Rock study

Started by Kadri, August 23, 2015, 09:00:16 PM

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Kadri

#45

I just noticed now that i was thinking in a global planet way that Terragen makes me to think.
Not all images (node setups) have to work for global scale.
The last image with the canyon kind of look might still be useful for some wide shots for example.
But there is always the need in me that it should work for closeups too.
Feels kinda constrictive to think that way, if you know what i mean.

Kadri

#46

Same alpine shader but different setup.
This time there is strata and twist and shear too beside warp shaders.
My main focus is the twist and Shear shader this time together with slope restricted surface layers.

The lengthy spiky look reminds me of old CGI pictures
and i mostly don't like that default twist and shear shader look that goes to one side actually.
Like the upper middle-left parts of the image below.
But as you said Matt after adding these nodes some parts look more natural...to me at least.
I like how the warp stretched parts look more like kinda rock plates on the lower part.

There is an basic interesting thing i saw regarding the twist and shear shader.
Not sure about the usefulness but it changed how i see that shader a little.
I will have to render other images to show it more clearly.

Haven't slept for more then one day.  See you later.

Dune

You can of course mask the twist and shear by PF, making it possible to add all directions in a mixed way, but then again; that can also be achieved by redirection or use of a compute normal (and or XYZ shader) and then lateral displacement.
It's always fun to explore all sorts of mixing of nodes and see what happens.

Kadri

#48

Yes many different ways Ulco.

I made a very basic scene that you can download and try for yourself below.

Some time ago i thought if you use 2 or more twist and shear shaders that are exactly the opposite
if they would cancel themselves out or if there would be still be some effects of them to be seen.
There were some things that i did not understand why it happened.


*Open the scene and you will see a scene like in the first image.

*Enable the "01_Twist and shear shader" node.It does exactly what it should.

*Then enable the "02_Surface layer" node.Nothing happens.

*Then enable the "02_Twist and shear shader".The X and Y values are -1 so exact the opposite of the "01_Twist and shear shader".
  So you get the same scene as without any twist shader was added.

* Now go to the 02_Surface layer" and enable "Smoothing effect" in the "smoothing" tab. This is what me surprised.
   It is more like a reset then smoothing (in this setup at least).
   What you get is like the same as you disable the first surface layer and twist node.

* Go to the first "01_Twist and shear shader" and use bigger numbers in the "Lean factor" until you go very high
   you won't see any difference  and when you do it won't be in the direction you expect.
 
*If you restrict the slopes differently in the surface layers you get some expected sometimes not expect results too.

I don't know if it is only related to the smoothing effect or the twist shader.

If you use slope restrictions with more layers and twist shaders it is not the same behavior and the effects from the upper layers are still seen less or more. It looked to me depending on the surface layers used even if you use exact opposite twist nodes you still can get some different effects. This is not related to the smoothing effect it is more about the slope etc use....
So the twist shader can act as you said Ulco like a redirect shader too. But not sure if they look the same.
The thing i was curious was how opposite shaders act.

Sounds complicate to you? If you are new to Terragen it most probably sounds so.
I was nearly giving up to post this here.
There are so different settings that it gets overwhelming very fast to write and post pictures what this or that does.
Especially the last things i said. Documenting the workings of Terragen looks very hard when you go into things like this.
Some of the behavior changes very much for example when you change the Slope key to "Planet/object normal" in the Slope constraints tab.


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Kadri


These are some of the others if you are curious.

Kadri

#50

These ones are a little more complicated so there might be other factors too.

The first one have 5 or so  "twist and shear shaders" that are going in the opposite directions to the ones before
and are restricted by surface slopes.

I exaggerated the lean factor just to see the effect more clearly in the second image.
It took tooo long to render and i didn't finish it.

The third image does have less nodes to see the twist effect better (still exaggerated).



Dune

Interesting tests, Kadri. The smoothing checked just annihilates any displacement from former nodes. For 'real smoothing' you'd need a compute terrain with a larger patch, so it calculates an average, and smooths accordingly to this softer computed base. Without the compute terrain it just smoothes the whole thing down again (unless you mask the surface layer by something).
With some masking and twisting you can get weird shapes  ;)

Kadri

Quote from: Dune on August 28, 2015, 02:33:20 AM
Interesting tests, Kadri. The smoothing checked just annihilates any displacement from former nodes. For 'real smoothing' you'd need a compute terrain with a larger patch, so it calculates an average, and smooths accordingly to this softer computed base. Without the compute terrain it just smoothes the whole thing down again (unless you mask the surface layer by something).
...

Yeah i wasn't aware how much it is more of a reset then a kind of smoothing that i expected.

Weirdness is good :) I don't see much work around of it but Terragen could be very easily used for abstract work too.

Kadri

#53

The first image below is nearly the same scene that i shared above with strata and warp shaders attached.

The second one is with the strata disabled and the two opposite twist and shear shaders enabled.
Not sure what to call it  :D

The last one is the same scene stretched.

mhaze

Looks like a snail and a tortoise! Interesting work Kadri.

Kadri

#55

:)

The compute terrain patch size was in one instance kinda funny too.
I don't think that anyone uses so high setting like here going from 5000 to 300 but it was kinda...ahem...interesting what it did.
Probably time to stop the tests :)

kaedorg

nice work on erection Kadri  8)

David

fleetwood

Going down to tiny patch sizes near 0 also can be interesting. And turning on Intersect Underlying and picking the  Displacement Intersection effect  in surface shaders generally gives a whole new unpredictable look if you don't have enough things to try.  :)


bla bla 2

Try with the water.  :)