Mark up your scene

Worldprint draws what you tag. A tag is a small component on a scene object: it says “this is a building”, “this is a lake”, “put a label here”. Most of the time you add none of them yourself. The first bake runs Detect Objects, which adds Map Ground, Map Building, Map Tree and Map Object (water) to what it recognizes, from names, sizes and shapes. Check the result, fix what it got wrong, and add the extras below by hand. Then Rebake.

Add one with Add Component > Worldprint, or drag the script onto an object.

Component	Put it on	Shows as
Map Ground	Ground meshes, in a scene without Terrain	The relief of the map (altitude bands and contours)
Map Building	A building, or the parent of its pieces	One footprint seen from above, with a height
Map Tree	A tree	A dot, and part of the forests
Map Object	Water, or any object that should be on the map	A dot, or the outline of the object’s meshes
Map Label	Any object	A text, with an optional icon
Map Point	Any object	A dot at the object’s position
Map Line	Any object	A line you draw in the Scene view (road, path, border)
Map Polygon	Any object	An area you draw in the Scene view (field, district, lake)

Layer and Metadata

Every component except Map Ground has these two fields.

Layer is the group the object goes to on the map. The theme draws each layer with its own look: buildings, trees, water, points, areas. Leave it empty or untouched and the component picks the right one. Change it only to separate things you want to style differently, for example shop and quest. A layer name the theme has no special look for is drawn as plain dots, lines or areas.

Metadata is a list of extra values attached to the object: a name, a type, a number, a yes/no. Each line has a key, a kind (Text, Number or Boolean) and a value. Themes ignore it. It only matters when you write your own style, which can color a building by its kind or hide a point when secret is true.

Map Ground

Use it when your scene has no Terrain: the map takes its relief from the top surface of the meshes of this object and its children. Detect puts it on large ground meshes for you. A scene with a Terrain does not need it.

Untick the component to leave the meshes out.

Note

A scene with no Terrain and no Map Ground cannot be baked, because the map has no ground to draw. The bake tells you so.

Map Building

Use it on a building, or on the parent of the pieces of a modular building. The map draws one footprint: the outline of all the meshes below the object, seen from above.

Height is in metres. Leave it at 0 and the bake measures it from the meshes. Set it when the measure is wrong, for example on a building with a tall antenna.

Map Tree

Use it on a tree. It shows as a dot at the object’s position, and the trees together also give the forest areas their shape.

Map Object

Use it for anything that has no component of its own, and for water. Shape chooses what is drawn:

• Point: a dot at the object’s position.

• Polygon: the outline of the object’s meshes and its children’s, seen from above.

Set Layer to water on a polygon and it becomes a water surface. The map keeps only the part where the ground is lower than the object, so a flat plane over a valley fills just the valley. In Metadata, a class of ocean, lake or river (Text) lets a style color them differently. Detect adds this on the water it finds.

Map Label

Use it for a place name on the map: a village, a shop, a quest giver. It sits at the object’s position.

• Text: what is written on the map.

• Icon: the name of an icon from the theme’s icon sheet. Leave it empty for text only.

Leave Layer on poi: that is the layer every theme writes text for. To use your own icons, see Your own style.

Map Point

Use it for a dot with no text, for example a spawn point. It sits at the object’s position: move the object with the usual tools. Add Metadata if your style needs it.

Map Line and Map Polygon

Map Line draws a line (at least 2 points). Map Polygon draws a filled area (at least 3 points, and it may be any shape, not only convex). Both start as a 10 m shape around the object. You draw the rest in the Scene view, with the object selected:

• Drag a dot to move a point.

• Click the + in the middle of an edge to add a point there.

• Ctrl+click a dot (Cmd+click on macOS) to delete it.

Each change is one Undo step. The points are stored relative to the object, so moving, rotating or scaling the object moves the shape. Only the ground plane counts: the height of a point is ignored.

A shape with too few points is not drawn, and the inspector warns you. The Points list is also editable by hand.

As with Map Object, Map Polygon with Layer water is a water surface, kept only where the ground is lower.

Roads

Set Layer to road on a Map Line and the themes draw it as a road: a fill with a border, widening as the player zooms in, in the colors of the theme. Add a class (Text) in Metadata to set its importance:

class	Look
motorway, trunk, primary, secondary	Wide, in the theme’s main-road color
tertiary, street	Medium
track, path	Narrow, in the theme’s track color
anything else, or none	A minor road

A line on any other layer is drawn as a plain line.

See your changes

The map is baked, not live: after adding, moving or editing a component, press Rebake in the Worldprint window (Window > Worldprint) to see the change. Detect Objects in the same window, or Tools > Worldprint > Detect Map Objects, runs Detect again. It adds components only where there is none yet, so it never touches what you placed. One Undo removes everything it added.