Planet Spinner

efflux · October 18, 2007, 12:50:31 PM

OK guys. I had a look at my cityscape file. It's not as simple as I thought and involves 38 nodes

I did it a while back so forgot. I'll examine it and get back here.

Volker Harun · October 19, 2007, 05:42:05 AM

Using Efflux's Tipps and Tricks I came up with the following.

Duplicating the functions and and using another scale could make a very good scene, but I am off with other things ,-)

Volker

cyphyr · October 19, 2007, 06:43:55 AM

Hmm very interesting, I like where this is going. I'm looking forward to getting into these new function interpretations. You guys are really pushing the boundaries.
Richard

efflux · October 19, 2007, 10:42:05 AM

Cool stuff Volker. How about sending this stuff through colour gradients

What we could really do with is a steep steps function.

efflux · October 19, 2007, 10:52:52 AM

My cityscape actually uses a different approach. More fractal usage is good for this due to more variation that it supplies. I'll get around to looking again at my graph to see how it could be simplified. It doesn't render very fast. I think it could be better.

Volker Harun · October 19, 2007, 10:56:35 AM

I started with your tipp of using two PowerFractals, that got stretched into different directions ... that was Fast(!)

efflux · October 19, 2007, 11:06:41 AM

Yes, it turns out that I did not do this but what I did was use two transform shaders to stretch one fractal in two dimensions. However the rest of my graph (to get the straight geometry) seems over complex but I'm going to look at. I'm not tremendously enthusiastic about this cityscape thing yet. However one other angle I experimented with, ties in. The colour gradients. You will see eventually

The problem is that we don't want too many sharp angles. This doesn't facilitate displacements very well. My best Mojo examples of this, blended various techniques together so some of the more geometric forms were smoother faciliating more variety in the scape rather than just lots sharp blocks.

efflux · October 19, 2007, 11:23:58 AM

Imagine if we had all these:

http://www.nirarebakun.com/voro/eman.html

Volker Harun · October 21, 2007, 04:22:33 AM

Now again that Sine-function - The Get-Position is multiplied with a powerfractal.

efflux · October 21, 2007, 12:33:45 PM

Lovely. Beautiful shapes.

I'd like to see someone use the sine to get ploughed fields, to get back to a real world type of use. You just get one dimension say X from position, add a perlin noise (or could be a fractal) then through a sine. You get this:

I wasn't specifically aiming for a ploughed field effect but you can see with a bit of work you could get this really good. Better distortions, fake stones but it doesn't end there. How about creating patchworks of fields or distorting a little on a larger scale to get slightly uneven furrows. This is where other basis function could come in, like those hybrid voronois, manhatton etc. You could create entire landscapes full of fields.

efflux · October 21, 2007, 03:15:04 PM

This is what I had in mind for the sine furrows. It is very simple. We only need one dimension for the sine:

The graph:

How about populations of plants on the tops of the furrows or something. Steep steps function as a mask for grids of fields? We don't have that yet. Maybe we can do that by stretching out fractals and blending or using 1D from them.

This would be better with a fractal rather than just the perlin noise but it's just a test.

Anyway, got to get back to the crazy experiments. The TG2 UI (especially on my Mac) can't handle my graphs in one window now. I've had to get into creating internal networks. My next planet may be around 500 nodes. My brain is starting to hurt. It may take a long time to finish but TG2 is handling this like a dream due to the node UI.

Oshyan · October 21, 2007, 04:13:40 PM

Wow, that's a remarkably good looking plowed field. Nice!

- Oshyan

efflux · October 21, 2007, 04:18:31 PM

Thanks Oshyan. Although I'm doing some weird stuff, if it feeds back into something useful for realistic use then I'll try to demonstrate that. Hopefully people can follow that graph. The problem will be in tweaking the multiply (or divide) to get the scale they want but with experiment that will come clear.

Funny, but their seems to be two spellings of ploughed or plowed. US and UK differences I think. My Mac spell checked me when I thought I had got it right.

Just to add here, to help see what you are doing with the multiply, take your camera to about 20m. With a multiply of 1 you will see the sine so then you will see what multiplying or dividing (e.g. multipying by 0.1) will do. By tweaking you will learn the sine better.

Volker Harun · October 22, 2007, 02:48:41 AM

Very (!) Good!

FrankB · October 22, 2007, 11:17:14 AM

indeed, looking very good. Especially like the simplicity of the node setup for this.