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LandSnap

LandSnap is a lightweight Unreal Editor utility that snaps and aligns selected actors and splines to Landscapes or designer-defined tagged surfaces, cutting out tedious placement cleanup during level design.

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Unreal Editor Utility FAB 1.0.0

At A Glance

Built for predictable placement

Editor first

No runtime overhead

  • Editor-only utility with no packaged build impact.
  • Undo and redo safe through scoped transactions.
  • World Partition and HLOD-safe workflow.

Fast by design

One-click correction

  • Snap actors and splines without bespoke setup.
  • Conservative defaults avoid over-tilting props.
  • Multi-select support keeps cleanup passes short.

Surface control

Landscape or tagged targets

  • Works on landscapes by default.
  • Tagged actors and components enable custom surfaces.
  • Stacking support handles roads, meshes, and layered placement.

Quick Start

30-second setup

  1. Enable the LandSnap plugin and restart the editor.
  2. Select one or more actors or an actor with a spline.
  3. Click LandSnap or LandSnap Splines, or use the hotkeys.
  4. Adjust Z Offset, alignment, or size presets when needed.

Fast, predictable placement without a heavy tool chain.

Snap Targets

Landscape plus designer-owned surfaces

  • Landscape surfaces are valid by default.
  • Tagged actors and tagged components can become snap surfaces.
  • Tagged-surface mode supports stacking and roads-on-mesh workflows.
  • Ignore tags let you exclude specific geometry from placement.

Tagged snapping stays explicit: nothing becomes a target until you tag it.

Core Behavior

What the tool actually does

Snap Targets

  • Selected actors, spline components, and spline mesh components.
  • Landscape surface snapping out of the box.
  • Tagged actors or components for designer-controlled placement.
  • Controlled stacking on valid tagged surfaces.

Placement And Alignment

  • Pivot snap or bounds-bottom placement.
  • Optional alignment to surface normals while preserving yaw.
  • Optional spline up-vector alignment.
  • Handles actors above or below the target surface.
  • Configurable trace distance, collision channel, and Z offset.

Footprint And Stability

  • Convex footprint detection with best-fit plane alignment.
  • Experimental concave handling for uneven terrain.
  • Rotation-aware settling on non-convex shapes.
  • Bounce floater fix for lingering gaps.
  • Size presets, debug line draw, and verbose LogLandSnap output.

Documentation

Install and use

1. Installation And Activation

Copy the LandSnap plugin into your project's Plugins/ folder.

Open Unreal Engine, go to Edit -> Plugins, enable LandSnap under the Editor category, then restart when prompted.

LandSnap is editor-only and does not affect packaged builds.

2. Toolbar Buttons And Hotkeys

LandSnap adds two Level Editor toolbar actions:

  • LandSnap icon
    LandSnapSnap selected actors to the target surface.
  • LandSnap Splines icon
    LandSnap SplinesSnap selected spline components to the target surface.

Default hotkeys:

  • Actor snap: Ctrl + Down Arrow
  • Spline snap: Shift + Down Arrow

Hotkeys can be customized in Editor Preferences.

3. Actor And Spline Behavior

When you use the LandSnap button or hotkey, selected actors snap to the closest valid surface below or above them.

  • Landscapes are supported by default.
  • Tagged surface support is optional and explicit.
  • Actors can align to surface normals.
  • Z Offset is applied after snapping.

Placement modes:

  • Pivot Snap: place the actor pivot directly on the surface.
  • Pivot-Aware Bottom: use bounds-based bottom placement for natural prop contact.

LandSnap Splines works with spline components and spline mesh components, snapping points individually and optionally aligning spline up vectors to the surface normal.

4. Tagged Surface Workflow

  1. Add a tag such as SnapSurface to an actor or component.
  2. Open Editor Preferences -> Plugins -> LandSnap.
  3. Enable Allow Tagged Surfaces and populate Snap Surface Tags.
  4. Select actors or splines and run the tool normally.

If tagged surfaces are enabled, a surface is valid when the actor or hit component has a matching tag, depending on your actor-tag and component-tag settings.

Settings

Editor preferences overview

Alignment

SettingDescription
Align to Surface NormalAligns actors to surface normals with optional yaw preservation.
Align Spline Up VectorAligns spline up vectors to the hit surface normal.

Placement

SettingDescription
Pivot-Aware BottomUses bounds-based bottom placement for natural contact.
Z OffsetApplies a vertical offset after snapping.
Trace DistanceControls how far up and down traces search for a surface.

Snap Surfaces

SettingDescription
Allow Landscape SurfacesEnables snapping to landscapes.
Allow Tagged SurfacesEnables snapping to tagged actors or components.
Snap Surface TagsMarks valid tagged snap targets.
Ignore Surface TagsBlocks specific tagged surfaces from snapping.
Allow Actor TagsChecks actor tags for matches.
Allow Component TagsChecks hit component tags for matches.

Footprint And Stability

SettingDescription
Convex DetectionUses best-fit plane alignment for convex footprints.
Concave DetectionExperimental handling for uneven or irregular terrain contact.
Bounce Floater FixApplies a second pass to close lingering float gaps.
Size PresetsManual or auto bucket selection based on actor size.

Debug

Logging and troubleshooting

  • LandSnap is silent by default.
  • Debug line draw exposes traces and helper visuals in the viewport.
  • Verbose logging writes detailed information to the Output Log under LogLandSnap.

Notes

Practical limits

  • Editor-only plugin with no runtime use.
  • Performance depends on trace count and actor complexity.
  • Very large selections can take longer to process.
  • Tagged surfaces must be added intentionally by the user.

Video

Watch LandSnap