The wonders of TG2 - As per my new rock wall example

[FrankB]

Dominic and Mick, it's absolutely not secret at all how the strata can be displaced on the y. Actually the setup is really simple.
Check out the attached clip file. Just add them before your compute terrain and zoom in on the "mountain" created by the simple shape shader (you may use anyother  terrain, though, of course).
In a real project you would probably also restrict that clip by altitude and or slope, if you want to just apply this to the steeper parts.

Cheers,
Frank

[Mor]

This is amazing Frank! And you make it sound so simple, just add this and that and there you have an awesome setup 

[dandelO]

A fantastic start to finish walk-through Frank! Well done.

[mhaze]

Hi Frank

Thanks, I've tried this method with varied success the problem for me is masking the effect of the y power fractal - I'll keep on trying.

BTW I've been trying to work out how to use the simple shape! Thanks the tgc shows me the error of my ways!

[FrankB]

This is amazing Frank! And you make it sound so simple, just add this and that and there you have an awesome setup 

of course it's not so simple under the hood. You should look at this as a summary, the result of a longer development and learning process.

[FrankB]

Hi Frank

Thanks, I've tried this method with varied success the problem for me is masking the effect of the y power fractal - I'll keep on trying.

BTW I've been trying to work out how to use the simple shape! Thanks the tgc shows me the error of my ways!

just plug the redirect shader into a surface layer, or distribution shader. There you would activate a min slope constraint to restrict the effect to the steeper parts, and an altitude constraint if you want to restrict to a certain height range.

Cheers,
Frank

[domdib]

Thanks for the clip Frank - more to ponder!

[CCC]

Now, if only you could erode that terrain as that is the only thing that tells me it is fake.   

[FrankB]

not really, it's a DEM, so it's naturally eroded

[CCC]

DEM, ahh. Well that changes things then. I could not tell it was such because usually i look at the small-scale features however being a DEM that would not show up real well due to limits the the height field resolutions i gather.

[RArcher]

Great work Frank, this turned out fantastic.

[Gannaingh]

Thank you for sharing Frank! It's is always helpful and inspiring to look at a step by step like you have shown us here; on top of that little clip file goodies only add to the awesomeness   

[FrankB]

thank you guys

lastly, you may want to have a look at a 4000 px wide render of this. It's slightly lower quality (0.6) but the huge resolution is making up for it.
It rendered for over 6 hours, and I've used Dandelo's water trick to cut it down to this somewhat.
I came close to needing a 64 bit version while rendering. At times the memory consumption grew up to over 3 GB, and I didn't even have vegetation in this one. But well, the image is huge, so what can I expect?
Overall 6 hours is quite ok, considering I needed multiple compute terrain nodes.
By the way, the "raw" heightfield render earlier in this thread rendered for 5 minutes at 1600 px wide

so here is the image: http://nwda.deviantart.com/art/Rock-Wall-Surface-Preset-Beta-152635449
It's just amazing to see all that detail. Try to keep the raw render in mind while looking at this

Cheers,
Frank

[EoinArmstrong]

The blown up one is so damn impressive - thanks for the the tuition, Frank.

Just brilliant - I'm in a rut at the moment, and this might be exactly what I need

[Dune]

Very, very impressive job, Frank. And a much appreciated tuition!

---Dune