Vertex Color Painter

Vertex Color Painter

Module: Modeling · Category: VertexColor · Tool ID: VertexColorPainter

An interactive viewport brush for painting vertex colors directly onto static meshes in the level. Activates an editor mode that takes over your input — paint with the brush, scroll to resize, switch channels, undo, or hit Escape to exit.

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When to use it

• Authoring per-vertex masks for material blending (dirt, moss, wear, snow accumulation)
• Driving wind/foliage shaders that read from vertex color channels
• Marking up specific vertices on a kit piece for a custom shader effect
• Quick tinting of a mesh without going back to your DCC

When not to use it

• Don’t use this for inspection — use Vertex Color Viewer to audit existing vertex colors
• Don’t use this for whole-mesh fills — set a constant in the material or use the Universal Bake Suite’s vertex color bake mode

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Opening the tool

1. Open the EQLabs Hub and search for Vertex Color Painter (or browse to Modeling → VertexColor)
2. Click the tool card to open its launcher panel
3. Click Activate — this enables the painter EdMode in the level viewport

The Hub panel itself is the launcher. The actual painting controls appear in the viewport once the EdMode is active.

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Interface tour

Hub launcher panel

A minimal launcher with two buttons:

Control	Behavior
Activate	Enables the painter EdMode. Disabled while already active.
Deactivate	Disables the EdMode. Disabled while already inactive.
Status indicator	Green ACTIVE — painting mode is running while engaged, gray Inactive otherwise.

Viewport painter panel (appears when active)

When the EdMode is active, a panel docks into the viewport with three collapsible sections:

Color

• A swatch showing the current Paint Color — click it to open the color picker

Brush

• Strength — how much color is laid down per stroke (0–1)
• Falloff — soft-edge curve from brush center to rim (0 = hard edge, 1 = full feather)
• Channel mask — toggle R / G / B / A independently to paint only into selected channels
• Brush size — scroll wheel in the viewport to grow/shrink

Actions

• Paint mode — apply Paint Color blended into the channels you’ve enabled
• Erase mode — clear vertex color back to default in the enabled channels

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Workflow

Step 1 — Activate the painter

Open the Hub launcher and click Activate. The status flips to green, the viewport panel appears.

Step 2 — Set up the brush

Pick a paint color, dial in strength and falloff, and toggle the R/G/B/A channels you want to affect. Most material masks live in a single channel — turn the others off to avoid bleed.

Step 3 — Paint

Hover the brush over a static mesh in the viewport. Left-click and drag to paint. Use the scroll wheel to resize the brush on the fly.

Step 4 — Switch to Erase if needed

Click Erase to clear vertex color from the selected channels. Same brush settings apply.

Step 5 — Exit

Press Escape in the viewport, or click Deactivate in the Hub launcher. The mesh remains dirty until you Save All.

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Settings reference

Field	What it does	Default
Paint Color	The color applied during paint strokes	Red
Brush Strength	Per-stroke deposit amount (0 = none, 1 = full)	0.5
Brush Falloff	Soft-edge curve	0.5
Brush Size	Brush radius (resize via mouse wheel in viewport)	—
Channel Mask	Which of R / G / B / A receive paint	All on
Blend Mode	Paint or Erase	Paint

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Output

• In-place modification — paint strokes write directly to the static mesh’s vertex colors. Mesh is marked dirty until Save All.
• Undo / redo — every stroke is a transaction. Ctrl+Z walks back stroke by stroke; Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes.

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Tips & gotchas

• Scroll wheel resizes the brush — works while hovering over the viewport, no modifier key required.
• Escape exits the EdMode — fastest way out without going back to the Hub.
• Channel masking lets you stack masks in one mesh — author dirt in R, snow in G, moss in B without overwriting each other.
• Paint shows up immediately if your material samples vertex color — if you don’t see the change, the material isn’t reading vertex color or it’s reading a different channel.
• Save All afterward — paint persists in memory but isn’t written until you save the mesh asset.

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Related tools

• Vertex Color Viewer — inspect/strip existing vertex colors (the read side)
• Universal Bake Suite (Art module) — bake high-poly data into vertex colors, also has a vertex color writer
• Layered Texture Paint Suite (Art module) — texture-based painting workflow when vertex resolution isn’t enough

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