Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: Smirnoff on November 27, 2012, 05:51:58 PM

Title: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: Smirnoff on November 27, 2012, 05:51:58 PM
and i have lots and lots off questions , but i wont ask them all at once :) ( and i am learning a lot by reading on this forum)

English is not my native language so sorry for any mistakes I make.

i am trying to understand how terragen works and i have been reading a lot on this forum  but now i am stuck.
I have a terrain with mountains using a fractal terrain. so i have the mountains i want. But now i want the foreground to be smooth . i tried adding layers and shaders but none off them seems to do what i want it to do. And this is actualy my main problem , i dont understand the layering. when to use what en where :)
In the old terra you could manipulaid the terrain  by adding a mountain or making the terrain smooth again using a brush. Is this option still in terra 2?
thanks in advance

Tjitske



Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: TheBadger on November 27, 2012, 06:05:24 PM
Hi and welcome.

Your question is a common one and there have been a few posts on the subject. Give me a min and I'll see if I can find a post with the answers your looking for.
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: TheBadger on November 27, 2012, 06:17:08 PM
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=1176.msg11817#msg11817

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=13311.0 <---this one has a clip file that should help.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=fdcc073f924ae32981fa0b1f088ebecd&topic=13503.msg133059 ,--- this one should be just what your after. I think.

If these are helpful but you have questions about them, just post your questions here. If they are not helpful please restate your request.
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 28, 2012, 05:20:18 AM
Hi Tjitske,

Welcome to the forums. Another Dutchie, nice! :D

The problems you describe are very common. TG2 is unlike TG0.9x. Some functions, like the brush you mentioned, aren't present anymore.
There's a painted shader which allows you to paint masks on the terrain, but it does not *directly* alter the terrain like you could do with TG0.9x.
There's a lack of documentation and tutorials which guide you through the whole principle of scene building in TG2, like how you mask aspects of your scene to create desired effects like flattening/smoothing sections of your terrain or layering of surfaces etc.

I have documentation in the form of tutorials cooking, which will cover the very basics and foundations of TG2, so stay tuned.

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: mhaze on November 28, 2012, 06:33:41 AM
I've found many ways of flattening low parts of the terrain.  The simple shape shader can be used to flatten specific areas. I have just found out that a colour adjust shader can be used to flatten lower areas thoughout the whole terrain. Then there's the distance shader and finally from me the tga attached which I believe came from Hetzen, just attach to a displacement shader set to-1.

I forgot, if you are using a power fractal for your terrain you can set noise variation in the tweak noise tab to a higher number. Remeber in terragen you can set values far greater than those set by the slider.
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: Smirnoff on November 28, 2012, 11:07:39 AM
Thanks alot for answering me :)

@ the badger
Thank you so much for looking And finding these topic's for me , I have bookmarked them ( By now i have a map full with terra related bookmarks ^^)

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on November 28, 2012, 05:20:18 AM
There's a lack of documentation and tutorials which guide you through the whole principle of scene building in TG2, like how you mask aspects of your scene to create desired effects like flattening/smoothing sections of your terrain or layering of surfaces etc.

I have documentation in the form of tutorials cooking, which will cover the very basics and foundations of TG2, so stay tuned.

I am looking forward for those tut's becouse i have found i learn best from  clear descriptions that I can follow.

Now i do feel a little stupid , i had used a strata and outcrops shader , enabling this one solved my problem , but i realy wanted that one.

Quote from: mhaze on November 28, 2012, 06:33:41 AM
I forgot, if you are using a power fractal for your terrain you can set noise variation in the tweak noise tab to a higher number. Remeber in terragen you can set values far greater than those set by the slider.

And this one helped out a lot :)
so i am off to my planet and hopefully i will be able to show you a render if it come's out a litle decent.

Groetjes Tjitske.
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: Simius Strabus on November 28, 2012, 06:00:28 PM
This is a very helpful forum. So if you have any questions, just ask.

Groeten,
Chiel
Title: Re: New to terragen en this forum ..
Post by: Bjur on November 28, 2012, 08:01:32 PM
* I missunderstood his post, so ignore my post for possible help..  :-X