Documentation

Learn how to use TreCorsa's track editor

Terrain

Terrain Editing

TreCorsa gives you several ways to shape terrain: paint with brushes, nudge selected points, generate hills from noise, or import real-world height and satellite imagery.

Track Regeneration

Manual track generation is on by default. You can change it under Settings → Track Generation.

With manual generation on, you can keep editing without waiting for a full rebuild after every change. When the track needs an update, a popup appears so you can click Re-generate.

Manual generation helps when:

  • Your track is large and rebuilding takes a while
  • You are making lots of quick terrain or road edits
  • You want snappier editing and regenerate when you are ready

Turn manual generation off if you prefer the track to rebuild automatically after each change.

Terrain Settings

Open the Terrain Brush tool to show the Terrain Settings panel. From there you can:

  • Terrain Style - Pick Grasslands, Desert, Highlands, Desert 2 (the original desert), Satellite (after an import), or a material from the Asset Bank
  • Terrain Resolution - Overall mesh detail for the whole terrain
  • Terrain Width / Depth - Size of the terrain area
  • Generate Terrain - Open the noise generator to create hills and valleys from scratch
  • Elevation heatmap - Preview height with a blue-to-red color overlay (editor only)

Terrain Brush

The Terrain Brush is the quickest way to sculpt height by hand. After activating the tool:

  • Left click + drag - Paint height changes
  • Ctrl + scroll - Change brush size
  • Mode buttons - Raise, Lower, Smooth, or Flatten
  • Settings panel - Adjust strength and hardness

Flatten can use a fixed height, or follow the height under your first click for that stroke (Flatten from first click).

Use Smooth to blend rough edits into the surrounding ground.

Vertex Selection

Under the Terrain Brush tools you will also find Vertex Selection. Use it when you want precise control over specific terrain points:

  • Left click / drag - Select the points you want to edit
  • Shift + scroll - Raise or lower the selection
  • Ctrl + scroll - Resize the selection brush
  • Ctrl + right-click - Clear the selection

The Vertex Selection panel also lets you raise, lower, or flatten the selection, including flattening to the average, lowest, or highest selected height, or to an exact height in meters.

Resolution Brush

The Resolution Brush adds extra mesh detail only where you paint. That is useful for corners, banks, and other important spots without raising detail across the whole track.

Resolution Brush Controls

  • Left click + drag - Paint higher or lower detail
  • Ctrl + scroll - Resize the brush
  • Increase / Decrease - Add detail, or step painted detail back down one level
  • 2× / 4× / 8× / 16× - Choose how much detail Increase aims for (available levels depend on your base terrain resolution)
  • Auto - Roughly paint detail from steepness in your height data (steeper areas get more detail)
  • Clear - Remove all resolution brushing and return to the base mesh everywhere

After painting, regenerate the track to apply the denser mesh. That can take a moment on large areas.

When the shape looks right, switch to Texture Paint to blend detail textures onto the terrain.

Satellite Tracing & Terrain Import

You can bring in a real-world location as aerial imagery and elevation:

  1. Click Trace Satellite
  2. Search for a place or pan the map, then set the import width and height
  3. Choose what to import:
    • Import Satellite Texture - Aerial imagery on the terrain
    • Import Elevation Data - Real height for that area
    • Import OSM Data - Optional road overlay data from OpenStreetMap
  4. Click Import View to 3D

After importing, you can draw roads on top of the satellite image, and the ground follows the real elevation.

Scenery Tiles

In the satellite importer, open Scenery Tiles if you want extra surrounding terrain for looks only. Selecting the first ring section automatically zooms out to show the complete scenery area without changing the main import area. Drag an orange edge handle to widen only that side, or drag a corner to change its two adjoining sides. Imported sections lock the sides they use until those sections are removed. Use Fit Scenery Ring in Map to restore the overview later. You can also use Separate mode to place a scenery box over a distant area (for example a mountain on the horizon). Scenery tiles do not replace your main editable terrain.

Satellite Imagery Providers

Choose an imagery provider in the satellite importer:

  • ESRI World Imagery - Default option
  • Mapbox Satellite - Often sharper, especially in towns and cities
  • Google Maps Satellite - Another worldwide option

Try a few providers for your location and keep the clearest image.

Imagery Zoom

Under the provider, Imagery Zoom controls how sharply the importer fetches tiles. Auto uses the highest zoom that still fits the import image. If you zoom the map in and the imagery looks missing or stays blurry, lower this (for example 17 or 16) so the import uses real coverage instead of empty high-zoom tiles. Zooming the map past the planned import zoom only magnifies those tiles; it does not fetch sharper imagery.

Elevation Data Providers

Pick an elevation source that fits your region:

  • Copernicus GLO-30 - Good worldwide default. Can include building heights in some areas.
  • ALOS World 3D - Worldwide option that avoids building heights, useful when you want ground elevation only.
  • SRTM Global - Another worldwide 30m source.
  • USGS 3DEP (10m) - Best fine detail for the United States.
  • GPXZ - Worldwide high-resolution option. In some regions (including parts of Europe) it can be especially fine.

Sharper Satellite While Editing

After you have imported satellite imagery, Terrain Settings includes Download satellite DDS for the last-saved game texture. The button stays disabled with Save to create the DDS until that texture exists in this session — after a local or cloud save, an export, or loading a .tresave that already contains it. Terrain Settings also includes an experimental Virtual texture option. When enabled, TreCorsa streams sharper tiles near the camera to make tracing easier. You can prefer ESRI tiles to reduce use of paid providers.