Terragen crashes when I try to create a "sea"

Started by Zathura, June 10, 2011, 04:14:44 AM

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Zathura

First of all, I'd like to say that while I'm brand new to T2, I'm a longtime user of Terragen classic, and after rediscovering the joys of scene creation, I'm thrilled to see all the new options available to me and I'm excited to learn more.

Now to the issue at hand.

(Edit) Maybe I've figured something out. It's not crashing, at least, though I'm getting some weird "swirly" stuff going on. I'll play with it some more, maybe I don't need help after all...

I've lurked through dozens of pages of the forums and used the search function to try and learn how to create a planetary sea. I've seen a number of options, and I realize this topic has been rehashed time and time again...

Yet I still seem to be doing something wrong. For the last hour or so (and several crashes later) I've yet to get a working solution. I've tried copying and pasting the original planet, creating a new planet, and using an object sphere.

I start by using a displacement power fractal on the first planet, with the largest features somewhere around 1-million to get some decent-sized landmasses. Then I try the above options, placing the new object at the same coordinates and assigning a water-shader as the surface.

The crashes occur as soon as I attempt to alter the radius of the second (or first) planet or object, without fail. I'm also a little confused about the "5.367e+106" stuff, or how it converts to regular units, but that's beside the point. Simply taking "5.367e+106" and changing it to "5.367e+156" causes the program to crash. I assumed that was the way to increase the radius to get the "water" above the lowest terrain levels? Is it not?

I'm not going for anything fancy this first time, and I'm sure I'm missing something simple...so please have some patience with me. Any help is appreciated.

freelancah

The numbers you are using are rediculously large...

The exponent stuff should be something that you have been teached in upper primary school or is it called middle school?..Well anyway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_notation#E_notation If you have a number that is 1e006 it equals to 1,000,000 and so on.

So basically your planet radius is a number with 156 zeros behind it..thats a quite large planet. Still, it should not crash, unless...are you using 32 bit ? Thats the only reason I can think of..I just tested for fun and my 64bit does not crash from any number I put in it.

Added a simple planet with a water sphere and some landmases as attachment

Zathura

Sorry, the numbers were not real. I just used hypothetical ones to get my point across. Now that I see that the "e" stands for exponent, I understand...no need to talk down to me. I've never seen them written without superscript.

I'm still having issues...but your post makes me think I'd better figure them out myself. Thanks.

Tangled-Universe

Well, honestly, by reading twice it really seems you did try using those extreme numbers, as you say it causes a crash.
The observable universe is about 10^26 metres and the unobservable isn't even as large as 10^156 ;)
But I see you didn't get the notification, no shame about that.

The default radius is 6.378e+006 metres, which is 6378000 metres.
So to get a second planet with water do this:

1) Open TG2 and create a powerfractal terrain.
2) Select the node "planet 01" and press "CTRL+D" to duplicate it.
3) Create a watershader and attach it to "planet 01_1".
4) It is likely you will already see water, since the powerfractal terrain will also displace downwards and thus creating dips which result in negative altitudes compared to the default radius.
5) If necessary, double click on the "planet 01_1" node and paste 6378100 as diameter. You have now raised the waterlevel by 100m by increasing the planet 01_1's radius by 100m

This really should work.

Anyway, speaking in general, I think if someone has issues with TG2 and did find stuff with the search, why not post it there in the relevant thread instead of creating new ones each time? Maybe an idea for Oshyan to create a sticky thread about this.
So has nothing to do with you Zathura.

Cheers,
Martin

Zathura

Sorry for my abruptness, and thank you.

Though the exact numbers weren't real, I was modifying the exponent bit, which probably did cause the crash. I managed to get it done with a sphere rather than a planet, so I suppose the issue is resolved. The reason I made a new thread was because of an age old stigma about "necroing" older threads, lol.

I'll try not to ask questions that have already been answered (I'm still reading about so many different techniques for various effects in the older threads), but some of the language and settings are still over my head. Nothing for that but practice and trial and error. Thanks again.