Various WIP

[RichTwo]

Yes, yes, yes!  At last some true innovation in global terrain building!  To use an overused saying - this is a quantum leap.  And probably only the beginning. 

I knew TG2 was capable of great things, but damned if I could figure out how to do it.  It had to start in the functions, but how, where, and what? That part confused the you-know-what out of me at first and only now I'm just barely starting to see how some of it works.

I'm so glad you took the time to delve back into TG2 again.  Take a rest now - you deserve it!

[efflux]

Hi Rich.

Some things are starting to look so blatantly obvious to me now. I don't know how I missed them before.

Also, just to add here, in case anyone is wondering. The terrain in the slashed pictures is simply two powerfractals stretched out slightly on a different axis. Then one is plugged into the blending shader of the other. Obviously strata and outcrops is also used. It's not even a recommended setup because of too many sharp edges. I had meant to take that further but just left it.

[Kadri]

Efflux can you put a close up render here from the walls from the "Canyons 2.0.jpg" image ?
I like the appearance very much and i am curious how they look closer.

[RichTwo]

I'm beginning to see what you mean about the red nodes in general.  They're good for "all-purpose" terrains where control and detail aren't so much an issue.  Like if your main objective is object placement, so to speak. You then won't be looking so much at the terrain.

I will use the strata and outcrops shader with a with a warp shader after the power fractal displacement, which is what I did for my render of "Formations II".  You can see better what I mean with the attached screenshot.  Really have to tone down the steepness and octaves to get an effect that doesn't look so hokey.  But what happens is that the strata is confined to only the warp displacement areas, not every square inch of the planet.  It isn't randomized as much as it occurs in nature, though.  Maybe a merge of two or more differently set shaders hooked with a blend shader for control?  Got me thinking now...

Keep going on about this and Oshyan will have to move this thread...    

[efflux]

Rich.

It looks like you've got into this quite well. I've never tried hooking a strata and outcrops into the warp like that.

One of the things with the blue nodes is that you can hook anything in for positions. Like you have done so in plugging a red node into that voronoi.

The red node fractal is surface position. This is the position of your overlying displacement surface but what if you want the position of the underlying geometry before it has been displaced? i.e. so the surface colour gets it's position from there and is stretched out with the displacement. You can do that with blue nodes.

[RichTwo]

I'll be a just a tad humble here.  I did not originate any of that on my own except the strata-warp thing.  I took all of it from much larger clip files somebody else made, pared them down and pieced it all together.  I wouldn't have known enough of how any of it works to be able to have come up with the idea.  But with my working with it, I've basically figured out what does what.  I think that's all I ever needed: a starting point.

[Dune]

In a way it's also nice to 'randomly' put together blue and red nodes and just see what happens. Great fun, and you never know what you'll find.