Terrain Smooth tool is really crappy now

#1 I had always thought the 'smoothing tool' was terrible. I observe it to be pointless by nature of averaging only the sample space area of the brush size HIGH to LOW values.

Of course the endless amount of ways for an interface to fully frustrate the creative proses of finding oneself in a "ZEN", when using the built in editors it completely astounding, a skill of GUI design I had thought died back with DOS! Of course I exaggerate...somewhat... An example by simile, "I keep forgetting to use the paint brush correctly." and "My Pen was in constant need of attention, before I could write anything."

As far as ever noticing it acting as expected, Terrain Smoothing seem perfectly consistent in the way it works so hard to not accomplish what I want.

#2 Seriously, it's a critical part of terrain editing and it seems quite broke. I'd like to know if there was a change made that could be reversed.

#3 Try changing the softness and pressure down to around 5, I find it works much better that way, although I agree it does feel a bit outta whack and overpowered by default.

You can also modify the softness curve, so if you dont want to to effect so much on the outside edge of your brush, pull it down on there

#4 Just to throw in my two cents:

The old TGE smooth tool worked perfectly. The new T3D smooth tool uses the exact same code for the smoothing, so it should work just like in TGE.

However, the brush area code is different somehow -- no matter how you tweak the pressure, softness, filter etc. there is always an edge created around the perimeter of the brush. (This actually happens with all the tools, but it's definitely more noticeable with the smooth tool.) So, no matter how much you try to smooth an area, it's impossible: little ridges are constantly created.

#5 I much prefer this resource by Dan Keller to the stock smoothing tool.

#6 @Joseph: That is a helpful tool; I use it as well. But it doesn't really cover the same use as the original smooth tool, and in fact suffers from the same edge issue; every time I use the slope smooth tool it digs trenches at the base of my slopes, and/or raises ridges at the top. After using it, I still end up needing to go over the new terrain to clean it up, which the original smooth tool would be perfect for (except that it's still got the edge issue).