Keep ground tiles square and your field of view no longer fits. For a wider field of view, move the tilt toward the middle, or switch Keep ground tiles square on.
"This game server does not support Diorama yet. Heights act as walls until it updates."	Your running game server is older than your editor. Update it before turning Diorama on for players. Dry Run is not affected.
A player sees "Update required" and cannot join.	Their game client is older than this release. A client that old is refused in a Diorama world. Reloading the page or updating the app fixes it.
A player's game shows the flat view in a Diorama world.	Their device could not draw the Diorama view. The game falls back to the flat view and keeps running. Nothing to change in the project.
The far corners of the screen show the background past the edge of the map.	The tilted view sees further up the screen than the row the player stands on. Give the map a border of scenery, or set a parallax background.
A tall cliff is cut off at the bottom of the screen.	Keep ground a player can stand next to within about six blocks above them. Up to 16 blocks are stored and enforced, but a taller cliff is not guaranteed to be drawn.
Wall and roof pieces made with the building system are not drawn.	The building system fakes height with a 2D offset, which would smear across the ground. Floors are still drawn.
You saved another World tab and Diorama did not change.	On purpose: the setting changes only when you change it on the Rendering tab.
You rolled back to an older published version and Diorama stayed as it was.	Also on purpose: a published version does not hold your maps' heights. The rollback result says "Diorama setting kept". Change it by hand if you want it off.
A teammate on an older desktop Studio saved World settings and Diorama switched itself off.	Studio builds from before this release do not know the setting and save over it. Update that Studio, tick Diorama again and save. Your maps are untouched.

Studio Copilot#

Copilot can turn Diorama on or off (it asks for your approval first, because the setting covers the whole project), set the camera values and view distance with the diorama-set tool, and raise ground, shape stairs, slopes and ladders and paint cliff art. Send the whole setting with it turned on; a tilt on its own is refused.

Feature Flag#

None. Diorama is not a feature flag: it is a per-project setting under World → Rendering, and it is off until you turn it on.