Custom terrain on Roblox: enable 62 materials and publish

What changed

Roblox announced the full launch of Custom Terrain Materials and its first set of terrain performance improvements. This is no longer limited to early access: creators can publish these experiences and players can open them normally.

Before editing

Create a copy or version of the place before changing its terrain backend. The option is configured per place rather than for the whole universe, and Studio must close and reopen the place to apply the change.

Enabling Expanded Terrain

1. Open the place in Roblox Studio.
2. Select Workspace in Explorer.
3. Set Expanded Terrain to Enabled in Properties.
4. Accept Restart Place.
5. Reopen the place and confirm the option remains enabled before painting.

Creating a paintable material

Open Terrain Editor and choose Paint, Draw, Fill, or Sculpt. In the Source Material picker, click the + button, enter a name, and choose a base material. Add a MaterialVariant for custom textures or use Color for a variation, then confirm and paint with the new slot.

What it enables

The 62 slots can represent multiple shades of one material or completely different surfaces in the same place. You no longer need to rely on a single global override: a forest can combine wet, dry, and fantasy grass without converting every region to the same appearance.

Managing and replacing materials

Open Terrain Material Manager from Window > 3D or the picker’s context menu. Changing a slot’s color or variant immediately updates every terrain area using it. If you delete a material that remains in use, affected terrain turns bright purple so you can find and replace it.

Limits to review

Custom physical properties on MaterialVariant are not yet respected by these slots. Roblox also documents possible visual or meshing bugs while editing terrain in Team Create and differences when importing heightmaps or colormaps. Test appearance and collisions in a copy before updating production.

Verification and common mistakes

If a material is missing, first confirm Expanded Terrain is enabled for that place and that you reopened it. Purple terrain is not a new texture; it usually indicates a deleted slot that the terrain still references. Also verify that the intended MaterialVariant is assigned to the correct slot.

Publishing checklist

• [ ] Expanded Terrain is enabled in every required place.
• [ ] The place restarted and opened without missing materials.
• [ ] Every slot has the intended name, base, and variant.
• [ ] You tested Team Create, imports, and collisions in a copy.
• [ ] You published a controlled version and reviewed it in a client.

Related reading: Custom terrain materials documentation. Developer note researched on October 23, 2026 and verified in UTC on October 24, 2026.