Vista
Vista is Pinwheel's graph based procedural terrain generator for intentional, artist directed terrain production. It gives you a fast way to build the terrain foundation, place biomes by hand in the scene, and blend them like a layered terrain system instead of relying entirely on abstract rules or noise distribution.
Why use it with Polaris
In a Polaris workflow, Vista is the strongest fit when you want procedural generation first and direct artistic editing after. Vista and Polaris solve different parts of the terrain pipeline:
- Use Vista to generate the terrain foundation with a graph based workflow.
- Use Polaris to refine the result with hands-on editing tools.
This combination gives you a strong production workflow: fast procedural iteration up front, then precise manual control when the art direction is locked.
What makes Vista different
Vista works at the biome level. Each biome has its own graph where you define terrain shape, textures, vegetation, and custom terrain data. You decide where each biome sits, how large it is, and how it blends with the surrounding terrain.
Vista also includes natural simulations such as erosion, water flow, landslide, and snow to add landform detail that would take much longer to sculpt by hand.
Typical workflow
- Build terrain data in Vista with a graph based workflow, then place and blend biomes to define the large scale terrain layout.
- Generate the terrain foundation and output the result directly to Polaris Terrain.
- Continue with manual, polished editing in Polaris such as terrain shaping, splat setup, foliage placement, and stylized scene polish.