Tools, Layers & Painting

Hexmap Studio is designed to make overland cartography as fast and intuitive as painting in digital art software, while preserving discrete hex grid accuracy.

1. Opening Hexmap Studio

To open the Studio on any active hexmap scene:

Press the global hotkey: Alt + H
Or click “Edit in Hexmap Studio” on any scene card in the Hexmaps sidebar directory.

Studio Interface Overview

When Studio opens, a sleek floating dock appears on the left side of your screen:

Mode Switcher (Top Bar): Toggle between Build Hexmap (painting terrain and objects) and Create Regions (world-building and lore territories).
Live Hex Coordinates: In the bottom status bar, Hex: (i, j) tracks the exact grid offset under your mouse pointer in real-time.
Viewport Culling Status: Shows how many tiles are currently rendered in your active viewport versus how many are culled off-screen.

2. The Four Cartography Layers

At the top of the palette, you can switch between four distinct editing layers:

Layer	Icon	Purpose
Terrain		Standard built-in biomes: Grassland, Forest, Mountains, Water, Desert, Tundra, Swamp, Jungle, Specials, and Dark Space.
Custom Terrain		Your own custom-created hextile categories, complete with user-defined accent colors and subcategories.
Objects		Structures, ruins, landmarks, and map props placed directly on top of terrain hextiles.
Roads & Rivers		Continuous vector connections running across hexes to form travel trails and flowing river networks.

3. Universal Drawing Tools

The same intuitive toolset is available across Terrain, Custom Terrain, and Objects:

Brush Tool

Click to Place: Single-click any hex to stamp the selected tile family.
Drag to Paint: Click and drag your mouse across the map to rapidly paint continuous landmasses.
Brush Size Scaling (1 to 6 Hexes): Use the slider beneath the tools to scale your brush radius from a single hex up to a massive 6-hex cluster (covering up to 91 hexes in a single click!).
Hover Highlight Preview: As you move your mouse over the canvas, a glowing golden polygon overlay outlines the exact radius of hexes that will be affected.

Bucket / Flood Fill

Intelligent Flood Fill: Click on any hex to flood-fill all connected identical hexes with your currently selected tile family.
Variant Awareness: If Random Variant is turned on, the fill algorithm automatically rolls varied art assets for every filled hex, producing a natural, variegated landscape without repetitive patterns.

Eraser Tool

Layer-Specific Erasing: Click or drag across hexes to remove tiles on the active layer.
Brush Size Support: The Eraser respects your Brush Size slider (1–6 hexes) with a red preview outline, allowing you to clear large areas quickly.

Eyedropper Tool

Instant Asset Sampling: Click on any placed tile or object on your map to immediately select its family in the palette.
Automatic Tool Reset: After sampling a tile, the Eyedropper automatically switches back to the Brush Tool so you can immediately continue painting.

4. The 1-Terrain + 1-Object Stacking Rule

Lidarion Hexmap Studio enforces a clean, non-destructive stacking engine for every grid cell on your map:

The Rule of Stacking

For every hex coordinate (i, j) on your scene:

There can be at most ONE terrain hextile (on the Terrain/Custom Terrain layer, rendered at base sort ~100,000).

Placed on top of that cell, there can be at most ONE object hextile (on the Objects layer, rendered at base sort ~10,000,000).

Non-Destructive Workflow Benefits

Painting Terrain Preserves Objects: When you paint or flood-fill new terrain underneath an existing castle or tower object, the object stays perfectly in place.
Painting Objects Preserves Terrain: Placing a city, ruin, or tree object never deletes the grassland or desert tile underneath it.
Isolated Erasing: Using the Eraser on the Objects layer only deletes object props, leaving the terrain intact. Using the Eraser on the Terrain layer only clears the terrain tile, leaving the object intact.

5. Palette Features & Organization

2-Level Collapsible Accordions

Level 1 (Category): Displays the category name, custom accent color bar, and total tile count. Click to expand or collapse.
Level 2 (Subcategory): Organizes tile families into neat groups (e.g. Grassland > Hills, Mountains > Peaks).
Collapse/Expand All: Use the angle toggle button in the header ( / ) to quickly collapse or expand all groups.

Type into the search bar at the top of the palette to instantly filter tile families across all categories. Click the () button to instantly clear the search.

Random Variant Shuffling vs. Specific Selection

Random Variant (Toggle ON): As you paint with the Brush or Fill Bucket, the engine randomly picks from all available art variations in that family. This produces realistic terrain without visual repetition.
Random Variant (Toggle OFF): Reveals a horizontal Variant Selector strip (1, 2, 3…) allowing you to hand-pick the exact graphic asset for specific landmarks.

Pan Map without Painting: Hold the Spacebar and drag with your mouse to pan around the scene freely.
Undo & Redo
Infinity Mode Toggle:
- In the options of the Studio, toggle Infinity Mode ON or OFF.
- When ON, painting near the outer edges of the map automatically and seamlessly expands the scene boundaries outward, letting you grow your world organically.