Blender - Some Awesome New Features

[Tangled-Universe]

A curve graph could perhaps be a nice feature request to add.
I don't know whether procedural will work, but it could already be nice to have it for heightfields only.
World-Machine has a node which does something similar. There you can even draw your curve free-hand.

[efflux]

Eventually I'll move this stuff onto the Blender forum then there it can be more Blender specific after I've solved a few more Blender specific problems. At present though, this is all useful for Terragen because it's a way of creating terrains.

[efflux]

A curve graph could perhaps be a nice feature request to add.
I don't know whether procedural will work, but it could already be nice to have it for heightfields only.
World-Machine has a node which does something similar. There you can even draw your curve free-hand.

As far as I know a curve graph is planned. When will we see it though?

[efflux]

Heres a shot I used on the Blender forum. It's relevant here and probably we'll see this back in Blender eventually then Blender becomes hugely more procedurally powerful than Terragen. Look at that list of basis for the fractal and that's just the Musgrave one. This stuff is needed for landscape apps and Blender isn't even specific to that.

[Dune]

Wow, that's a lot of noise!

[Tangled-Universe]

A curve graph could perhaps be a nice feature request to add.
I don't know whether procedural will work, but it could already be nice to have it for heightfields only.
World-Machine has a node which does something similar. There you can even draw your curve free-hand.

As far as I know a curve graph is planned. When will we see it though?

Oh is it? I don't know anything about that, actually. I may have missed that?

Wow, that's a lot of noise!

Hmmm....not so impressed honestly.
Those voronoi noises are variations on the original voronoi diagram, relatively  easy and straightforward to implement those if you already can create F1 and F2 noises.
Vue's noises are greater in number and variety.

[efflux]

Yeah but at least it has variety. I'd add in sine for a basis as well if I could have it. Sine basis in a fractal is cool.

As well as basis for the fractals. Blender also has these as simple noise functions. Just the editing power of these alone is hugely easier than the simple noise functions in TG2 because you have some editing power rather than hooking up lots of blue nodes:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Textures/Types/Procedural/Voronoi

There are also about ten various texture shaders creating various forms from fractals to more geometric stuff like bricks. All useful.

Nothing tops Mojoworld though. That's the king. Sadly, it always will be by the look of it.

Vue will have these functions since Vue is a landscape app. That would be normal, unlike Terragen.

This site has a lot of really good tutorials about Blender:

http://cgcookie.com/blender/

It's not free but probably worth it and a small amount goes to Blender foundation. This is why Blender is unstoppable. It's open to anyone which means that there is now a massive growing stock of content and tutorials. Almost every other apps is totally lame in this department now.

I'm changing direction in 3D now. I was going to go back to 2D but I see how I can use 3D a lot more now. My skills are actually wasted doing pure landscape. I should be doing charactors and such like.

[efflux]

This stuff is common to almost all apps now. Plugins etc. It's all over the place except Terragen. Look here:

http://www.ylilammi.com/BerconNoise.shtml

And this is what we have in Terragen with the "warper" hard wired as well as everything else. This is simply not good enough by a giant margin:

http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Power_Fractal_Shader_v3_-_Tweak_Noise_Tab

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks for that info Efflux.

That link to Blender voronoi is very interesting, but the one on Bercon especially is.
I wish we could have more extended voronoi flavours.

.... I should be doing charactors and such like.

Yeah, great idea, like the other 99% out there doing 3D

I couldn't resist the sarcastic joke if you don't mind

[efflux]

A curve graph could perhaps be a nice feature request to add.
I don't know whether procedural will work, but it could already be nice to have it for heightfields only.
World-Machine has a node which does something similar. There you can even draw your curve free-hand.

A curve graph can work with procedurals. There could be problems with it being real time in a vaste landscape but if that's the case you'd create the curve then apply it. A curve graph is essentially the same as using certain blue nodes such as bias and gain etc except the curve can be a complex combination of these that is easily visually editable. You can create a curve graph of sorts with blue nodes but it's way too much hassle to use.

[TheBadger]

One more useful node is a normal direction one. You have this ball and by moving it the normal directions change. For a real world example, say you have nodes that are on a particular slope, you can use the normal node to change the direction slightly so snow might be more piled on one side of a hill or whatever. It's all very powerful.

This sounds good.

[efflux]

One more useful node is a normal direction one. You have this ball and by moving it the normal directions change. For a real world example, say you have nodes that are on a particular slope, you can use the normal node to change the direction slightly so snow might be more piled on one side of a hill or whatever. It's all very powerful.

This sounds good.

They have thrown in a stack of stuff that you think how could this be useful but sure enough somebody finds a use. This video here demonstrates the light path node. You might think what on earth do you need all this for but you do find uses for these things. It's important for an app to be open and let the users find uses. This is the main problem with Terragen and it drives creative people away.

http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/02/26/blender-cycles-light-path-node/

[efflux]

Thanks for that info Efflux.

That link to Blender voronoi is very interesting, but the one on Bercon especially is.
I wish we could have more extended voronoi flavours.

.... I should be doing charactors and such like.

Yeah, great idea, like the other 99% out there doing 3D

I couldn't resist the sarcastic joke if you don't mind

Yes lots of people are doing that but lately I've been looking on the Zbrush gallery and I'm noticing it's a bit uninventive. There is a a lot of concentration on creating realistic characters or zombie apocalypse type characters (this angle has definitely been done to death). All I'm saying is that my skills are actually in traditional media and that isn't being used in landscape except for the fact that any knowledge of drawing or painting helps in setting up any kind of scene.

For example in the odd time I've played with 3D Coat I've got decent results very fast because I know how to draw.

[efflux]

I'm always interested in things that computers do but only computers can really do. That's why landscaping using procedurals is so interesting. I find just 2D problematic because it's actually not a vast leap from real brushes and pencils. In fact it's not as much fun to be honest despite the editability. A perfect example was I took my TC 1100 with Mypaint to the library and it had a problem. A sketchpad and paper would have been better. However, recently I tried some animation in Blender. That's a magical thing when you see things moving. That is of course something that can only be achieved easily with computers.

[efflux]

There is always a danger of attempting to recreate real world methods in computers. That's  a giant failing in some areas. It's why audio processing has failed. EQ plugins etc. Rubbish compare to the real thing because they tried to copy the real thing instead of going in another direction. I have two Russian made valve pulteq clones. I'm not even going to argue on audio forums about how pulteq style plugins can sound the same.

Procedural texturing is a logical use for computers. It can't always work, say if you're doing protraits or something but it amazes me that we have all this power in Blender and such like but people choose to create bitmaps for rocks textures etc. That's mad.