Skip to content

Sea island 4: scatter

Scattering places lots of trees, bushes, rocks or grass with a brush instead of one by one. Each kind of planting below is its own scatter set, and a set only grows on its targets, the surfaces you pick for it.

Set up a set

Every set on this page starts the same way.

  1. Pick the Scatter tool

    Press B, or click the Scatter button in the toolbar. The Scatter tab opens on the right, next to the Inspector. (If you close it, Scatter Panel in the tool options bar brings it back.)

    The toolbar with the Scatter Tool button hovered and its tooltip: paints the enabled models of the active scatter set, Shift erases, Alt+click or the eyedropper toggles a target

  2. Start it from a preset

    Click Preset at the top of the Scatter panel and pick the preset the step names.

    The Scatter panel with the Preset menu open and mixed woodland hovered

  3. Target the terrain

    Click the eyedropper next to Targets, then click the terrain in the 3D view. You should see it listed under Targets, as terrain #2 or similar.

    The Targets row of the Scatter panel with the eyedropper hovered and its tooltip

Leave Follow cursor unticked, since it paints on whatever is under the brush and ignores the targets. Leave Keep spacing to other sets ticked, so the sets keep their distance from each other and nothing grows through a trunk.

Woodland

  1. Preset > mixed woodland, then click Rename at the top and call it woodland. Target the terrain.

  2. In the Brush section set Density 0.16 and Slope 0 to 30, and tick Height, 120 to 2000. The slope range keeps trees off the cliffs, and the height range keeps them off the beach.

    The lower Scatter panel: terrain #2 as the target, Follow cursor unticked, Density 0.16, Slope 0 to 30, Height ticked from 120 to 2000, Keep spacing to other sets ticked and the Fill Targets button hovered

  3. Click Fill Targets at the bottom of the panel to plant the whole terrain at once.

Density counts attempts per 64 x 64 units, so 0.16 is roughly one tree every 5 m.

The woodland after Fill Targets

Hold Shift and drag along each path with radius 260 to erase the trees there. Erase a clearing on the main hilltop (radius about 520) and a meadow behind the beach (about 700).

Erasing trees off the path

Hero trees, bushes and boulders

Each row is a new set from the named preset, targeted at the terrain like the woodland. Hero trees are a few large, detailed trees placed where the player looks closely.

Set Preset How to place it Radius Density Slope Height
Hero trees detailed forest Single clicks where the paths leave the beach and around the hilltop clearing 260 0.08 0 to 30 off
Bushes bushes Fill Targets, then erase along the paths with radius 190 0.35 0 to 32 45 to 200
Boulders boulders One stroke along the top of the cliffs 1100 0.035 12 to 50 20 to 2000

Hero trees at the foot of the path

Bushes in a band above the sand

Boulders along the cliffs

Grass

  1. Start a set from the grass preset. Grass is foliage, drawn without collision or shadows, so it can be dense without slowing the game down.

  2. Paint the open meadows with radius 650, density 2.5, slope 0 to 28, height 45 to 2000. Erase it off the paths with radius 170.

    Meadow grass behind the beach

  3. For grass on the boulders, start one more grass set. With the eyedropper, click a boulder instead of the terrain, so the boulder set becomes its target. You should see it under Targets with (set) after its name. Then Fill Targets with density 6 and slope 0 to 45.

    The Targets row listing cliff boulders (set) as the target

Note

Fill places grass on the boulders as they are at that moment, so finish the boulders first.

Grass growing on a boulder

Next: Sea island 5: pier and Godot.