What's your way to add a beautiful snow?

Started by DasFranck, November 03, 2018, 04:43:23 AM

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DasFranck

Hi folks, I'm kinda new to Terragen and I'm trying to make something that looks good out of it.
And right now, I'm wondering how to add snow but all I've seen sounds more like hacks than real features.

But when I see stuff like on this page, I do think there's a way to do it properly.

Do you have to use other software outside of Terragen or is it a build-in option I've just never heard about?
And for snowfall or rain effects?

Thanks!

(English ain't my first language so grammatical errors can happen :) )

WAS

The surface layer will allow you to define maximum slopes of your snow, as well as in the effects tab you can use intersection tweaks that can create interesting effects. There is a file share "Embossed Snow" you can search that utilizes these features and a good basic setup to inspect. There are also plenty of others but a lot more focused on texturing, reflection, and how it just looks.

Hannes

Hi Franck (is this your real name?)
Welcome to the forum!!!
Here is a clipfile I made for rain. Maybe it's useful:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21035.msg210254.html#msg210254

mhaze

For A start you can:
-Use A surface shader with colour set to white.
-In the Effects tab check Intersect underlying and set to favour depressions.
-Set minimum altitude to taste. You can add a small displacement altitude to give some bulk.
-Make this the last shader in your chain.

File attached.

Dune

Welcome indeed. I hope you'll be having a lot of fun working with TG. Learning curve might be steep, but there's plenty help here.

Btw. added little extra in Mick's file.

DasFranck

First of all, thanks for your replies!

Quote from: WASasquatch on November 03, 2018, 04:55:12 AM
The surface layer will allow you to define maximum slopes of your snow, as well as in the effects tab you can use intersection tweaks that can create interesting effects. There is a file share "Embossed Snow" you can search that utilizes these features and a good basic setup to inspect. There are also plenty of others but a lot more focused on texturing, reflection, and how it just looks.

Embossed Snow looks really good but it's 11 years old, is it outdated or is the concept of "outdated" irrelevant for this kind of stuff ?
Anyway if you have other links for similar stuff, I'm interested.

Quote from: Hannes on November 03, 2018, 06:15:56 AM
Hi Franck (is this your real name?)
Welcome to the forum!!!
Here is a clipfile I made for rain. Maybe it's useful:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21035.msg210254.html#msg210254

That's indeed my real name. :)
Thanks for this file, do you know if snowfall ones exist too ?

Quote from: mhaze on November 03, 2018, 06:44:45 AM
For A start you can:
-Use A surface shader with colour set to white.
-In the Effects tab check Intersect underlying and set to favour depressions.
-Set minimum altitude to taste. You can add a small displacement altitude to give some bulk.
-Make this the last shader in your chain.

File attached.

I'm going to give it a look in order to understand how those works, thanks.

Quote from: Dune on November 03, 2018, 08:27:15 AM
Welcome indeed. I hope you'll be having a lot of fun working with TG. Learning curve might be steep, but there's plenty help here.

Btw. added little extra in Mick's file.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot too.
I'm kinda used to stuff with crazy learning steep, don't worry. ^^


Right now, I've only read the wiki's tutorials and I'm open to every suggestions concerning resources like advanced tutorials, models, effects or basically every thing that could be useful for a beginner.
Out of curiosity, for your renders are you using only Terragen or you also rely on other softwares, I'm interested to know how do they interact between them.
But maybe I should make an other topic for those questions.

WAS

#6
Quote from: DasFranck on November 03, 2018, 02:05:12 PM
Embossed Snow looks really good but it's 11 years old, is it outdated or is the concept of "outdated" irrelevant for this kind of stuff ?
Anyway if you have other links for similar stuff, I'm interested.

It is rather old, but the practices in use are not. Aesthetically there are things you may want to change, like the heavy blue colour effect. As for outdated things, not so much with TG as the shaders we use will either get updated or not, but still used regularly. Some things have changed over the years but TG does a good job compensating for missing parameters, etc, and old files will open fine usually.