Mask shader not masking?

[zepeu]

Hello !

I'm sort of a beginner in Terragen even if I used it for a long time, mostly because I don't achieve to find the basic informations of "what does this actually do?"
I obviously did some research without succes

So, I explain :
Context : I'm trying to create a canyon in the middle of a desert. Therefore a sandy desert (yellowish) with a rocky canyon (redish)

Help I got : I (mostly) followed this really nice tutorial to do it : Canyon Tutorial
Well, it's really nice... As long as you don't get the camera out of the canyon ^^,

Problem : There is a "fake stones shader" masked by the "painted shader" defining the canyon. Theorically, the fake stones should be only inside the canyon... They are not

Here are the nodes :


I'm pretty sure the "problem" is linked to these 3 elements in the node network, but I don't achieve to get what's making the fake rocks getting on the desert even with the mask on (yes, the "fit to this" are all deactivated )

Therefore, here is what I got as a result :


And this is what I would like (sort of, I just deactivated the fake stones and the colouring of them for the image )


Could anyone give me some advices, and, possibly even explain me what in the hell is happening?
I tried to mask a population of bushes with the shader, and it works perfectly






Bonus question :
I have these trange shapes, absolutely ugly on the rim of the crack, how to remove them?


Thanks a lot by advance !

[Dune]

I'll have a look. It looks awful indeed.

EDIT: Well, that's a very strange method, very slow too, with three compute terrains.

EDIT 2: adjusted your file to a more logical setup. There's a lot that can still be perfected, but I left it at this. Good luck!

[zepeu]

I'll have a look. It looks awful indeed.

EDIT: Well, that's a very strange method, very slow too, with three compute terrains.

EDIT 2: adjusted your file to a more logical setup. There's a lot that can still be perfected, but I left it at this. Good luck!

Thanks a lot, I'll have to understand what you did, now ^^,
Ho do you get such skills without tutorials? It's really a mistery to me...

[Dune]

Study tgd's that are posted, and read the basics.... and that for more than 10 years

[zepeu]

Study tgd's that are posted, and read the basics.... and that for more than 10 years

Hahahaha... I read the beginning, thought "Yeah, I already did this, not realy helpfull   " then the rest of the sentence XD
Thanks

[Dune]

  You're right; the beginning is pretty tough. Experimenting is another thing, combine nodes, see what happens. That takes a lot of time, but can also give a lot of insight.

[N-drju]

It is rarely a good idea to mask all your features with just one painted shader, unless you really know what you are doing. Nodes interact with each other. Sometimes in an ugly way. Especially when they are masked with exact same item.

This may yield exaggerated results - displacements are being superposed onto one another and go out of control. Think "wave interference".

I think it might be helpful for you to study other masking methods that TG offers. Rest assured, I began my adventure with TG in much the same way as you do - a day with a painted shader is a day worth living.

Just remember that in TG it is easier to make more out of less than the other way. Good luck!

[Dune]

You're right. I would prefer a soft simple shape setup for valleys like this, where you can adjust softness through color adjusts for different masks, avoiding overlaps.