Okay, so it looks like Unity 2019.3.4f1 is the issue. I’ve discovered that the target strength is factored in to the paint operation, however the value appears to be scaled by a huge amount. To demonstrate, here is the result of painting at the lowest possible target strength (.0625) vs about half strength (.625):
Brush size is 100 for both, and I’m using default patch settings. It seems that the patch resolution does indeed impact the paint as well, which I’m assuming is normal behavior. Here’s what happens when I half the patch resolution and try the same experiment:
I’ve also replicated the experiment in 2019.2.6 and confirmed that the target strength is working “correctly” with the exact same test:
Now it seems like this shouldn’t be a problem at first glance. If target strength is just getting multiplied by some weird value then I can just divide my paint target strength by the same value right? But that’s no longer possible. In 2019.3 the target strength slider only works in steps, as mentioned above. .0625 is the absolute lowest it will go, even if you type into the slider field. That’s a huge issue because it means we have lost granularity and precision that came with 2019.2. I have no clue why the target strength “multiplier” value changed in the first place.
I realize I probably should’ve made a new thread for this, but I thought it was part of Terrain Tools so it would be a specific workflow problem that I could solve immediately. Sadly, that’s not the case. I will still document it here and see about starting a separate discussion for this bug. Also sadly, I’ll have to spend some time submitting a bug report which will halt development yet again. I will keep testing and providing updates as I try to get this issue fixed.