Mount Escalier 2.0

[Stormlord]

John has shown a very cool GAEA terrain and was so kind to share it with me, but unfortunately it had come in 4K.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,30645.0.html

I like the Mount Escalier terrain very much, so I decided to develop a nice Desktop rendering in 4K high resolution.
After a lot of experimenting with different atmospheres and shaders for the terrain, I had a basic starter to experiment with.


Mount Escalier 1.0
Basic Starter Scenery

By the way... the snow is vector masked.
The snow is distributed from the left side to the right.


Node network for vector masking

Not bad at all, but there are some things which can be improved...
First of all to get an optimal and high resolution terrain, I exported from GAEA a new heightfield in 8K to get more details.
Some color changes had been applied too. The original GAEA Satmaps has been edited to get a fresh color variant as well.


Screenshot in GAEA

Next version and improvement was another more dramatic sky, combined with changes in the mountains colors and adding more details.
The lightly illuminated prominent bright orange rocks at the hillside are a color defined strata map with brilliant colors, developed to fit into the steep walls.
So I am able to get more color contrast due to illumination of the hillside in the rendering. The brightness differences are more spectacular, just a little trick.

The masking itself is made with an exactly defined altitude and slope mask.
In test renderings, I added some light and blurry reflection on the strata map, but it didn't look as expected... ok... I will do something else...

So some bushes has been added as an extra.
A new cloudy sky has been created too. The cloud blanket throwing carefully placed shadows on the hillside.
The contrast that comes with this new cloudy sky, gives the next variant a much more dramatic appearance!


Mount Excalier 2.0
Fine-tuned shadow play and new color arrangement in the terrain shader network

This version has been postworked in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
To do this efficiently, I mostly create a rendering with a high resolution mask. So I am able to manipulate details of interest (e.g. water, sky) right from the start.


Black and white mask of the terrain

Then I implemented some stones between the bushes to get more details in the foreground. The stones are snow capped!
I tried also some forestation on the other side of the lake, but it didn't look pleasant. So I just stayed with the foreground.


Mount Esaclier 3.0
Snow capped stones added

This variant looks very pleasant in my opinion.
The colors of the hillside are great (a tribute to arizona) and their contrast is excellent due to the shadows of the cloudy sky.
The bushes and snow capped stones are also great. This way I could add some more details into my scenery.

To make the bushes looking a little bit more frosty, I painted some harsh frost on the leafs and flowers of the "Grevillea Rosmarinifolia Rosemary Grevillea".
This plant is from XFrog and the textures has been improved with Postwork in Photoshop (XFrog plants are great, but their textures often lousy!).


Grevillea Rosmarinifolia Rosemary Grevillea
Frosted leaf version

Then I decided to create a morning sunrise version as well.
I also created a fog bank on the lake, to get more details into the scene to look at.
A preview of this setup is shown in the screenshot of this variant.



Screenshot in Terragen (Mount Escalier 2.0)
Sunrise variant


Screenshot Mount Escalier 2.0
Node Network

And so I have come to another very pleaseant "to look at" version of this great terrain.
A very beautiful, moody and calm but also a very dramatic desktop in 4K.


Mount Esaclier 4.0
Calm and moody sunrise variant with fog on the lake

Finally I am very pleased with the result achieved so far.
To make it final, I have to render the scene with the path tracer.

I really hope you like my new scene and maybe learned something new?

I always strife to achieve more knowledge and to improve my skills in Terragen.
I am not an expert in Terragen, but I have learned a lot so far over all these years from others in the great forum.
This time, it was the first time importing a GAEA terrain and creating a foggy lake, which I also never created so far.

I have learned how to import GAEA terrains, make frosty leafs, adding snow capped stones (thanks to an example given by WAS here at the Planetside forum).
-> The next time, I would paint more frost and some more whitish snow on the leafs of my bushes to make them looking more snowy and frozen. They are too green for this scene.

But.... what is perfect in this world? What finally remains is the experience you gained at the end and the fun of creating such a beautiful scenery.
That's why I like Terragen a lot and renewed my maintenance.

STORMLORD
(Thank you John for sharing your Mount Escalier terrain. You made it possible to write this detailed report of my undertaking, learning and developing new skills like importing GAEA terrains.)

[schmeerlap]

You've turned this into a fine project, and I'm very happy to see my original Gaea terrain being elevated to new heights in such capable hands.
Well done, Dirk

[Dune]

Great rundown, Dirk, and indeed a very pleasant terrain and render. The fog addition is terrific.

Frosted leaves: you can also do that on the fly in TG. 

If you need to desaturate the leaf color, add a surface layer, and take a saturation blue node, pull from default shader into color tab, and use a constant (or any other mask, like altitude) as input for saturation node.
Then add a child; another surface layer (white), masked by say a fake stone, tiny (frostsize) size, or a PF tiny sized. All world/final loaction of course. Or you can add a PF tiny size, one color (white), no displacement through transform shader (final position) as child, instead of that second surface layer.

[Stormlord]

Thank you Jon and thank you Ulco for your nice comments :-)
_________________________________________________________________

That's a very clever idea, Ulco!
So I tried it, it works as expected... and I learned here something new!


Node for some frost fading

Q: My next question was, how can I do it, when I have a part shader with an opacity mask (leafs, twigs)?
A: -> The solution ->I used a snow default shader with a mask (of the leaf or twig). I made a fader node with the normal and the snowy/frosty version. So it's easy to mix as intended.


Frost Mixer Solution (Fader at 0.85 -> 15% Frost)

Here I learned this... good solution, but much shader tweaking is necessary to get a pleasant result this way.
So textures, both snowy and icy are another good and convenient way to get an appeasing result.

 
Snow/Frost Mixer (Textures)

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Did you mask the PF by 0.25 grey? Then you only get 0.25 extra color, so no 'full frost'. The breakup shader is not really much use this way. And you must take the PF (and if you want to use the breakup, that as well) through a transform shader set to final position. The color variation of the snow would otherwise be used as UV, so on every leaf/branch the same, and only from 0-1 size would be used, if you get my point. Transform shader will make it world position, so you can have one tree a littel bluer iced than the next, so to speak.
Also, if you use angles for frost on bark or branches, set angle to final position and Y!! You could even use the angle setup you used earlier on your mountain, for snow on one side of a bark.

[Stormlord]

I remember, that the fader was positioned at 0.15, so grayish was correct. Not full frost, it was just a test to see the impact depending on the slider.
Also I manipulated only the leafs as I remember in the first frost setup. Unfortunately, this first setup file is gone (but I have saved a clip-file). I attach that for you...

I'm here to learn and I am very glad to have an expert here who is able to explain to me how I could do it better!
The world transform info is very usefull. Thank you for mention it! Even if I didn't fully understand all that, I got a better understand here.
As far as I understand coordinates, they are all UV (in case of a leaf). But when I use a Transform Shader set to world, it fixes (recalculate) these local coordinates to a final position in world coordinates (UVW), right?
And that's why you emphasized Y checked, right?

So please Ulco could you send me a small scene TGD-File as an example?
So I can better understand how you do it and have also the settings.
Just use in the example a simple standard plant, I can replace it later, it's just about your setting and how you do it?

STORMLORD

[Dune]

You're right about the recalculation from UV to world. The Y is needed, but I wouldn't know exactly why, probably because the angle should be based on the position of the object. It should be object normal, btw.
I've taken one of Walli's free trees to show what I mean. So here are some files. There's something fishy about the tree, but it's just a way to sho.
The snow surface layer can of course be masked by anything, and you can also set altitudes at which frost should start on a population.

[Stormlord]

Thank you so much Ulco!
Your setup is a very good example... and I always learn something new from you (never heard about a "Multishader", very old, but very cool shader!).
However... I have embedded your setup into my frost test scene and the outcome looks very good!


Grevilla 1.0 Meter (Test Plant) rendered with Dunes Frost Shader


Node - Dunes frost setup for Multishaders

 
Node - Dunes frost setup for Part Shaders


Node - Dunes frost setup for Part Shader in Grevilla Test Plant

So one more time, Thank you very much Ulco for your excellent example!
(To set the setup angle with the slope constraint is elegant and very clever!)

STORMLORD
(I'm so glad, that I asked, I really learned something new to me)

[Stormlord]

Now I have created a more frosty version, based upon Dune's frosty input.
It looks great and very realistic now.

The fog on the lake has been edited (denoised with Neat image) for a very smooth appearance.

Rendered with Path tracer in 4K which took really a long time in 4K. But because this will be probably my final version, it's worth it.
Now the edgy shadows of the clouds on the lake (which have been previously rendered with the standard renderer) are also gone!


Mount Escalier 2.0 Final (probably)

Finally here is a direct side-by-side comparison.
Left side standard renderer, right side path tracer.
Left Bushes with frost textures, right with Dune's Frost Shader.

Notice the subtle light blue colors on the rocks, produces by the morning light.
Only the path tracer generated it correctly!
In direct comparison, the standard renderer is failing here miserable.
-> Look on the left side of this picture and then compare it with the right side (and the snow).

Also, worth to mention is the shadow line on the lake, produces by the clouds.
Left side the contours are crude, right with the path tracer they're very smooth.


Mount Escalier 2.0 in direct comparison

Final conclusion:
Path Tracer "Yes", but only in a final version due to the much higher render times (here 7,5 times!).

Both images rendered with MPD 0.8 and Quality 8 for maximum quality on a i9-9900K with 128GB RAM and RTX 3080.
3840 x 2160 - Mount Escalier 2 - 2h56m52s (Standard Renderer)
3840 x 2160 - Mount Escalier 2 - 22h05m54s (Path Tracer)

STORMLORD