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> Building Virtual Worlds > Landscape Outdoor Terrain > Editing Landscapes > Landscape Brushes

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Landscape Brushes

Guide to the brushes available for modifying Landscapes.

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Circle
Alpha
Pattern
Component
Gizmo

The Landscape tool's Brush defines the size and shape of the area of the Landscape that will be affected by either sculpting or painting. Brushes can have different shapes, sizes, and falloffs. Brushes should be a familiar concept to anyone who has experience using Photoshop or a similar image-editing application.

You can set the brush type and falloff in either the Sculpt or Paint tab of the Landscape toolbar. Settings can also be adjusted in the Landscape panel.


Property	Description
Brush Size	Determines the size of the brush in Unreal Units including the falloff. Within this area, the brush will have at least some effect.
Brush Falloff	Determines the percentage from the brush's extents where the falloff should begin. Essentially, this determines how hard the brush's edges are. A falloff of 0.0 means the brush will have full effect throughout with hard edges. A falloff of 1.0 means the brush will only have full effect at its center, and the effect will be reduced throughout its entire area to the edge.
Use Clay Brush	Clay Brush allows for an organic, additive approach to sculpting your Landscape. Similar to working with digital clay. If selected, uses a Clay Brush.

The size and falloff of the current brush is displayed in the viewport as a pair of concentric circles.



Falloff: 0.0	Falloff: 0.5	Falloff: 1.0

Circle

The Circle brush applies the current tool in a circular area, with a falloff defined both numerically and by type.

Circle Brush Falloff Type


Icon	Type	Description
	Smooth	A linear falloff that has been smoothed to round off the sharp edges where the falloff begins and ends.
	Linear	A sharp linear falloff, without rounded edges.
	Sphere	A half-ellipsoid-shaped falloff that begins smoothly and ends sharply.
	Tip	A falloff with an abrupt start and a smooth ellipsoidal end. The opposite of the Sphere falloff.

Below is an example of each of these falloff types when operating on the heightmap, with the same radius and falloff:



Smooth	Linear	Spherical	Tip

Alpha

The Alpha brush is similar to the Pattern brush, but instead of tiling the texture across the Landscape as you paint, it orients the brush texture in the direction of your painting and drags the shape as you move the cursor.

Alpha Brush Settings


Setting	Description
Texture	Sets the Texture to be used, assigned from the Content Browser .
Texture Channel	Sets the Alpha brush's contents to the data from the corresponding channel of the Texture that is currently assigned.
Brush Size	Sets the size of the brush.
Use Clay Brush	If selected, uses a clay brush.

Pattern

The Pattern brush allows you to use an arbitrary shape for the brush by sampling a single color channel from a texture to use as the alpha for the brush. The texture pattern is tiled as the brush is painted.

For example, the textures below could be used as the alpha:

Those would result in the following brushes:

Pattern Brush Settings


Setting	Description
Texture	Sets the Texture to be used, assigned from the Content Browser .
Texture Channel	Sets the Pattern brush's contents to the data from the corresponding channel of the Texture that is currently assigned.
Brush Size	Sets the size of the brush.
Brush Falloff	Sets the brush falloff.
Use Clay Brush	Enables you to use a clay brush.
Texture Scale	Sets the size of the sampled Texture in relation to the surface of the Landscape.
Texture Rotation	Sets the rotation of the sampled texture in relation to the surface of the Landscape.
Texture Pan [U/V]	Sets the offset of the sampled texture on the surface of the Landscape.

Component

The Component brush is used for operating on individual components. The cursor becomes limited to a single component at a time:

The Component brush is the only brush available when you are using tools that operate on the individual component level.

Gizmo

The Gizmo brush is used for modifying your Landscape with Landscape Gizmos, which are tools that you use to perform actions to a specific localized area of the Landscape.

The Gizmo brush is available only when you are using the Copy/Paste tool in Sculpt mode.

For more information about Gizmos, see Landscape Gizmos .