Worldwright Pro Guide

Worldwright Pro overview

Professional depth without a second editor or a cloud generator

Worldwright Pro adds optional generation, drawing, organization, print, and Atlas tools to the same application and .worldwright project used by Lite. Pro does not replace Guided generation, flatten editable geography, or move terrain work to Aethera's servers. The installed application checks the current account before starting a new Pro operation; accepted work remains in the project and ordinary opening, editing, saving, recovery, rendering, and Lite export continue after access changes.

This guide covers the Pro controls available in the installed application.

Seed Lab and recipes

Compare several deterministic directions before changing the map

Open Generate → Seed Lab and choose a recipe or the current project settings.
Choose 4, 6, 8, or 12 candidates. Worldwright shows the estimated work, memory, and worker count before starting.
Choose the whole world or vary only coast, elevation, rivers, biomes, settlements, regions, or names. The dependency summary names every downstream stage that would refresh.
Generate the low-resolution board locally. Pin useful candidates, compare two side by side or against the current project, and inspect the candidate seed, variation seed, feature counts, and stage sub-seeds.
Choose Prepare full-size candidate. The active project remains unchanged until the full-size result is ready and you choose Accept into project; acceptance is one undoable history action.

Editing the source project makes an old board stale, so Worldwright asks for a fresh board instead of applying a candidate to different inputs. Candidate generation and full-size promotion are cancellable worker operations. A canceled or failed result never replaces the last accepted project.

Generation recipes

A recipe stores plain generation settings, all 20 stage contract versions, deterministic sub-seed rules, and style selection—not map pixels, account data, credentials, or executable code. Open Generation recipes from command search or Manage recipes in Seed Lab to search, tag, duplicate, capture current settings, import, export, and validate recipes. Applying one changes settings and marks affected stages stale; the accepted map does not change until a later preview is accepted.

.wwrecipe imports verify a strict schema and SHA-256 hash. The Marketplace packaging command creates a local, data-only .wwpack and validation report; it does not upload to a Marketplace. Existing and built-in recipes remain inspectable and usable after a downgrade.

Advanced local generation

Direct the systems that matter, then preview their dependencies

Saving an advanced model is a data-only, undoable project edit that marks the relevant stage and dependents stale without repainting. Terrain Lab can also send an unsaved terrain-and-erosion model directly through the normal local worker: accept the complete preview as one undoable action or discard it while the current map remains safe. Locks, manually modified features, and protected cells continue through these workflows.

Terrain Lab: control major landmass count and size, compactness, coast variation, polar-ocean margin, and procedural or hand-directed mountain/rift guides. Gentle, Mature, Badlands, and Glaciated presets apply bounded erosion-like passes. These are cartographic approximations, not plate tectonics or fluid dynamics.
Hydrology Lab: tune river thresholds, maximum counts, smallest visible order, width emphasis, seasonal channels, delta distributaries, marsh outlet tags, waterfalls, and marked inland basins. A selected river can carry a reversible magical-flow or inland-basin exception without disabling checks for ordinary rivers.
Climate Lab: divide the map into one to twelve continuous wind belts, change wind direction and strength, tune approximate rain shadow, and inspect accepted cells for temperature, moisture, latitude, elevation, distance from water, prevailing wind, uphill rain, and remaining air moisture. Analysis colors are local guides and do not enter normal exports.
Biome Lab: start from editable climate-rule presets, order temperature/moisture/elevation ranges, set fallback and rare-terrain behavior, inspect conflicts in plain language, and preview classification locally. Biomes remain independently paintable after generation.
Civilization Lab: paint soft resource, sacred, border, trade-corridor, and hazard influences; control settlement targets, spacing, suitability, water/coast/harbor weights, route classes and costs, and political or cultural claims. Targets are safety-bounded preferences, not promises or demographic simulations. Ownership regions remain optional and ordinary maps do not have to display them.

Malformed or unsupported future lab data is preserved and blocks unsafe regeneration instead of being silently replaced. Removing an understood model restores Guided behavior for later generation without deleting accepted terrain, rivers, biomes, places, routes, or regions.

Catalog, licenses, and repair

Know which art is used and keep exact versions stable

The Aethera Pro library is the authenticated distribution surface for reviewed, first-party, declarative content packs. Worldwright lists license, attribution, version, size, and SHA-256 before an explicit download; it never downloads a pack automatically. When Aethera Field Atlas art packs are deployed through that catalog, their original transparent-background symbols use stable package and asset identities. Newly placed pack symbols record the exact package and source-archive fingerprints in project metadata.

Worldwright keeps already-placed Field Atlas symbols visible, editable, saveable, and exportable when access changes. The Pro library shows the current contents, version, license, attribution, size, and SHA-256 for each available pack. Usage and redistribution rights follow the license displayed with the pack. Review it before publishing a map or sharing rendered output, and do not redistribute source assets unless that license permits it.

Download progress, cancellation, retry, verified-cache status, update review, and repair are available in Content Pack Studio → Library → Aethera Pro library. Catalog, download, and first-party cached installation still require the current main-process Pro/Premium decision; cached bytes are not an offline Pro access. Existing installed or embedded output follows the ordinary downgrade policy.

Installed packs and exact project pins

The shared Content Pack manager validates declarative .wwpack archives before activation. When pack content is used, the project records its exact package ID, version, and source-archive SHA-256. A different installed version is not silently substituted. If an exact pin is unavailable, review the package identity and dependencies, then reinstall the original validated archive. Existing embedded placed art remains with the project; Safe uninstall does not rewrite maps.

Content Pack Studio can inspect identity, compatibility, dependencies, file roles, capabilities, license, attribution, preview files, exact hashes, project use, and validation findings. Packs remain data-only and cannot run JavaScript, Node modules, native binaries, shell commands, arbitrary network requests, or unvalidated shaders.

Missing embedded images

A missing project image does not block the rest of the project. Choose Repair missing asset and select the original file. Worldwright re-embeds it only when detected media type, byte length, and SHA-256 exactly match the saved descriptor. A rejected candidate leaves the project unchanged; importing a different image is an ordinary explicit edit, not a repair bypass.

Drawing, typography, and presentation

Refine generated work without baking the map into one image

Brush Studio: build versioned brushes with spacing, flow, jitter, rotation, scale, pressure, bounded pen tilt/azimuth behavior, variants, alignment, and terrain or biome effects. Mouse and touch retain the neutral round workflow. Personal brushes save atomically; long strokes remain grouped into meaningful undo entries.
Deterministic symbol scatter: distribute a selected built-in symbol, installed pack symbol, or personal stamp along one selected path, inside one region, or across a painted vegetation-density mask. Preview seed, count, distance, collision, biome, water, slope, scale, and rotation rules before accepting the editable symbols as one undoable action.
Path and Transform studios: edit stable vector nodes, corners, smooth handles, curves, joins, caps, widths, dashes, and segment properties; snap optionally to coasts, confluences, settlements, borders, grid, guides, angles, and nearby nodes; then align, distribute, mirror, move, rotate, scale, or array a reviewed selection.
Label Studio: edit real Unicode text, hierarchy, fonts, spacing, halo, shadow, tracking, multiline layout, zoom visibility, collision priority, exclusions, and start/middle/end placement along rivers, roads, mountain guides, regions, lakes, and derived coastlines. Pin, nudge, reverse, flip, or choose an alternate without changing geography. Pro can install a user-selected, validated local TTF/OTF with a private source/license reminder. Projects store only a pathless content hash and never embed or download the font; a missing copy uses a visible exact-hash repairable fallback, including after downgrade.
Style Designer and relief: create declarative palettes, line and label families, color ramps, hillshade, land/water contours, finishing effects, and target-specific switches. Light, dark, monochrome, color-vision, and printer-safe previews are presentation changes; switching style never regenerates geography.
Page composition: create audience-safe legends and reusable screen, poster, book-spread, handout, and campaign-packet layouts. Titles, credits/attribution, edition notes, compass rose, scale bar, frame, print-proof guides, and same-project locator/detail insets remain editable and use stable IDs.

The seven Lite presentation presets—Classic fantasy parchment, Ink and paper, Clean modern atlas, Political map, Physical relief, Dark fantasy, and Printer-friendly monochrome—remain available without Pro. Style Designer adds custom presentation controls; it does not reclassify those existing styles or make colored Regions mandatory.

A saved custom style can be exported as a validated, declarative .wwpack with a strict package ID, semantic version, author, license, attribution, and optional fixed representative preview. The package preserves its bounded local inheritance, effects, variants, typography, lines, and relief without including map geography, secrets, executable shaders or scripts, remote resources, account data, or a Marketplace upload. Pro/Premium is required to create the package; the saved style and installed output remain usable after downgrade.

Starting a new Pro-only authoring operation requires current access. Existing brushes owned by the user and accepted project content remain inspectable and preservable under their documented downgrade rules; ordinary Lite editing, saving, recovery, and export are not held until the end of a workflow.

Variants, snapshots, and campaign sets

Explore presentations and regional detail without cloning the whole world by hand

Named variants share terrain and features while overriding safe audience, style, and selected layer/feature presentation. Canonical, player, GM, historical, political, physical, and alternate variants do not copy raster geography. The editor clearly distinguishes a variant presentation edit from a shared-base edit.
Named snapshots store verified local archives outside project metadata. Compare before restoring; restore first commits a recovery snapshot of the exact current state. Missing snapshot bytes never prevent the base project from opening.
Measured snapshot compaction tests eligible archives against deterministic local deltas and accepts only verified smaller payloads. Pinned and recovery snapshots stay independent. Old bytes remain in rollback custody until the replacement catalog is saved; cancel, interruption, or a failed save restores them.
Snapshot cleanup is explicit and preview-first. Review selected IDs, estimated reclaimable bytes, dependencies, and pinned or recovery protections. Main revalidates the exact plan, quarantines verified bytes, saves the descriptor-free project atomically, then purges. Cancellation or save failure rolls back; Worldwright never auto-deletes snapshots because a suggestion count was exceeded.
Portable version packages move selected variants and verified snapshots through a local, data-only .wwversions file. Native dialogs keep paths out of the renderer; import previews additions, existing IDs, conflicts, and size before an exact revision-bound apply. Chunked transfers are cancellable and atomic, and stable project/variant/snapshot/feature identities are never silently rewritten.
Linked regional maps derive an ordinary portable project from normalized parent bounds. Choose content scopes and a preset or Custom resolution, save the child, and later select the parent to preview an update. Locks, protected cells, hand edits, and unrelated child content win rather than being overwritten.
Campaign map sets share small references to style, naming, units, symbol families, and export recipes across independent projects. They are defaults, not real-time collaboration or embedded recursive maps. From a saved, unchanged campaign map, choose Automate selected campaign maps to open a native multi-file picker. Worldwright reads only the files you select, verifies the campaign owner and each member's exact project revision and archive bytes, then presents a read-only plan. The open map remains review-only; shared-default writes target only explicitly selected closed projects.
Campaign automation remains review-first. Choose shared-default updates, only the export recipes actually installed in each member map, and eligible nested Atlas links. Accept individual plan items and the safety acknowledgement before Apply becomes available. Each changed project is saved atomically, but a campaign batch is intentionally not one cross-file transaction: if a later file fails, earlier verified saves remain and later files are not written. The result names the actual state of every selected file instead of reporting a blanket success.
Recovery preserves competing work. Before changing a file, Worldwright retains a verified pre-automation copy beside it. Its no-overwrite save also retains the displaced source inode so a late write from another editor cannot disappear. The result can reveal either source and can restore a chosen source only after a fresh hash check, an explicit acknowledgement, and confirmation that the target project is closed and still has the expected bytes. Restore uses the same compare-and-swap protection and preserves the displaced target; Worldwright does not silently delete these recovery files. A stable pre-automation copy can be deleted only after Show in folder, a fresh exact hash review, an explicit per-file acknowledgement, and a second native confirmation. Displaced sources are retained by design because the portable desktop runtime cannot prove that every older editor handle is closed; reveal and restore remain available, and Worldwright never pretends that cleanup was safe.
Exports and Atlas links are durable follow-ups, not automatic side effects. A successful Apply records accepted items in a local, pathless recovery inbox bound to the exact project revision and archive hash. Reopen that exact project to continue. An export is consumed only after you explicitly add its reviewed recipe to the normal persistent local queue and both accepted queue copies are durable. The queue job retains the reviewed source archive SHA-256, and Electron main rechecks those exact saved bytes before any rendering or destination work; destinations and rendering remain separate user choices. An Atlas item remains pending through close, cancel, or failure. After Atlas confirms the exact reviewed update, Worldwright first stores a hash-bound recovery receipt, then applies only that receipt's local Atlas link through a protected save, and finally clears the item. A crash before or after the protected save can be resumed with Verify confirmed publication without another upload. If the receipt cannot initially be stored, keep Worldwright open and choose Retry local receipt recovery; the session-only copy cannot survive application exit. A nested item additionally requires an authenticated, read-only Atlas detail check proving that the reviewed parent map already contains a pin or feature linked to the reviewed child map in the exact destination world. Worldwright does not create that link automatically and keeps the item pending when Atlas cannot prove it. Confirmed-receipt recovery and finalization remain available after an access change. Worldwright blocks another update to the same Atlas map until the receipt is finalized or deliberately abandoned. Abandonment requires a native warning, retains receipt audit history, and does not undo Atlas or an already-applied local link.
Project search and bulk operations use a revision-pinned local index. Preview bounded renames, retagging, compatible-layer moves, visibility changes, bounded line color/width changes, or symbol-family replacement before one undoable apply. Symbol replacements include a current/proposed vector-art comparison when static art is available and an explicit no-preview marker for installed or personal art otherwise. Locked work and player/GM safety are enforced by the core operation, not only by disabled buttons.

Professional export and print

Queue repeatable local outputs and know the current format limits

Pro export recipes store audience, output choices, filename template, PDF setup, and height normalization. The local queue holds at most 32 jobs, runs one at a time, and supports reorder, pause-before-next, cancellation, retry, progress, and bounded receipts. Queue descriptors are saved atomically in main-owned local storage without destination paths. Closing the dialog records unfinished work safely; after a restart, queued or running items appear as Interrupted safely and never run until you choose Resume interrupted. A changed project revision makes a queued descriptor fail safely rather than exporting different content under an old plan. Choose Finished history to keep the newest 8, 16, 24, or 32 completed/failed/canceled records, or Clear finished; active and interrupted work is not removed by retention. Tile pyramids additionally keep verified partial progress, and a later run with the exact same plan and project revision revalidates it before offering Continue, Discard partial export, Choose another folder, or Cancel. Canceled or failed queue items also show Discard partial; deletion always requires confirmation and can target only the plan-bound partial folder. Only a safe folder name and tile count reach the renderer; the destination path remains in Electron main.

PDF: use Letter, Legal, A4, A3, or bounded custom pages; portrait/landscape; margins, bleed, trim boxes, crop marks, page numbers; and fit-page or exact-scale poster tiling at 72, 150, or 300 DPI. Preflight reports physical size, effective DPI, page count, memory, disk estimate, transparency flattening, and font rasterization before queueing. Use 300 DPI for the current final print path and proof with the target printer.
Ordinary RGBA map PNG: add the normal full-color map image to a repeatable recipe. Choose Web, 2K, 4K, or Custom resolution; only Custom exposes width and height fields. Choose current, physical, or political presentation plus labels, regions, roads/routes, and transparency. Player-safe content is removed before the local worker rasterizes pixels, and Electron main revalidates the PNG profile, CRCs, dimensions, and worker report before an atomic write. Visible imported underlays, embedded custom stamps, and content-pack raster art use the resource-capable local worker rather than disappearing from the flattened image. Equirectangular worlds can optionally export equirectangular, Web Mercator, or Lambert cylindrical equal-area pixels and inspect their seam and poles in a bounded local 2D globe view. Regional and blank maps remain in source geometry. This is separate from the grayscale elevation heightmap.
16-bit heightmaps: export real grayscale PNG and baseline TIFF files with project-range or explicit fixed-range normalization. PNG embeds WorldwrightElevation metadata; TIFF stores the same source/encoded ranges, byte order, and clipping count as canonical JSON in ImageDescription. TIFF is uncompressed, deterministic, bounded, and validated before its atomic native write; it is not a streaming export.
Resumable XYZ tile pyramid: choose Project, 4K, 8K, 16K, or Custom dimensions; fixed 256, 512, or 1,024 pixel RGBA PNG tiles; current, physical, or political view; labels, regions, routes, and transparency; and Player-safe or GM audience. Worldwright writes the one-tile zoom-0 preview first, then completes each zoom level locally. The output folder contains tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.png and a strict hash-bound manifest.json. Main owns every path and revalidates each tile; rendering and encoding never run on an Aethera server.
Vector sidecar: write deterministic JSON collections for visible rivers, roads/trails, sea routes, regions, labels, and settlements with stable feature/layer IDs. Arbitrary metadata, descriptions, resources, assets, and player secrets are omitted.
Metadata manifest: write normalized project dimensions, units, scale, projection/wrapping, audience, style, and visible feature counts without grids, embedded assets, arbitrary extension data, or GM content in a player file.
Transparent layer groups: export selected visible groups as aligned RGBA PNGs inside a validated .worldwright-layers.zip archive. Choose Project, HD, 4K, or Custom resolution; only Custom exposes width and height fields. The included labeled checkerboard contact sheet explains each group and its transparency. Player-safe bundles exclude hidden, GM-only, secret, and player-disabled layers before rendering. Reference-image assets stay local and are not flattened into these editable group files.
Portable Aethera map package: write one .aethera-map file containing a local audience-safe PNG preview, metadata, vectors, and a strict manifest with per-file hashes and Atlas capability declarations. It is an offline transfer file; exporting it does not upload anything or claim an Atlas publish. Use Send to Atlas when you want to publish from Worldwright.

Standard Lite PNG, JPEG, WebP, compatible SVG, 4K, player/GM, campaign-variant, and poster-tile exports remain unchanged. Standard and poster raster outputs include visible image underlays. PDF exports omit imported underlays and embedded pack artwork; use a raster format when those elements must appear.

Atlas publishing

Review linked-map changes before publishing

Worldwright can render the chosen player or GM map on this device, then send the finished image and the pins or layers you select to a linked Atlas map. Additional linked-map controls appear only when they are available for the current account and Atlas destination.

Open an already-linked map and choose Preview stable-feature sync when that action is available. Select the layers, regions, routes, settlements, points of interest, and labels to include.
Review which items would be added, changed, removed, left alone, or kept because they were edited in Atlas. The preview does not change either map.
Resolve each conflict by keeping the Atlas version, using the Worldwright version, or leaving the item unchanged. Worldwright identifies anything that needs manual repair.
Confirm the publish only after reviewing the destination and audience. Once the update begins, wait for its result before retrying.

Player publishing excludes GM-only and hidden content. Worldwright does not send terrain grids, source project archives, notes, seeds, or unrelated local assets. Updating the rendered map image remains a separate explicit action.

If Worldwright reports an unknown outcome, open Atlas and inspect the linked map before deciding whether to retry.

Access and troubleshooting

Protect the project first, then refresh the smallest failing boundary

Current purchase and billing availability

Worldwright Pro is included with an active Aethera Premium plan. Standalone Worldwright Pro checkout is not currently available.

There is no standalone Worldwright charge or trial to cancel or refund. Manage an active Premium plan through the account billing page.

If this account already has a standalone Worldwright subscription, review it on the account billing page. When that account starts a Premium replacement, Aethera discloses the change before confirmation and attempts to stop the standalone renewal after Stripe confirms Premium. The billing page reports any follow-up required. Abandoning or failing Premium checkout does not change standalone access.

Pro is unavailable: save the project, confirm the displayed Aethera account and computer date, time, and time zone, connect to the Internet, then choose Refresh access. Worldwright distinguishes a temporarily unavailable check from confirmed inactive access. A previously verified account may reopen local projects while offline. The offline Pro access ends at the earlier of 30 days after the last valid online check or seven days after the paid-through date shown by Aethera. A newer account update or revocation can end access sooner. Rely on the exact deadline shown in the Account panel; Atlas, billing, catalog downloads, and access repair remain online-only, and downloaded pack files never extend access.
Wrong account: choose Disconnect Worldwright, read the warning that cached access belongs to the current account, and confirm only when ready. Disconnecting removes this installation's local session; it does not delete projects or sign the browser and other Aethera applications out.
Cache or clock repair: correct the computer's date, time, and time zone first. If the access check still reports a cache or clock problem while online, choose Repair local access check, read the confirmation, then choose Clear cache and check online. The repair removes only the current account's encrypted access cache, preserves the sign-in and every local project, setting, recovery, and content item, and reports offline or still-invalid clock state without granting access.
Pro expired or a cached grant ended: choose Continue in Lite to keep working, Refresh access after reconnecting or changing the plan, or Manage plan to open the validated account page. The project stays open; existing Pro-authored content remains editable and standard saving, recovery, rendering, and export remain available.
Seed Lab board is stale: the project changed after planning. Create a fresh board; do not try to force the old candidate onto new inputs.
A generation lab appears to do nothing: saving a model intentionally marks stages stale without repainting. Open the named stage, generate its preview, review dependents, then accept it.
Pack or asset is missing: reinstall the exact validated pack archive or use exact-hash Repair missing asset. Never bypass a media, dependency, archive, or SHA-256 failure.
Snapshot cleanup was interrupted: reopen the project and let inventory reconciliation finish. Do not delete snapshot, quarantine, or journal files by hand. A canceled/failed save keeps the original descriptors and protected recovery state.
Professional export failed: keep the project saved, confirm destination space and write access, then retry the failed queue job. Failed writes remove their temporary file; earlier confirmed outputs remain.
Atlas failed: cancel only while the dialog says the work is cancellable. For an unknown outcome, inspect Atlas before retrying; unavailable source attachment, tile pyramid, or reconciliation is a capability boundary, not a desktop repair failure.

Privacy-safe support

Capability checks do not make private maps support attachments

Generation, analysis, rendering, saving, snapshots, linked-map work, pack validation, and export run locally. Billing and access checks may contain account and plan state; they do not contain project files, map pixels, names, lore, notes, custom assets, seeds, or generator settings. Publishing to Atlas remains a separate, explicit selection of finished files and supported metadata.

Worldwright currently sends no product analytics or remote telemetry. Sign-in, access checks, updates, Lite and Pro tools, and Atlas publishing do not depend on telemetry consent.

Aethera support must never ask for a token, cookie, sign-in callback, vault/cache file, payment data, private project or map, autosave, snapshot payload, custom asset or pack, raw log, crash dump, or local path. Safe evidence includes the application version/channel, operating-system version, approximate UTC time, action and phase, sanitized user-facing error, displayed plan source, public pack ID/version/hash, output format/dimensions/audience, and the non-secret Support reference. Use a blank or bundled sample project for visual reproduction.

Use professional tools without giving up Guided generation or local ownership.