Crack in the earth help

[godshall]

Hi everyone, I'm new to Terragen and this forum. Excited to be using a great piece of software!

I'm still using the demo version (pending some answers I'm trying to get from the folks at xfrog), and I'm having trouble creating a crack in the earth type shot. I want it to look like there's a crack that the camera is suspended over that runs through the middle of the image off into the distance. There will be a bright light shining up out of the crack, mountains in the background, dead trees, dark sky.... that sort of thing.

The attached photo is sort of the look I'm going for (though I want the crack to be on a slightly larger scale). The terragen render attached is about the  closest I've been able to get. The crack in that render I made in cinema 4d and just dropped on top of the terragen render in photoshop.

I worked through the "On the road" tutorial in the terragen wiki (thanks for that!) and thought I might be able to use a similar image map shader technique to localize a power fractal to cut into earth. So far however I haven't found a way to get the results I want.

If anyone can point me in the right direction or give any help at all I would greatly appreciate it. I'm supposed to have a decent mock up of this scene ready for a photo shoot tomorrow. Happy holidays everyone.

[cyphyr]

Hi and welcome to the forums.
I would use a painter shader for the large scale cracks together with some voronoi crack (try FrankB's Advanced Cracks) for the smaller scale cracks.
Attached is a quick mockup, feel free to rip it to pieces etc
happy rendering
Richard

[godshall]

Wow thanks cyphyr that's awesome. One problem though the demo doesn't seem to be able to open other peoples files. I had the same problem working through tutorials. When I open someone elses .tgd terragen just opens to the blank default layout. Am I missing something?

[cyphyr]

Hmm don't know why that would be, try importing the clip file instead (attached)
Replace your entire terrain group with the one attached.
Good luck
Richard

[Matt]

Version 2.0 isn't able to load projects automatically using file associations. If you open the file from within Terragen it should work. You might get a few warnings if the file was saved from a newer version.

[TheBlackHole]

Give the power fractal negative displacement.

[schmeerlap]

thought I might be able to use a similar image map shader technique to localize a power fractal to cut into earth. So far however I haven't found a way to get the results I want.

Hi
I've just done a quick image-mapped version of gouging a ravine or large crack in the ground. Attached is the tgd, and the jpeg image (rustled up quickly in Photoshop) I used in the Image Map shader, which you'll need to insert in the same directory as your tgd file. You'll see that I've repeated the (I can't remember if it was the X or the Y of the image to extend the crack round the planet), and flipped the x and y of the image (to lessen the otherwise obvious repetition of the image), and projected it using Y projection. You can also alter the scaling of the image to affect the width of the crack. I presently have given it a negative displacement of -50 (I think), and you can alter that to suit as well. You'll also see that I've added a power fractal displacement in the Shaders section (after the Compute Terrain at the bottom of the Terrain section). I did this to break up the vertical streaking you would otherwise get in the gouge (ravine).

John

[godshall]

Thanks for all the help everybody! I really appreciate you guys going out of your way to prepare this stuff. I'll post a finished version when I have it.

Also I'll be buying the full release today, so onto high resolution renders!