Overview of Landscapes

You can add real-world outdoor terrains to your scenes by importing files as landscapes into Twinmotion. Landscape files that represent various types of terrains—such as mountains, deserts, or canyons—can be created based on real-world data, or created in various design applications or image editing software. You can import them into Twinmotion in a variety of file formats, and then modify their shape and appearance with the landscape Sculpt and Paint tools.

This page describes the landscape file formats you can import into Twinmotion and provides a brief overview of the landscape Sculpt and Paint tools. For information on how to import landscapes in Twinmotion, see Importing Landscapes.

Supported Landscape File Formats

The table below lists the types of files you can import as landscapes into Twinmotion. For more information about these file formats, see the Heightmaps, Points, and Meshes sections below.

To create a custom landscape in Twinmotion, you can also drag a landscape from the Vegetation > Landscape category in the Library into the scene and modify it with the landscape Sculpt and Paint tools.

Heightmaps

You can import the following heightmap file formats into Twinmotion to create landscapes:

• .r16

• .png

Heightmaps are grayscale images that store terrain height data in the form of black and white color values. Pure black areas represent the lowest points of the terrain, and pure white areas represent the highest points. Gray areas represent the elevations between the highest and lowest points. The dimensions and the highest and lowest points of a landscape are stored in each heightmap file, but when you import them you can override these values.

The image below shows the same heightmap as above imported into Twinmotion and converted into a landscape.

You can generate heightmap files in several ways, such as:

• Using the Landscape tool in Unreal Engine.

• Using online heightmap generators that use real-world elevation data.

• Creating them in image editing software such as Photoshop.

Points

The following are point file formats you can import to create landscapes:

• .xyz

• .txt

Point files are plain-text ASCII files that store terrain elevation data in the form of XYZ coordinates.  Each line of text in a point file defines the position of a point in the terrain using horizontal (X), vertical (Y), and elevation (Z) values. 

You can open point files with any basic text editor such as Notepad. The following image shows an example of a .txt point file opened in Notepad.

The image below shows the same .txt point file as above imported into Twinmotion and converted into a landscape.

Meshes

Twinmotion supports a wide variety of file types you can import as geometry. You can also import some of these same file types as landscapes. When you import them as landscapes (as opposed to geometry), you can modify their shape and appearance using the landscape Sculpt and Paint tools in Twinmotion.

You can import the following mesh (or geometry) file formats into Twinmotion to create landscapes:

• .skp

• .fbx

• .obj

•   .c4d

Sculpting and Painting Landscapes

Once you import a file as a landscape into Twinmotion, you can modify the shape and appearance of the landscape using the Sculpt and Paint tools in the Properties panel.

To view the sculpting and painting tools in the Properties panel, select the landscape in the viewport or the Scene graph.

Sculpt Tool

Use the Sculpt tool to modify the surface of the landscape. You can customize the shape, diameter, and intensity of the sculpting tool. To start sculpting, select a sculpting tool and click (or click and drag) on the landscape. 

Sculpting Tools

Icon	Name	Description
	Raise	Raises the elevation of the terrain.
	Dig	Digs holes in the terrain.
	Smooth	Smooths out and softens the harder edges of the terrain.
	Noise	Produces random variations on the surface of the landscape by raising and digging the terrain in a non-uniform manner.
	Erode	Erodes the features of the terrain by adjusting the height of the landscape.
	Flatten	Uses the terrain elevation at the moment the mouse click is initiated and applies the same elevation to the other parts of the landscape.

Sculpt Settings

Paint Tool

Use the Paint tool to paint the surface of the landscape. To start painting, select one of the materials and click (or click and drag) on the landscape. By default, four materials from the Materials > Ground > Nature category in the Library are proposed.

To use another material type, select a new material in the Library and drag it onto one of the material tiles. For best results, we recommend using materials from the Ground > Nature category.

You can customize the scale of the texture, the shape and diameter of the paint brush, and the opacity of the material. 

Paint Settings