Controlling displacement

Started by N-drju, June 13, 2017, 03:06:19 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

N-drju

I am about to loose my mind over a stupidly trivial issue. :'(

How can you control the altitude up to which a displacement is distributed?

To put it in perspective - I wanted to make an island and a beach and I have created a displaced terrain to imitate nice "sand waves" along the shore. It went fine, but now I am left with said sand wave displacement all the way up to the mountain tops! :'( All I want is the sand ripples to reach out to about 20 meters above sea level and that's it.

Distribution shader does not work and I cannot mask the power fractal responsible for the sand, because the fractal is already masked by warped simple shape shaders that make up for the island's shape/shoreline. I am completely helpless...
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

I'm pretty sure it can be made to work, but I really wonder why distribution shader doesn't work. It should! As would a surface shader. Can you post the tgd?

N-drju

#2
I'm at work now, so unfortunately not. But this is how it looks like more or less:

Goofy looking. Sorry. :(

Also note that the value in the distribution shader is set to said 20 units but the displacement still continues all the way up.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

Looks like my beach setup  ;) If so, good of you not to post. I suggest adding a surface layer masked by the upper set, and adding the sand PF as child onto that masked surface shader. Then you have 2 mask inputs, if you get my point, ánd you can use the surface shader's controls. I hope that would solve the issue.

N-drju

Really? :o So sorry! I assure you this is 100% my independent work, no details from your "simple beach" NWDA item! Well, not purposefully at least! I'm removing the pic now.

Hm, true - how could I forget about children? :P Sounds like it could work...
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

I don't mind the pic, no worries. If independent, good work  ;) Hope it works.

Oshyan

Distribution Shader won't work unless there is a Compute node before it... (unless you're using Y as altitude/slope)

- Oshyan

N-drju

We are talking surface shader - is there some technical difference between the two?
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Oshyan

Nope. In order to determine the slope of the surface you need it to be "computed" (vs. the simple spherical shape of the undisplaced planet).

- Oshyan