Terrain & Layers

The Layer System#

The map editor paints on stacking layers, each with a different purpose:

Floor (Ground Layer)#

The base terrain — grass, dirt, sand, snow, water, stone, lava, etc. Each floor tile has:

• Biome type — which biome it belongs to (Plains, Forest, Desert, etc.)
• Variant — specific visual style within that biome
• Walkability — whether characters can walk on it
• Elevation — height value for creating cliffs and raised terrain
• Floor tileset — the ground sprite, with autotile support
• Wall tileset — the cliff face sprite used when adjacent tiles have different elevations

Walls (Building Layer)#

The dedicated Walls layer holds edge-walls, fences, doors, windows, and per-building roofs for multi-floor structures. It's the surface the Sims-style building tools draw on — see Buildings & Walls for the full toolkit. (This layer is hidden for projects configured as top-down.)

Object Sublayers (1 – 4)#

Objects paint onto four stacking sublayers so decoration reads correctly in isometric view:

The Objects palette includes a sublayer selector (with an Auto option that picks 1 or 2 based on the object's definition). Each sublayer has its own visibility toggle in the layer panel.

Region Layer#

An overlay layer for painting regions — spawn zones, biome/spawn regions, and other rules-driven areas. Regions are authoring metadata: they guide mob spawning and world logic but don't render for players in-game.

The editor draws them like territories on a strategy map: each connected area gets a colored border around its edge with a soft glow falling inward, a light tint so your map art still reads underneath, and the region's name printed once in the middle of the area. Two separate patches of the same region are two territories, each with its own outline and name. While the Region tool is active you still get the usual per-tile highlight under your cursor as you paint.

Events Layer#

Interactive trigger points — NPC dialogues, cutscene triggers, teleport zones, treasure chests. These are invisible in-game and activate when a player walks onto them or interacts.

Tile Properties#

Each terrain tile can be configured:

Bush Biomes (Concealment)#

Any biome can be marked as bush: open Manage Biomes, pick the biome, and turn on Bush — conceals players standing in it. Then paint that biome wherever you want jungle brush, tall grass, or ambush cover.

Standing in a bush biome hides a player from everyone outside it — other players, monsters, practice bots, and arena towers all lose sight of them. The rules match what you'd expect from a lane-pushing game:

• You are seen from inside a bush, and from very close up (about 2½ tiles).
• Attacking reveals you for a few seconds.
• Your own character dims while hidden, so you always know when you're concealed.

There's no separate stealth button involved — walk in, you're hidden; walk out, you're not. It works everywhere, but it's built for arena maps: line a Siege jungle or a Battle Royale field with bushes and flanking routes appear on their own.

Placing Objects#

When placing objects on Layer 1 or Layer 2:

• Multi-tile objects — objects can span 2×2, 3×3, or any custom size
• Passage grid — each cell of a multi-tile object can be set to:
  • X = impassable (blocks movement)
  • O = passable, drawn below the character
  • Star = passable, drawn above the character (player walks behind it)
• Display options — ladder, bush (character partially hidden), draw-on-top
• Animations — animated objects use framesheet sprites that play in a loop

Resizing Placed Objects#

Placed objects can be resized directly on the map without changing the source object definition.

• Select an object on Layer 1 or Layer 2 so the selection box appears.
• Drag the corner resize grip to scale the object's footprint in tiles. The object's width and height (in tile units) change independently on the X and Y axes, so you can stretch a 2×2 rock into a 4×3 boulder without swapping art.
• The cursor flips to a diagonal-resize icon when it's over the grip, so you won't accidentally paint while resizing.
• The original object definition is untouched — only the placed instance on this map is resized. Paint another copy anywhere on the map and it goes back to the definition's default size.
• Resize respects layer order: Layer 1 stays below Layer 2, and the passage grid scales with the new footprint.
• Bigger copies stretch the object's passage shape: a tree with a blocking trunk row still blocks along its (now wider) trunk.
• Smaller copies block only the tiles they still cover. Each of those tiles blocks if any part of the object it now shows is X — a tree shrunk to one tile blocks that one tile. The tiles it no longer covers are free to walk on. (Before October 2026 a shrunken copy kept blocking at its full size.)

Autotile System#

When you paint terrain, the editor automatically selects the correct tile variant based on neighboring tiles:

• Grass next to water gets a natural shore-edge variant
• Paths next to grass get correct border pieces
• Cliff edges auto-generate when adjacent tiles have different elevations

This makes painting large areas fast — just paint with a biome and all the edges and transitions handle themselves automatically.