Classic Erosion plugin

Started by Daniil, November 03, 2017, 05:14:19 AM

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D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)

I wasn't aware of a new version of Classic Erosion coming out so I was on v1.1.0.1 and everything seemed to work fine for me.  After installing v1.1.2.2 I no longer see my erosion maps showing up in the shader preview (they are just all black).  I am speaking of the erosion maps stored in an .erd file which should load when I load my .tgd scene.

Did something change that made my old saved .erd files incompatible with the new version?  Or is this maybe a bug?

-Derek

Daniil

Classic Erosion v1.1.3

Some bug fixes, most important is that erosion data file couldn't loaded on some systems (thanks to Derek A. Bentley for helping fixing this bug).

Also changed export maps naming system (thanks to Derek A. Bentley again for suggesting). In previous versions existing (already exported) maps weren't showed because of non-standard extension - ".[map].png" - this forced adding of "[map"] to filename if user haven't specify this explicitely. I changed extension to standard ".png", so files are showed now, and, if user haven't specified "[map]", this is added on closing of dialog. And, as example of using "[map]" in the filename, I added default filename "abc.[map].png", which user can change. "[map]" can be specified in any part of filename, and not necessary should be between dots (you can use name like "canyon_[map]map.png", which will result in "canyon_flowmap.png". If specified filename doesn't include "[map]", then this suffix is added just before ".png" extension, which is added automatically too, so user can write just "canyon", and resulting maps will be "canyon.flow.png", etc. Multiple entries of ["map"] are allowed too, all will be replaced by the name of map.

Daniil

Dune


DannyG

New World Digital Art
NwdaGroup.com
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surrealdan

Hey, I just purchased the plugin recently and its great! Just had some questions when dealing with multiple or large scale terrains. Is it better or do I apply the erosion to all the heightfields in the scene? or do I create an erosion node for each heightfield and erode individually? And how do I deal with flow maps for masking? Hope there is a User Guide coming soon. Thanks!
i7-3770k 4-core @3.5Ghz, 32gb
2x Xeon E5-2697 18-core @2.8Ghz , 128gb

D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)

Thanks Daniil!  It's working Great!  :)

-Derek

D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)

Quote from: surrealdan on March 11, 2019, 10:45:55 AM
Hey, I just purchased the plugin recently and its great! Just had some questions when dealing with multiple or large scale terrains. Is it better or do I apply the erosion to all the heightfields in the scene? or do I create an erosion node for each heightfield and erode individually? And how do I deal with flow maps for masking? Hope there is a User Guide coming soon. Thanks!

Hey SurrealDan,

I would start by reading this thread:  https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23764.msg240241.html#msg240241
There is a lot of info there, and you will want to be sure to grab the maps.tgd file which will make it easy for you to set up and use the generated maps as masks without the need to first save out the maps as bitmaps (png).  You can however save out your generated maps if you wish.

I would recommend experimenting with erosions on different size terrains at different resolutions and see what works for you.  If you want lots of detail the 16k size erosion can take awhile to process, so I would definitely save out the .erd file from the HDD tab if you want to keep the erosion data (16k erosions save out as over 4GB of data).  I tend to just have one erosion per scene in the area the camera will see if I'm doing a still render.  If your doing an animation then you may need to break up your erosions into multiple nodes.

Hope that helps,

-Derek

Daniil

Quote from: surrealdan on March 11, 2019, 10:45:55 AM
Hey, I just purchased the plugin recently and its great! Just had some questions when dealing with multiple or large scale terrains. Is it better or do I apply the erosion to all the heightfields in the scene? or do I create an erosion node for each heightfield and erode individually? And how do I deal with flow maps for masking? Hope there is a User Guide coming soon. Thanks!

Hello,

I am working on user manual, but really slowly, sorry.

About using of erosion shader on multiple heightfields. It depends on multiple things. If your whole terrain consist of multiple heightfields, which are placed in a grid with no gaps inbetween, then certainly one global erosion shader would be enough.

And if you use several heightfields which are placed non-uniformly and have different spatial resolution (I mean size of a single heightfield cell, not actual heightfield resolution), for example, you have heighfield for your main scene where camera is located and one huge heightfield for background, then probably it is better to use two erosion nodes: one for each heightfield, and set erosion shader's sizes and resolutions accordingly to your heightfields (the same or higher, as erosion can add finer details, especially if some fractal details applied before erosion).

On the other hands, you can have several heightfields located relatively near to each other with some gaps inbetween, and want to fill these gaps - one single erosion shader would be better, as it can fill the gaps with deposition, and make heightfield edges looking more natural. Even better: you can add some fractal terrain filling these gaps, and erosion will make natural transitions between heightfields and procedural fractal details.

Just remember that single global erosion method (with high resolution) can require much more RAM and CPU than multiple lesser eroded areas having lesser resolution. But may be it is also easier for use.

Daniil

Hubert_Holin

Bonjour

Not molesting departed equines, but... how a MacOS version now? In case this helps, have dev tools, can compile ;-) I know how to sign NDAs as well!

At any rate, thanks for your work.

Hubert Holin

WAS

Speaking of Mac, what about Linux for the Render Node? If it did work, I'm not sure how I would set the license with no prompts.

Daniil

#190
Classic Erosion v1.1.4
bug fixed: In thermal erosion, when "Model B" was used, disabled "Smoothness" parameter still affected the erosion in a bad way (if was previously set for "Model C").
new default settings: I changed default erosion settings to that are probably better "allrounders" than were before and better act as the base settings for the most of scenarios.

Besides this, I also have uploaded long-awaited user guide. It probably isn't finished yet, and certainly requires some editing, so, if you have any wishes, questions, or just want to report any grammar and other errors, related to my bad English, please contact me support@daniilkamperov.com.

I decided to not include this user guide to installation package yet, partly because it probably requires editing, and partly because I am not sure if it is a good idea to create Start menu program group just for a shortcut to installed manual.

So, currently it is available online.

Quote from: Hubert_Holin on November 05, 2019, 03:54:07 PMNot molesting departed equines, but... how a MacOS version now? In case this helps, have dev tools, can compile ;-) I know how to sign NDAs as well!
Hello Hubert,
There is no macOS version, as macOS Terragen SDK isn't available yet. I am sorry.

Daniil

KyL

Awesome! Thanks so much Daniil. :D
 I'm glad to see updates from you about this great plugin.

Dune

Great! Thanks very much indeed, Daniil! The guide looks awesome with all the examples.

sboerner

Thank you, Daniil! I am just learning to use the plugin and the guide will be a huge help.

Daniil

Hello Bastien, Ulco and Steve! I am glad you like it.

I have just uploaded a new version, 1.1.4.1. Just slightly modified default values, made it a bit less agressive. I wouldn't report this micro change and would made it a silent update, but I discovered that previous version had a bug: new default settings could break compatibility with very old terragen projects, using Classic Erosion, so I wrote a fix (new default settings and non-broken compatibility) and made it a non-silent update, so it will ask to download a new version.

Daniil