The numbers
40 studios, anonymous, projects ranging from 2-week jam games to 18-month productions. Self-reported. We asked: "of total pre-launch dev hours, what percent went to terrain (sculpt + paint + iterate)?"
- Median: 22%
- Mean: 26% (long tail of teams that scrapped and re-sculpted multiple times)
- Min: 4% (a fully Parts-based obby; basically no terrain)
- Max: 51% (an open-world RPG that re-shaped continents three times)
What's hiding in that 22%
It's not just brushwork. Decomposed, the time splits roughly:
- ~40% sculpting — actually pushing the brush around.
- ~25% material painting — passing over slopes assigning materials by hand.
- ~20% iteration — playtest, "this feels too small/flat/empty", repeat.
- ~15% fixup — collision issues, character getting stuck, water clipping through.
The hidden cost: terrain is what gets cut
"When we slipped, we shipped with the rough sculpt and didn't go back. You can feel it." — survey respondent, 2-person studio
This is the part the time number doesn't capture. When deadlines slip, teams ship terrain at draft quality. Player reviews then cite "world feels empty" or "looks unfinished" — and the team eats the conversion hit.
Why we built Terrainio
Procedural generation isn't new in game dev — every Minecraft world is procedural. But Roblox developers were stuck with brushes because the in-Studio editor never got a generative layer. We're filling that gap.
Our pitch isn't "save 22% of your time." It's "your terrain ships at the same quality as your scripting." The hours saved are gravy.