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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: bobbystahr on December 13, 2014, 12:36:02 PM

Title: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 13, 2014, 12:36:02 PM
I've been trying this for too much time and it's time to ask; has anyone successfully and evenly populated a disk. No matter what I try it only populates to isolated vertices if at all. Help.

EDIT
against my nature I took the disk down to 12 segments and now it will populate but only on every 4th segment. meant a lot of manual editing of the 'asteroids' but got it done. Next phase...I dunno.....s'where I am today...out in space'd
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: Dune on December 14, 2014, 03:33:22 AM
It doesn't seem like you can. Instead use a flat sphere.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 14, 2014, 08:44:05 AM
Quote from: Dune on December 14, 2014, 03:33:22 AM
It doesn't seem like you can. Instead use a flat sphere.

But you can't make a torus from that Ulco; was working on an easy way to make a ring of space junk orbiting a planet and the new disk would be uniquely suited to that given that you can make a 2D torus from it. Too bad.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: j meyer on December 14, 2014, 10:55:05 AM
Since we can populate on objects why don't you use an
imported torus/ring whatever model?
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 14, 2014, 08:22:23 PM
Quote from: j meyer on December 14, 2014, 10:55:05 AM
Since we can populate on objects why don't you use an
imported torus/ring whatever model?

I guess maybe because the disk was there and could be one I figured to use that. Kinda took the wind outa my sails on that though.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: WAS on December 14, 2014, 10:22:28 PM
Quote from: bobbystahr on December 14, 2014, 08:22:23 PM
Quote from: j meyer on December 14, 2014, 10:55:05 AM
Since we can populate on objects why don't you use an
imported torus/ring whatever model?

I guess maybe because the disk was there and could be one I figured to use that. Kinda took the wind outa my sails on that though.

Could you not create multiple 'layers' of populations and mask them with a global 'torus' shape to achieve your field of objects? I'd imagine you could use a couple different sizes of the mask shape to achieve a smashed torus with the center of the mass extending further then the top/bottom of the populations. For example I recently did a ring of stones for a a barrier between grass and dirt and a bush in a garden using a image mask based on a ring from photoshop. On that sort of scale though, I am unsure of how scales would take and memory lol
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 10:33:10 PM
The Terragen native objects are rather unwieldy and my personal advice would be to avoid them unless there's something specific that you need them for that for whatever reason imported geometry will not do.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 14, 2014, 10:52:02 PM
Quote from: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 10:33:10 PM
The Terragen native objects are rather unwieldy and my personal advice would be to avoid them unless there's something specific that you need them for that for whatever reason imported geometry will not do.

For some, this disk and the plane I agree; but I've had a lot of fun with the displaceable sphere , cube and octahedron.
I'd like to see a complete set of displaceable mathematical primatives actually.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 11:03:30 PM
Yes, those are useful and they do things imported geometry cannot. 

Also, for all intents and purposes, they function almost the same as imports.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 14, 2014, 11:10:47 PM
Quote from: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 11:03:30 PM
Yes, those are useful and they do things imported geometry cannot. 

Also, for all intents and purposes, they function almost the same as imports.

we still can't add displacement to import objects is about it.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 11:34:06 PM
Sure you can.   ;D  It's just not as good, and you can't do it with AA.
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: bobbystahr on December 15, 2014, 01:26:03 AM
Quote from: Upon Infinity on December 14, 2014, 11:34:06 PM
Sure you can.   ;D  It's just not as good, and you can't do it with AA.

I did mean and still use the same pipeline with the same expected results...but you knew that
Title: Re: Any tips on populating to a disk
Post by: Dune on December 15, 2014, 02:50:56 AM
No problem at all; just use the flat sphere (1kx1kx1m), and add a circular simple shape same location, slightlt smaller (depends how wide you need the stones ring), make it an inverse mask for the stones. Sit stones on power fractal with enough displacement for the stones to float mixed heights, sit power fractal on flattened sphere, and then disable the sphere. Easy.