☘️Billboard Painter

Billboard Painter is a tool that lets you paint billboard on surfaces. This tool can be used for creating ivy, vines, spider webs and anything else you can think up!

Make sure that you have Always Refresh on in the Editor when using the Tool.

To get started using Billboard Painter Tool we need to create a holder for our particles.

We refer to a particle as one billboard that is spawned at a point.

1. Create a GameObject in the hierarchy.

2. Attach the Billboard Painter Tool script as a new component.

All properties has tooltips if you hover over them in the inspector that tells you what they do.

Update Mode

This handles when the billboards we create should update and recalculate everything. It is very important you understand when you can use each of the Update Modes to avoid any freezing when painting later on

The painter tool never lags or freezes the game, only in the editor when modifying it.

1

Update Mode Auto

Updates whenever you change any of the properties in the inspector. Use this carefully.

2

Update Mode Manual

Updates only when painting. When changing properties in the inspector, you will have to press the Update button visible when this setting is enabled to update the painter. You can also update it by pressing [LEFT-CONTROL] on your keyboard.

More information about keybindings are available in the same inspector window as the Tool itself.

Creating a new mesh using the Billboard Painter

Follows is an example workflow of creating e.g. ivy using the tool:

1

Add the Billboard Painter Tool to a GameObject

2

Change to Auto Update Mode for Faster Feedback

3

Use Keybindings to Setup Brush

Changing Brush Size: Hold [CTRL] + Drag [LMB]

Changing Brush Strength: Hold [CTRL] + Drag [RMB]

4

Start Painting on Any Surface

Paint: Hold [SHIFT] + [LMB]

Erase: Hold [SHIFT] + [RMB]

5

Apply Your Chosen Material

In the Billboard Painter Tool, choose a new material as the Material Property.

6

Now we have our newly painted mesh

The tool has created a new mesh with 3 levels of LOD's.

Adjusting the generated billboards [ADVANCED]

You can change the billboards created if you are well-versed in mesh creation and C#. Here follows a simple guide of the inner workings of the tool:

Under Level Design Tools/Tools/Billboard Painter/Scripts open the Billboard script.

Here you can change the billboard however you like. We suggest that you go from top-to-bottom to try to understand what needs to be changed, but here is a quick rundown.

• Every LOD is separated in a switch statement. Both LOD1 and LOD2 are the same out of the box but can be separated if more detail is needed.

• If you change the generated vertices, make sure you also change the GetVertexCount method to match the vertex count.

If you need further detail and/or more complex shapes, we recommend using the Object Brush Tool instead.