Mountain scene.. again

[Valentina]

Hi, I've asked myself for a couple of days if I really wanted to ask for your help.. and then, yes, I really do. I'm trying some scenes in order to learn more, and one of them is a "simple" mountain view with some mountains covered with snow. I need your help because I would like some advice for what concerns the shape of the mountains. before you start ( ). Yes, I've spent the past days in this forum looking for tutorials, or scenes, or files.. but I found not very much. I started with a file I found:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15576.0.html
(power fractal as main terrain, and then an alpine fractal, first I use the same settings, then I played a while with them) but what I obtain is spiky and not very much like a real alpine mountain..  So I'm writing here because I would like to know if there's a kind of method, at least for me to start, or to try..
At the end there is a portion of a render of one of these first try (sorry for the quality, but alpine fractals is very slow). I began with a smallest scale of 0 (for the alpine fractal) then I thought that maybe I had to increase it.. but with no result for what I had in mind.. I've not really understood what lead in octaves is. Snow for some parts of the mountains plays well, but on the rest the coverage is all in little spots (I think because the shape is too spiky). I also change from perlin mix 2, to 1, to ridges, with no remarkable difference. I think i should start again with a new file..

From where can I start? I swear I've read so much tutorials, but not helping at all.. For example I like very much this shape,
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=11287.0
but I could not get any hint from the discussion (probably it's a language problem..). 
So ok I'm gonna be able to do these shapes in about a couple of .. years?? but help me to start. This is the only really helpful forum I've ever found..

Thank you very much for help
Valentina

[archonforest]

Ciao,
Try this file. It is a very simple set up. Hope it can give some ideas.
Otherwise see here:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Alpine_Fractal_Shader_v2
There are small videos showing what is what. VERY useful stuff.

[Valentina]

Hi, thank you for the file! I'll immediately give a look.. I already know those videos, very useful indeed, they helped me with some settings, still trying to understanding some others.. but there's time. thanks again 

Valentina

[archonforest]

Hi, thank you for the file! I'll immediately give a look.. I already know those videos, very useful indeed, they helped me with some settings, still trying to understanding some others.. but there's time. thanks again 

Valentina

Welcome. I forgot to mention that if u want very specific shapes you might consider to use the image map shader where u have to draw your shapes in Photoshop for example and then import into TG.

[Valentina]

maybe in some time.. sounds more difficult to handle! but I can try.. thanks!

Valentina

[kalwalt]

The fact that your mountains are too spiky, probably depend on the displacement amplitude value in the alpinefractal shader: The more value in the amplitude the more spiky effect, but of course it depend also how you set up your other shaders. If you post your .tgd file, we can take a look at and give some more advice.

[Valentina]

sure, I'll do this tomorrow... it's dinner time here:)
thank you everybody

Valentina

[Valentina]

Ok here I am ..

here are two files:
Mountains: pretty similar to the file I found here in the forum, with the fractal and an alpine terrain;
Mountain edit: the same project, whitout the fractal as main terrain, only with the alpine, following the settings of archonforest ..

Renders:

render_mountain realated to the first file;
render_ mountain edit related to the second;
render2_mountain edit always related to the second but with the "scale step" setting set on 5 (as by archonforest).

I can see a difference about the spiky thing between 2nd render and 3rd... is it scale step?

thanks,
Valentina