OK, It appears that I am to be the remedial learner; I just don't understand your meaning when you state:-
QuoteThe 4k heightfield had a tiny little bit difference in altitude range so I made that the exact same as the 16k version.
The 4k heightfield had a tiny little bit difference in altitude range than what? As the Distribution shader determines the altitude, and there's only one, how can you set different altitudes for each terrain?
OK, I've been staring at your node setup for 20 or so minutes and reading/re-reading the node descriptions in the Wiki:-
I'm trying to work this out for myself, so I am writing down my thoughts as I work through your setup; so please forgive me if I repeat anything...........
"The 4k heightfield had a tiny little bit difference in altitude range so I made that the exact same as the 16k version."
Is this determined within the respective Heightfield loads (4K & 16K)?
Height range: min = 0mm, max = 1.87km, range = 1.87km (16K); Height range: min = 1.22m, max = 1.88km, range = 1.87km (4K).
And is this why only the 4K HF Load has a HF adjust vertical node when the 16K HF load does not (since the 4K HF is "laid down" over the 16K HF it needs to make what is already there)?
If this is the case, would the HF adjust vertical settings be;
Set height range checked. Highest = 1870m, Lowest = 0m
Multiply by height left checked & set to 1 or unchecked (so HF remains unaffected by this parameter)
Add height left uncheckedRight; I think I may be winning the first little battle - by checking the "Apply colour and shade" parameter within each of the Heightfield shaders and changing their respective colours (and disabling both the snow shader networks, Base colours & Image map shaders); I was able to visualise the 16K HF and how far up the 4K HF lay!
So the blending of the 2 terrains by height appears to be working.
So now I can finally look back to your snow shader and see how it looks now............
Well, the snow is pretty nice now. I must admit; I really didn't think that disabling the image map shader would have any effect other than making the actual snow shader easier to see - but it actually changes the shape of the terrain surface! Wow!
Despite this (as well as other revelations); we still have the original issue of the "snow space walls" taking on the colour of the layer below it (it may not be that exact problem; I am content to refer to them as render artifacts).
Crop renders of the snow layer with and without the Image map shader being enabled, showed me that the "snow space walls" manifest differently in each scenario.
Reiterating the questions asked in the original post (I realise that there were many other issues to deal with first before coming back to these questions);
Is there a better/"more correct" way to make the snow thicker?
Is increasing the displacement offset of the "Thick Snow" surface layer from 0.05 to 2.0 an acceptable method of increasing the snow thickness?
Your recommendations."I just checked and noticed a few things, of which some important:"
1) The image map shader should be disabled when assessing the snow shaders, as it's bright too.
I thought that this meant changes would be difficult to see; not that the image map combined with the snow shader results in changes to the shape of the terrain surface!2) You still had the default fractal terrain + fractal warp in the scene, which also affect your imported terrain.
This could be intentional, but I have the gut feeling it isn't.
It wasn't; both have been removed from the network.3) Whenever doing things like stones/snow, which require a smoothed surface layer to work properly, you better disable "fractal detail" in your heightfield and use PF's instead to give the terrain some detail.
Done; how do I use and control power fractals to give the terrain further detail {if there are any tutorials, detailed descriptions, etc known to you, plmk}4) The terrain itself has spikes exactly where you don't like your snow cover. I suggest you get rid of those spikes, because no matter what you try with the snow, the spikes will remain.
I think blending the terrains removed this issue......5) You used 2 snow shaders which both used a smoothed surface layer and intersect underlying enabled. It's very difficult to predict how these 2 surface layers interact when you configure them differently.
It's best to restrict both layers by altitude and make sure that 1 snow layer does not completely intersect with the other.
(I set the lowest layer to exist up to 250 meters altitude with 50m fuzzy zone and the top layer I set minimum altitude to 250 meters altitude with 50m fuzzy zone)
Note:- Originally, first snow lay was set to cover the entire mountain up to 700m [fuzzy = 200m] (leaving the top peak marginally clear of snow); the second snow layer up to only 340m [fuzzy = 70m].I changed my setting likewise (with exception of the higher layer max altitude being limiter to 700m [200mfuzzy] to leave peak relatively free of snow (except for that from image map).......Also (separate from this); your example file, "TU snow.tgd" is missing a .ter file (Stillwater.ter); I hunted for it in the forums but only found mention of it once in an image sharing post... Would I be able to ask you to post here or upload elsewhere so I may explore the scene you provided.The "TU snow2.tgd" works fine but different files often present different snippets of knowledge.... .
There's also a texture missing and it would be nice if that could also be included but if that proves too difficult, I can always use another texture (But even texture selection can be instructional in and of itself).
Sorry for the length of the post..................