Shader World: GPU terrain, ocean and foliage in one integrated system. Huge open worlds, editable at runtime, from smartphones to high-end PCs. An alternative to Unreal Engine Landscape, built for scale.

Used in production by Remedy Entertainment, Cyanide Studio, PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions and many indie teams.

Shipped & showcased

- Tour de France 2026 (Cyanide Studio)

- Tour de France 2025 & Pro Cycling Manager 2025 – Announcement Trailer

- Shader World in UE 5.8

- Runtime terrain editing + multiplayer (listen server)

Try it

- UE 5.8 demo download : the included procedural 16×16 km map

Terrain

- Huge worlds, no loading or popping: generated on the fly, from 1×1 km to 100×100 km and beyond.

- Editable at runtime, in packaged games, including in multiplayer. Unreal Engine landscapes cannot be modified once the game is packaged.

- Fully GPU-driven: surface, collisions and asset spawning generated on the GPU, deterministically. The only fully GPU-accelerated procedural world tool on the marketplace.

- Adaptive topology: mesh density follows the terrain, so ridges and cliffs keep their detail.

- Brushes, edit layers, spline roads, terrain holes, virtual texturing.

- Asset spawning inspired by the Horizon Zero Dawn placement system, plus a GPU PCG node.

Ocean (new in 4.1: gameplay-ready)

- FFT ocean: Pierson-Moskowitz and Phillips spectra, dense FFT mode, choppy waves, foam, motion vectors.

- Water queries on the CPU matching the rendered waves (0.26 µs per point), even on dedicated servers without a GPU.

- Buoyancy component, synchronized waves for multiplayer, runtime sea conditions with replication, Niagara data interface.

- Underwater: post-process at the waterline, air pockets (hulls, tunnels), Underwater Glass material node, Snell's window, glass tunnel demo.

Built for performance

- Lightweight by design: minimal bytes per vertex, techniques from large-scale AAA open worlds.

- Runs on Windows, Mac and mobile (OpenGL ES 3.1+, Vulkan); any desktop GPU from ~2013.

- Works with PCG, any Landscape material, Ultra Dynamic Sky and Fluid Ninja.

Requirements

- Unreal Engine 5.7 (Shader World 4.1) and 5.8. (legacy version available on github for older version of unreal engine)

- Compute shader support.

Learn

- Documentation

- Shader World vs Unreal Engine Landscape

- Tutorials: Use any Landscape material · Spawnables · Ultra Dynamic Sky setup · Fluid Ninja (short) · Fluid Ninja (full)

- YouTube introduction

GitHub access

Send us your GitHub username and a proof of ownership, Fab order ID and Epic account name to [email protected]

Contact & community

Website: https://shader.world · Contact: [email protected] · Twitter/X · Discord