Square, Octogone, etc Fake Stones

[WAS]

How would one go about piping in functions to create simple shapes? I've been trying a few methods with functions but all I can seem to make is crazy crap, like hair looking stuff of wire tendrils, or horribly fractalized surfaces.

I am interested in creating a "Fake Stone City" like shader to use but at a loss.

[Dune]

The simplest you can do is merge 2 very stretched hard fractals to get some kind of squarish blocks. There's also a square noise setup around.

[fleetwood]

I still have DandelO's original Fake Stone City tgd and I hope (since he seems to have withdrawn it) that it's ok to say it was done by using large (100-50 meter or so ) fake stone shaders as input into displacement (instead of directly as fake stones).

The shapes work at long distance but when you get close to it they aren't squared off.

[WAS]

Thanks for the input guys.

[dandelO]

Hi. It's nasty up close and only really works back-lit, as well for best results. I just used the fake stones, pure white in their colour with no surface shader. That then plugs in as a displacement function only, no tallness or pancake settings are needed(or work at all, actually).
Afrer that some small fractal added random luminosity to the surface.

Raising the Ray Detail Multiplier should tidy up the edges a fair bit, I think iit's something like this shadow problem you might be experiencing: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,9321.msg128233.html#msg128233 and vertical edges are problematic anyway.

Cheers!

[WAS]

Thanks! Much appreciated! I figured it would probably be best back lit and went for a sunset zone. had trouble getting the look but I think I know why now, about the tallness and pancake effects which were at extreme levels.