Learning the Foliage Tool in Unreal Engine (Day 13)

I thought adding trees and grass would be easy.


I just painted… and nothing appeared on slopes.


Day 13 taught me why foliage doesn’t work everywhere by default.

This post is part of my daily learning journey in game development.

I’m sharing what I learn each day — the basics, the confusion, and the real progress —

from the perspective of a beginner.

What I tried / learned today

On Day 13, I learned about the Foliage Tool in Unreal Engine.

From the top-left menu, I opened Foliage Mode, or used the shortcut Shift + 3.


This opens the foliage panel, which is used to paint trees, grass, and plants directly in the viewport.

Inside the foliage tool, I explored basic tools like:

• 
  Paint (Brush) – to place foliage
  


• 
  Erase – to remove foliage
  


• 
  Select – to select placed foliage
  

Below that, there are tool settings like brush size and strength.


Further down, there is the Foliage List, which is empty at first.

To add foliage, I:

• Dragged assets from the Content Browser, or
  


• Downloaded foliage assets from Fab and dragged them into the foliage list

Once selected, I could paint foliage directly in the viewport.


Each foliage type also has its own settings, like Density, Scale, and Random Rotation.

What confused me

When I tried painting foliage on slopes or hills, nothing appeared.


It worked fine on flat ground, but not on angled surfaces.

I thought something was broken.

What worked or finally clicked

A friend explained that foliage placement depends on slope angle settings.

In the foliage instance settings, there is an option called Ground Slope Angle.


By increasing the allowed slope angle, foliage can be painted on steeper surfaces.

Once I adjusted that, foliage started appearing correctly on slopes.


That small setting made everything clear.

One lesson for beginners

• Foliage placement depends on surface angle
  


• Check Ground Slope Angle if foliage doesn’t appear
  


• Small settings can block big features
  


• Don’t assume tools are broken — check the options
  

Slow progress — but I’m building a strong foundation.

If you’re also learning game development,

what was the first thing that confused you when you started?

See you in the next post 🎮🚀