Blue Node Playground

Started by KlausK, May 15, 2017, 08:44:03 PM

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KlausK

Hello everyone

wouldn`t it be nice to have a thread where anybody can show random examples of his or her blue node functions.
Code snippets so to speak. Not too complicated and elaborated but more of a place to start and see some combinations of nodes in action.
Converting simple mathematical functions to blue nodes, or just start off with a "Get position" node and connect in trial and error.
This could help build up a library of simple building blocks to give everyone some ideas how to implement them in their terrains.

A place to get started in playful examination, perhaps. Join in if you like.
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

KlausK

I`ll start off with this one:

extract the x value from the "Get position" two times, rotate it around y, convert to scalar and on one side of the tree
divide the scalar and, on the other side connect a sin function node and multiply it with a scalar value. Mix the results
and feed them into a "Displacement" node. This gives you the wavy forms of the "Mix scalar Preview" (125m scale).
You better mask this off - as I did in the surface layer - because else it covers the whole planet and gets very slow.
The "Fractal Warp shader" makes for the nice connection of the waves and the surrounding terrain / surface.
No "Compute Normals" involved.
cheers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

cyphyr

nice  ;D
I guess you could replace one of the rotate nodes with a "z to scalar" and get a similar (but different) result.
Very limited travel lappy so can't test stuff too easily ...
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
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Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Dune

Cool idea, Klaus. I'll add if I think of something, but do have very little time now.

archonforest

Great idea!
If someone also can explain what those nodes are doing would be even better. That would help to really understand what is going on under the hood!
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

KlausK

#5
Thank you, guys.

@cyphyr: Right. But that is for the re-builder to explore. Possibilities are endless as they say.
This is really only ment as a starting point (see attached new picture).

@Dune: That would be very good.

@archonforest: My intention was that if one rebuilds the shown functions on their own
(that is also a reason why I think these examples should only be small networks) you`ll
start to see the changes every blue node induces when you connected.
Those big and complicated examples one finds in the forum are often way too overwhelming to find
a way through for me. "Divide and conquer" should be the Mantra for this thread.
Small nets, easy to rebuild and try on your own. Sooner or later you`ll get the Blues  ;)

Look at the new picture I attached. That demonstrates my way of working with blue nodes especially.
I open the preview window of a node I try to use or a node later in the network to see a intermediate
result of the connected nodes. This way I get a good indication of what the current node really does.

Regarding your remark to have an explanation of what every node does the WIKI really is the place to go.
The networks here should help you better understand the reference text in the WIKI.
I think it would be too time consuming for the contributor to do that. It also takes out the fun of "hacking"
with blue nodes to a certain degree, I think.
Not everyone has the patience or time or wants to read through lengthy post (like this one eg)...
If you ask to much the thread never really takes off, don`t you think?

Anyway, I`ll try to stay on this and post on a more regular basis. Happy networking!
cheers, Klaus

ps: opening up too many of those previews yields in the little but kind of annoying message which can sometimes lead to a crash.
And yes, I reduced the thread count. So, SAFE OFTEN!
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

luvsmuzik

The simple shape layer mask explanation is great here, as well as the "tree formation". We do experiment to see what happens with changing variables, and can use that node setup again elsewhere after trials, which is a great part of the fun! Thanks!

cyphyr

#7
Here is a small selection from my variable voronoi question in Terragen discussion.
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
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Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

luvsmuzik

Those look like great results, Richard and Klaus.
I am wondering (as I noticed in a few clip files) possible to give original value in the name of the node...like constant scalar 3,  or constant scalar 50? This would help when trying these setups from these great examples....

I already found out that most of these are not huge values....and intended to delve into what I can find WIKI-wise.
Thanks in advance.

KlausK

That is cool, Richard.

@luvsmuzik: I agree that it is helpful to include the value in the node name.
Even simpler, since this is not production stuff but a playground, I post the file, of course.
Simply forgot...
cheers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

KlausK

#10
Here`s a new one.
Masking with a animated "Get Altitude" node.
This could have been done with simple masks as well, I guess.
I wanted to try the "Get Altitude" node(s) because I do not quite understand how to use them.
Maybe I`ll stumble upon other ways to incorporate them in a node tree.
Other network with this node are very welcome.
cheers, Klaus

/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)


KlausK

This one was about trying to find out what to do with the "Function / Trigger" nodes.
I will prepare the project file with some notes when I find the time.
Quite nice the structures I could get with these few nodes. Looks a little like man made
stuff broken by forces of nature or whatever to me. Anyways, could be a good start to
build on after the "Compute Terrain" node, I guess.
There is also some trickery with colour displacement involved.
cheers, Klaus

ps: once more I find that 5mb is not really much for a movie file  :-\
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KlausK

/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

Oshyan

We're not really intending to host anything except very small videos here. If you need to share larger files of video you can just upload to YouTube or Vimeo, and if you don't want it to be public, just set it to private/link only.

- Oshyan