The first three tools on the terrain inspector toolbar are used to paint changes in height onto the terrain.
From the left, the first button activates the Raise/Lower Height tool. When you paint with this tool, the height will be increased as you sweep the mouse over the terrain. The height will accumulate if you hold the mouse in one place, similar to the effect of the airbrush tools in image editors. If you hold down the shift key, the height will be lowered. The different brushes can be used to create a variety of effects. For example, you can create rolling hills by increasing the height with a soft-edged brush and then cut steep cliffs and valleys by lowering with a hard-edged brush.
The second tool from the left, Paint Height is similar to the Raise/Lower tool except that it has an additional property to set the target height. When you paint on the object, the terrain will be lowered in areas above that height and raised in areas below it. You can use the Height property slider to set the height manually or you can shift-click on the terrain to sample the height at the mouse position (rather like the “eyedropper” tool in an image editor). Next to the Height property is a Flatten button that simply levels the whole terrain to the chosen height. This is useful to set a raised ground level, say if you want the landscape to include both hills above the level and valleys below it. Paint Height is handy for creating plateaux in a scene and also for adding artificial features like roads, platforms and steps.
The third tool from the left, Smooth Height does not significantly raise or lower the terrain height but rather averages out nearby areas. This softens the landscape and reduces the appearance of abrupt changes, somewhat like the blur tool in an image editor. You might use this, for example, when you have painted detail using one of the noisier brushes in the available set. These brush patterns will tend to introduce sharp, jagged rocks into a landscape, but these can be softened using Smooth Height.
As noted above, the height tools are reminiscent of painting tools available in image editors. In fact, the terrain is implemented using a texture behind the scenes and so the tools are ultimately acting as texture painting tools.
The height of each point on the terrain is represented as a value in a rectangular array. This array can be represented using a grayscale image known as a heightmap. It is sometimes useful to work on a heightmap image in an external editor, such as Photoshop, or obtain existing geographical heightmaps for use in your game. Unity provides the option to import and export heightmaps for a terrain; if you click on the Settings tool (the rightmost button in the toolbar) you will find buttons labelled Import RAW and Export RAW. These allow the heightmap to be read from or written to the standard RAW format, which is a 16-bit grayscale format compatible with most image and landscape editors.
Did you find this page useful? Please give it a rating:
Thanks for rating this page!
What kind of problem would you like to report?
Is something described here not working as you expect it to? It might be a Known Issue. Please check with the Issue Tracker at issuetracker.unity3d.com.
Thanks for letting us know! This page has been marked for review based on your feedback.
If you have time, you can provide more information to help us fix the problem faster.
Provide more information
You've told us this page needs code samples. If you'd like to help us further, you could provide a code sample, or tell us about what kind of code sample you'd like to see:
You've told us there are code samples on this page which don't work. If you know how to fix it, or have something better we could use instead, please let us know:
You've told us there is information missing from this page. Please tell us more about what's missing:
You've told us there is incorrect information on this page. If you know what we should change to make it correct, please tell us:
You've told us this page has unclear or confusing information. Please tell us more about what you found unclear or confusing, or let us know how we could make it clearer:
You've told us there is a spelling or grammar error on this page. Please tell us what's wrong:
You've told us this page has a problem. Please tell us more about what's wrong:
Thanks for helping to make the Unity documentation better!
When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
More information
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising. Some 3rd party video providers do not allow video views without targeting cookies. If you are experiencing difficulty viewing a video, you will need to set your cookie preferences for targeting to yes if you wish to view videos from these providers. Unity does not control this.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.