🌲 Building a stylised forest floor

A quick breakdown of how I approach a stylised forest floor — from the base material layers to the scatter pass that ties everything together.

Starting with the ground material

The base is three blended layers: soil, moss, and scattered leaf litter. Keeping each layer independent means I can tune coverage without repainting.

• Soil — the darkest value, does most of the shadow work.
• Moss — a cooler mid-tone that reads as "damp".
• Leaf litter — warm accents, used sparingly.

The trick with stylised work is restraint: let a few strong shapes carry the read.

The scatter pass

Once the material reads well up close, I scatter meshes across it — small rocks, ferns, and fallen branches — using vertex colours to mask density.

That's the whole loop: material first, scatter second, lighting last.