Fake Stones

Started by EoinArmstrong, December 21, 2006, 06:07:59 AM

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EoinArmstrong

Hi there.

I am loving the potential staggering amount of tweaking and configuration in the prog thus far!  However, I have problems with the Fake Stones shader.

I apply a surface layer, and set the displacement function to Fake Stones.  My problem is that no matter how much I seem to tweak the shader, the layer or my camera viewpoint the stones look very geomatric/cubic.  Is there anything I'm not doing right here?

Cheers,

Eoin.

FrankB

Quote from: EoinArmstrong on December 21, 2006, 06:07:59 AM
Hi there.

I am loving the potential staggering amount of tweaking and configuration in the prog thus far!  However, I have problems with the Fake Stones shader.

I apply a surface layer, and set the displacement function to Fake Stones.  My problem is that no matter how much I seem to tweak the shader, the layer or my camera viewpoint the stones look very geomatric/cubic.  Is there anything I'm not doing right here?

Cheers,

Eoin.

Hi Eoin,
the bare fake stones do have very simple geometry. So in order to make them look more intersting, the need additional small-scale displacements and color shading before looking decent. Look for the internal tnetwork of the fake stone shader and try to think of something you could do against the surface port within the internal network.

Regards,
Frank

EoinArmstrong

Will have another nose around - thanks for the response, Frank :)

gerryR

you should also play around with the "number of faces" option.  fewer faces the squarer it'll look but too many will look to round.

hth

EoinArmstrong

Number of faces?  I'm in the Fake stones shader box and I simply can't see that setting anywhere... oh well...

gerryR

sorry, number of faces option is in the rock object's properties

gr

EoinArmstrong

hehe - thanks anyway Gerry - you had my head spinning for a few moments, though!

Tangled-Universe

Great tips, thanks all!
I also can´t find the number of faces option...well not yet anymore, cuz yesterday I saw it somewhere  >:(

edit: ah well...it was in the rock formation properties  :)

I figured out it is also possible to apply phototextures to the stone shaders, after fiddling with the number of repeats (sounds familiar :) ) you can get nice results.
I first connected a twist and shear shader and then a image map shader to the fake rock shader.
After a bit of tweaking you´ll get nice formed rocks, also with a lot of variation, and textured.

EoinArmstrong

Will persevere in fiddling!  Thanks for the heads-up on twist and shear...

Tangled-Universe

Oh yeah for sure it will persevere in fiddling :)
It took a couple of days to understand the functions of TG 0.9x, but months to master them  ;)
It seems with TG2 it takes a lot more time to understand its functions and powers and even more time to master them, I hate it!  ;D

fmtoffolo

#10
This is my simple stone set up


Just tweak the power fractal a little bit and you should get nice stones.
Of course you can add other shaders so as to complicate things up a bit.

My Terragenn site
www.cgworlds.com.ar

EoinArmstrong

#11
Mate, you are a king among men  ;D

Edit: What I had been trying to do is apply the fake stones shader as a displacement into a surface layer.  This doesn't seem to work (aat least, not the way I was doing it). Am now looking into how you can distribute different stone shaders to different surfaces (therefore enablng me to distribute them by height and slope)...

Cheers!

efflux

How can you see the internal network of the fake stones shader? I see nothing.

EoinArmstrong

You mean you can't see the node in the network, or you see nothing when you double click the node?

Tangled-Universe

I think you can also connect a distribution shader to the fake stones shader to control height and slopes constraints.

Toffolo thanks for the tip!  :)