Crater as Mask

[WAS]

Is there a way to transform a crater into a B/W mask for use with other shaders? Or do I really have to just create a mask and use that as my displaced crater with offset displacement?

[AP]

I investigated that and all i can think of is adding a surface layer to limit the slope and altitude for the crater shader and use that data as a mask.

[mhaze]

Just use a simple shape shader of the same size.

[AP]

That should work well.

[bobbystahr]

Just use a simple shape shader of the same size.

Beat me to the punch...I think Oshyan or Matt made me that recommendation when I asked.

[WAS]

Hmm, I fractalize the craters into lake forms. I'll have to dupe the factalization for the SS on a computer terrain. I just thought it may be easier. You'd think TG would have some sort of function to pipe in displacement/textures and cat a flat B/W image out of it. Would make a lot of masking sooo much easier in TG.

[Oshyan]

Such a function does exist, it's in the Function nodes, Displacement to Scalar, Displacement to Colour. But in the case of the Crater Shader there is both negative and positive displacement so to get a mask you'd have to adjust the crater shader settings, which would change the output you were getting. But you *could* use a copy of your crater shader and adjust the rim height, or other parameters, to get a correct mask with the warping...

- Oshyan