# bevy_elements
> ⚠️ **Vibe Coded.** Written by AI agents working from a human's direction, covered by tests rather than a line-by-line human review. Read the code before you rely on it for something you care about.
Living environments for Bevy 0.20: a sun and moon on real ephemerides, the bright-star sky, a seeded climate that schedules hourly weather, a GPU wind field, volumetric clouds, rain and snow, lightning and thunder, fog, heightfield terrain with erosion and flooding, ground cover, rocks, dust, paths and trails — all in compute shaders, for anyone building an open world that has to look alive without a weather artist.
[](https://crates.io/crates/bevy_elements)
[](https://docs.rs/bevy_elements)
[](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[](https://bevyengine.org)
[](#who-and-licence)
*`weather_tour` forcing `WeatherPreset::Clear`, `PartlyCloudy`, `Overcast` and `Fog` in turn at 10.00 h on 20 April 2026 — the first three hours of its tour of all ten presets.*
**Status:** usable · Bevy 0.20 · MSRV 1.97.1
**Why:** the obvious alternative is a sky shader plus a rain particle system, which gives you weather but not a world — nothing to ask about the ground, the water, the light or the wind, and nothing that survives a save. This crate keeps one simulation behind an `Environment` query, so gameplay reads the weather instead of guessing at it.
## Quick start
```sh
cargo add bevy_elements
```
```rust,no_run
use bevy::prelude::*;
use bevy_elements::*;
fn main() {
App::new()
.add_plugins((DefaultPlugins, ElementsPlugins))
.insert_resource(WorldClock::new(CivilDate::new(2026, 6, 21)).at_hour(7.0))
.insert_resource(Climate::temperate())
.add_systems(Startup, setup)
.run();
}
fn setup(mut commands: Commands) {
// The environment follows and renders for the `ElementsCamera`.
commands.spawn((
Camera3d::default(),
ElementsCamera::default(),
Transform::from_xyz(0.0, 160.0, 0.0).looking_at(Vec3::new(100.0, 100.0, 0.0), Vec3::Y),
));
// 2 km of rolling hills, centred on the origin.
commands.spawn(Terrain::procedural(ProceduralTerrain::hills(42)));
}
```
## Try it
```sh
cargo run --release --example quickstart
```
The example lifts the camera to 6 m above the ground and holds it there while the clock runs; add `ELEMENTS_FRAMES=600 ELEMENTS_SHOT=/tmp/x.png` to capture it unattended.
## What you can do
- **Put a living sky over any scene** — sun, moon and 8 404 stars from real ephemerides, with exposure that keeps night dark: [sky, weather and light](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/sky-weather.md).
- **Let a seeded climate schedule the weather** — `Clear` through `Blizzard`, hourly, with seasons and a snow season a game sets by date: [climate, seasons and weather](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/sky-weather.md#climate-seasons-and-weather).
- **Rain, snow, fog and lightning that read from every camera** — including an orthographic, isometric or strategy view, with `PrecipitationLook::readable()` for far-off cameras: [precipitation](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/sky-weather.md#precipitation).
- **Generate, sculpt and save a terrain** — procedural presets, a height map or flat ground, brushes that edit the live heightfield, snapshots to save and restore it: [terrain](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/terrain.md).
- **Wear the ground down realistically** — snow that drifts and melts, wetness and puddles, wind-blown sand, trodden paths and pressed footprints: [ground cover](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/terrain.md#ground-cover), [paths](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/terrain.md#paths-and-roads).
- **Flood it, and answer what the water is doing** — shallow-water hydrology with erosion, lakes, rivers, and wakes from anything moving through: [rivers, lakes and waves](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/water.md).
- **Ask the simulation anything** — ground height and normal, water depth and velocity, snow depth, cloud shadow, light needed for a night lamp: [gameplay queries](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/queries.md).
*The `isometric` example: an orthographic camera 1 500 m back, following a walker, in the crate's rain, snow and fog.*
## Part of the Coven
bevy_elements is one crate in [the coven](https://github.com/bevy-coven), a family of Bevy crates that cover the parts of a game only human authoring scales: world, life, interface and spectacle. In [Grimoire](https://bevy-coven.github.io/crates/bevy_elements.html#use-it-in-grimoire) it is an optional cargo feature whose map environment panel edits this crate's own serde settings — the clock, the climate, the forced weather, snow, wetness, rocks and dust.
## Bevy compatibility
| bevy_elements | bevy | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0.7 | 0.20 | current |
| 0.1 – 0.6 | 0.20 | `isomesh` needs `isomesh`/`bevy_isomesh` 0.0.11; `flora` needs `bevy_flora` 0.46 |
## Learn more
- [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/bevy_elements) — the full API.
- [The book page](https://bevy-coven.github.io/crates/bevy_elements.html) — the crate in the coven's book.
- [`docs/guide/`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/README.md) — every domain in depth: [the scene](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/scene.md), [sky, weather and light](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/sky-weather.md), [terrain and ground](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/terrain.md), [rivers, lakes and waves](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/water.md), [surfaces and voxel snow](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/surfaces.md), [gameplay queries](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/queries.md), [performance](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/performance.md), [examples](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/examples.md), [research](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/guide/research.md).
- [`docs/gallery.md`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/docs/gallery.md) — every before-and-after capture, the terrain's rock and the ground's textures.
- [`examples/`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/tree/main/examples) — 23 runnable examples, from `quickstart` to `bench_elements`.
- [`CHANGELOG.md`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) — every release, with the research note behind it.
- [`docs/research/`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/tree/main/docs/research) — the paper library each system was built from, with every deviation cited.
## Who and licence
Maintained by [@Ladvien](https://github.com/Ladvien). Questions and bugs: [the issue tracker](https://github.com/bevy-coven/bevy_elements/issues). Contributions follow the org's [`CONTRIBUTING.md`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md); docs follow [`DOCUMENTATION.md`](https://github.com/bevy-coven/.github/blob/main/DOCUMENTATION.md).
MIT OR Apache-2.0, at your option.