Plants in my fake rocks

[ntwinter]

Using the current version of Terragen.
I've successfully got my rocks and stones in the scene and have begun to populate the plants.
I'm not sure how to stop my plants growing out of the rocks/stones. My plants are currently populated through the use of a cloud shader for their density.
The rocks/stones are gradually built up adding my fake rocks through surface layers and finish as a child of the final surface layer. Do I plug the final surface layer into the plant population mask?

Thanks.

[Dune]

You could try using the surface shader before the stones for the pop to sit on, but if you used smoothing they might end up to low. Or you could derive a mask from your largest stones, and use that to mask out veggies.

[bobbystahr]

Using the current version of Terragen.
I've successfully got my rocks and stones in the scene and have begun to populate the plants.
I'm not sure how to stop my plants growing out of the rocks/stones. My plants are currently populated through the use of a cloud shader for their density.
The rocks/stones are gradually built up adding my fake rocks through surface layers and finish as a child of the final surface layer. Do I plug the final surface layer into the plant population mask?

Thanks.

If you are using the Fakestones you could use it as a mask for you veg....I the rock object, hmmm, go in the top down  view and paint them all and use that as a reverse mask in your veg as well. You can double mask using a Distribution shader by utilizing the mask slot and the fractal breakup as maskers....try using a Distribution shader instead of a Cloud shader for your populations.

[Oshyan]

If you're going as far as a top-down view and painting a mask from it, just color your rocks white, do a render, then use that as a mask (inverted). Your ground of course needs to be black for that to work, so just add a new full-coverage surface layer at the end of your Shaders network before you do the top-down render. But again this is all only necessary if you're using Rock Objects (whether built-in or imported). The Fake Stones can be used directly as a mask.

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

If you're going as far as a top-down view and painting a mask from it, just color your rocks white, do a render, then use that as a mask (inverted). Your ground of course needs to be black for that to work, so just add a new full-coverage surface layer at the end of your Shaders network before you do the top-down render. But again this is all only necessary if you're using Rock Objects (whether built-in or imported). The Fake Stones can be used directly as a mask.

- Oshyan

Oooh I like that even better Oshyan; filed for future reference.

[Dune]

I'd say, add a black surface layer, pull a line form the stones, adjust the colors back to white (as they're usually clored a bit darkish), add as child to the black surface layer and use that as mask. That's my method, at least. No need to render a  mask first.

[Oshyan]

Right, but that only works with Fake Stones, not a Rock object population. Is that what you're referring to?

- Oshyan

[Dune]

I think he does, but you're right; won't work for objects.