Wind Paint Tool Applies Maximum Wind Displacement on Hover Instead of Paint Action

[Anthony-Gaudino]

Description

The Wind Paint tool currently applies a maximum wind vertex displacement to objects as soon as the brush area touches them, even when the user has not started painting.

This behavior appears to occur simply from hovering the brush over geometry and affects any object intersecting the brush area, including terrain mesh tiles.

Once applied, the displacement cannot be easily undone and may unintentionally modify large portions of a scene.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Select the Wind Paint tool.
2. Move the brush over an object without actively painting.
3. Observe the object's wind vertex displacement.
4. Repeat over terrain mesh tiles.

Expected Behavior

The brush should only modify wind data when the user explicitly performs a paint action (for example, by holding the paint button).

Simply hovering the brush over an object should not alter any wind-related data.

Actual Behavior

Objects receive maximum wind displacement immediately when the brush volume touches them, regardless of whether painting has begun.

This also affects terrain mesh tiles and other scene geometry that enters the brush area.

Why This Is a Problem

This behavior can lead to accidental scene modifications and makes the tool difficult to use predictably.

Potential issues include:

• Unintended wind deformation applied while navigating the scene.
• Terrain tiles receiving wind data accidentally.
• Large numbers of objects being modified without user intent.
• Difficulty determining what geometry has been affected.
• Loss of confidence that scene data will only change during explicit paint operations.
• Additional cleanup work because the modifications may not be obvious until objects begin animating.

Users generally expect painting tools to modify data only while actively painting, not while positioning or previewing the brush.

Suggested Solution

Separate brush visualization from brush application logic.

The tool should:

• Allow the brush to hover over geometry without modifying any data.
• Apply wind values only when the user performs a paint action.
• Optionally provide a visual preview of the affected area without committing changes.

This would make the tool behave consistently with other painting workflows and reduce accidental modifications.