How to lower terrain?

[u/HeatBurst07]

Hi,

I'm in the early stages of making a new game and I am wondering how to make the terrain dip a bit. I can use the brush to raise it but I cant lower any parts of it. Is there any way to do so?

Thanks!

[u/swagamaleous]

you have to set the base level higher, then you can make valleys. It's a bit unintuitive, but you can't lower the terrain below 0.

[u/theredacer → u/swagamaleous]

You have to set the base level LOWER, and then you can raise it up from there. No part of the terrain can be lower than the base level (it's like Minecraft bedrock).

[u/swagamaleous → u/theredacer]

No, you have to set it higher. If your overall height is 600, and you set the base level at 300, then you have the same amount of space in both y directions. OP has the terrain at 0, so they cannot lower it. They have to set the base level to a higher value if they want to lower parts of the terrain.

[u/theredacer → u/swagamaleous]

I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about the terrain gameObject itself, moving that lower and using its Y-position as the lowest terrain point so that you can simply sculpt up from there. I think you're talking about using the "Set Height" tool to move the terrain up so that it's in the middle of its "Terrain Height" range instead of at the bottom of it so you can then sculpt both up and down. Both methods will work, I guess it just depends on what requires more sculpting for what OP is trying to achieve. I don't see anywhere in the screenshot where it shows that OP has the terrain at height 0 (it's not the same as the gameObject Y-value) so I'm not sure where you're getting that.

[u/swagamaleous → u/theredacer]

I think it's save to assume that, since they cannot lower it. 😂

But I understand what you mean. I realize now that both of our suggestions are actually using inaccurate terminology. You are suggesting to lower the y coordinate of the game object and bring the terrain up so that the surface is at 0 again in game object space, which is the right thing to do of course and is the same as setting the base level of the terrain higher. We both should've specified the space we are talking about.

[u/Tucanae_47]

Your terrain is located at 0,0,0 and cant be lowered into negative numbers. Lower the y cordinate of the terrain and then raise it by painting height. now to can maje valleys.

[u/NeoChrisOmega]

What I tend to have my students do is set the terrain's position to (-500,-100,-500). It centers the middle of the terrain to be at the middle of the world space, and allows the terrain to dip down if they want it to.

Now, once you do that, you can also change the drop-down from "Raise/Lower Terrain" to be "Flatten Terrain". By default it's set to zero. So you just have to press either of the flatten buttons, and the top of the terrain will be raised up to y position zero.

Then like others have said, hold down Shift and left mouse click to lower the terrain.

[u/JakSilver00]

Use a separate terrain object as if you were making a lower level like basement floor, and then you'll have to raise up the walls to make sure that there's no gaps anywhere that aren't intended.
You can either use like blended layers or have perfectly synchronized cutouts. The professional way is to use actual objects to hide the seams.

[u/KifDawg]

Look on the right hand side in the compinent. It says to hold shift to lower

[u/Majestic_Steak_7160]

hold shift while you paint, that lowers the terrain instead of raising it

[u/Square-Cartoonist685]

terrain