Erratic Hero Boulders (Embedded Fake Stone)

Started by WAS, May 31, 2019, 07:18:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

WAS

Terragen's Rock feature driving you nuts trying to make smooth boulders? Tired of waiting for subdiv caching? Well try out a simple drop-in Hero Boulder setup! :P This is a complex manual fake stone inside a Transform Shader to drive it's location.

Note on Locations: You can either leave World Space unchecked to allow the texture, and displacement space to to remain centered at 0,0,0 for unique rocks in different locations. Or you can check World Space and keep the same unique shape at different locations.

DannyG

New World Digital Art
NwdaGroup.com
Media: facebook|Twitter|Instagram

RichTwo

#2
I spent several hours beating what little brains I have left trying to get the internal displacements right for (1) very large fake stones and (2) TG's Rock object.  I got absolutely nowhere.  This is great!  Thanks, Jordan!  (...too bad TG cannot populate simple Shapes...)
They're all wasted!

bobbystahr

Brilliant Jordan, thanks for the great share.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Hannes


Rumburak


WAS

Will upload a more simple version as a base to work from for custom boulders.

bobbystahr

Quote from: WASasquatch on June 02, 2019, 02:47:53 PM
Will upload a more simple version as a base to work from for custom boulders.

Good plan man
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Stormlord

Quote from: WASasquatch on June 02, 2019, 02:47:53 PM
Will upload a more simple version as a base to work from for custom boulders.

Oh yes, would love to get some custom made boulders.

STORMLORD

WAS

#9
I know, I know, looks complex at first glance with that unique shape, but it's simple!

In this version you can easily shape and detail the boulders with 4 nodes, two for displacement, and two for surface shaders. Additionally you can still head into the Geometry container and fiddle with the Simple Shape Shader (SSS) scales, rotation, and SSS things. With scale changes you may need to fiddle with the HR Displacement (tallness), HR Normal (roundness), and HR Lateral Offset (width).

Note: Remember, you can change the location through the master containing node which is a transform shader. Additionally, you're not constained to a single boulder with the SSS shader. You could use any sort of mask to generate your stones. For example a Power Fractal with Perlin or Voronoi Billows with tweaked contrast and offset in the colour tab. Or colour adjusting diff voronoi scalar, whatever you can come up with to drive your stones. However, in these scenarios, with the way displacement space works, you could still end up with overly large stones or even exploded stones like fake stones. So far I haven't noticed any real exploded stones with right scales and subtle displacement.

Enjoy!

Stormlord

#10
Thank you very much.
Also for your detailed notes inside the file, I just try this and that.
It's just erratic, GREAT SHARE!

[attachimg=1])
Very easy to implement somewhere

STORMLORD

mhaze


Hannes


WAS

Quote from: Stormlord on June 03, 2019, 03:32:09 AM
Thank you very much.
Also for your detailed notes inside the file, I just try this and that.
It's just erratic, GREAT SHARE!

[attachimg=1])
Very easy to implement somewhere

STORMLORD

Looks cool, though I notice the surface textures on the ground. I assume your displacement is pinching smaller than the base geometry used to mask the stone. It works if your stone is larger than the mask boundary, but not when smaller.

WAS

I'm not sure if anyone found out on their own, but you can "pretty easily" use a Fake Stones shader (or multiple) to drive this shader setup as a populator. Or maybe even billows.

Maybe I should do an example.