The Valley of Silver

Started by choronr, February 04, 2008, 03:53:01 PM

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choronr

El Valle de Plata 'The Valley of Silver'.  When the early Spanish explorers traversed the southwestern landscape, they were amazed at the number of silvery to bluish green plants that grow there. These colors of foliage make a striking contrast against the typical russet landscape of the Sonoran desert.

Botanically, the silvery to bluish green foliage of these many varieties of plants, bushes and trees are referred to as 'glaucous'; meaning they are covered with a white or bluish bloom of fine hairs which can be rubbed off easily. Their purpose is twofold:  First to protect the plant against the loss of moisture and to reflect the heat of the sun away from the leaves; and, to collect and temporarily retain moisture from early morning dew and rain.

Many thanks to Moodflow and old_blaggard for making available the bush groups that are available for download at: http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=179bc8b8e4e3cef279a9fdb93d641764&action=tpmod;dl=item294 ; and, to  jcinbama for the Organ Pipe Cactus also available for download at: http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=get308

The range of the Organ Pipe Cactus includes a small area of the Sonoran Desert only from southwestern Arizona to western Sonora, Mexico. This columnar cactus is the second largest in the U.S. (next to the Saguaro) growing as tall as 23 feet. Instead of having a central stem, however, a cluster of 5 to 20 slender branches grow from a point at ground level and curve gracefully upward.

I also want to thank Tangled-Universe for his clip file of the four varieties of fake stones that grace this landscape.

Will

The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

rcallicotte

This is pretty well done. 

How would you get a sort of dusty look to your terrain?  Not that I know.  Just wondering.  It would look pretty real, if there was a dusty variety to the dirt.  Hmmm.  I'm not sure, outside of another surface layer that had scattered bits (by a blending shader) of a power fractal here and there.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

PG

might look good with a very light brown fog close to the ground for a kicked up dust effect. dunno if I just reiterated what you said calico. :D
Figured out how to do clicky signatures

old_blaggard

This is great!  I love the detail and variations of the textures, and the plants are placed very nicely too.  I think that a little more variety with the plants would be helpful, but again, the image itself is very nice :).
http://www.terragen.org - A great Terragen resource with models, contests, galleries, and forums.

choronr

Thanks guys for your comments. Total plant populations here are four; and, is a limit. I had experienced the 'trimadge' error a number of times while test rendering. This is usually a result of too high a number of instances of objects. In fact, the large cactus is a pop member; but, I had to use very low coverage and very wide spacing to get a single object to appear. I could not effect a single object to appear correctly; only until I did a pop did the cactus come out the way I liked.

I agree that maybe a 'dust devil' would look good here; but, there are many surfaces here already. This picture is now finished.

bigben

This looks great. The only thing I'd suggest is that the distribution of bushes is too even.  Once again, arid environment, plants will grow only where they can get water/moisture which will tend to be where water flows, or in shaded areas... If it's northern hemisphere then you'd have more plants on north facing slopes. Also... more plants in gullies than on ridges (flow map from World Machine can be useful here, shader with intersect underlying may also be useful)... fewer plants on steeper slopes.

bigben

#7
Quote from: choronr on February 04, 2008, 05:13:46 PM
...I could not effect a single object to appear correctly; only until I did a pop did the cactus come out the way I liked.

When I want to place a single object I zoom to the area where I want the object to be (must "set camera") and then add a sphere. Unlike other objects which get dropped at the origin, spheres get dropped in the centre of the camera's fov. As this renders in the preview window it's easier to move around and place exactly where you want, which in the case of a plant is with half of the sphere buried in the terrain.  After that it's just a case of adding the object and transferring the location from the sphere... then scale and rotate the object the way you want it.

Did you mask your populations to just the camera's fov? This can greatly reduce the amount of memory needed because the populator generates triangle for all objects in a population, regardless of where they are positioned (necessary for objects out of the camera's fov but protruding in front of the camera)

choronr

Quote from: bigben on February 04, 2008, 05:17:49 PM
This looks great. The only thing I'd suggest is that the distribution of bushes is too even.  Once again, arid environment, plants will grow only where they can get water/moisture which will tend to be where water flows, or in shaded areas... If it's northern hemisphere then you'd have more plants on north facing slopes. Also... more plants in gullies than on ridges (flow map from World Machine can be useful here, shader with intersect underlying may also be useful)... fewer plants on steeper slopes.

Thanks Ben; I agree exactly with what you describe. Horticulture was a hobby of mine some years ago. Getting the vegetation to fall where it needs to be using TG2 is still somewhat of a mystery to me. I've much to learn about using this program.

choronr

Quote from: bigben on February 04, 2008, 05:30:48 PM
Quote from: choronr on February 04, 2008, 05:13:46 PM
...I could not effect a single object to appear correctly; only until I did a pop did the cactus come out the way I liked.

When I want to place a single object I zoom to the area where I want the object to be (must "set camera") and then add a sphere. Unlike other objects which get dropped at the origin, spheres get dropped in the centre of the camera's fov. As this renders in the preview window it's easier to move around and place exactly where you want, which in the case of a plant is with half of the sphere buried in the terrain.  After that it's just a case of adding the object and transferring the location from the sphere... then scale and rotate the object the way you want it.

Did you mask your populations to just the camera's fov? This can greatly reduce the amount of memory needed because the populator generates triangle for all objects in a population, regardless of where they are positioned (necessary for objects out of the camera's fov but protruding in front of the camera)

Thanks again Ben. I tried the technique of using the sphere for object placement but found that the object turned out looking like a 'cut-and-paste' job. By making the object a population with very minimal coverage and extra wide spacing, aia was able to get only one object to appear only after trying a few seeds.

I am not familiar with 'masks' and do not understand the process of masking.

Seth

very realistic ! well done !

dhavalmistry

I love the surfacing man...great work!
"His blood-terragen level is 99.99%...he is definitely drunk on Terragen!"

jcinbama