---
title: "Spread and styles - Wildform wiki"
description: "How the forest brush spaces trees, and the styles from meadow to thicket."
url: https://voxelsprout.com/wildform/wiki/spread-and-styles
---

[Wildform](https://voxelsprout.com/wildform) [Wiki](https://voxelsprout.com/wildform/wiki)Spread and styles

# Spread and styles

How the forest brush spaces trees, and the styles from meadow to thicket.

A forest painted by dropping one tree every few blocks reads as a planted avenue. Real woods have a few habits, and the brush copies them. Try it below: this is one stroke from above, worked out with the rules the mod uses.

An interactive sketch of one brush stroke from above, on voxelsprout.com/wildform/wiki/spread-and-styles.

## The habits it copies

* **Crowns, not trunks, set the spacing.** A tree needs room for its crown and its neighbor's, times a factor set by the density. A big oak keeps its neighbors further off than a young birch does. Trunks never stand closer than two blocks.
* **Groves and clearings.** A slow noise field decides how likely a spot is to get a tree at all, so the brush leaves glades instead of an even carpet.
* **Stands.** Neighboring trees are of a similar age, because they started at the same time.
* **Patches of species.** Species come in patches rather than salt and pepper. Mixing blends that toward fully random.
* **A frayed edge.** Every spot in the inner two thirds of the brush can get a tree; toward the rim that drops to a third, so strokes blend into each other.

## Styles

A style is a pair of density and clearings. Pick one, or move the sliders and it becomes **your own**.

| Style             | Density | Clearings | Looks like                                                                        |
| ----------------- | ------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **meadow**        | 10%     | 35%       | A tree here and there, with grass between them.                                   |
| **open woodland** | 30%     | 45%       | Trees standing apart, with light between the crowns.                              |
| **forest**        | 50%     | 30%       | A closed canopy: crowns touch and overlap a little, with a clearing now and then. |
| **thicket**       | 90%     | 5%        | As many trees as fit, grown into each other.                                      |
| **groves**        | 50%     | 95%       | Clumps of trees with open ground between the clumps.                              |

## The settings

* **Brush size default 10 blocks:** How far the forest brush reaches from the crosshair, in blocks. The scroll wheel changes it while painting.
* **Density default closed 50%:** How close trees stand. Scattered (under 20%): a tree here and there. Open: light between the crowns. Closed (from 35%): crowns touch, like a forest roof. Thicket (from 70%): grown into each other.
* **Clearings default 30%:** 0: trees everywhere the brush goes. 100: clumps of trees with open ground between them.
* **Species mixing default 25%:** With more than one species. 0: each species in patches of its own. 100: all mixed through each other.
* **Paints default ghosts first:** Ghosts first: see the wood as ghosts, then Enter plants it all. Trees at once: every tree goes in as you paint.

Paint in layers, the way a wood grows: a canopy of big trees first, then a looser brush of young trees along the edges.

[Previous The brush panel](https://voxelsprout.com/wildform/wiki/brush-panel) [Next Ground and slope](https://voxelsprout.com/wildform/wiki/ground-and-slope)

Something missing or wrong on this page? Say so on [Discord](https://discord.gg/CvdkGbEW4y).