GenZong
New member
Hello, recently I found out that RustEdit was a thing and it was the final push needed to getting Rust after "Yeah I'm getting it soon" for almost 2 years. For years though I've worked on making Minecraft maps and still actively make them. You can make terrain in Unreal Engine to make it super detailed and export it as a height map then import that data into other programs such as World Machine to add the little extra details then from there export it as a height map again and open it in World Painter to make a Minecraft map. But enough of that... A new adventure awaits after all.
A New Adventure Called "Rust"?
First heard about Rust maybe 5 years ago. Didn't interest me AT ALL when I first saw it. I thought the whole survival game deal was kinda meh and wasn't that appealing. Then "The Forest" came out and holy crap I fell in love with the whole Survival genre and I kept telling myself, "I'm definitely gonna check out Rust... When I get paid." Needless to say, I got paid but never got Rust. I did watch videos every now then though. Faceless, Ser Winter, Vertigo, etc. etc. etc. Well a couple months back one of the guys I've played Minecraft with since the days of tigsource messaged me telling me that RustEdit was a thing and how some pretty legit maps are starting to come out as in the early days of Minecraft map creation. With that information I purchased Rust 2 days later right as I went onto a 7 day weekend form work and holy hell do I suck. With 200 hours of Rust finally played with 3 very poorly played wipes(Ima noob SEND HELP!) and a basic understanding of RustEdit this thread is going to be the road to making a custom Rust map. With any luck I'll be able to make something that people will find enjoyable and breathtaking to look at.
To start with I loaded the following height map into Unreal Engine, Modified it a bit to make it more rust friendly since it has a very steep incline to it and added a bit more land around the tendrils to give it more sustenance and area to build on.

After finishing that I exported it and booted up RustEdit. After playing around and shitting with the program enough while watching videos on how to use it on Youtube I decided it was time to start. Clicked "New," set the map size to 6000 because why start small when you can jump and/or be thrown right into the deep end of the pool without floaties. After all, that is the best way to learn how to swim, right? Maybe that was just my grandfather being an ass when I was a kid, who knows. But what I do know, is that I actually just held 9 and pressed enter and found out that 6000 was the largest map size and went with it. Anti-climatic, I know. So I start dicking around with the smooth tool, raise the heing over here a bit, lower it there. And I think, "Hmm... Okay. Okay. This looks cool. Let's go to Tools and procedurally generate biomes and splat. Boom. Easy Peasy. That's half the work. Okay. Okay" From there I decided that I had enough of an understanding to continue..
From Rock To Hatchet
I started to add some rad towns in areas that I deemed the terrain to be finished enough and added, Dome, Military Tunnels, Launch Site, Bandit Camp, a few others, and even a few roads and a river as seen below.





Finally! Getting somewhere. But.. It's not enough. It's not truly "mine" yet. At least, this is how I felt. It was slowly getting there but not fast enough for my liking y'Know.
Remember that feeling in Rust the 1st time you found a Hatchet and it made life simple. You immediately went back to base, or at least tried too, to bank it. Opting to ignore the raid going on over the next hill because, DAMMIT DADDY NEEDS A HATCHET BP FFS! But when you got it.. You knew you were set. You'd have no issue keeping up with smelting needs anymore no matter how many times you went out, hit the last tree one time after farming up 15k wood, just to be shot in the head by a guy camping in a bush. Doesn't matter anymore. You can just make a new hatchet and get it back in 5 minutes.
Well that's how I felt after making my 1st prefab. I decided I would make a lighthouse perched on a rock. Something simple. Something easy. Something already in there?... dammit. A light house perched atop a rock wouldn't work.. Or would it... After some thought, some testing and some trails I came up with this.

But Genzong you say, surely no one can get to that right? Wrong. It's got a cave.


And circled in blue below is the exit at the top of the rock formation with Lighthouse.

From here players can get to the top via climbing rocks(tested it on a server I booted to test this map on to verify that it can indeed be climbed and it passed). After doing this I decided I would write this long ass post and would continuously update it as I progress further and further into the map, learn new things, make more stuff to populate my world. Ultimately I wish to have 100% custom everything and can update the map down the road. But for now... It's a nice start. I have an ice locked harbor and a really cool and unique Lighthouse.
And just like that, the 1st boss on this adventure had been slain. Gear upgraded. No more rock and torch. We now had a hatchet and flashlight. Ready for more and eager to get back in the fray.
Stay Tuned For More
A New Adventure Called "Rust"?
First heard about Rust maybe 5 years ago. Didn't interest me AT ALL when I first saw it. I thought the whole survival game deal was kinda meh and wasn't that appealing. Then "The Forest" came out and holy crap I fell in love with the whole Survival genre and I kept telling myself, "I'm definitely gonna check out Rust... When I get paid." Needless to say, I got paid but never got Rust. I did watch videos every now then though. Faceless, Ser Winter, Vertigo, etc. etc. etc. Well a couple months back one of the guys I've played Minecraft with since the days of tigsource messaged me telling me that RustEdit was a thing and how some pretty legit maps are starting to come out as in the early days of Minecraft map creation. With that information I purchased Rust 2 days later right as I went onto a 7 day weekend form work and holy hell do I suck. With 200 hours of Rust finally played with 3 very poorly played wipes(Ima noob SEND HELP!) and a basic understanding of RustEdit this thread is going to be the road to making a custom Rust map. With any luck I'll be able to make something that people will find enjoyable and breathtaking to look at.
To start with I loaded the following height map into Unreal Engine, Modified it a bit to make it more rust friendly since it has a very steep incline to it and added a bit more land around the tendrils to give it more sustenance and area to build on.

After finishing that I exported it and booted up RustEdit. After playing around and shitting with the program enough while watching videos on how to use it on Youtube I decided it was time to start. Clicked "New," set the map size to 6000 because why start small when you can jump and/or be thrown right into the deep end of the pool without floaties. After all, that is the best way to learn how to swim, right? Maybe that was just my grandfather being an ass when I was a kid, who knows. But what I do know, is that I actually just held 9 and pressed enter and found out that 6000 was the largest map size and went with it. Anti-climatic, I know. So I start dicking around with the smooth tool, raise the heing over here a bit, lower it there. And I think, "Hmm... Okay. Okay. This looks cool. Let's go to Tools and procedurally generate biomes and splat. Boom. Easy Peasy. That's half the work. Okay. Okay" From there I decided that I had enough of an understanding to continue..
From Rock To Hatchet
I started to add some rad towns in areas that I deemed the terrain to be finished enough and added, Dome, Military Tunnels, Launch Site, Bandit Camp, a few others, and even a few roads and a river as seen below.





Finally! Getting somewhere. But.. It's not enough. It's not truly "mine" yet. At least, this is how I felt. It was slowly getting there but not fast enough for my liking y'Know.
Remember that feeling in Rust the 1st time you found a Hatchet and it made life simple. You immediately went back to base, or at least tried too, to bank it. Opting to ignore the raid going on over the next hill because, DAMMIT DADDY NEEDS A HATCHET BP FFS! But when you got it.. You knew you were set. You'd have no issue keeping up with smelting needs anymore no matter how many times you went out, hit the last tree one time after farming up 15k wood, just to be shot in the head by a guy camping in a bush. Doesn't matter anymore. You can just make a new hatchet and get it back in 5 minutes.
Well that's how I felt after making my 1st prefab. I decided I would make a lighthouse perched on a rock. Something simple. Something easy. Something already in there?... dammit. A light house perched atop a rock wouldn't work.. Or would it... After some thought, some testing and some trails I came up with this.

But Genzong you say, surely no one can get to that right? Wrong. It's got a cave.


And circled in blue below is the exit at the top of the rock formation with Lighthouse.

From here players can get to the top via climbing rocks(tested it on a server I booted to test this map on to verify that it can indeed be climbed and it passed). After doing this I decided I would write this long ass post and would continuously update it as I progress further and further into the map, learn new things, make more stuff to populate my world. Ultimately I wish to have 100% custom everything and can update the map down the road. But for now... It's a nice start. I have an ice locked harbor and a really cool and unique Lighthouse.
And just like that, the 1st boss on this adventure had been slain. Gear upgraded. No more rock and torch. We now had a hatchet and flashlight. Ready for more and eager to get back in the fray.
Stay Tuned For More
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