Scatter¶

The Scatter tool (B) paints trees, rocks and grass onto surfaces you choose, so you can cover a hillside in seconds instead of placing every model by hand. The sea island tutorial walks through a full setup.

Scatter sets¶

Everything you scatter lives in a scatter set on its own layer, for example one set for trees and one for grass. Press B and the Scatter panel opens on the right, with a card for every model in the active set.

The rocks, boulders, grass, undergrowth and low-poly trees presets use Blockbench models built into the editor. Picking one adds the models it needs to res://trenchdot/nature, offline. The forest, pines, mixed woodland, detailed forest and bushes presets use the glTF trees and bushes of the nature pack, a download of about 23 MB. In a project without it, picking one of those opens Godot > Add Content to Project… on the nature models instead of making a set whose models are missing. Terrain > Scatter > Install Nature Models…, or Install Nature Models… at the bottom of the panel, opens it too. Files already in the project are never overwritten.

Model cards¶

Open a card with its arrow to tune that one model.

Targets¶

A set only lands on its targets, so a forest painted on a terrain never covers the house on it. Alt+click in a view, or click the eyedropper at the right of Targets and then click in a view, to add or remove a target. A set without targets takes whatever its first stroke lands on. Another set can be a target too, which is how grass grows on boulders.

Ticking Follow cursor ignores the targets and paints on any surface or scattered prop under the brush.

Painting¶

The quick settings sit in the tool options bar at the top left: the set, Paint or Erase, radius, density, max slope, Follow cursor, the eyedropper and Fill. Scatter Panel brings the panel back if you closed it.

The Brush section of the panel holds the rest.

Density is how many placements the brush tries per 64 by 64 units, and each model's spacing limits how many actually fit. Exposed only skips points with geometry above them, which keeps grass out from under balconies and roofs. Keep spacing to other sets, on by default, stops a bush growing through another set's trunk.

In Godot¶

A set's Kind decides what Godot builds.

Select the set in the Outliner and its Collision row in the Inspector picks the shape each instance collides with. New props sets start on convex and foliage sets on none.

When you need to edit single props, To Entities at the bottom of the Scatter panel, or Terrain > Scatter > Scatter Sets to Entities for the selected sets, replaces a set with one prop_model entity per instance.