The Mesh Paint tool enables you to paint vertex colors on Static Meshes interactively in the Level Viewport. You can paint multiple instances of a single Mesh with unique color/alpha values, and use that data however you want in your Materials.
Color data can be visualized directly, enabling you to edit multiple Meshes at the same time. Also, using Blend Weights enables you to blend multiple textures using linear interpolation.
Most of the vertex painting features are pretty easy to learn, so if you want to jump right in, here are the basic steps:
- Set up a Material that uses vertex color in some way, and apply it to a Mesh.
- Activate the Mesh Paint mode and select your Mesh Actor.
- Set your paint color and adjust other brush properties appropriately.
- While holding down the Ctrl key, click and drag on your Mesh to apply paint.
The following sections describes the process in more detail, including the various brush settings and how Materials are configured.
Activating Mesh Paint Mode
In order to use the Mesh Paint tool, you need to open the Modes drop-down menu and select the Mesh Paint mode.
This displays the Mesh Paint panel and the Color tab of the Modes toolbar.
Mesh Paint Tab
Mesh Paint Toolbar Color Tab
While the Mesh Paint panel is active you can still perform most common Editor actions, such as camera movement and selection. However certain features are disabled, such as translating objects. The Place Actors panel remains available while the Mesh Paint panel is active.
Selecting another option under the Modes drop-down menu closes the Mesh Paint panel. and opens the new panel
When the Mesh Paint panel is open in the Editor, the perspective Viewport will be in Real Time Mode by default. To change this or other Viewport settings, click the dropdown arrow in the upper left corner of your Viewport. This opens the Viewport Options menu.
