Black (0) = ocean. Brighter = higher elevation. Use a 2:1 equirectangular image.
Your heightmap will be projected onto a 3D sphere with full climate simulation — wind patterns, precipitation, temperature, and biome classification — computed automatically.
Built-in legend
Defaults
Every colour is a class — a rate of rock uplift and an erodibility, never a height — and the legend JSON says what the colours mean. The land is then eroded with stream power until it is in balance with its uplift, so the rivers, divides and valleys are the physics' answer to your painting. 2:1 equirectangular. Load the demo painting.
Class
Painted
Uplift mm/yr / depth m
k
Slope ?
HillsAlps
ShallowAbyssal
As drawnRagged
UniformRolling
QuickSettled
Painted planet
The globe is Earth-sized. Distances in the legend — coastal plains, massif and rock sizes — are in the painted world's kilometres and are scaled up by the ratio of the two circumferences.
Overlay
A second painting the same size as the template and registered to it, whose colours are marks rather than classes: forests, settlements, roads, and stretches of coast to leave alone. Blank is transparent. Nothing on it changes a height except coast_jitter, which pins (0) or roughens (above 1) the shore inside the mark.
From terrain studio
Load the painting, both legends and Planet.json straight from a running terrain studio (Tools/Terrain), exactly as its next plan would read them.
CoarseFine
Your image stays on your device — nothing is uploaded. Imported worlds can't be shared via planet codes.
Terrain Sculpting ?
NoneHeavy
NoneHeavy
NoneIce Age
NoneDeep
NoneHeavy
NoneJagged
Climate ?
Changes apply on release — only climate zones are recomputed.