How to Share Worlds with Other Players

This guide will show you how to share your own worlds with other people so that they may play them. It will also show you how to play in worlds that other people have uploaded.

Author's Notes

I would like to start off by apologizing for my guide having so many small sections. Steam guides are currently bugged and place random word count restrictions on each section that prevent saving. Some sections are more restricting than others. Still hoping they provide a fix for this.

When it comes to working with save files, I highly recommend creating back ups before making any edits to them. You should probably also back up your save files before messing with your structures in game. Wouldn't want someone's building to be ruined because they buried it in bricks. Just a precaution.

I will try to update and revise this guide as I discover new things and create more efficient methods. This mostly pertains to the method that involves using chunk files. I'm sure there are more things that can be done with these files and an easier way to work with them. I just need more time to figure it out.

Special thanks to Aloan for working together with me to discover these methods of world sharing.

Reasons to Share Your World

Before we go into detail on world sharing, let's look over a few reasons why you would want to do that in the first place.

In some cases, sharing your world is much easier and more convenient than attempting to share a very large structure as a model. Let's say you built a very large ship consisting of more than 500,000 bricks. Sharing it as a model would be a pain because it would need to be divided into perfect segments, with each segment needing to be saved as its own model. Anyone wishing to explore this ship in their game would then have to download all of the models and piece them together in game. If you simply share the world that you built the ship in, it will save you and everyone else a lot of time and effort.

Perhaps you didn't create one single massive structure. You created many structures scattered over a large area that need to be placed at specific points or you stylized the world in a certain way. Sharing your world will make sure that every item has been included and positioned correctly.

Maybe you create a large fleshed out world where your own game or story you created takes place. It's a bit hard to save an entire game/story in the form of a simple model. However, I believe that these concepts can easily be attached to a world. I sure hope to see some player made RPG worlds get uploaded when I'm finished with this guide.

The final and most important reason is that sharing is caring.

Sharing Your Entire World's Content

It is both possible to share your world with everything that you have seen and created in it or with only the creations you choose to include. In this part of the guide, we will cover sharing your world in its entirety. This is much easier and simpler than sharing your world with selective content. However, sharing your entire world may require you to upload a very large file size, especially if you have done a lot of exploring in this world. A world can easily become hundreds of megabytes in size. This method of world sharing is useful for lazy people and for those RPG/story makers I hope to have soon.

We'll assume you already have your world made, saved in game, and ready for sharing. To find your world save file, go to the following directory:
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment\LEGOWorlds\SavedGames\Slot1\2766509057\

Note: If you cannot find your AppData folder, you may need to change Windows settings to display hidden files. If you cannot do that, search for "%AppData%" in Windows search and open the AppData folder from there.

In this directory you will find folders with the names of your worlds on them. For example, if you have a world named "Earth", you will find a folder here named "Earth". Find the folder named after the world you wish to share. Copy and paste this folder somewhere on your computer where you can easily find it.

It is not required, but I highly recommend compressing the folder into a .zip file with a program like WinRAR or 7-Zip. World saves are often very large in size. Compressing it into a .zip file will decrease the size and make uploading and downloading the file quicker.

The final step is to upload the folder to your favorite file hosting website (I like to use google drive). After the file has fully uploaded, you can take the download link and post it somewhere for people to find. It really is that simple.

Playing Entire Worlds from Other Players

Now let's say someone has uploaded a world using the method from the previous section. What if you are the one who wants to play that world? For this section, we will be using a small world that I have uploaded as an example.

First you must download the world from the link provided. This is the link to the world file that I have uploaded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxJoAhrND0w4RThwUmh4bFpmUlU/view?usp=sharing

If the file is in .zip format like mine is, use a program like WinRAR or 7-Zip to open and extract its contents to a convenient location.

You should now have a folder named "Resource", which is the name of my world. Place the Resource folder in the following directory:
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment\LEGOWorlds\SavedGames\Slot1\2766509057\

Note: If you cannot find your AppData folder, you may need to change Windows settings to display hidden files. If you cannot do that, search for "%AppData%" in Windows search and open the AppData folder from there.

Now start up Lego Worlds. From the world select screen, go to the "Load World" tab. Select the new world, which in our case is "Resource". Finally, select the "Go to World" button and you're done. You should be in the uploader's world with all of its creations.

My world is small and hasn't had much added to it. You should be able to find an island floating in the sky above a lake. On one side of the lake, you can find mountains with colored lines running through them. If you find these formations, that means you did everything correctly.

Sharing Your World with Selective Content 1

As mentioned before, you do not have to share your world exactly as it is. There may simply be one very large structure in your world that you want to share. At the same time, there may be many creations or changes to the world you've made that you do not wish to upload. For example, I might not want to share that big dumb mountain range with the colored lines. I simply want to share my world with the floating island.

In this section I will explain how to share a world with selective content. The advantage is being able to pick what you do and do not want shared in your world. It also has the advantage of a small file size. The downside to this method is that it is a bit tricky and convoluted. We will continue to use my world as an example.

First, I will explain chunk files. Lego Worlds is divided into chunks. A chunk is essentially a large area where bricks are generated. Chunk files contain the data that tells the game what bricks to generate and at what location. What we are going to try to do is find the specific chunk files in the area of the structure you are trying to save.

Start up Lego Worlds and enter the world you wish to share. Then find whatever structure it is that you intend to share with your world. In my case, it would be the floating island. Take note of what time it is. For me it is 7:00 PM. Now, use the add terrain too spam bricks in the general area around the structure. Be sure to get all around inside the structure too. Remember to use the "undo" button frequently. When you have placed and removed bricks from everywhere in the structure area, exit the game and note the time again. For me it is 7:10 PM.

By adding and removing those bricks, we made changes to the chunk files and caused them to be labeled as "modified". Now go to the following directory:
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment\LEGOWorlds\SavedGames\Slot1\2766509057\Resource\Cnk\

Note: If you cannot find your AppData folder, you may need to change Windows settings to display hidden files. If you cannot do that, search for "%AppData%" in Windows search and open the AppData folder from there. Also remember, "Resource" is simply the name of the world I am using in my example.

Sharing Your World with Selective Content 2

You should see many .cnk files in this folder. These are your world's chunk files. Tell Windows to sort the files by date modified. Select all of today's files from between the two times you had noted down. So I would select anything on 6/14/2015 from between 7:00 PM and 7:10 PM. Copy these selected files and paste them in a new folder some place convenient. If you get any files labeled as .old, you can go ahead and delete them.

Sharing Your World with Selective Content 3

Now that you have the necessary chunk files, you are almost done. You need to take note of what seed your world is using. For me, the seed would be 1746 - 8886 - 6910. I recommend just saving this in a text file. You are now finished and ready for upload.

Upload the text file and the folder with the chunk files to your favorite file hosting website. After your files have fully uploaded, you can take the download link and post it somewhere for people to find.

I apologize for this method being so silly and convoluted. If I can come up with a more efficient and direct way to get the right chunk files you need, I will revise this section of the guide. Also, If you are wondering why all of this was necessary or how it works, I recommend reading into the next section.

Playing Worlds with Selective Content from Other Players

Let's say someone used a method similar to the last section to share their world and you wanted to play it. I will explain how in this section, continuing to use my world as an example.

First you must download the chunk files from the link the other player provided. You must also get the world seed, which may be included in the author's post or included with the download. Here is a link to my own .zip file that contains the chunk files and world seed:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxJoAhrND0w4anh0dFlhZGlhMmM/view?usp=sharing

If the file is in .zip format like mine is, use a program like WinRAR or 7-Zip to open and extract its contents to a convenient location.

Start up Lego Worlds and create your own world using the seed provided. You should be able to name it anything you like. In my case, it will still be named "Resource". Enter and save the world and then exit the game. Go to the following directory:
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment\LEGOWorlds\SavedGames\Slot1\2766509057\Resource\Cnk\

Copy the .cnk files provided in the .zip you downloaded and paste them into the World's Cnk folder. Overwrite and replace any files if prompted. When you are done here, you can go back into Lego Worlds and check if the chunks have updated correctly. For my world, you will know that the chunks were updated correctly if you can find the floating island above the lake.

[jal11180]

I had a kitty that was named Oreo once.

[Oreo]

@Cyclone

This game still does not have multiplayer. However, using these methods, we can share our single player worlds with other players. We won't be able to play with the other players, but the other players can at least experience our worlds in their own single player games.

[Cyclone]

Wait, they added multiplayer already? I thought it was still single player. I havent really kept up with it. I got it while it was still in development. Thanks for letting me know!

[Aloan]

Whenever you modify your world, a twin chunk file is generated next to the original chunk file which is then renamed by the game with the same number as your new structure but with the added name: "old".
So, another way is just copying the .cnk files that are next to it's twin "old". (in copying this way, there is no need for time check). You will just need to sort by name, so the twin files are side-by-side! hope I explained well! :D - another reason to share your work is because you are so happy with it that it just overflows and you can't help but let others feel as happy as you are! That will make you even more happy! knowing others are having that awesome fun you're having and they know it was all because of you and will be thankful inside!!! (good teaching Lucidis) :)
Here's my share for those who have not seen it yet:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/332310/discussions/0/594820656454940164/