Create SnowRunner rasters from Layers

In the Layers window, click +, choose Raster, select a SnowRunner template, keep or edit the layer name, and click Create. Each template creates an editable 8-bit grayscale raster covering the playable area, while the surrounding overall area remains available for background terrain. Select the new layer in Layers before opening its Modifiers.

Mud, Wetness, Undergrowth, Plants, Rocks, and Debris use 2 pixels per meter. Quick Mud uses its native lower-resolution control grid, about 0.292 pixels per meter. These are game-data values, not display colors; the editor streams and stores them as raster tiles for export.

Generate the Mud raster with Rule-based fill

Create the Mud raster, select it, and open Modifiers -> Rule-based fill. In Sources, enable the vector layers and categories that should receive deformable mud. Eligible sources are polygons and LineStrings that already have Buffer; an unbuffered centerline has no area to fill.

Set Minimum and Maximum value for mud severity. Coverage controls how much of each source becomes muddy, Region size controls the size of connected muddy islands or road sections, Expansion grows the result beyond the source footprint, and Edge fade softens its boundary. Surface noise varies intensity inside the covered region without changing which region is covered. Click Generate.

Generation is deterministic for the same source and settings. Overlapping features add their values up to 255, so review intersections and overlapping polygons. Export converts the result into SnowRunner’s deformable environmental mud data and creates native mud content only for blocks with nonzero values.

Generate Quick Mud separately

Create the Quick Mud raster and repeat the Rule-based fill workflow with the categories that should represent badly broken, churned road conditions. Start with buffered minor roads, dirt tracks, or deliberate problem areas rather than filling the complete map.

Quick Mud is not a cheaper copy of the Mud raster. It is exported into SnowRunner’s separate Quick Mud control and its coarser native grid. Keeping it on its own layer lets you make broad route-condition decisions without changing the detailed deformable-mud control.

Generate Wetness with Feature-based fill

Create the Wetness raster, select it, and open Modifiers -> Feature-based fill. Keep Terrain enabled to find local depressions, concave ground, and flatter slope bottoms. Terrain strength sets their contribution and Terrain search distance controls the neighborhood used to recognize those shapes.

Enable Features when water, drainage, fields, or other selected polygon and buffered-line categories should add wetness. Feature strength controls their contribution and Feature reach spreads it beyond their footprint. Organic variation, Region size, and Surface noise break the result into broad natural-looking regions. Click Generate and inspect the overlay.

The result is additive and deterministic. Export writes the values directly into SnowRunner’s native wetness channel: 0 is dry and 255 is maximum wetness. Terrain detection is a useful starting point, but use the Paint Tool for local corrections around routes, yards, and intentionally dry areas.

Create Undergrowth, Plants, Rocks, and Debris

Repeat the following sequence for each of the four templates: create the raster from Layers -> + -> Raster; select it; configure Paint Lock; then use Fill Raster. Each layer becomes one independent native SnowRunner Distribution during export, and the layers may overlap.

• Undergrowth uses stock bushes, small trees, ferns, herbs, flowers, and mushrooms.
• Plants uses stock grasses, dandelions, and flowers.
• Rocks uses stock small-rock and forest-rock brushes.
• Debris uses stock wood chunks, roots, stumps, twigs, and pine stumps.

Protect exclusions with Paint Lock Mask

Select the density raster and open Modifiers -> Paint Lock Mask. Enable the mask and check Roads, Water, Buildings, yards, or any other vector layers where that distribution must not be filled. Only polygons and buffered lines create protected area, so buffer line features first.

Use Empty regions when you want the distribution confined to mapped regions. For example, to fill only forests, protect Empty regions and the other unwanted layers while leaving Forests unchecked. Click Apply mask and verify that the intended editable area remains.

Fill each distribution raster

With the same raster selected, open Modifiers -> Fill Raster. Choose a 0–255 Value range. The editor generates a smooth deterministic density field between those values; higher values give the native distribution more density/intensity to work with.

When Paint Lock is configured, enable Only allowed before clicking Fill Raster. That setting preserves the protected pixels during this fill. If you leave it off, the complete raster is replaced even though a mask exists. Repeat the lock-and-fill sequence for Plants, Rocks, and Debris rather than copying one layer into all four roles.

Use the Paint Tool after filling for deliberate local cleanup. SnowRunner also suppresses rebuilt distribution objects on native overlays, water, and mud, but that native rule is not a substitute for keeping authored roads, yards, and buildings clear in the source raster.

Understand export behavior

Export crops and resamples each recognized template into the selected SnowRunner terrain size. Legacy projects without separate overall-area metadata remain supported: their single width and height are treated as the playable extent. Export accepts at most one layer of each SnowRunner raster template; duplicate Mud, Quick Mud, Wetness, or distribution template layers make the intended source ambiguous and stop export.

If a recognized optional raster is absent, export uses a zero-valued fallback. Missing Mud means no generated deformable-mud blocks, missing Quick Mud means an empty quick-mud control, missing Wetness means dry terrain, and a missing distribution means no native distribution of that type. Forest polygons never act as a hidden Undergrowth fallback.

Water Mud is an additional optional template outside the guided checklist. Its values become the native water-mud mask; when it is absent, exported water uses a clean zero mask. Add it only when you intentionally need that separate water behavior.

Raster review checklist

Repeat this inspection after rebuilding in SnowRunner Editor because the native distribution and mud systems are the final visual and gameplay result.

• Mud is limited to places where deformable environmental mud makes sense.
• Quick Mud follows deliberately broken or churned routes and remains separate from Mud.
• Wetness follows terrain and nearby features without making every low point fully wet.
• Undergrowth, Plants, Rocks, and Debris have the intended Paint Lock exclusions.
• Only allowed was enabled for protected distribution fills.
• Roads, building access, the starter truck area, and gameplay zones have usable clearance.