Warp Shader... *&$%£*&

[Hetzen]

Could someone be kind enough to explain why I can't distort this cloud column with a Warp shader.

The image map is in the .zip, just a b&w mask projected.

[FrankB]

You did not connect the shaders correctly, but even when connecting them the right way, it does not warp the cloud pillar. I think it's because the coordinates are fixed by the image map shader / camera.

I have attached the fixed setup for you, for future reference.

Cheers,
Frank

[RArcher]

I think it is a combination of things.  First the coverage adjust in the density shader is set quite high, so you are in effect maxing out the masked area so even if things are being warped you wouldn't see it.  I reduced the coverage and increased the gradient on your mask to give you more area outside the column for the warping to take place.  I changed a few other things as well while I was messing around, but really the fix was changing the mask and the coverage adjust.

Very cool concept though for making smoke plumes.

*edit*  Very interesting errors when opening your file Frank!  There are some parameters there that I would very much like to use. 

[rcallicotte]

 

*edit*  Very interesting errors when opening your file Frank!  There are some parameters there that I would very much like to use. 

[Hetzen]

Thanks for looking gents.

The thing is, what I want to do is distort the cylinder created by the mask. It seems the mask masks the entire tree, rather than just the node it's attached to, which to be honest, is quite useless. Can we not localize effects rather than it dominating the streem? Can we not say "effect this only"? The more I've played with the cloud system in TG, the more I hate it. The way it's set up, we can't get any large scale variation in the coverage shapes, which having access to modulating the cloud node's altitude and depth would seriously help. But on top of that, being able to distort a basic shape would be kind of useful too, and PF's seem to be very limited in that aspect.

[Hetzen]

You did not connect the shaders correctly, but even when connecting them the right way, it does not warp the cloud pillar.

The logic with the original TGD is that I extrude the mask, and then warp that over y, to then be the PF's mask. The way you set your file up is how I originally wanted it, to no avail. I've tried redirect, perlin functions with a displacement function and a myriad of other logical ways of trying to displace the PF. PF's just don't like to be messed with, in that they can't be messed with unless they've been applied to ground geometry. Which to be frustratingly frank, is sh!t, and seriously limits what you could possibly do with them. They have a warp set of controls within their internal structure, why the hell can I not apply my own conditions on them externally?

[Hetzen]

I think it is a combination of things.  First the coverage adjust in the density shader is set quite high, so you are in effect maxing out the masked area so even if things are being warped you wouldn't see it.

I would have liked to have assumed that the mask only applied to what it was originally connected to, rather than dictating to the rest of the tree. How do I isolate that shape, ie the deliberate cylinder, to then be distorted?

*edit*  Very interesting errors when opening your file Frank!  There are some parameters there that I would very much like to use. 

Ooops 

[Matt]

I'm sure there's a way, let me take a look...

Matt

[Matt]

I've attached a modified version.

The problem was with the camera projection mode in the Image Map Shader. It uses world coordinates rather than texture coordinates, so it doesn't see the warped texture coordinates (sorry about the confusion this caused). I used Plan Y projection instead, checked "position center" and set "size" to 2500 2500. This gives a column not very different from your camera-projected column.

For the warping shaders I used the Redirect Shader with 3 Power Fractals: displacement amplitude 2000, feature scale 2000, lead-in scale 2000, smallest scale 10, displacement roughness 2 to give lots more details. I also played with the cloud density settings (increased density, increased base softness), but not much else.

The shape comes entirely from the warping - I am not using the final fractal, I just plugged the warp shader into the cloud layer.

I'll post a render in a few minutes. Modified tgd is attached.

Matt

[Matt]

[attachthumb=1]

[rcallicotte]

Thanks Matt.  More fun in the Terragen sun.

[Hetzen]

Thanks Matt. I was getting extremely frustrated with this yesterday. And appologize for my rant.

[Vyacheslav]

Мy version of the.