Use Y

[normhol]

While going though Neuspadin's geneRous video foR newbies, the mud along the wateRline didn't show up in the RendeR until the "use Y foR altitude" was activated. My question ,
Is theRe a Rule of thumb foR using "Y foR altitude" and foR not needing it ,also foR using "Y foR slope" oR not needing to use it ?

[PaRdon my capital Rs]
Nom.

[neuspadrin]

I've generally found the further from 0,0,0 and the more the displacement, the more often I use y for altitude.  I don't think I ever did use y for slope though.  Generally when you put something in it might be very close to where you want it to be, but theres many times where it will be completely off.

[normhol]

Thank you. You'Re veRy helpful.

[neuspadrin]

also just curious, what keyboard has a caps lock only on R's? lol.

[Henry Blewer]

At least no one stole all the 'w' keys. 

[normhol]

It is a Microsoft keyboard and it has just lately started to drop the lower case r's, except now they are showing up making me look like an idiot.
I took a screen shot[ as an example] and named it "green valley". and it was named "geen valley", and another"veonoi desert".  Up until now ...who the hell knows...it's a computer.
If anyone else has had this problem and knows how to eliminate it, I would be glad..to hear from them. It really is a beeeeeach.!
Norm.[ Nom]

[schmeerlap]

Have you tried another keyboard, simply replacing the faulty one might be the answer: I don't think they cost that much.

John

[dwilson]

Or you could copy a lower case r into the clipboard and paste it every time you need to use it.

[kevnar]

You could also hold down Alt and type 0114 on the numpad and the r will show up. But that's a lot of work for a fairly common letter. Go to the dollar store and buy one of those $10 keyboards. I do that every time my kids spill a drink on the keys. It's easier than fighting with sticky keys. 

As for the Y for altitude issue, lately I've been just using heightfields again, instead of planet-sized fractal terrain. Most of my renders are down near the ground looking up at a mountain range, so no fractal terrain necessary. Go into the heightfield location and set the centre of the field to 0,0,0. Move your render camera there too and pan around until you've got a good scene. Or you can just keep changing the seed of the heightfield until something appealing shows up.

Same thing works with fractal terrains. It's probably better to keep your camera at or near 0,0,0 and keep changing the seed of the terrain until a good layout appears. Bring the mountains to you instead of chasing them all over the globe in other words.