Zone generator

The Zone generator creates either disks or meshes that can grow new geometry. By default, Zone generators are disks.

Disk zones don’t contribute any geometry to the model directly but provide an area for new generators to create nodes. Mesh zones provide a surface to grow child nodes from and can contribute their geometry to the model if desired.

Refer to Generation properties.

The properties in this group control the behavior of forces on this generator.

When enabled, all forces that are checked will act on the generator.

Each force has an Align strength in addition to its main strength. This strength causes the original orientation to be affected by the force.

Note: Only forces enabled on this generator will influence alignment.

Choose the style of the alignment operations:

The alignment strength of each enabled force is multiplied by this amount before being applied.

Refer to Random seeds properties.

The properties in this group affect the position and shape of the zones.

Force all children to orient such that they can be rotated toward or away from the center of the zone.

Set the radius of disk zones.

Note: This property is ignored for zones that use meshes.

Each zone can be moved away from its parent node. This property represents the maximum distance a zone may move.

Each zone can be moved away from its parent node. This property represents the minimum distance a zone may move.

Rotate the zone around its anchor point before the Min and Max distance offset is applied.

This value is applied to the computed placement distance. Greater values will pack zones near the parent and vice versa.

Rotate nodes around their up vector so that they are oriented consistently.

Rotate nodes so that the up vector matches the world's up vector.

Rotate nodes around the local x-axis.

Rotate nodes around the local z-axis.

Rotate nodes around the local y-axis.

The properties in this group control the behavior of zones that use mesh assets to grow new geometry.

Toggles the zone generator into mesh mode.

When enabled, zone meshes will be included as part of the model. This property is visible only when mesh mode is enabled.

When enabled, these zones will be positioned at (0, 0, 0) rather than using the placement properties of the zone itself. This property is visible only when mesh mode is enabled.

When enabled, the Size property is ignored and meshes are sized according to the original dimensions of the mesh asset. This property is visible only when mesh mode is enabled.

Set the size of the mesh. This property is visible only when Use actual size is disabled.

Control which LOD state to use for the assigned mesh. The left end of the curve corresponds to the highest LOD, and the right end of the curve corresponds to the lowest LOD. The LOD states are assigned on the Mesh Assets Bar. This property is visible only when mesh mode is enabled.

When enabled and applicable, global wind motion will be applied to this mesh. This is useful for zones that are part of a tree model, such as an imported trunk model. This property is visible only when Include in model is enabled.

Multiple meshes can be defined and applied to generated zones at random. Use the button controls to add [+] or remove [-] meshes.

Specify a named mesh from the Mesh Asset Bar.

Specify a named material from the Material Asset Bar. This property is visible only when Include in model is enabled.

Set the probability that any node will receive this material/mesh combination (this weight divided by the sum of all weights).

The properties in this group control how nodes generated as children of this zone will be computed.

When enabled, nodes growing off this generator will be placed using an even distribution over all of the triangles in the mesh. When disabled, smaller triangles may be more densely populated than larger triangles.

When enabled, nodes growing off this generator will reposition themselves to best fill in the masked area. When disabled, offending nodes are simply culled and no other nodes will move. Enable this property to make your frequency settings more exact (at the expense of slower computation times).

Set the number of placement attempts per child. Higher values are more accurate while lower values compute faster. This property is visible only when Adapt to masks is enabled.

Make children of the zone align with the surface of the mesh.

Control how much forces are used to determine placement on the zone mesh. Forces work on zone meshes by giving mesh surfaces that would be struck by the force priority over those that won't.

Set the amount to sink each child under the surface of the zone mesh. This feature is useful if the roots of your trees are showing on top of a terrain mesh.

Set the amount to further sink children (added to the Constant sink value) as the slope of the zone mesh surface increases.

Lightmap UVs are computed for several versions of the Modeler designed for use with game engines. Lightmap UVs are a UV set where no objects overlap and all of them fit in a single space where U and V fit in the range [0.0, 1.0].

This value influences how much space in the lightmap zones made by this generator can have. Every object's lightmap weight is compared to every other object and then the lightmap packing is determined. This means that your weight value may not be honored exactly or may get so large as to exhibit unexpected results. Use Tools > Reset lightmap scalars to go back to default values for the whole model.