populations on heightfields?

[peejay]

The attached image is a render using a heightfield exported from Mojoworld and then tweaked with a power fractal blend shader, and a fake stone layer thrown in as a test. My problem is the plants, I wanted to do a lot more but I can only import them as single objects, when I try to import a population, they will not cover the heightfield area. They surround the heightfield, but won't sit on it or even above it - it's like oil and water.

Does anybody know if it is possible to import populations onto heightfields? If so, how?

thanks all

peejay

[sonshine777]

When you say tweaked, how much are you talking about? A meter or less, or more than a meter?
You can adjust the elevation of the populated plant objects in the second of the two entries that
are created when you make a population. (see screen shot) This transform changes the parameters for the seed object
and all of the populated follow suit. (they go up or down etc...) The only thing that doesn't work is when you have
a large amount of displacement due to tweaking. The population places the plants/objects based on the original
terrain not the displaced one. So for minor tweaks you can fix as I explained above but major changes you will have to
place objects individually.

Of course there may a way that I am not yet aware of that someone else has figured out. Hope this is helpful.

[peejay]

it isn't what I meant. Hopefully the preview pic will show it better. The white dots are the instances of the plant - (raised to 2000 metres so you can see them because this bit is quite high).

As you can see, they do not follow the terrain in any way. They won't even go over it or under it. It's like watching bacteria grow around penicillin.

Also attached is the node network. My apologies it's nothing like what I described - that's what I had in my head that I wanted to do - this what actually worked!

[dhavalmistry]

I think the problem here is the terrain being generated before generating height field

[sonshine777]

I think the problem here is the terrain being generated before generating height field

I agree with dhavalmistry your terrain is displaced before you place your hieghtfield.

[peejay]

thanks again.

I tried a simpler node layout in the order you suggested, pic enclosed, but got the same result.

Is it actually possible to populate over a heightfield?

[sonshine777]

I usually place my Strata Outcrops and Fake stone shaders after the base colors node (which is in the shader section of the node network), and I usually run them through a surface or distribution shader to control altitude and slope. The way you have it setup the entire terrain is affected. That may be why your having some problems.

[peejay]

as you can see, with a completely unvarnished heightfield, no tweaks,  - the same thing happens. So my question remains, is it possible to distribute a population over a heightfield?

When the weekend is over if someone from planetside could have a look, that'd be really great.

many thanks

peejay

[neon22]

from your screenshot of the node structure:
Try swapping the order of the compute terrain and the fake stones shader.

So... add stones after the surface is computed.

[peejay]

thanks neon but there is no stone shader on the last image, it's just a heightfield, I stripped out all the other bits and it made no difference at all.

I really think this one is for Planetside - does Terragen support populations on heightfields - If so, how please?

[gope]

I think, you use the wrong tab to put the objects. Last week I had the same problem - my objects built a flying ring.
Try to input the coordinates into the Distribution-tab, not in the Transform-tab.
Like this:
Why do you set the popolation by a heighfield?

Peter

[peejay]

thanks Peter,

I actually done this last night and it didn't work, but now I see that I had attempted to move the population twice, once in the object dialogue box, and again in the population dialogue box. When I knocked out the second transform instruction - things worked ok

thank you again everyone

[Oshyan]

Yes, TG2 supports populations distributed properly on heightfields, as you have found. When moving a population you want to move the population bounding box itself, not the base reference object. Moving the reference object can cause unexpected effects such as those which you encountered, although in some cases it can be useful (primarily for vertical offset).

- Oshyan