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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: treddie on August 17, 2017, 07:01:57 PM

Title: Need multiple shaders for a plane object
Post by: treddie on August 17, 2017, 07:01:57 PM
Hi.

Can Terragen apply multiple displacement shaders to a plane?  I have a great sand dunes Power Fractal Shader going, but it is way too smooth.  But I do not want to change the basic sand dune shapes because they are perfect.  I just want to add another layer of very small sand graininess to it.

The plane object itself does not seem to offer any pins to add external shaders, nor any internal capacity to hold but one shader.
Title: Re: Need multiple shaders for a plane object
Post by: fleetwood on August 17, 2017, 09:00:19 PM
If I understand you:
Yes, Just go to the plane node and click the plus sign to go into the internal definition space. It should have one default shader defined. You can add whatever you like before and/or after that shader.  Or you could insert a whole clip file there and connect it to the output and not even use the original default shader.

So you would just stack your smaller scale modifier fractals after or before the one you already like.



Example
Title: Re: Need multiple shaders for a plane object
Post by: Dune on August 18, 2017, 02:17:21 AM
For ease of work I sometimes add a new surface shader in the main node view, give it a name, and then from the plane node, find it and set it as surface shader (instead of the default 'default shader'). Then you can stack whatever in the main window as children of that surface shader, or whatever way of stacking you prefer. To avoid any conflicts with naming convention (twice or more the same node name, especially within and outside containers, may cause trouble), I delete the default shader from within the plane.
Unless the main window is very cluttered with hundreds of nodes, and there's not enough space, of course.
Title: Re: Need multiple shaders for a plane object
Post by: treddie on August 18, 2017, 07:49:00 PM
Thanks guys.

My problem was that I had inadvertently created a "mystery" Power Fractal shader, somehow.  I had built the plane and then assigned the new shader to it, but the node did not exist anywhere, or was invisible.  It was not in the internal network for the plane, either.  But I could do a "go to" shader and it's panel would pop up.  So after reading your posts, I decided to start from scratch by creating a brand new shader in the main area, using the existing values of the old, "invisible" one.  Then I could add to that shader anything else I needed, and attach them to the plane object.  It's working great now.

Cheers!