Tundra Surface Shaders

[WAS]

Working on my tundra again, thanks to some recent inspiration from Ulco. I'm still not happy with it. I struggle with MPD and AA quality and having to zoom in and out to see if what I see from afar is anomalies in polygons or actual bad displacement. I've been working on this for months and never satisfied. This is why I like working at smaller scales, I know it is all perfect and can be zoomed out from xD

[Dune]

I struggled with it too. Distant terrains are 'easy' to texture, very close-by landscapes are 'easy' if you add enough foliage, but large mid-distance terrains that are not just rocky, but consist of grasses, especially with herbs and such are really hard to do convincingly.
Try a lambert shader after the foliage shaders, that'll give you a bit more light in the dark blobs. Especially if you have two or more fake stone shaders mimicking low foliage you easily get black shadowed areas.
Perhaps PT would do that better, btw.

[WAS]

I struggled with it too. Distant terrains are 'easy' to texture, very close-by landscapes are 'easy' if you add enough foliage, but large mid-distance terrains that are not just rocky, but consist of grasses, especially with herbs and such are really hard to do convincingly.
Try a lambert shader after the foliage shaders, that'll give you a bit more light in the dark blobs. Especially if you have two or more fake stone shaders mimicking low foliage you easily get black shadowed areas.
Perhaps PT would do that better, btw.

Thanks Ulco. You know, I think I can honestly say I have never used the lambert shader. I don't think I have even seen an example with it's usage. Going to have to look into it.

[luvsmuzik]

Very nice images WASasquatch!
btw the example rock download file for the 4.3.08 path tracing release from Oshyan uses a lambert shader for the beach. I am not sure who the author is, Matt or Oshyan, but Oshyan made it available for download with lower MPD and AA. I rendered it with path tracing settings, but want to try it standard as well.

[WAS]

Oh I don't think I noticed. I rendered the scene and posted it in original thumbs lighting. I did take a look at the mask and appreciated it for it's solid control in dropoffs.

[Oshyan]

That rock scene was created (and shared) by Matt.

- Oshyan

[WAS]

That rock scene was created (and shared) by Matt.

- Oshyan

Well gotta hand it to Mat, just looking at this ground map for his reflection mask was stunning. I can only imagine what sort of things Matt can really do with his software, than again, I've seen stunning proof of it in the cinemas. Lol But from a node-stand point, yeah.

I've actually been wanting to go in and take deeper look at it and dissect it, because the way it controls the reflection is very nice, and could work wonders for texture distribution. Just seems more controlled and defined than a PF.

[Oshyan]

Matt definitely knows Terragen and how to make it sing. But *most* of what you see in movies is *not* Matt, especially in the past few years (he did more VFX work before the Terragen 4 release).

- Oshyan

[WAS]

Matt definitely knows Terragen and how to make it sing. But *most* of what you see in movies is *not* Matt, especially in the past few years (he did more VFX work before the Terragen 4 release).

- Oshyan

probably what I've seen is more Matt, as I don't really watch new movies. xD For example, haven't seen any of the new marvel/dc/star wars/star trek. The new formula of only effects + drama is stale imo. Makes for even faker movies than campy ones.

I went and started a whole new project, revision 3, and I am liking this one a lot more. The small population of grass didn't follow my distribution how I wanted it to (probably spacing) so things are a bit more open than I'd like in the population version.

Some holes on the red veggies from the dark veggies mask I'm assuming, will need to modify with a subtraction instead of a mask possibly.

I also did this on a fresh flat surface and using it's own internal displacements rather than applying to a terrain. 

[WAS]

With some fake stones. More adjustments.

This scene here we're looking at about 60m horizontal and 100m vertical.