Planetside Software Forums

General => User-contributed Tutorials => Topic started by: wiwine on August 13, 2014, 02:07:00 PM

Title: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: wiwine on August 13, 2014, 02:07:00 PM
Before the next part of my dunes tutorial, here is another one that could be useful in some situations (when you have to combine function-generated terrains).
First I wanted to put it in the other tutorial, but I realized that it could be better to present it separatly.

Enjoy !  ;)

Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: archonforest on August 13, 2014, 02:24:06 PM
Holly cow...I opened the PDF and still shocked :D Feels like missed some class in school... :D :D :D
Guess bigben will understand thit document...

Otherwise big thx for the tut. Something that is always welcome here :)
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: bigben on August 13, 2014, 07:15:45 PM
Yes I like to see the workings behind it, but it's also a deceptively simple tweak with only one parameter to adjust.
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: Dune on August 14, 2014, 02:57:15 AM
Thanks Laurent, you're obviously good at maths. Handy thing to have, waiting to be used.
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: cyphyr on August 14, 2014, 05:09:08 AM
My brain just melted. Hopefully I can find the time to understand this in more detail.

One question, can this (or a similar technique be used to "smooth" out other hard transitions?  In particular I am thinking of the merge node.
When this is set to "Choose by Altitude <highest (raise)/Lowest (cut away)>" it creates very HARD transitions between the two merged terrains. It would be great if these could be smoothed off

Thanks for the great tut.
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: wiwine on August 14, 2014, 08:04:58 AM
Quote from: cyphyr on August 14, 2014, 05:09:08 AM
One question, can this (or a similar technique be used to "smooth" out other hard transitions?  In particular I am thinking of the merge node.
When this is set to "Choose by Altitude <highest (raise)/Lowest (cut away)>" it creates very HARD transitions between the two merged terrains. It would be great if these could be smoothed off

I just made a test with two fractal terrains and a merge shader. This time I didn't use the high/low colour options to generate the terrains.
But I added a "displacement shader to scalar" to each fractal terrain.
Just take a look to the following file, and try to render with the following values for c : 0, 100 and 200.
Then tell me if it is what you are looking for.  :)
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: Dune on August 14, 2014, 10:37:40 AM
Works like a charm. At first I thought, what can a 1m extra displacement change, but it smoothes out the fractals' edges very nicely. Thanks a lot, very handy!
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: cyphyr on August 14, 2014, 12:18:58 PM
What Dune said!

Excellent work, this is going to be so useful.

Thank you very much.
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: Shigawire on August 14, 2014, 01:44:38 PM
Wiwine, yet again I am in awe... you are a Terragen master mentat! :D

p.s. I can see why you needed to come up with this before continuing the Dune tutorial series.. ;)
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: j meyer on August 15, 2014, 10:43:59 AM
Thanks for sharing the example files.
Title: Re: Smooth combiner tutorial
Post by: bobbystahr on September 01, 2014, 10:32:59 AM
Whew, thanks mate....Back to school today it seems....