Recent posts

#11

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by digitalguru - March 07, 2025, 05:10:12 AM

Not sure what you're trying to achieve there, but it wouldn't work with cards I don't think. For udims you need to move the UV's outside the usual 0-1 uv space per texture tile and you'd have to do that at the geometry level outside TGD. You can then map separate images to each "block" of uv space using the method Kevin showed to use multiple texture maps on a single object.
Example - UV editor screengrab for a plane 30x10 units - each unit of 10 (width) is mapped with it's own udim:



And the render in Terragen with the setup Kevin mentioned:

 

See attached Terragen project (you'll have to remap the image maps to your own path on disk)

#12

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by Dune - March 07, 2025, 02:24:17 AM

This is interesting, if I understand it well. Not for animations in my case, but for stills. Would it somehow work to import a UVmap where a number of (in my case) fire images would sit in a row (with number 3 in the central 0-1 range), then assigning this to one population of cards? I thought UVmaps were by definition repeated, and if so that wouldn't work - and importing more UVmaps is needed. Some fractal in world space may need to be used to help distribute the UV ranges over the instances. Just thinking out loud..... I may miss the idea completely (just awake).

#13

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by Kevin Kipper - March 06, 2025, 05:41:46 PM

RPC could definitely handle changing the Position parameter value for selected nodes, or specific node types like the image map shader.  It could also be used to generate the node structure from scratch, i.e. add an image map shader node, set its parameters like "main input", "position" and "image filename".  This might be a fun script to tackle.

#14

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by digitalguru - March 06, 2025, 02:31:26 PM

Interesting, not sure I'd want to tackle that with the 60+ udims on the car though. Could be a job for RPC?

#15

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by Kevin Kipper - March 06, 2025, 02:15:23 PM

Bottom line is for my car geo, I'm using UDIMs and will obviously motion blur the car for animation, both not possible in TGD a.t.m.

Here's an example of how Bastien used UDIMs in Terragen.  The Image Map shader's "X" Position value serves as the offset.

#16

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by digitalguru - March 06, 2025, 10:45:47 AM

Very good update, super realistic!

Can't agree more!

I wonder if Planetside assumes that high-end commercial users of Terragen will follow the process you are using here: terrain and sky in Terragen, objects and other details comped in.

It's working beautifully. Looking forward to seeing more frames and sequences (yes, in due time).

Actually, it's just the terrain

Original plan was to do the terrain, sky and foliage in TGD and comp the car into it. But...

Bottom line is for my car geo, I'm using UDIMs and will obviously motion blur the car for animation, both not possible in TGD a.t.m.

Then I need to cast shadows and reflections etc from the trees onto the car, so that means populations in Maya. I made a previous animation where the car was driving out in the open, so I could get away with populations and lighting in TGD.

I've written a lot of custom scripts to get this working and approaching it from a VFX point of view - i.e. using the best tool for each job and pipe lining them all together.

I did consider trying to recreate the TGD terrain in Maya, but it was nowhere near as good in comparison. Terragen is still the best for it's terrain workflow and the detail you can get out it.

And to be honest, if TGD did include UDIMs and object motion blur, I'd still render in another package (like Maya/Arnold) I think TGD should stick to what it does best - terrain generation and not be an all sing all dancing app, though some things would be useful like being able to output deep EXRs from TGD for comp.

#17

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by Dune - March 06, 2025, 10:41:01 AM

Thanks!

#18

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by sboerner - March 06, 2025, 10:22:24 AM

Very good update, super realistic!

Can't agree more!

I wonder if Planetside assumes that high-end commercial users of Terragen will follow the process you are using here: terrain and sky in Terragen, objects and other details comped in.

It's working beautifully. Looking forward to seeing more frames and sequences (yes, in due time).

#19

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by digitalguru - March 06, 2025, 05:15:22 AM

Thanks Dune, it's getting there, just some simulated mud left to do. Haven't rendered a sequence yet, I'm sure there'll be some surprises to fix when I do

The heather (shrubs) are from Plant Factory, it's a free download now, so grab it from the website while it's still up if you haven't already:
https://www.bentley.com/software/e-on-software-downloads/

Grab all the libraries (forget how how big it was, probably about 20gb)

Mainly used:
Erica carnea
Vaccinium myrtillus

PF has presets for each plant based on age and season so it's easy to make variations. I made 12 for the Erica and 6 for the myrtillus.

It's a shame you can't add variations for a population in Terragen (you would need to make a separate pop for each variation), so I used Mash in Maya to populate the scene.
Plus once I'd populated the scene I could then move individual plants around.

I use the Plant Factory plugin in Maya to import and edit the model and it drops right in with Arnold shaders which saves a lot of work. It exports to a lot of apps, so you might find one that's compatible with Terragen if you're not using a DCC.

Since Plant Factory also does wind animation, I might make some animated plants to use in the f.g.

#20

Image Sharing / Re: Forest drive

Last post by Dune - March 06, 2025, 01:34:14 AM

Very good update, super realistic! Coming back to your heather: where did you get those? They may be very useful in my scenes too.