Rocks, sand, dirt

Started by Martin, December 04, 2016, 11:05:21 AM

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Martin

ohohho, I couldn't sleep at night,  all I could think of was an idea with the merge shaders. So I opened up terragen and this happened. Finally, the first time ever I actually managed to create a rock I imagined. Rocks, sand dunes, dirt, cracks , everything.
I will copy these node networks and create some size- colour variations, then use it on a world machine terrain with flow and slow and deposite maps. I think with the WM makro- and terragen's micro abilities it'll be quite nice!

luvsmuzik

Those are terrific! Are they a fake stone population or Terragen rock object? You are on a great track here!

Martin

Quote from: luvsmuzik on December 04, 2016, 11:23:09 AM
Those are terrific! Are they a fake stone population or Terragen rock object? You are on a great track here!

Thanks!:)
And they're Fakestones- never used populations before.

masonspappy

You definitely came up with a winner !

Martin

#4
Oh dear...Is there a limitation with the node network-node number  in Terragen?
I made different kinds of rocks, and dirt types(I like creating worlds that are working both in micro-and macro scale and I can "explore" them- and when I switched on the terrain-mountains it went nuts...spikes everywhere.I have a compute terrain after the base terrain -before the rock displacements- and after them-before the planet node. Do I need new compute terrains etc before every displacement node?
The thing is the node networks's getting quite a bit...extensive
Also, I tried to use a warp shader after some voronoi noise function. Didn't work, I just cant find out how can I warp it a bit.
Also I tried to mix multiple masks- like I have a mask for one type of rock distribution, then I use the same mask with an invert colour function and use it for another type of rock-plus smaller masks inside that mask for the actual rock masking- I tried to subtract them from each other but it wont do what it should do.
So the usual problems...

luvsmuzik

#5
I am definitely not the person to ask this, but I am sure someone can help you here. Dune, mhaze and others use surface layers and other ways of transferring displacement to the area desired. There are ways to group those displacements into an addition to your node networks as well. It's all magic, but they do it well. Good luck!

fleetwood

Nice experiments.

Merge shaders do some great things but merges are kind of a slow process. Having a great many is probably going to slow down the render.
Extra compute terrains slow things also. Usually it is better not to add any extras.

Might be better to separate special displacements by having them be connected to the child layer attachment of a surface layer rather than having all of them stacking up on top of each other. That way you can isolate and perhaps choose how much of that layer you want to use with the coverage slider. 

Martin

Quote from: fleetwood on December 04, 2016, 03:26:47 PM
Nice experiments.

Merge shaders do some great things but merges are kind of a slow process. Having a great many is probably going to slow down the render.
Extra compute terrains slow things also. Usually it is better not to add any extras.

Might be better to separate special displacements by having them be connected to the child layer attachment of a surface layer rather than having all of them stacking up on top of each other. That way you can isolate and perhaps choose how much of that layer you want to use with the coverage slider.

To be honest all of the displacement is a child layer of the rock surface layer. plus there's a base dirt surface layer- the sand dunes, dirt, cracks, etc are all merged together to one layer. So no stacking.
I don't think I can make it more simple- every node is useful, they're cross wired so no unnecessary copies.
I will rename the nodes so it will look more orginased.
By the way, is there a smooth function in terragen? The voronoi cell scalar is really useful, but it causes stretching in the procedural texture. Is there any way to get rid of that ? Like a new get coordinates node after the displacement?

DannyG

Nice rich tones here, agree your network seems very heavy for whats going on in the images you are posting. You'll sort it out. You are on a great start for your first few images
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Martin

Here's a few pictures I've made, I'd like to update them with better details on the ground. I still have the flow maps ,slope maps, deposition, wear maps, so after I get these rocks and dirt layers right, I can sort them out . After that, I can zoom in or out and it wwll still look good.

fleetwood

#10
Quote from: Martin on December 04, 2016, 04:10:48 PM
Quote from: fleetwood on December 04, 2016, 03:26:47 PM
Nice experiments.

Merge shaders do some great things but merges are kind of a slow process. Having a great many is probably going to slow down the render.
Extra compute terrains slow things also. Usually it is better not to add any extras.

Might be better to separate special displacements by having them be connected to the child layer attachment of a surface layer rather than having all of them stacking up on top of each other. That way you can isolate and perhaps choose how much of that layer you want to use with the coverage slider.

To be honest all of the displacement is a child layer of the rock surface layer. plus there's a base dirt surface layer- the sand dunes, dirt, cracks, etc are all merged together to one layer. So no stacking.
I don't think I can make it more simple- every node is useful, they're cross wired so no unnecessary copies.
I will rename the nodes so it will look more orginased.
By the way, is there a smooth function in terragen? The voronoi cell scalar is really useful, but it causes stretching in the procedural texture. Is there any way to get rid of that ? Like a new get coordinates node after the displacement?


Those are some very cool renders.

In your network I noticed at one point three fake stones stacked directly one above the other at one point and leading to a fourth fake stones layer that is a child of a surface layer. That will make some of the first stones grow directly on the surface of the next stones etc. In my experience this can be useful but the displacements tend to not just add up, they can behave somewhat as if multiplying instead of just adding. That is why a typical way of putting multiple fake stone sizes together is to merge them two at a time with a merge highest. That way they do not grow on each other.

Depends on the effect you want, but that keeps them clean and not interacting. A tree structure of merge highest is the fastest (rather than simply merging in each new one) to process by actual test, so for example, if you used 8 stone sizes and want to keep them separate, the eight would be merged into four (4 merge highests) at the top level, then the four results would be merge highest into two and two into one.

There is a variable smoothing function which can be turned on in the smoothing tab of every surface layer node, also a smoothing function box in the compute terrain. 

Martin

Quote from: fleetwood on December 04, 2016, 06:23:49 PM
Quote from: Martin on December 04, 2016, 04:10:48 PM
Quote from: fleetwood on December 04, 2016, 03:26:47 PM
Nice experiments.

Merge shaders do some great things but merges are kind of a slow process. Having a great many is probably going to slow down the render.
Extra compute terrains slow things also. Usually it is better not to add any extras.

Might be better to separate special displacements by having them be connected to the child layer attachment of a surface layer rather than having all of them stacking up on top of each other. That way you can isolate and perhaps choose how much of that layer you want to use with the coverage slider.

To be honest all of the displacement is a child layer of the rock surface layer. plus there's a base dirt surface layer- the sand dunes, dirt, cracks, etc are all merged together to one layer. So no stacking.
I don't think I can make it more simple- every node is useful, they're cross wired so no unnecessary copies.
I will rename the nodes so it will look more orginased.
By the way, is there a smooth function in terragen? The voronoi cell scalar is really useful, but it causes stretching in the procedural texture. Is there any way to get rid of that ? Like a new get coordinates node after the displacement?


Those are some very cool renders.

In your network I noticed at one point three fake stones stacked directly one above the other at one point and leading to a fourth fake stones layer that is a child of a surface layer. That will make some of the first stones grow directly on the surface of the next stones etc. In my experience this can be useful but the displacements tend to not just add up, they can behave somewhat as if multiplying instead of just adding. That is why a typical way of putting multiple fake stone sizes together is to merge them two at a time with a merge highest. That way they do not grow on each other.

Depends on the effect you want, but that keeps them clean and not interacting. A tree structure of merge highest is the fastest (rather than simply merging in each new one) to process by actual test, so for example, if you used 8 stone sizes and want to keep them separate, the eight would be merged into four (4 merges) at the top level, then the four results would be merged into two and two into one.

There is a variable smoothing function which can be turned on in the smoothing tab of every surface layer node, also a smoothing function box in the compute terrain.

Ah Thank you! For some reason I've never used the merge highest option. I will try it!
Also I bought a new workstation last month, So I'm actually rendering two pictures at once -testing new rocks, and it takes...20 minutes? It still blows my mind how much faster it is now than on my old laptop.
I use the demo version so 0.6 is the max detail though.


Martin

Quote from: Kadri on December 04, 2016, 06:34:33 PM

Nice examples.

Thank you :)

Also forgive my typos , it's late here.

Martin

Cliff shader with some grass.