Hello, that's again me... i'm trying to create a beautiful waterfall, though it shouldn't be as hard as the ones that already are here. What i want is some simple waterfall, which would be about 9 ft long and located somewhere in jungles. i know it's hard, but that's why i want it. also, there should be the stones in the river (yes, the river too, what is a waterfall without river...) ok. imagine this picture. you (well, the photographer) is making a pic at about 6 ft, about 35 ft away from the fall, in the river, and sees the next picture - trees on both sides of the river, rocks (from which the waterfall falls), trees on those rocks (well, not rocks, but behind them), fall itself, and (it will be post work) animals. any tutorials here?
anyone?
I doubt there's a tutorial for exactly this scene which you have described.
How far have you come with your own attempts? Perhaps you could just show them here (or better in the image sharing forum) and people will be happy to help you get there step by step.
Regards,
Frank
that's the problem - i'm new to terragen and just want to learn a few hard things, so that i could create easier. for instance, i still don't know what the word seed means in terragen. i know how to import trees, do power fractals, alpine, but they all are not what i want to. i like creating normal wide rivers, with beautiful soft shores, but all i can get (and only sometimes, not always, just when i get lucky) is just a piece of water in the middle of mountains. that is it. so, whichever you can give me tutorial, i'll be glad to. i can't even create the lake like on the pictures from xfrog or planetside, where there is a tree, a grass, a lake (well, piece of water) and mountains behind. i can't even create this. but i really want to. but the tutorials here are just for the basics. not what i want. for example, http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1051.msg10303#msg10303 is just an example of what i DON'T want to create - i want a smooth wide river, (well that's just one of other examples i want to create) or there are lots of waterfall tutorials, but most of them are postwork. i want to create a live waterfall (and well, in this example it sould be a small river), and if possible, (don't know how to do it yet) animated, so that i could stop my water at any moment and create a good picture of it. what else? there's lots of what i want to create more, but first of all, the hardest. the Jungle waterfall. please help me with it. so, i hope you imagined it already in your heads this picture, and so i'm waiting for your help. and if there is a tutorial, can somebody give it to me, please?
P.S. something like this, but without the cave. and more rocks, like, it shouldn't go down on both sides, it just should be a solid rock, kind of like all waterfalls, but short, not even like Niagara. and thin - not wide http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5251.0
more likely like this one: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3899.0
I'm sorry you won't like what you're reading next, but you will find out anyway: it is highly unlikely that you would be able to follow such a tutorial (and understand it) if you don't understand a few basic terms like for example a seed. Besides that I don't think that there is such a tutorial. You have to start somewhere simpler and then work your way towards your envisioned image. If you want to take some good advice, try to break your "problem" into smaller chunks. For example, you could start finding out how you can make a soft dent into a flat terrain. If you succeed with this, you will have the foundation for a soft, wide shore. Next you try this on a heightfield terrain for example. You will probably spend some time finding a believable spot in the terrain for your image, and then apply the solution for making a soft shore right at the place where you need it to be. The painted shader could be your friend, or a greyscale mask applied as a blendshader to a displacement shader, or... many ways to get there.
Believe me, the actual waterfall is going to be your very last problem to solve. You will end up making the waterfall either with a specifically distorted cloud, or "painted water", or a custom object with a water surface shader applied, or a combination of all three.
There are a few great tutorials, some of which will teach you aspects of the combined knowledge you need to have to make your vision come real. The user wiki is a great start: http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
You will also find a few tips on making a waterfall in the tips and tricks section for TG2: http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Terragen_2_Tips_and_Tricks#Waterfalls
Regards,
Frank
Frank's right
You're describing a vision you have in your head, which is great, but the practicalities of putting this onto paper, so to speak, are not going to be found in any tutorial. There is a tutorials page here so try working through those to get you started. Terragen is not an easy start in 3d terms.
beat of luck.
Ok, so if i understood you correctly, you want me to create (just telling you my new idea) 2 heightfields, one with shores in front, and the other the rock itself, with the waterfall. right? and well, as i can only guess 3rd heightfield that is right on top of the 2nd, with a rock and waterfall, to create river. how about that? looks nice to me, but is it possible? also, if i create the river on the rock i'm describing, can the water "fall" from that rock? i mean, will it create the effect of the real waterfall? i understand that the plants is the last problem i should care about. now i just need the fall.
like this though it's far away from the ideal
so, how do i do the rock, the river and the fall?
I seem to remember back in the Pre-Tech Preview release days the FAQ mentioned that Water-Falls where in development or words to that affect, to that end until Planetside Implement a fluid and physics solver doing waterfalls and other fast moving water phenomena in a convincing manor, especially some thing that that would hold at 4K resolution for production work is going to be hard to pull off.
At any rate the water-air interface would have to be taken in to consideration, as would solving the necessary Phase Functions, and Light Transport in Participating Media, while your at it solve Multiple Mie Scattering and other phenomena noticeable the dynamics of water in that king of environment.
All of the above and more if you want Terragen to do things properly, this is just my view on this, however. ;D just point out that convincing waterfalls a probably harder to do in software then many people think.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Cyber-Angel in English, please. Or, even better, in Russian...
haha, well I think the cyber angel was just day dreaming and got lost in that.
Now practically speaking, what about adding a lake object next, miha, and adjusts its altitude, so that you "river" will look like it's filled with water?
For some nice fat rocks at the shore, check out this tutorial: http://www.nwdanet.com/terragen-tutorials/11-wilderness.html
Regards,
Frank
i know that, i did it once. it looks good, but that's not the river. what i mean, please, give me instructions on how to do the river (like what i should use - the Make river shader or seed numbers), how do i do the 90 degree "slope" for the rocks to be beautiful. well, you know, i have an idea - i did the crack in the earth tutorial (in fact, crack itself) and "played with it" to get one side "white" and the other "black" so that i have 2 different levels and i have now the "rock".
i thougt, maybe i should add some "brownish" color for the earth to look more realistic? i mean, the water in this case would be "whitish" though i still don't know how to do the effect of the waterfall in the river on the "lower" level. i will create the "smoke" for the effect, but how do i do the water "foamy"?
also, how do i deal with the "Make river" shader? how do i control its level? i don't want it to be 10 ft high, i just want it, like, half-ft max.
or i don't need it? just the fall and the river on lower level?
I think to do what you have in mind, image maps would work better. An image with the basic terrain. Then have another for the river. And one for the deeper area where the water fall falls into.
well, can i do all three at once, or you want me to bind all three of them in photoshop/painter? also, can someone give me the image map that looks similar to the one i should create?
I would load them into Terragen 2 one at a time. Get the basic terrain looking right. Then do the river and the deep area. Use a displacement shader for each.
ok, thanx. i'll try that. and write here tomorrow
UPDATE:
No luck so far. by the way, how do i load them properly? i could do it normally later, but not now... don't know what the thing is going on here. when i have it done, will write here.
Guys, it's been a long time since you answered. I still can't do it (though haven't been trying for a long time, was waiting for your answers). I know there are at least 3 ways - 1 is create an image, and that's what i'm not lucky with, 2 is to create 3 heightfields, and here i'm not lucky with too. the 3, and the hardest one, is that i create 3 'make river' operators. 1 would be a ground and would make "river", 2 - in front of it, pretty broad and deep, like, 6ft high. 3 would be in the 2, but it'd be like a river itself, without water in 2. Whew, i'm done writing it here. if you have any ideas, i'd like to know more about them. if not, eh... sad, but i won't be able to do it... without your help...
I have been really sick; I caught the flu last week. Still feel bad, but considerably better than before!
On the topic. Center the Height field on the 0,0,0 location in the height fields main control panel in the Terrain Tab. You will want to use an image map shader from the operators. This should do the trick of getting a height field from an image map.
The other parts of the project would use Cypher's 'Floating Island' displacement method. Add a plane where the water fall needs to be. You'll need an Alpha channel mask image to get rid of the areas of plane that are not waterfall. The displacement needs a camera projection. Together they make the streams of water falling. Last add a water shader.
Where I ran into trouble trying this is matching the top of the fall to the 'level' area leading to the waterfall. A particle system setup would be ideal, but I would hate to make my computer (slow, old, and reliable) calculate this for a week, then have to start over when it did not work right.
Let me mess around a bit. Maybe I will have a happy accident and figure this out more. I'll post the tgd.
I am not having any progress with this. Everything just looks stupid. Moving on to new stuff for a while. Maybe after some more practice and learning I can get somewhere with this... ::)
Sorry to hear that, I got sick yesterday, too. But today feel way much better, all thanks to my mom. When you get better, I'd like to hear more from you, since all I understood from what you said is that I should center the heightfield. Couldn't find the Cypher's Floating Island displacement, don't know where to find alpha channels in Terragen, but I hope you understand what I want to do... It should be something similar to this: http://www.tour.crimea.com/CARDS/details.php?image_id=734, but the river should go a bit "straighter". The less turns it makes, the better the picture will be. And the waterfall itself should be coming not like on the picture, but more like it's "falling", not "rolling". River should be as narrow as possible, though the waterfall shouldn't be as thin as Multnomah Falls. I know it's not that thin, but if you look on it from far away, it's thin and long. I want my waterfall to be, let's say, 2 ft (about .7-.8 meters) wide, and the same width for the river, and it should fall from the rocks, and on both the lower level and upper one there should be trees and grass. It should look amazing like this, I think...
Why don't you try painting the waterfall with a painted shader onto the landscape you have (first pause the preview when it's ready rendering), where you want the water to fall, and attach this as a blend shader to a cloud fractal. Set the clouds height where you have the waterfall. Then stretch the cloud fractal (make the Y 4-10 or so), and experiment with densities and other settings....
I
H_A_V_E
N_O_T_H_I_N_G
Y_E_T
D_O_N_E
I just don't know how to do the fall... that's why i'm asking.
Make a landscape, then add a painted shader. Position yourself high above this landscape, wait until it's pre-rendered, pause it, then paint in where you want your river (perhaps decrease the size of the brush) to drop down, with white, the higher part of the river you could paint in gray. Or use another painted shader and use this for a lesser depth of river. Then use this painted shader as the right hand side input for a displacement shader. Set this to minus something and your river will go down.
1. under landscape you mean heightfield?
2. if i pre-render, it won't change anything, or am i wrong?
3. paint, if i'm not mistaking, acts weirdly. or is it only on my computer?
4. i don't really care about deepness of the river - it should be pretty low. i just want it to be.
5. ok, i'll try that and write here.
1. Yes
2. Indeed, and no, you're right (I mean the preview window upper right)
3. That's why you have to pause the pre render, or it might crash.
4. You can put any height in the displacement
5. Good luck. Experiment!!!
you say it so easy that i want to believe i can do it all by myself. but no, let's do it together. ok, for now then, let's do the
1. heightfield. how do i make it steep but max a couple of meters high? 3 meters is my max.
2. actually, i thought you were talking about pushing the render button, wait for the dots to load, and then pause... (and indeed, i didn't even know there is that button...)
3. ok, i'll try that
4. i thought it might be easier to do it with Make river operator (in heightfield -> add operator)
5. let's try it, but don't think i won't write here... i'll stop writing here only when i get it done so that (well, maybe somebody will be about creating this fall interested too...) i can write tutorial. basic, of course, but you know, it's always good to create waterfall.
6. EDIT i tried it just now, but the paint shader is not visible, tried both paused and updaused versions. any ideas? or i'm something doing wrong? the right hand side input is function (in displacement connected to paint shader)
This is going to be hard if you don't know the basics of TG2. I suggest you read some tutorials and download some sample files, create some simple landscapes, then start thinking about a waterfall. All sorts of information can be found here on the forum. Sorry, but I have no time to take you through these steps. If you search for 'waterfall' or 'painted shader' you might find some tgd's.
But one hint: the button to activate the painted shader once you have created it is in the top of your GUI.
OK, no problem here. if you don't have time to teach me basics, that's pretty much fine. but i do hope you have time to teach me advanced features.
No problem.
I still can't understand the Painted shader. How do I use it properly? I draw a kind of a line for the river, but all I get is just a kind of line. On the pre-rendering window, not the real rendering one. How do I apply it to the Heightfield so that I can have it "painted"?
My settings for the heightfield are:
3000
0.007
1
This is my (basic so far, will be asking for more advanced (like how to make stones out of it, so that water falls not from land, but from stones) later. For now, just the river, since I have the heightfield. I also don't know pretty much about how to use the Image map shader. Agree, I know too little of Terragen to create beautiful pictures. But I'm learning so far, and hope to know more and more every time I have a response to my questions. So, my question for, let's even say this week, is: How to make river? And fill it with water? Though it's pretty easy - I should make 2 lakes, one on top, one on the bottom ground. That sounds nice. But I don't know what shoud I do to apply/pin/associate/connect/whatever to make a river, not the waterfall yet... Let's just go step by step...
Hi Miha
:)
The painter Shader. Used this way the shader will create a black and white greyscale image (its a vector map really) where the areas that are white can apply an effect and the areas that are black will not apply the effect. To use the Painter shader to make a river do the following.
Right click in the render preview window and select "Open in New window". In this new window select top view and move your preview view to a place where you can see the area where you want to draw your river.
Let the preview window finish rendering and press "Pause.".
Now click on the small paint brush icon at the top of the preview window. Select "Start Painter Sahder" and then "Create new Painter Shader".
Double click on the new Painter shader node to open it and dial in the brush size you want for the river, its in Meters. Depending on your river something between 3 and 30 seems cool for a small river but it depends on your scale and needs.
Now select the Transform Tab and check that its set to "Plan Y" and "Final Position".
Open the displacement shader node and type in a depth for your river. (-3 to -30 for example)
Feed the output of the displacement shader into your terrain stack or directly into your "compute Terrain" node.
You should now see a negative displacement where the river is.
Of course you can achieve different kinds of effect depending where the displacement shader is in your node tree.
Try using a "merge shader" mixing the river displacement with terrain shader.
Hope this helps and good luck :)
Richard
I spent some time to fix you a nice waterfall (or fast flowing mountain river). Perhaps not perfect (I didn't even render it, so I don't know exactly what it looks like), but I think it has a lot of aspects for you to study. Dissect, look into the nodes what I did, study the connections and learn! Then make your own. Good luck (everyone).
---Dune
Thanks Ulco. I have been stuck trying different things. I have learned a little, but I am frustrated.
cyphyr - that is the problem, I can't use it. I select it, I draw it, I do a displacement to it, and nothing! Actually, there's a little problem: it says "BeginStroke() is not called. What that is I don't know. Maybe that's the all reason I can't draw? And how would I make it disappear? (This error, not the shader or program...)
Dune, thank you, I really appreciate your help. You know, it's pretty far away from my picture, but thanks. I'll study by it, since it's way much better to learn on somebody else's creations, since it's all written already. But don't think I'll have more questions on my specific project. (well, kind of specific... project..., it's just for me only, nobody else (except of you guys, of course) won't see.)
Some interesting parameters in your TGD file Dune :)
I wonder what "Calculate depth of field", "GI prepass_padding", "Soft_shadow_sample_jitter", "Anisotropic_enviro_light" and "stitchable_border" could possibly be about ;)
Lookin' forward to the next release ;D
Richard
Ps ~ simple screen shot of basic river set up attached.
Also make sure the camera is close enough to see the effect your after.
Ok, from the picture above, I can see that I should have added the Displacement shader in Terrain field. I mean, I added Displacement shader, just adding a painted shader as a function, just like on a picture. Now it works! Next question: So, do I just create 2 lakes for the rivers to be filled? I will definitely do stones, trees, and grass, but I need the waterfall. Though it's a question for some other time...
Your lakes can be a rounded painted shader like the river. Go to the water tab. Add a lake. This is really just an object that sits over the terrain. Use the get coordinates in the preview window; this is for the center of one of the lakes (or both, depends on how they are set up). Now copy these coordinates to the Centre of the lake using the box on the right. Last, adjust the height/altitude of the lake.
Try this for fun; add a lake, set your POV (camera) to a few meters above the water level, add a distance shader, set it to your camera, and set the near distance (black) to 100 the far distance (white) to 110. Now output this into a displacement shader, set its displacement to 10-20 (or whatever positive value), and output this into the water shader... waterfall.
All sorts of varieties possible, like using a second camera especially for this if you want to move your POV different from the angle of the waterfall, or a mix of distance shaders and extra Powerfractals, adding foam.....
I admire your patience, Ulco! :)
OK, so, that's what I got so far. After so long discussions and your help. I know it's not perfect, but that is the view I want. Of course, it needs lots more of details, so if you just could help me. It's about 2 meters (7 ft) tall, and it (I really hope) will have a waterfall, though it already has a river on top and on bottom. So, something needs to fall from top to bottom... And ground. I really need to choose a good color for ground... And! A big and: it needs stones. Couldn't do them on the bottom level, don't know why. Though they are needed mostly in river. And a grass. Also, what trees should be in these jungles? You've helped me a lot here, so let's finish it! Also, it would have been great if it could have
P.S. Couldn't find why the water on the top is not visible.
P.P.S. Of course, it's just a broad idea on what I want to do, so just to give you a general idea. Advances will be made, with your help.
I know it's hard, but here you have a 'slight' adaptation of your tgd. Was interesting for me as well. I admit it's not perfect at all (not at all!!), but it's good study material.
The painted shader is not really my favorite, but it works. I prefer masks made in Photoshop, because they can be made more subtle.
Good luck.
Thank you, Dune. You really have what I want! From the picture, I can tell it's good. It really does look good, but the only problem here is that the fall is a little wider than I expected. So, I narrowed it, as you can see. Also, don't know why, I have 64 errors in your .tgd file.
After narrowing your fall, I made it a little "too low" for riverbed. But I kind of like it, so I guess I'll leave it like that. (I told you I'm not any good in Terragen, just hoping to create my dream pictures in this program.)
P.S. I saw you have two suns??? Why is that?
The 64 errors are because I have an alpha test version, with extra features. Just save it and reopen, they won't bother you anymore.
If you make another painted shader, you can paint any stream. Then replace it. You can alter the height of the stream in the section of the water. There's one surface shader, which can be displaced down or up. Use the offset.
I added another sun to try to get extra sparkles in the waterfall, although it's not perfect. It depends on the exact angle. You can also use it to give dark shadows a bit extra light.
This really does look very good. Now, I just have to plant some grass and trees on there, and I might be done. Good to hear someone is interested not only to help me, but to, actually, do all the work for me... I hope I'll learn a lot from this example. Thank you.
P.S. Don't forget that any additional help is welcome...
I have been following this also. Thanks!
njeneb, it's nice to hear I'm not alone, and others are also interested in creating beautiful pictures. Updates to come, I hope in about a week, with grass and trees...
Don't get discouraged. Terragen 2 is fun. When things get too hard, use the parts of the program you are good with. An image you produce which you like is always encouraging. I am attempting to get good with image maps now. Using multiple maps is proving a challenge so far. ::) ;)
Quote from: njeneb on October 13, 2010, 05:29:40 PM
Don't get discouraged. Terragen 2 is fun. When things get too hard, use the parts of the program you are good with. An image you produce which you like is always encouraging. I am attempting to get good with image maps now. Using multiple maps is proving a challenge so far. ::) ;)
:) I seem to have a hard time with image map shaders, I don't usually use them :( Thankfully I live without them :D
Keep at it miha2, i'm sure you'll get there. You're really lucky to have someone like Dune helping you through this, he's one of our pro's :D
Ulco's been giving me good advise in this thread. I sort of hijacked it. It's about image maps. But I am not going to ask for any more in his thread.
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10953.msg112401#msg112401
Oh, yeah... With Dune, but not with him alone, I'll get there, I'm sure.
OK, after almost 3 weeks, sorry, I was busy..., now look at this: this is my almost final, let's call it like this. I planted some trees here, so it' s looking like this now. Anything I should remove/change?
Dune, you'll never recognize your old job. I'm really thankful to you for your job, but I rebuilt it. So, here it is, look at it, and let me know your comments.
P.S. At first, I wanted to create a jungle waterfall, but after the job I (and by I I mean my changes, not the whole project) 've done, I decided to plant some firs. The example is as follows.
P.P.S. The trees are too dark. How do I do them greener?
You should post a rendered image for us to see and comment.
OK, here it is.
From what I read in your tgd you have no image/texture applied to your tree. Open it up (rightclick) and search for the EU22.lef/brn/brk files and such in color and opacity tabs.
Hello Dune. Where (and what) exactly should I be looking? Is it MTL or obj? Or in Terragen?
Open a new Terragen, import the tree object (not a population), rightclick on the object node, and click 'internal', you'll see a parts shader, rightclick again, open 'internal' and you'll see a few default shaders. Dubbelclick on it and you'll open the settings. There, in the color tab, you have to find the objects 'lef' file. Also in the opacity tab, you find the same file, and check 'use alpha'. Same for bark and other things in the other default shaders.
Then render and see if it's ok.
Then go back up to the main level, rightclick on the object node and save as tgo. You should use that as the object for your populations.