Combining SimpleShapeShaders

[bobbystahr]

Hi Bobby

A couple of suggestions.
Use TIFFs instead of JPEGs if you want to use images for masks. 
Make the image just black and white (but you'll have to save it as greyscale to import)  025 has a couple of shades of grey as well.
In the colour tab of the image node, turn off smooth interpolation. This will be one cause of "bleeding"
The colour adjust node is your friend.   Have a look at the attachment

Got that Ben, wasn't really going for quality yet, just compatible images to mask with...I've been using .png but will try the larger file size tifs.
Thanks for the Colour Tab tip...hadn't thought of that...any idea how to deal with isolating the displacements...that's the last rung on this ladder I'm climbing...Off to check yer .tgd...thanks....

[bigben]

PNG will work OK too. It's the jpeg compression artifacts that cause problems with jpg image masks.  LZW compressed TIFFs work fin and for masks are pretty small files as well.

In some cases you may want to leave Smooth Interpolation on as it will smooth out the blockiness of a low resolution image. You can then increase the sharpness of the mask by using a colour adjust node with identical values for black/white limits. This is quite a useful technique when you're pushing the resolution limitations of a mask image.

I'll have a play with your TGD tonight.
[edit] Here, try these files. Converted the JPG masks to TIFF (they're smaller with LZW compression). I split the simple shapes out of the direct connection to the compute terrain node to use them for both displacement functions and masks. I prefer to use the blending shader rather than coverage for masking like this and and restructured to remove some of the redundant masking. Hope this makes sense (and is what you were trying to achieve ).[/edit]

[bigben]

The other thing that should've hit me when I made that demo tgd is that my tiled terrain sets are built with a bunch of functions that produce a mask that is effectively the same as an SSS rectangle with a beveled edge.  This will make them a whole lot simpler to set up with much less clutter.

[bobbystahr]

The other thing that should've hit me when I made that demo tgd is that my tiled terrain sets are built with a bunch of functions that produce a mask that is effectively the same as an SSS rectangle with a beveled edge.  This will make them a whole lot simpler to set up with much less clutter.

I found the demo quite interesting but going in another direction than I'm actually heading. My original intent was to build/model using the SSs as my base models. As I am colour blind I pretty much use image maps for most of my texturing and the info re: mapping is a good to know, but when it comes to the procedural functions I really need a layman's glossary to even begin to comprehend what most do as they have quite 'technical math/scientific' names in most cases and as I have a very basic Grade 10 "Shop Math" as my maths education and I never got much above basic arithmetics and the names mean nada to me till I google them, and then wind up even more confused. So I stay away till a light goes on. At 64 , even tho an exploring type retired hippie, my learning is quite slow and don't seem to grasp concepts my youngers who benefited from a proper math education and the soak up like Slurpies on a hot summer day.

[bigben]

We crossed paths in posting ...  just added some files to the post above.  Feel free to ask any questions. The colour adjust shaders after the SSS nodes effectively turn everything inside the SSS white so they can be used as a mask regardless of what you change the bevel width to

[bigben]

Just a couple of other things to note. 

When I converted your mask images I did a levels adjustment as the black wasn't completely black. This would have caused some slight "leaking" of textures in your result. If you're only after a black and white mask you could always use an image map followed by a colour adjust set at 0.5, 0.5 as a default setup (I usually do).

And in this arrangement, the displacement in the SSS node doesn't do anything. I just left it as it was, but you don't need to set it if your using it as a displacement function on another node.

[bobbystahr]

Just a couple of other things to note. 

When I converted your mask images I did a levels adjustment as the black wasn't completely black. This would have caused some slight "leaking" of textures in your result. If you're only after a black and white mask you could always use an image map followed by a colour adjust set at 0.5, 0.5 as a default setup (I usually do).

And in this arrangement, the displacement in the SSS node doesn't do anything. I just left it as it was, but you don't need to set it if your using it as a displacement function on another node.

Great info...will play around later today after I get done with my cd mixing (recording a solo cd of my songs) this morning...thanks for all the input as I'm often totally "at sea" when it comes to using functions and I'd dearly love to grok them better....