Functions Academy

Started by archonforest, August 08, 2019, 12:15:50 PM

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archonforest

Quote from: Oshyan on August 31, 2019, 06:14:34 PMHi N-drju, you are right to ask about a status update! Jon (Hetzen) volunteered to help us set it up and moderate it, and given his experience and ability with Function Nodes I think he's an ideal choice. So we've been talking behind the scenes with him to nail down the specifics of how to handle it. We've just about settled on how to implement and actual implementation will follow shortly!

- Oshyan


GREAT! Thanks Hetzen for taking responsibility and for volunteering!!!!
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
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N-drju

Digging on...

I found a good resource that allows to visualize trigonometric functions on a coordinate chart. All you have to do is to enter a desired function, define arguments, values and you can start drawing. Here's what I got after pulling an "Infinite monkey theorem" of my own :P :

functions.png

And here is the link:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/w9jrdpvsmk

Feel free to use and abuse it. It is recommended though that you get at least rudimentary understanding on what trigonometric functions are. Don't get me wrong - I'm not being cocky. I myself am not maths genius but I felt a lot more confident when I got myself acquainted with some definitions. Hence, the suggestion.

From example above, I think it is safe to say...

1. ...that trigonometric functions, when translated into 3D environment, may be used to easily and procedurally create certain types of terrains. Dunes or hills being most evident examples.

2. ...that making a trigonometric function basically means drafting an equation that describes it.
3. ...that each trigonometric function will take a different "path" depending on the function itself as well as arguments, values and axis it takes.
4. ...that trigonometric functions may take virtually unlimited number of arguments. However, not all will look coherent when visualized (and neither will the 3DCG that uses it.)

Hope this helps! If there is anything that needs to be corrected in this post, please point it out. Meanwhile, I'm diving back in to the crystal clear sine waves.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Oshyan

Just a quick post to say the function node discussion area is definitely still in active development. It takes a bit to nail down the specifics of how best to structure and organize it, but Jon (Hetzen) and I are getting close to finalizing and opening it up to all. I think it will be a really valuable resource in time, and a great place to discuss this stuff. More soon!

- Oshyan

bobbystahr

Quote from: Oshyan on September 22, 2019, 03:20:35 PMJust a quick post to say the function node discussion area is definitely still in active development. It takes a bit to nail down the specifics of how best to structure and organize it, but Jon (Hetzen) and I are getting close to finalizing and opening it up to all. I think it will be a really valuable resource in time, and a great place to discuss this stuff. More soon!

- Oshyan
Awesome...thanks very much you 2!
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Oshyan

Pssst, hey guys! Check this out: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php#c7

Jon has put in a lot of work to make an outline of the nodes to be discussed, along with some initial examples for the Add category. Check it out, read the contribution guidelines, and dive in!

Thanks to all for your patience as we've taken the time to do this right. And big thanks to Jon for his collaboration, willingness to moderate, and all his work on it thus far.

- Oshyan

René

This is a great initiative that will undoubtedly add value to Terragen for me.

Hannes

Great! And a big thanks to Jon!

Hetzen

Thanks guys. I'm setting up scenes to go through the clamp functions next. Hopefully I'll get those out tomorrow.

Ariel DK

I almost missed this! i can't say more than THANKS, this is how a user community should works, i mean, (without offend) this doesn't usually happen in other software forums so often.
Quote from: Dune on August 10, 2019, 03:12:20 AMThough I understand the initiative, I honestly don't know what you're expecting of this; there's only a handful of users posting stuff... so 'everybody who decides to help'; who would they all be? And for whom?
Sorry for my doomful reply  :P 
Indeed Ulco, you will be surprise by the amount of new users in FB trying to overcome the learning curve (still myself too :) ) of TG, some with the free versions, and others working in smalls studios. the Terragen discussion thread is where many of this users post for 1st time, but many of them never stand here.
imho, i think that "clearing up" this base knowledge is a great (first) step to keep this users interested, basically because TG is a slow development software, but actually you can render almost EVERYTHING what you can imagine with him. hey, that you can't say the same about many other software out there...

Hope the new section grows up!
Hmmm, what version of Terragen does God use?

KlausK

It has begun! Thanks.
CHeers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

René

This is going to be big, at least I hope so.
A small example: In the early days I wasn't able to use Voronoi(the blue nodes) until someone posted a clip file. Afterwards I found a warped Voronoi clipfile on the forum. And although I don't understand the underlying math I do know what it does and how to use it; I can't live without it anymore.
People who work in the film or games industry will undoubtedly all know math, but apart from that there is a large group of artists who don't; illustrators to name but one. If you could appeal to the latter group, that would be a gain for Terragen.

Hannes

Quote from: René on October 11, 2019, 03:41:07 AMPeople who work in the film or games industry will undoubtedly all know math
Really?

WAS

Quote from: René on October 11, 2019, 03:41:07 AMPeople who work in the film or games industry will undoubtedly all know math, but apart from that there is a large group of artists who don't; illustrators to name but one. If you could appeal to the latter group, that would be a gain for Terragen.

That would probably be true for developing an engine and a lot of the scripting aspect, but even than engines like Unreal Development Kit are making that a visual thing and taking care of a lot of the scripting.

Heck, on that note, I've seen IDE's that as long as you know the naming convention, and of course a general idea what functions and operators and stuff do, you can program with very little actual writing with auto completion and built in templates/macros.

René

Quote from: WAS on October 15, 2019, 10:39:03 PM
Quote from: René on October 11, 2019, 03:41:07 AMPeople who work in the film or games industry will undoubtedly all know math, but apart from that there is a large group of artists who don't; illustrators to name but one. If you could appeal to the latter group, that would be a gain for Terragen.

That would probably be true for developing an engine and a lot of the scripting aspect, but even than engines like Unreal Development Kit are making that a visual thing and taking care of a lot of the scripting.

Heck, on that note, I've seen IDE's that as long as you know the naming convention, and of course a general idea what functions and operators and stuff do, you can program with very little actual writing with auto completion and built in templates/macros.
Okay, then I was wrong about that. ;D But that raises the question for whom all those blue nodes are meant, if it isn't for artists who know math.

WAS

#89
Quote from: René on October 17, 2019, 03:06:35 AMOkay, then I was wrong about that. ;D But that raises the question for whom all those blue nodes are meant, if it isn't for artists who know math.

That it does. Inherently they are mathematic functions, handling data. You do need a fine grasp of maths to do anything specific with them beyond very basic noise alteration utilizing built in noises. This is why I have a issue with the current state of the functions forums. It was my understanding, that we, and users, wanted these functions explained very thoroughly, so we can start to grasp what they're doing on a mathematic, and technical scale. Especially the more complicated functions. It seems they want us to just ask the questions, and they explain them when this information is natively missing from TG wiki/docu and left so vague it's only useful to highly technical minds. This alone makes it so discouraging; they're likely not going to get any questions to begin with. Now if we had a better understanding to than start experimenting and achieving things on our own, to than get help on it might work, and just makes sense.

The only way I learn highly technical stuff like this is via appropriate explanation and technical specification. This is true of education too, whether a trade or something as basic as English.