Skip to content
Crucible Grounds Crucible Docs

Generate your first island

Open Crucible Heightmap and it immediately generates a random procedural island. Every island has its own unique seed, and you can adjust terrain using simple sliders, combine multiple islands, and export a ready-to-open Rust .map file for RustEdit in minutes.

Crucible Heightmap open on a freshly generated 3D Rust island, with the terrain sliders on the left and the generation controls along the bottom of the sidebar

What are the basic controls?

Section titled “What are the basic controls?”
  • Conjure: generate a brand new procedurally random island with a unique seed. Click the button or press C to roll a new island (C is the default; every shortcut is rebindable in Settings). Keep rolling until you land on a shape you like.
  • Seed: each island has a unique seed. Type or paste a seed to reproduce a specific island exactly, or save the ones you like to your seed library. Seeds are portable, so you can trade them with other map makers.
  • Sliders: shape the island’s terrain with intuitive sliders for size, shape, height, buildable ground, cliff sharpness and more. Adjust any slider and watch the live 3D preview update in real time, so you see exactly how each change affects your coastline and terrain.
  • Map size: type your Rust world size in meters, anywhere from 1000 to 6000 (default 3800). This sets the export resolution for RustEdit: 513, 1025, 2049 or 4097 pixels. The same size shows in the export window, kept in sync. See map sizes and resolutions for guidance on which size to pick.

Crucible Heightmap generation controls: the map size selector, the seed field with save and gallery buttons, and the Conjure and Add island buttons

A good first workflow

Section titled “A good first workflow”
  1. Pick your map size first, since it frames everything else.
  2. Randomize until you land on a shape you like.
  3. Nudge the sliders to refine the coastline, height and terrain.
  4. Save the seed if you want to keep it. See save and share seed files.
  5. Export a MAP File and open it directly in RustEdit.

Want a whole map at once? Turn on the multi-island randomizer and every Conjure rolls a full map. To place and mix islands by hand instead, see combine island seeds.