Overview
The Terrain Tool allows you to edit terrain for your level. There are valleys, mountains, caves, and uneven or sloped ground.
You can easily modify both shape and appearance by using a range of tools.
Rules
- Any terrain must be assigned to a heightmap. It doesn't create a "flat" heightmap as other engines do.
- You need to adjust the scale of the terrain entity. X, Y, Z should be the real-size of the map. So, if you are making a map that is 40km x 1km x 20km, the values for XYZ should be, respectively, 40000,1000,20000.
- The engine only allows ONE terrain per level.
- All maps (heightmap, diffuse, etc.) for your terrain must be in the level terrain folder (e.g. Maps/mycustommap/terrain/...). If there is no terrain folder there, please create one.
- The terrain is automatically assigned to a lightmap on the Super Static Tool. No need to create a sector.
- If your terrain has black shadows or artifacts, use the Super Static Tool to Calculate Terrain AO. Note: this takes a long time even with density 0.001, so consider this before you bake AO.
- Use the entity "Terrain → Rabbit Hole" to create holes in the terrain.
Setup
Before you launch the Terrain Tool, you need to:
Save the level.
Add the object of terrain to your level from the Entity List.
If you want to add new height maps, you need to put them into the following folder: root\content\maps\your_level\terrain\
How to turn on the Terrain Tool in the level with added terrain
Height Map – drawing height (sculpting), a possibility for pushing into the surface.
Diffuse Map – a basic texture of the surface color. With the diffuse map "diffuse_mask". RGB channel painting is more precise with different materials (sand, clay, stones, grass, etc.).
Paint Control Modes
Height Map Point
Common properties of brushes:
Property Name | Function | Shortcut |
|---|---|---|
| Radius | Radius of the brush. | SHIFT+MouseWheel or MouseWheel or [ ] |
| Hardness | How smoothly the intensity of the color decreases toward the edges of the brush. | Ctrl+Mouse wheel |
| Intensity | Multiplier when painting. | Alt+Mouse wheel |
| Smooth Step | An application of a cubic formula. It is used so that the edges can fade away even more. It is applied over hardness. | |
| Use Vertical Falloff | Whether to consider height in the damping formula. |
Mode
| HotKey | Definition |
|---|---|
| H | Height Map Point |
| M | Mask Paint |
| G | Game Materials |
| B | Boundary |
Raise\Lower
- hotkey – B to turn on this mode
- press LMB to raise the height map
- press RMB to lower the height map.
Clean
- hotkey – C to turn on this mode
- clears everything that was drawn by the user, to the height of the initial height map
- hold LMB.
Target Height
- hotkey – S to turn on this mode
- will change the height map until the target height is reached
- press ALT+LMB for choosing target.
Blur
- hotkey – R to turn on this mode
- smooths out the height map, tries to bring all points in the brush to their average value
- hold LMB.
Height Drag\Liquid Drag
- hotkey – D to turn on this mode
- change height by moving the mouse up and down
- hold LMB + drag mousedown to lower smoothly
- hold LMB + drag mouseup to raise smoothly
- hold RMB + drag mousedown to lower sharply
- hold RMB + drag mouseup to raise sharply.
Target Plane
- hotkey – P to turn on this mode
- this is different to the Target Height Brush
- will change the height map not to a specific height but to a plane determined by the two points you select.
| HotKey | Definition |
|---|---|
| Alt+LMB | Point A |
| Alt+RMB | Point B |
| Mouse wheel | Brush size |
Pattern
| Pattern | The ability to set a custom form of the brush. |
| Use Attenuation | Whether to apply a damped formula to edges in a pattern. |
| Name | Picture of a pattern. |
| Rotation | Rotation of the chosen picture. |
Mask Paint
This allows you to paint the terrain manually with different materials.
If you don't have the source access, you can't work with the mask paint. In this case, you will receive this message every time.
- Color Def – the color drawn.
- property Channels – the ability to set components of the color we draw. Others won't be affected. There is no possibility to draw in alpha yet.
- hold LMB to paint with the color selected in color def.
- hold RMB to delete changes made by the user.
Game Materials
- The playing material is set by colors. Used for footsteps and bullet marks.
- If necessary, you can add additional materials.
- Button Build – creates a screenshot of the materials level, presented in color. Each color is responsible for a specific, and predetermined, material in the shader.
Boundary
Allows you to crop and extend the current terrain:
- If you reduce the boundaries, the terrain will be cut.
- If you increase the boundaries, the terrain will be extended.
