Need advices for a project

[etto]

Hi folks,
after a long time I am back and discovered that terragen has become tremendously better.
Now to the point: it's since seven years I've not been using it so it's like I'm a newbie here 
On september I'll start a new commercial (still image, not animation); I'll have to realize some floating island ala avatar so considering that usually I work with lightwave, maya and zbrush some of my questions are:

- can terragen2 help me in that or the learning curve is too steep considering tight timelines of professional work (i have 20 days to finish it)?
- is it better to model the islands in another software and then import and detail it in terragen?
- does terragen handle big render resolution on mac without big issues (final images usually have from 6000 to 10000 pixels base depending on details)?

So, I have one week to decide wether to organize this project with software I already own or buy something more, like terragen or similar, to achieve my goal. Every kind of advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Etto

[Henry Blewer]

I think I would use Terragen 2 to produce a height fields. Use the border blending to reduce the size away from the edges. Export the height field as a lwo file. Import the lwo file into the program you are most comfortable with.
The height field can be mirrored vertically. Then the bottom part can be stretched to form a area with stronger vertical aspect. Save the new object.
If you are comfortable using Terragen 2 shaders, these can be used on the new object. Import the lwo object. Turn off the Raytrace Objects in the render tab. A new terrain can be made in Terragen 2. The lwo object can be placed and both can be shaded as required and the image rendered.
Honesty, I don't think there is enough time to do the project in Terragen 2 if you are not acquainted with it. But the technique should work with an external renderer.

Terragen 2 has, if not the best, very powerful terrain creation capabilities. The price is quite reasonable. I think it would make a great tool to add to the programs you already use. 

[PeanutMocha]

Looks like another member did a similar project.  You might want to connect to ask for specific advice for floating islands:

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=9158.0

[etto]

Thank you njeneb, it seems a reasonable workflow to me; now I'll try something with the free edition and see what I can do.
PeanutMocha, thanks for the link; as soon as I reach some point I think I'll contact cyphyr for some advice. Interesting discussion, anyway.
Cheers

[cyphyr]

Hi etto
Sorry I haven't responded here earlier, been wrapped up in "stuff"
Short story: It can be done! Use Terragens native "plane" objects with image maps and masks. See the samples below.
The hard part is getting the vertical sides to displace properly, use a very low value in your Compute terrain nodes (you'll need several)
Long story: well see how you get on with this and I'll see what the addled brain cells can come up with !!
Good luck
Richard

[etto]

Hi Richard,
I can't see the samples but thank you for the help. In these days I was busy doing some tutorial and today I came up with my first image that I'm going to post 
It has nothing to do with islands but I experimented with object and population.

I tried to import a lwo object but I had to use the object importer because the first add a empty lwo object in the list as soon as I click on the add menu; anyway I've got the object in but I can only see the bounding box and I don't know how to apply terrains to it.
After the McDuff tutorial (wonderful) I was able to export part of the terrain to lightwave using the lwo exporter and heightfield node as described somewhere in this forum.

Now I try your method Richard and see what I'll come up with..

I'm quite sure I'll buy this app, it's intriguing me 

[Henry Blewer]

Keep working with Terragen 2. You'll become more than intrigued by the possibilities it provides. I play more with Terragen 2 than any other software now. There is always 'can I do this?' It's fun trying, and great when it works.

The image is really a good start. Pick a feature in it and see what might work better. There are lots of posts on how to do things. And there are lots of tgd terrain files in the File Sharing area. These will allow you do 'reverse engineer'.

[etto]

First of all thank you.
So, things are getting complicated.. The basic problem is that I imported a modeled island but I can't populate it with trees.. Maybe this is why you suggested displacement on native object or exporting heigh fields. Also I can only see bounding box in the preview window. I know, I should read the manual..

[Henry Blewer]

There is not a full manual available... There are some very good tutorials. Lots of posts including files which can be downloaded.
Start by learning about Power Fractals. Most of the program is based on this. Next Surface Shaders. By using power fractals (Fractal Terrain is a power fractal in the Terrain Tab) and Surface shaders; you can make some very convincing landscapes.

Pick one aspect of the program and work with it. When you are comfortable with that part, add something new. The learning curve is steep, but not arduous.

[etto]

I know, but now the project is started and I need to concentrate on that image realization. Timeline is 10 days  I know that I can realize it with other apps but I'm trying to understand if tg2 can be of any help to me considering my lack of experience at this moment and the kind of image I need to do. I actually don't need to realize a lanscape but rather a particular part of it, the floating islands.
Maybe tg is not the best software to realize this.. My idea was to model externally the basic shapes of islands with lianas and other features, than import in terragen and shade, populate and render them in it. It could be better for me to finish this work and than relax myself learning this beautiful app..

[Henry Blewer]

I just took a look at Richard's node setup in the other post. I sort of grasp his method.
He used planes (flat objects) that were rotated to they faced the camera. Next a image map was used to mask the edges out of the planes he did not want rendered. This provided the shapes for the islands.
I think he used a displacement shader to distort/displace the plane objects into the correct shape. This only works in a 2D way. The displacement resulting is 3D, but will not look right from the side perpendicular to the image map projection.
If I am right, after the displacement has been made onto the plane object, it can be textured like you would a fractal terrain or height field.

[Kadri]

If you don't have enough time Etto , cheat it!
Make some kind of Islandish Mountains-Hills with appropriate background in TG2, populate them and comp the lower parts.
Use Photoshop or whatever you use. Then you can try what you want again in no hurry

[Oshyan]

Populations don't work on imported objects, so that won't really be an option. To be honest the "floating island" workflow is not going to be quite as easy as working on a fixed planetary terrain, but it *is* possible. I'll give a brief overview of what I'd do, which is something you could test in many 30 minutes if you've gotten reasonably familiar with the UI by now. If it looks promising, you could continue, otherwise maybe best focusing on apps you know for this (short deadline) project and spending a bit more time learning TG2 after. I'm sure it could become a valuable part of your toolbox and the more you learn about it, the more you'll be able to utilize it.

So here's the *brief* overview of how you could try accomplishing this.

Create 2 plane objects and position them above the planet/base terrain
Make the size of the planes 1000x1000 to start with
In the first Plane Object go into the Default Shader that is created for each Plane by default (click on the Plane in the object list, click the + button next to Surface Shader and choose Go To Default Shader)
Go to Displacement tab and click the + button next to Displacement Shader and create a new Power Fractal Shader V3 under Displacement Shaders
Now set Displacement Multiplier to between 100 and 200 - you should start to see displacement on one of your planes
Do the same for the 2nd plane except set Displacement Multiplier to the same values but *negative*
That's the start of your floating island
Now you need to mess with scales in the Power Fractals, or perhaps trying a Painted Shader with a Displacement Shader to get more specific features

To populate it, feed the chain of displacement-providing nodes that you create to define the shape of the top plane into a Heightfield Generate node in the Shader input, then add a Displacement Offset equal to the height of your plane, disable the Heightfield Generate node so it won't render, and populate on that; this is how people get populations of birds in the sky and whatnot, but in this case the population should conform to your floating island terrain since you're using the same shader network.

Unfortunately I don't have time to explain this more fully or test it completely, but it will hopefully give you a start that you can test in short order. Apologies if I've made any mistakes, hopefully others will correct me if so.

- Oshyan

[Dune]

I never tried this, but wouldn't it be easier to just create another small planet (uncheck atmosphere), hang it over your normal terrain and displace and populate that?

EDIT: actually I did use another planet here, but didn't populate it. But that might work.

---Dune

[cyphyr]

Hi again
Oshyan has pretty much covered the basics of my method although he's missed out the image mapping/masking and the vital step of inverting the lower plane.

My work flow:
create a plane, set its size to 1000m x 1000m
Move the plane to its desired location (x & z)
DO NOT MOVE THE PLANE IN THE Y AXIS
In the planes internal network plug an image shader into the displacement input of the default shader.
MAKE SURE YOU COPY AND PASTE THE COORDINATES FROM THE PLANES LOCATION TO THE IMAGE MAPS POSITION.
Do the same again with another image map shader plugged into the opacity input of the default node, this time with a black and white image that masks out the unwanted areas of the plane.
You should now have a displaced plane sat on the planets surface. To raise the plane off the surface of the planet add another default shader after your main default shader and key in a Displacement offset of say 500m. This will raise your plane off the ground. (I'll explain why this is necessary further down)
That's the top half of your floating island done (simplistically).

To make the lower half of your island copy and paste your plane node and look at the "Edge vector" values. The plane is a single sided object. The default values are:

Code Select Expand


1, 0, 0
0, 0, 1

Change this in your lower plane:

Code Select Expand


0, 0, 1
1, 0, 0

This will "flip" the plane over so its normals are pointing down.

Now go into your internal network of the lower plane and change the value of the Displacement offset to its complementary negative value (500m becomes -500m)

In order to populate the plane you'll need to create a population shader at the same coordinates as the planes (copy/paste from your planes position) and plug into the population shaders Terrain input your lowest default shaders output. If you dont use the displacement offset trick to move your plane in the Y axis its populations will not sit correctly on the plane, they will float above the plane.

That's pretty much it, it should all work now. You may have issues with the two planes not meeting properly. Creating higher resolution images together with lower compute terrain settings will alleviate this somewhat but I found that actually moving the Displacement offset to -502m was a good enough cheat.

I hope this is helpful in some way. It really is a dirty hack making Terragen do something it was not envisaged for but it works to a fair degree. I found it very time  consuming and labourious (especially with multiple islands) but it may be a solution for you.

Good luck and let us see your results.

Richard

ps I may post a link to a complete project file when I get home.