Simple Shape square and a flatten issue

[TheBadger]

Hi

Im using a Simple Shape to flatten an area. It is two nodes. works well enough..

The Issue is I cannot for the life of me get the Square to move up or down. I can move it anywhere on the terrain and make it any size. But cant move it up or down. And I very much want to lower it so it fills in a valley in a very specific place in my terrain.

I am also using a Clip Matt provided, where I am able to clamp the displacement. Thats looking real good. But I ended up using it in a different way than it was intended because I got some nice effects to my Terrain after playing with the settings. So now I just need to flatten a few spots.

The two node Simple shape is perfect for what I want, if I can just get it to lower! So what am I not seeing, why cant I lower it?

Thanks

[jo]

Hi Michael,

Are you changing the vertical position of the shader (Y coord) and expecting to see changes? The shape shader doesn't really work like that. It applies its displacement to the surface independent of its Y position. The displacement is added to the surface, so the displacement is relative to the surface rather than the shader. If you set the displacement amplitude to 1000 the surface will always be displaced by 1000 regardless of where the shader is positioned vertically.

A side effect of this behaviour is that you can't use the shader in displacement mode to make an area perfectly flat, at least not using only the shape shader. Say you have a hill in the middle of the of the area covered by the shader. If you set the displacement amplitude to 1000 it will move that hill 1000m higher, not make a flat surface at 1000m.

I'll look into making some changes to the shape shader so the displacement can optionally be relative to the shader and therefore dependent on the Y position.

Regards,

Jo

[Dune]

That last sentence is interesting, Jo. Thanks. And Michael; if you flatten (smooth with blended surface shader) your SS area completely and then add a displacement shader (or use the offset in the surface shader to lift it up to the average height in your terrain you'll have a flat area in your terrain. Needs soft edges though.

[mhaze]

The change to SS displacement would be very useful Jo

[TheBadger]

I'll look into making some changes to the shape shader so the displacement can optionally be relative to the shader and therefore dependent on the Y position.

Sounds good jo, hope that will work

Thanks ulco! Ill try that today.

[bobbystahr]

agree that that would be a very welcome addition to the SSshader

[TheBadger]

Hey jo, as long as your thinking about this. I was hoping you would also think of a way to make everything outside of a sss flatten. That is, so I could draw the shape around some areas I want to keep, and everything outside of that (not also in a sss) would be flattened. A drop in ready node for this kind of stuff would be very nice.

[Dune]

Well, that's not hard at all, Michael. Just smooth in the surface shader and set the blending to inverse.

[TheBadger]