Highland Mesas T4 Beta

Started by 3DnTechNut, July 09, 2016, 06:08:07 PM

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3DnTechNut

This is my first terrain test with T4 Beta, I think the Mesas came out pretty decent.  I tried to put some xfrog plants in the scene but they would not render, the instances never appeared on the surface even though the seeds were laying on the terrain.

The heightfield was created in L3DT Pro and modified in T4 Beta.

3DnTechNut

Here is a different view of the terrain after saving the heightfield from Terragen and starting a new project.  I was finally able to get a population to take, but it is the basic grass clump, wrong kind of grass for the scene and probably to bright of a green, but hey, it actually worked.  I still need to try some of the xfrog plants when I get home from work in the morning and see if they work as well.

Dune

You've got a very nice start here. Sometimes it's better to anchor the pops to the end of the line (preferably with an added compute normal - only between last node and pop, not between last node and planet), so instances won't float or duck (and can be rotated with terrain more precisely).

3DnTechNut

Thanks Dune there were a lot of first in this scene; first time using L3DT to make a heightfield, first time using an external heightfield in Terragen, first time to get a population to work and go where I tried to put it, and the first time actually using color shaders to color the terrain and rock, up until now I had been creating image map shaders using textures I made in TextureMaker 3 using photographs of real rocks, grass, bark etc.. 

I will give your suggestion a try when I get home from work.  I had a hard time getting the pops to take when I first opened the heightfield in T4 Beta.  It may have been because the terrain was kind of a happy accident.  I made a terraced terrain in L3DT and tried to make Butes, Mesas, and Plateaus, but when I opened it in T4 the features were almost non existent and it had a huge upward curve like a giant mound.  Erode did not give me the effect I wanted as it actually erased the features I was trying to highlight.  I saw the Heightfield Curve Vertical operator, never used it before, and gave it a try with the alternative curve checked and went pretty heavy on the glaciation and the Top of Curve set to 5000 and this was the result.  I saved a .ter file, started a new project and did a heightfield load and the grass clump pop worked.

I checked out your web page, wow!  You have some serious skills in many art disciplines, awesome work.

Dune

Thanks. And you're welcome. TG skills come with time and perseverance  ;)

DannyG

Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html
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Oshyan

Quote from: Danny on July 10, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html

Not available for the Terragen 4 beta yet though.

- Oshyan

fleetwood

#7
Quote from: Oshyan on July 10, 2016, 02:56:26 PM
Quote from: Danny on July 10, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html

Not available for the Terragen 4 beta yet though.

- Oshyan

I dropped Daniil's existing T3 Erosion plugin into the T4 plugins folder and it appeared to function normally.
Example :

3DnTechNut

Quote from: Danny on July 10, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html

Thanks.  I have played with Daniil's erosion plugin a little with T3.4 and got nice results on my second try, but  through user error I am sure, I have not had much success with it after that.  I really like the results it gives, I just need to spend a lot more time experimenting with its settings to make it shine like it does in the sample images.  I am still discovering what many of the operators, shaders, and functions do. I didn't even know that there were blue operators until a few weeks ago, lol, I kept seeing people talking about blues so I started digging more.

I should be farther along than I am with Terragen, I have been using it since v0.9, but I finally have the time to start experimenting and creating more in depth.   This is how bad it is, I have purchased the Pro + Animation versions since 2 and I have yet to even try one animation, its almost criminal how little I have delved into Terragen in the past.  I plan to rectify that soon.

3DnTechNut

Quote from: fleetwood on July 10, 2016, 03:19:24 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on July 10, 2016, 02:56:26 PM
Quote from: Danny on July 10, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html

Not available for the Terragen 4 beta yet though.

- Oshyan

I dropped Daniil's existing T3 Erosion plugin into the T4 plugins folder and it appeared to function normally.
Example :

Nice image, I will try dropping it in the plugin folder when I get home, I saw a few post that said it did not work so I never tried it.

TheBadger

It has been eaten.

bobbystahr

Quote from: fleetwood on July 10, 2016, 03:19:24 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on July 10, 2016, 02:56:26 PM
Quote from: Danny on July 10, 2016, 08:46:12 AM
Looks nice. There is a and Erosion plugin by user Daniil aka Blinkfrog that renders some excellent results.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20752.0.html

Not available for the Terragen 4 beta yet though.

- Oshyan

I dropped Daniil's existing T3 Erosion plugin into the T4 plugins folder and it appeared to function normally.
Example :



Well I'll be jiggered. When I tried extracting it from the zip it flat out wouldn't; but C&P works just dandy....many thanks
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Dune

Good job, fleetwood. My lesson; never assume anything (which I knew, but well...)  ;)

Urantia Jerry

I dropped the erosion filter into T4 and it worked for me as well.