Terracing without Strata Shader

Started by WAS, October 20, 2018, 12:34:31 AM

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WAS

Does anyone know how to step and terrace a scalar like the strata but without obviously all it's strata noise between terraces? I've been making my own strata shader which will be incorporated into a lateral shader set I'm working on but it lead me into a side project on trying to replicate the actual terracing effect (you know what the depth of strata effects).

Dune

There must be a possibility with the greys being multiplied by hard steps in blues, used as displacement base.

WAS

Quote from: Dune on October 20, 2018, 02:07:06 AM
There must be a possibility with the greys being multiplied by hard steps in blues, used as displacement base.

Hmm, been playing here for a while and can't seem to get anything. Found something interesting to "Trace" displacement with the Modulo, but not for terracing. Haha

cyphyr

Quote from: WASasquatch on October 20, 2018, 12:34:31 AM
Does anyone know how to step and terrace a scalar like the strata but without obviously all it's strata noise between terraces? I've been making my own strata shader which will be incorporated into a lateral shader set I'm working on but it lead me into a side project on trying to replicate the actual terracing effect (you know what the depth of strata effects).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but can't you just set the octaves to 1.
Then you would just get the terraces at the hard layer spacing and no "detail" or "noise".
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WAS

Quote from: cyphyr on October 20, 2018, 06:20:51 AM
Quote from: WASasquatch on October 20, 2018, 12:34:31 AM
Does anyone know how to step and terrace a scalar like the strata but without obviously all it's strata noise between terraces? I've been making my own strata shader which will be incorporated into a lateral shader set I'm working on but it lead me into a side project on trying to replicate the actual terracing effect (you know what the depth of strata effects).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but can't you just set the octaves to 1.
Then you would just get the terraces at the hard layer spacing and no "detail" or "noise".

Yes you are correct, but if you read the first post this is more about trying to reproducing the effect for a custom shader. Also unfortunately with depth on strata flattens and pushes base terrain level up so hoping to overcome that.

cyphyr

Ahh, yes I see. Yes it is a constant annoyance that both the top and bottom of an area that has the strata shader has annoying outcrops and undercuts. Always trying to fudge that out.
Good luck. Hope you find a solution in the blue. I would have thought a step shader might help and of course you can do it with multiple surface layers (but it's very clumsy).
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
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Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Tangled-Universe

A single terrace can be made using the get altitude function.
Then use a conditional set to 'between' for an altitude range and whenever that criteria is met then set the output to the lower limit of your altitude range.
When the condition is not being met, thus exceeds the altitude defined in your range, you will end up with a big vertical stretched step and you want to avoid that.
To do so, subtract the altitude range from the output of the conditional.

WAS

#7
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on October 21, 2018, 03:57:35 AM
A single terrace can be made using the get altitude function.
Then use a conditional set to 'between' for an altitude range and whenever that criteria is met then set the output to the lower limit of your altitude range.
When the condition is not being met, thus exceeds the altitude defined in your range, you will end up with a big vertical stretched step and you want to avoid that.
To do so, subtract the altitude range from the output of the conditional.

Not sure if just waking up or really don't understand. Lol I'll have to come back to this after some coffee

When you say a "Conditional set to 'between' for an altitude range" what exactly do you mean? A conditional fed get altitude and compared to a scalar as the height median?

This is what I think I understood from what you said in the image