TerraBrush
A minimal Terrain heightmap editor for Godot engine.
Disclaimer • Key Features • How To Use • Support • License
Disclaimer
This project has been made mainly for my own project. I'm pretty new to gamedev so if something is not done the way it should, feel free to contact me!
I'm happy to share it with the community but it's possible that some features that you would expect are not there.
I'm gonna be happy to accept PR for new features if it fits.
Key Features
- Sculpt - Sculpt your terrain with a heightmap
- Increase the terrain
- Decrease the terrain
- Smooth the terrain
- Flattern the terrain
- Paint textures - Add colors to your terrain with the textures painting tool
- Normal map and roughness texture are supported
- Foliage - Add foliage to your terrain (ex. Grass)
- The foliage follows the main camera with a given maximum distance
- Packed scenes - Scatter packed scenes to the terrain
- Multiple objects can be scattered with one brush
- Random Y rotation is supported
- The packed scenes will always follow the terrain
- Live adjustment of the position while the terrain is sculpting
- Water - Add water to your terrain
- The water will make the terrain go lower for the painted area
- The packed scenes and the foliage will also get lower with the water
- Water flow - Paint the direction of the water
- Snow - Add thick snow to your terrain
- The texture of the snow is configurable so it's easy to make something like sand
- Multiple brushes
- Custom brushes are also available
- Pie menu
- Shortcuts
- The plugin has been made so it's really easy to use. A lot of shortcuts are available.
- LShift - Reverse the tool. Usually, this option will go from "Add" to "Remove". For the sculpting option, this does the "Smooth" option.
- V - Show the PieMenu for the current tool
- B - Show the PieMenu for the current brush
- N - Show the PieMenu for the current tool option (ex. While painting the textures, the PieMenu will show textures)
- G - Show a quick select for the brush size
- H - Show a quick select for the brush strength
- Shortcuts can be Re-Assigned. To Access them, Goto 'Project->Tools->TerraBrush Key bindings' to access the keymap, and ability to re-assign keys. - Implemented by @eumario
- The plugin has been made so it's really easy to use. A lot of shortcuts are available.
- Settings - Some settings are available in the "ProjectSettings->TerraBrush" (ex. The decal color)
- LOD - The terrain is created using a custom clipmap mesh so less vertices are needed. https://youtu.be/BardvKC0HF0
How To Use
Watch the tutorial video! https://youtu.be/n5WeAqeea1c
Note Make sure you have the .Net version of Godot Engine.
Clone this repository - If you only want to try out the demo scene, you can run this project in Godot directly. Else, copy the folder "addons/terrabrush" to your "addons" folder.
# Clone this repository
$ git clone https://github.com/spimort/TerraBrushAdd a C# Solution - To make sure that your project has C# enabled, go under "Project->Tools->C#->Create C# Solution".
Compile - It's really important to compile using this icon 
so Godot can run the plugin.
Enable the plugin - When the game has been compiled once, you should be able to enable the plugin. To do that, go under "Project->ProjectSettings->Plugins" and enable the checkbox next to TerraBrush.
Add the node - To add a terrain node, in the "Add node" screen, search for "Node3D->TerraBrush" (
)
Update the terrain
Some properties of the node require the terrain to refresh (mainly for the shaders and stuff). If something does not refresh, hit that "UpdateTerrain" button!
For example, if you add a new texture, add foliage, add an object, add a water definition or add snow, you'll have to hit the "UpdateTerrain" button.
Node properties
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Terrain Settings | |
| Terrain Size | This is the size of the terrain (in meters). By default, it will be 256m. There is no limit for this value but having a really high value will decrease the performance. |
| HeightMap | Unless you want to reuse an existing heightmap, leave this option to null. The tool will create it by itself. |
| Data Path | In order to work, TerraBrush needs to have somewhere to store some files. Make sure the option for "Data Path" is filled. If possible, the tool will fill in information by itself. |
| Collision Only | This option is useful for running for example a Game Server. This will only create the collisions of the terrain (the packed scenes will also be created since they could have a collision shape) |
| Visual Instance Layers | The godot layer on which the terrain will be displayed. |
| Create Terrain | Create the terrain with the current settings (everything that has been done will be cleared). |
| Update Terrain | Update the terrain with the current settings (it will keep everything that has been painted). This option is useful if you modify something that has a direct impact on the map (ex. Add a new texture, foliage, packed scenes, etc.). |
| Remove Terrain | Remove the current terrain (everything that has been done will be cleared). |
| LOD | |
| LOD Levels | The number of levels the clipmap will be made of. The default value is 5. |
| LOD Rows Per Level | The number of rows per level. This is a base number, depending on the level, there might be more rows (ex. the first level is a little bit different so it has more cells). The default value is 101. |
| LOD Initial Cell Width | The initial size of the cell. Each level will double the size of the previous level cell' size. the default value is 1.0 (1 meter) |
| Collisions | |
| Create Collision In Thread | Create the collision shape in a thread. This helps a lot when editing the terrain. This also means that the collision could appear late compared to the terrain. The default value is true. |
| Collision Layers | The terrain collision layers |
| Collision Mask | The terrain collision mask |
| Textures | |
| Texture Sets | Let you define the textures of the terrain. Be aware, that all the textures must be in the same format (ex. Mipmaps, compression mode, etc.). Make sure to hit the update terrain button when you modify this and the terrain has already been created. You should create a TextureSetsResource which holds several TextureSetResource. A set will accept an Albedo, Normal and Roughness texture. You can create a resource file with the TextureSetsResource so you can reuse your textures with other terrain. |
| TextureSetResource[x].Name | The name of the texture. This information is useful when you want to query the terrain to know the texture at a specific position. |
| TextureSetResource[x].AlbedoTexture | The albedo texure of the set. |
| TextureSetResource[x].NormalTexture | The normal map texture of the set. |
| TextureSetResource[x].RoughnessTexture | The roughness texture of the set. |
| Texture Detail | This will determine how often your textures will be repeated on the terrain. A higher value means more repetitions. The default value is 20. |
| Splatmaps | Unless you have existing splatmaps, leave this option empty, the tool will create them by itself. |
| Foliage | |
| Foliages | An array of FoliageResource. Make sure to hit the update terrain button when you modify this and the terrain has already been created. |
| FoliageResource[x].Texture | Unless you have existing foliage painting, leave this option empty, the tool will create it by itself. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition | The definition of the foliage. Create a FoliageDefinitionResource to use it. You can create a resource of this definition to reuse it in other terrain. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.Mesh | The mesh that will be used for the foliage. The mesh should have as few vertices as possible for better performance. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.MeshMaterial | The material that will be used on the mesh. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.MeshScale | The scale of the mesh. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.MaximumRenderDistance | This is the maximum distance the foliage will appear from the camera. A high value will decrease the performance. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.EditorMaximumRenderDistance | This is the maximum distance the foliage will appear from the camera, but only for the editor. A high value will decrease the performances. Useful if you want to see far. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.WindStrength | Creates some movement for the mesh. The default value is 0.1. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.NoiseTexture | This texture makes sure that the foliage placement is not too straight. If not specified, the default noise texture will be used. |
| FoliageResource[x].Definition.VisualInstanceLayers | The godot layer on which the foliage will be displayed. |
| Objects | |
| Default Object Frequency | This option is to define how often the objects will be placed on the terrain. This is the default for every objects. For example, a value of 10 will place an object every 10 meters. The default value is 10. |
| Objects | An array of ObjectResource. Make sure to hit the update terrain button when you modify this and the terrain has already been created. |
| ObjectResource[x].Texture | Unless you have existing object painting, leave this option empty, the tool will create it by itself. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition | The definition of the object. Create a ObjectDefinitionResource to use it. You can create a resource of this definition to reuse it in other terrain. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition.ObjectFrequency | This option overrides the Default Object Frequency property if a value higher than -1 is set. This option is to define how often the objects will be placed on the terrain. For example, a value of 10 will place an object every 10 meters. The default value is 10. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition.RandomRange | The range from which the random placement will be added from the original grid position. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition.NoiseTexture | This texture makes sure that the object placement is not too straight. If not specified, the default noise texture will be used. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition.RandomYRotation | This allows the objects to be rotated randomly on the Y axis. |
| ObjectResource[x].Definition.ObjectScenes | A list of packed scenes. A random one will be selected while painting. |
| ObjectResource[x].Hide | Hide the whole layer of objects. This is useful when you want to see something on the terrain and the objects block the view. |
| Water | |
| Water Texture | Unless you have existing water painting, leave this option empty, the tool will create it by itself. |
| Water Definition | The definition of water. Create a WaterResource to use it. You can create a resource of this definition to reuse it in other terrain. Make sure to hit the update terrain button when you modify this and the terrain has already been created. |
| WaterResource.WaterFactor | This option lets you decide how deep the deepest water will be. A value of 1 will set the maximum deepness to 1m. The default value is 1. |
| WaterResource.WaterInnerOffset | This is an offset of the water going into the ground. The goal is to prevent having square-looking water edges. |
| WaterResource.WaterColor | The color of the water. |
| WaterResource.WaterFresnelColor | The color of the fresnel reflection color. |
| WaterResource.WaterMetallic | The metallic value of the material. |
| WaterResource.WaterRoughness | The roughness value of the material. |
| WaterResource.NormalMap | This is a normal map to create some waves in the water. |
| WaterResource.NormalMap2 | This is another normal map to create some waves in the water. Having two normal maps helps to create better movement. Make sure it is different from the first one. |
| WaterResource.WaterTimeScale | This is how fast the water will move. |
| WaterResource.WaterStrength | This is how fast the normal map will move. |
| WaterResource.WaterWave | The Water Wave image is a noise texture that lets you drive how the waves will look like. |
| WaterResource.WaterNoiseScale | The scale of the noise texture. |
| WaterResource.WaterHeightScale | The height of the water waves created by the noise texture. |
| WaterResource.WaterColorDeep | The color of the deep water. |
| WaterResource.WaterColorShallow | The color of the Shallow water. |
| WaterResource.WaterBeersLaw | This option sets the beer law for the water. |
| WaterResource.WaterDeepOffset | This option sets how to calculate that the water is considered "Deep". |
| WaterResource.WaterEdgeScale | This option sets the size of the "foam" on the edges of the water. |
| WaterResource.WaterNear | This option sets how to calculate whether the water is close or not for the "foam". |
| WaterResource.WaterFar | This option sets how to calculate whether the water is close or not for the "foam". |
| WaterResource.WaterEdgeColor | This is the color of the "foam". |
| WaterResource.VisualInstanceLayers | The godot layer on which the water will be displayed. |
| Snow | |
| Snow Texture | Unless you have an existing snow painting, leave this option empty, the tool will create it by itself. |
| Snow Definition | The definition of the snow. Create a SnowResource to use it. You can create a resource of this definition to reuse it in other terrain. Make sure to hit the update terrain button when you modify this and the terrain has already been created. |
| SnowResource.SnowFactor | Sets how thick the snow will be. |
| SnowResource.SnowInnerOffset | This option is to decide the offset that the snow will get into the ground. This is to avoid having square edges of the snow. |
| SnowResource.SnowColorTexture | This sets the albedo texture that will be used for the snow. |
| SnowResource.SnowColorNormal | This sets the normal map texture that will be used for the snow. |
| SnowResource.SnowColorRoughness | This sets the roughness texture that will be used for the snow. |
| SnowResource.SnowColorDetail | This is to define how often the texture will be repeated. |
| SnowResource.Noise | The noise option allows the terrain to change shape a little bit to avoid having too straight a texture. |
| SnowResource.NoiseFactor | This option defines how much the noise will affect the snow. |
| SnowResource.Metallic | This is the metallic value of the material. |
| SnowResource.VisualInstanceLayers | The godot layer on which the snow will be displayed. |
Interact with the terrain
To interact with the terrain (for example, to make water ripple), you can call the function AddInteractionPoint on the TerraBrush node. This function requires an x and y position, corresponding to the x and y coordinates on the map, in meters.
To retrieve information from the map (for example, to get what texture the player is on), you can call the function GetPositionInformation on the TerraBrush node.
These two functions can be called from GDScript and C#.
Support
You want to support my work?
License
MIT
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