Scars of Honor terrain tooling and engine constraints

A technical discussion in the session explains part of Scars of Honor's environment pipeline and why the team built custom tools on top of Unity.

Unity limitations for open worlds

Unity is described as having strengths and weaknesses, with open-world production identified as one of its weaker areas. A specific example given is terrain texturing: Unity is said not to provide the needed multi-layer ground texturing workflow by default for the team's purposes.

This limitation is contrasted with Unreal Engine, where comparable functionality is described as more readily available out of the box.

Custom terrain painting tool

To address that gap, the team built its own internal tool. The tool is said to allow painting up to 256 texture layers on the ground. This is presented as a major enabling step for richer environment art and more visually complex terrain.

The new tool is directly linked to the improved environment screenshots shown later in the session. The first results reportedly changed the perceived quality of the world enough to make the game look markedly different from earlier versions.

Tooling and visual sameness

The discussion also connects engine tooling to a broader industry issue: when studios rely heavily on default tools and ready-made workflows, many games begin to resemble one another. Custom tooling is therefore framed not only as a technical necessity, but also as a way to preserve visual identity.

Practical development impact

The custom terrain workflow is presented as beneficial for both art quality and production flexibility. It gives the environment team more control over how landscapes are layered and detailed, which in turn supports the intended visual direction for Scars of Honor.

Source

• Recording: 🔴 MMoRPG Sunday 🔴 First time LOTRO
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• Published: Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 9:08 PM UTC