An older World Machine 2 terrain titled "Sears Tower", MoodFlows starfield background and yeah...I'm still using image maps for cliffs and sand :(.
Any suggestions on learning shaders and making realistic surfaces would be appreaciated. Thanks!
I'd be tempted to put the tiniest amount of blur on your heightfield map, to try and avoid those verticle sides. The slightest slope will allow better texture cover. Also a higher bit per channel will avoid gradient banding, which will result in stepping in the blur.
As for your ground/rock textures, maybe greyscale them to use as displacement maps instead of colour, so that you then have full colour control in blending your surfaces with various slope dependencies.
Interesting composition.
Execution - understandable since you're not an experienced Terragen user - is not very good but the mood and composition is excellent in my opinion. You need to learn the technical things also and you'll do great.
Thanks McNistor. So what would you suggest to help this image along?