How do FoliageType cull distances work?

Each FoliageType has CullDistance Min and Max (in world units). Instances start fading out at Min and disappear at Max. Defaults are conservative; raise them for outdoor scenes.

Should I use one cull distance for everything?

No. Big trees should cull at much greater distances than grass. Set per-foliage-type: trees 30000 cm Max, bushes 10000, grass 3000. Total render cost balances detail at distance with overall load.

How does scalability interact?

Cull distances scale with the Foliage scalability quality. Project Settings → Rendering → Foliage Quality. Low quality reduces effective cull distance proportionally; tune your max values assuming Cinematic/High and let scalability scale down.

Fix: Unreal Foliage Painter Cull Distance Too Aggressive

Quick answer: Open the FoliageType. Set Cull Distance Start and End high enough for your scene scale. Trees: 25000–40000 cm. Bushes: 8000–15000. Grass: 2000–4000.

A forest scene. Walking forward, trees pop in 50 meters ahead. Players notice the appear-and-disappear at edge of view distance. Cull distances are tuned for performance but too aggressive visually.

Cull Distance Start/End

Each FoliageType has a fade range:

Cull Distance Start: instance starts fading out (opacity decreases).
Cull Distance End: instance fully invisible.

Both in world units (cm by default). Set so trees fade gradually over the last few meters of their visible range — players don’t see a hard pop.

Per-Type Tuning

Big silhouettes need to be visible farther than small details. Suggested ranges:

Trees: Start 25000, End 40000 (250m to 400m).
Bushes: Start 8000, End 15000.
Grass: Start 2000, End 4000.

Tune to your scene scale and target hardware.

Foliage Scalability

Project Settings → Engine → Rendering → Scalability → Foliage. Each quality tier scales cull distance multiplicatively. Tune for Cinematic/High; let lower tiers reduce automatically.

Use Smooth LODs

Foliage meshes should have well-authored LODs (cheap geometry at distance). Combine with cull fade for the smoothest transition. The eye notices “tree replaced by simpler tree” less than “tree disappears”.

Hierarchical Instanced Static Mesh Settings

For paintbrush-placed foliage, each instance lives in a HISM component. The component itself has Cull Distance properties that override the FoliageType in some cases. Verify in the HISM’s component details if you’ve customized.

Verifying

Walk forward in the scene. With tuned cull distances, trees fade in gradually rather than appearing suddenly. Frame rate should remain stable — tune End down if perf suffers.

“Default cull distances are conservative for performance. Outdoor scenes need bigger numbers. Tune per type and per scalability tier.”

Capture before/after gameplay video at the same camera path. Pop-in is way more visible in motion than still screenshots.