Rocks

[rcallicotte]

Anyone have good fortune with the rock population?  What goes into the Density shader?

[Aenea]

As far as i know : the rock pop doesn´t work properly at the  moment....I for my part use the fake stone shader to create rock populations at the moment....this works quite smoothly

Aenea

[old_blaggard]

Fake stones both have more options and customizability than rocks at this time and they actually work, too .

[rcallicotte]

Thanks guys.  I love the fake stones, but find the information here rather scattered.  I think the best way to use a fake stone is -

1.  Add to the last of the line of shaders.
2.  Put a Surface Layer on the Blending Shader input of the Fake Stone to control the placement.
3.  Put an Image Shader on the Surface Shader input of the Fake Stone to color the fake stone and set this to Y Projection with the image size set to...I'm not sure yet.

Does this sound correct?  So many people have worked so hard and brought up so many working ideas about this, but I think this sums it up.  Right?

[Oshyan]

The reason there's so much information about it is there's no one "right" way to do it. The approach you outline should work fairly well, but others have had luck with somewhat different methods. It's all generally based around adding a Fake Stones shader in the Shader group of course, but how you texture it, whether you limit its placement with a Density Shader, etc. are all somewhat flexible options.

It's true that TG2 can be somewhat overwhelming at times just due to the wealth of possible approaches to a given problem. Although more and more official documentation will be made available about TG2's functions, it's up to the user to decide specifically how to use those functions to achieve their goals. Trying to write tutorials to cover even a fraction of possible uses would be extremely time consuming. So some experimentation is inevitable.

- Oshyan

[rcallicotte]

Oshyan, here is my problem (and maybe some others share this with me) - understanding.  I'm certain that if I understand the core of TG2, I'll find a certain outcome which will be as you say that I can "...decide specifically how to use those functions to achieve their [my] goals." 

I think my challenge is coming to TG2 with minimal experience and a vague understanding of TG.9 only to come here with a wealth of information pouring out from generous and gifted users who definitely have the basic understanding that I seem to lack.  Many of these (without naming any) have great strengths in a certain field of understanding, whether graphics, numbers, previous TG, or even just a general high intelligence.  I love it and, at times, find it easy to want to complain that I don't know what the hell is going on.     Over time I expect to grasp more and more and I'm grateful we have such help from you and the many others here who appear to me to be very willing to help poor old calico get through the muck of ignorance. 

Thanks for your early morning post.  I can't believe you're either still up or an incredibly early riser.

[Oshyan]

Calico, I completely understand where you're coming from. If you can believe it at one time I felt the same way about TG! And I considered myself quite the expert on TG 0.9. Although experience there will help you here, it's not as much as one might hope.

In any case of course we are still in the pre-release phase here. Once the final product is available there will be full documentation with it and by then we can also expect a tremendous amount more learning resources and well-understood knowledge plus a wealth of example files and tutorials on specific techniques. That is certainly one of the other advantages of releasing the product as a Technology Preview as we have done.

As you said I think if you stick with it things will crystallize over time. But I certainly have sympathy for the frustration you're encountering.

- Oshyan