Population altitude setting T2

[rossworx]

I have never been able to figure out how to keep object populations out of water or inside particular areas defined by shader color settings. It may be perfectly obvious and I'm missing it, but applying "Use Density Shader" settings to those, with or without Inversion, doesn't seem to do it.

[bobbystahr]

Post a 'failed' .tgd and one of us will figure out where you're off track and re-post a "repaired" one that you can look through and see where it's different...best way I've ever learned was this way. Use one of the free XFROG models so we all have the same model.

[rossworx]

Thank you for your offer. I put together a quick file to illustrate my problem, with few complexities to complicate matters. I put in two populations of the XFrog Sweet Birches, and under 'Use density shader' I put 'Surface Layer 01' which is the only shader I have that specifies minimum and maximum altitude parameters. If there are others I haven't found them.

[Dune]

You connected wrongly. Distribution should be called from a separate, independant shader, like a distribution shader.

[N-drju]

In the future you can just use distribution shader and check "minimum altitude" so that no objects appear below that particular boundary. Just figure out what is the maximum height of the water. It won't work that well however if you have multiple lakes on various heights. You'll need several more distribution shaders in such a case.

Else, you can paint a "paint shader" covering the whole area where your lake, river, whatever is. Then, plug this new "paint shader" into the "blending shader" node and check "invert blendshader" in the given object's dialogue box.

[rossworx]

Thank you for these replies. I finally figured out where to find a distribution shader, applied the minimum altitude to it, and discovered that it somehow already appeared in the "Use density shader" spot for both objects, which is convenient but unexpected. However, the ground turned white and the trees went wading in the water again. Okay, cut the coverage in the distribution shader to zero and the ground colors were restored, but the trees did not emerge from the lake. (There is  only one lake.) I tried re-populating, but the b-boxes didn't move. Next approach, removed objects, replaced with new -- just one set this time. They still went skinny dipping. I'm overlooking something. (I've never quite caught on to using the nodes diectly; I must learn... Maybe this is the time?)

[bobbystahr]

First off a Distribution shader has to go through the blend by shader switch to work.
I copied and pasted the one you included to use for the population and set it so it would work(see the .tgd attached)
re: Surface and Distribution shaders...It's generally better to use only one as your distribution I find, and for me it's the Distribution shader through the Blend /Mask input.
I adjusted your .tgd to reflect good distribution methods for surface and objects and made the coverage and coverage area much larger/denser.

[N-drju]

Rossworx, what you still need to do I believe is to crank "Fuzzy zone" to 0 or some other one digit value. The fuzzy zone, as I understand it, is an additional area where instances or a shader will appear but at an increasingly lower density. Try reducing that if you haven't already.

[jo]

Hi,

I'm not entirely sure that the fuzzy zone is the answer, but there is some documentation about fuzzy zones here:

http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Fuzzy_Zones

I'm not saying this is the solution here, just that as it was mentioned I would point people to the documentation for it.

Regards,

Jo

[Dune]

I thought I had given you an adjusted file (a few posts up), where the distribution shader was set to work, but your latetst non-working file is wrong again. Didn't you check that file out? Distribution shader should NOT be part of the chain!

[Kadri]

Hi,
I'm not entirely sure that the fuzzy zone is the answer, but there is some documentation about fuzzy zones here:
http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Fuzzy_Zones
I'm not saying this is the solution here, just that as it was mentioned I would point people to the documentation for it.
Regards,
Jo

That is interesting Jo.
I thought the fuzzy zone was something in meters
and because it didn't acted so i used it mostly with trial and error.
Now it makes sense.
Wouldn't it better if there was a basic notice beside that option that that number isn't in meters?
Because all(?) other numbers are mostly in meter ?

Actually the best would be for me if Terragen would use only the option in meters directly if possible.
Especially as the default " Min alt fuzzy zone" number looks more confusing if i have understood what is written at all of course

[N-drju]

Gaaah!!! Maths! My eyezzzzz hurt!

I also thought it was a metric system...

Jo, from my experience I can say that it made a difference. Basically it's in the way populations are created and organized. Zero fuzziness is what works for me in suchlike situations. I like this tool as a blender because it is very accurate.

[bigben]

A slight twist on Dune's solution. For populations it can be a bit tricky judging what a population will look like as you have the spacing specified in the population node and the density of the mask to take into consideration.  Throwing in a colour adjust shader can make it easy to fine tune the mask, and I usually connect the population distribution mask to a dedicated surface layer for previewing purposes. I usually group my masks as well. Makes it easier to combine masks for multiple populations e.g. exclude population A from population B's distribution

[attachurl=1]

[archonforest]

Damn...I was also thinking in meters about it...Thx a bunch Jo.

[Dune]

Yes, I too had a simplistic view of fuzzy zone as being half the amount of meters up and the same down of the height.