Terragens internally generated fractles

[cyphyr]

In many other programs where there are procedurally generated textures they have the option of choosing from a wide variety of fractle geneators, Lightwave for example has about 20 and the ability to accept plugins that produce many more.

At the moment as far as I can tell we have only the Power Fractle (in five flavours), the Alpine Fractle, the Cloud Fractle and maybe the water displacement has its own fractle. In later itterations of TG2 will there be a wider selections of fractle generators or will the plugin architecture allow the use of user generated fractle sources? I know that the fractles that TG2 uses at the moment are choosen for their ease of application to Terragens tradtional strengths but since TG2 promisses to be so much more than a simple landscape renderer I believe that a more powerfull texture editor/generator will be extremely usefull.

Happy rendering

Richard Fraser

[oggyb]

There are various perlin types available to the fractal generators, so are you looking for something more esoteric?

M.

[Cyber-Angel]

I am wondering what is on the horizon for terrain generation, the next generation of terrain generation method (If such thing exists) looking beyond fractals for terrain generation, not to say that the won't have there place but surely some thing more refined then fractals must surly be on the horizon; what this method is, is hard to say as I don't know of any thing and I have done some looking around Google but found nothing.

I am sure some one with a PhD in Mathematics would need to come up with a set of equations and formulae before any such construct where possible, but since I am not a mathematician I can not comment further as to any possible way forward.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel   

[cyphyr]

To be honest I probably don't really know what I'm talking about here ( ::)certainly from a maths point of view). What I am wondering is weather the list of various fractal types we have at the moment will be increased. Currently we have Perlin, Perlin Billows, Perlin Ridges, Perlin Mix 1 and Perlin Mix 2. These can be modified and combined in an infinite variety of ways and I'm sure a skilled operator could create almost any kind of texture they required. However there are still some textures that can not be generated so easily. I refer to Lightwave simply because it's a programme I have used for many years and know fairly well. Within Lightwave there are many types of procedural texture available, for example, Turbulent Noise, Ridged Multi Fractal, Lattice Convolution Noise, Hetero Terrain, Lyapunav, Grid, Cells, Dented and Bricks to name but a few. Now for all I know these may all be flavours of the same fractal source with boundaries set up to delineate their difference. If that's the case then it would be down to the skill of the Terragen user to create something similar. However if its not, then there would be an opportunity to use a much wider variety of textures and displacements within Terragen by incorporating other fractal sources. As a simple example (corny I know) you cant create a simple Mandelbrot terrain within terragen unless you import a bitmap or height field of a Mandelbrot in which case you are limited to the resolution of your source. You'll end up with a "blocky" displacement. If terragen were able to read a Mandelbrot set directly then the infinite level of detail would be available. Now I am in no way suggesting we should be rendering of 80's style Mandelbrot flybys but there may be other far more creative uses for a wider selection of fractals.

Just my tuppence worth .

Richard Fraser

[old_blaggard]

Don't fret - the range of fractal types available will be larger in the final release than it is now.

[Oshyan]

In later itterations of TG2 will there be a wider selections of fractle generators or will the plugin architecture allow the use of user generated fractle sources?

We will certainly be including more generator functions in the final release. In addition the plugin system will make it easy for a competent basic coder to add many other generator functions as we of course won't have time to cover the wide variety that currently exist.

C-A, you might want to check out the "Terrain Summit" discussion board. Lots of interesting "next generation terrain technology" conversations going on with coders, math-heads, terrain modelers, and other experts: http://terrain.cg-arts.org/forum/

- Oshyan