World Creator is a GPU-based terrain generator that combines procedural and manual editing processes. It's used by artists in gaming and VFX studios, including Blizzard Entertainment, Crytek, Blur Studio, and Cinesite. The program started as a plugin for the Unity game engine, then evolved into a standalone application in 2017, becoming independent from Unity with the release of World Creator 3 in 2022.
Artists sculpt terrain using a layered workflow, sculpting or stamping basic 3D shapes and generating linear landforms such as mountain ranges, rivers, and roads along vector paths. The terrain can be further modified using a wide range of filters, including those simulating erosion and sedimentation effects, previewing results with World Creator's built-in ray-traced renderer. Users can export terrain to DCC applications and game engines in 3D formats like OBJ, FBX, and glTF or as 2D texture maps, including heightmaps and flow maps, supporting 32-bit EXR.

The main new feature of World Creator 2024.1 is the "River" system. As the name suggests, it carves river valleys through the terrain, allowing users to generate rivers automatically from predefined points, manually placed points, or from scratch for greater control. The width, depth, and meandering of the river are determined by the terrain slope at each point along its length, as well as flow parameters controlling water flow capacity. Users can also adjust the results using parameters to control the shape of the river and valley, as well as general settings to manage branching, lake formation, and sea level.

Among other key changes is the reintroduction of the Polygon Layers feature for creating custom raised or flat areas on the terrain. Previously available in World Creator 2 as Shape Layers, this feature allows users to define specific regions of the terrain with distinct characteristics.

Three new filters have been added: "Hexagons," "Compression," and "Rocky Layers." Performance has been improved, and for users with GPUs other than NVIDIA, "all AMD issues" have been fixed. Bridge Tools, integration plugins for DCC applications, have also been updated, including a new plugin for Blender 4.1. BiteTheBytes posts changelogs on its client portal, so you can view them only if you're an existing user, but you can find more detailed information about new features in the online documentation.

World Creator 2024.1 is available only for Windows 7 and above. Integration plugins are available for Blender 2.93 and above, Cinema 4D R25 and above, Houdini 19.0 and above, Unity 2022 and above, and Unreal Engine 4.26 and above. Perpetual licenses for Professional cost $289; Company licenses for firms with more than five employees cost $2,489. Companies can also rent the software for $1,289 per year.