Affecting Biomes

Brushes may also affect Biomes (created in our Errant Biomes plugin) by generating masks that can be accessed by Sub-Biomes/Species.

Start by adding a new Biome Mask entry in a landscape brush
- Select the mask asset and texture for that Biome Mask
- Optionally increase the Scale Z/Multiplier when using a dark texture
Make a Species/Sub-Biome use the newly created Biome Mask
- Enter the Errant Biomes editor mode
- Open the properties of a chosen Species/Sub-Biome
- Select one of the Mask Materials (Growth/Asset Group/Scale)
- Add a new parameter to that Mask Material
  - Select Errant Landscape Biomes Mask type in the dropdown
  - Name that parameter the same way as you named the Biome Mask in the brush (ex: "FlowMask")
- Enter the Mask Material
  - Add a new TextureSampleParameter2D node
  - Name that node using the name chosen in the newly created parameter (ex: "FlowMask")
  - Set node's texture to some "fallback" texture. This texture will be used in regions that aren't covered by landscape brushes (so typically we use the black "MaskFallback" texture for it)
Regenerate Biomes
- Select some region for regeneration in the Select tool
- Click the Generate button

Note that you can use the Biomes Debug tool to investigate the mask of the affected Species/Sub-Biome.

Creating Mask Assets

To create Biomes Mask Asset for use in Errant Landscape brushes follow instructions here and choose Errant Landscape Mask Mask Type.

To preview the masks you're working on, navigate to Visualize->Preview and select Biomes Masks.

Errant Biomes 1.4 introduced Mask Assets, replacing the former practice of using names for mask referencing. You can read more about this change here

All newly created Errant Landscape brushes will default to mask assets. Your older brushes will need to be converted manually.

You can change name to the newer asset based key using Biome Mask Key Type property.

This property will show only if you have Errant Biomes version that supports mask assets