Push vertical surface in

Started by N-drju, January 02, 2019, 01:14:21 PM

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Dune

Good ideas. I'm curious what you'll come up with at the end...

N-drju

I have a lot of determination to this project, so I am curious myself. ;)

Unfortunately, reusing the redirected terrain curves to mask out lateral displacement is too difficult to achieve. Once you shrink an SSS to about 35 meters (which is enough to do the mask-out) the SSS does not match the area of the path. This is due to the warping in the original redirect shaders and it is not suitable for a narrower SSS.

I will have to make a network of about 15 - 20 smooth-edged SSS to mask the desired areas... Not too bad I guess.

My only question though is...

Is there a way to "throw" the Simple Shape Shader color from a horizontal plane, rather than a default vertical plane? ??? Could be easier to operate SSS, but on the other hand the SSS would have to float in space, so I don't know...


[attach=1]

I just want to visualize the entire SSS network as a surface shader and only then apply it as a mask.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

The SSS is horizontal by default, so I don't think that would work. Have you considered painting a line by painted shader in your terrain?

N-drju

Painted shader will leave out nasty, sharp edges on the edge of displacements, not unlike the transitions from distribution shader. Even with high falloff values. Camera is right next to them, so I wish to avoid that.

You see, the whole problem now is that I have two lateral displacements that do not "spoil" the mountainside path and two that do. I try to mask away the latter.

I could theoretically go with the two I already have. However, I like to have at least three LODs in terrain features. That's why I try to save the two smaller, wilder displacements, but it's not easy...
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

N-drju

Here's what I have so far. No out-masking. I just changed fractal seeds to the least "intrusive" ones. The white on the right is due to an accidental surface shader that I forgot to disable and turned it off mid-render...

[attach=1]
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Kadri

#20

Many ways to do the same things in Terragen.
Here i used the strange effect of the smooth option in the compute terrain node.
It kinda breaks the simple shape shader node displacement into 3 parts as you can see in the gif animation below.
You can get 2 flat surfaces this way.
The lower one is prominent as the road but the other higher one can be seen too in this example below.


Dune

Kadri is right, several ways to get that sort of thing. Here's another quick setup. You can switch the smooth steps by the distribution shaders (then disable compute terrain) and see the difference.

N-drju

More than three blue nodes and I'm out of the game. :-[

Yes, I noticed the same thing Kadri described but it sort of destroys my vision so it's not suitable for my lanscape.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Kadri

#23
Quote from: N-drju on January 06, 2019, 07:23:32 AM
...it sort of destroys my vision so it's not suitable for my landscape.

Just curious, in which way?

Dune

QuoteMore than three blue nodes and I'm out of the game.
Come on, man, these are just 4 numbers, a get position in texture and two smooth steps (and the numbers and smooth steps are actually just replacements for color adjusts, but better). Nothing complicated. Just try it.

N-drju

@ Kadri - Well, the smoothing option makes the entire wall smooth. That also means the path's area too. As a result I get a slanted, 20m wide path (made that way via smoothing) which disappears as a rounding error as soon as I try to contract it through a respective SSS (I need about 5-18 meter wide path mind you).

Also, the smoothing effect causes my main path to run at about 15m above the ground level (due to the triple division that you correctly observed) instead of the planned 50-70 meters of height. Not sure why... To be blunt, a fall from that path is supposed to be lethal... :D Death. Not just bruises. Of course, I can increase the displacement value of the surface shader but I just don't feel like it...

I'm not saying it is a bad solution. It is in fact a very good solution! Making interesting terrain and displacement features. It's just I don't quite see how I could implement it.

@ Dune - I know. Thank you so much Ulco. :-[ It's just that I'm confused as to where I should put it, connect it and how these values affect the entire thing...

I'm sorry if I recently entered in some kind of a defeatism mode. I don't know what's wrong with me...
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Kadri


LOL! I for one have no problem at all. Just trying to help and learn at the same time :)

N-drju

Quote from: Kadri on January 06, 2019, 02:14:54 PM

LOL! I for one have no problem at all. Just trying to help and learn at the same time :)

It all depends on your artistic vision and what you already have in your scene. If you do it on an empty scene, sure - it is likely it is applicable in all circumstances one can think of.

Not so much if you already have three or more LODs to take care of and a narrow path that occasionally disappears / becomes too wide when you apply something. ::)

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate you waged in, and I'll be more than happy to keep this in my brain. It's just that it doesn't quite get along with the features I already have... Not to say it cannot be a feature some other time.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Kadri


Applying anything from another scene can be hard in Terragen.
What works good in another scene is not easily transferable into another one all the time.
My sinkhole-tower scene setup that i shared here in the forum for example.
I had to try 2-3 times until i could use it in my last WIP animation.
And it is not the same unfortunately because of this and that reason.
So i can understand you and heck you don't have to use anything you don't want beside all the other reasons :)



N-drju

Quote from: Kadri on January 06, 2019, 02:42:26 PM

Applying anything from another scene can be hard in Terragen.
What works good in another scene is not easily transferable into another one all the time.

So true. :-[

I just began to understand Ulco's setup. But there is a huge "leap of faith" that one needs to make to apply and adjust it in one's scene. And what it is?

You know the old saying - "Location, location, location". Knowing where to put it in the node network and in the world space is the actual and serious challenge! One hundred meters left or right and you are left with a "useless" node network...
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"