Hi,
After playing around with the firstscene, I figured I'd start on the project that I've been meaning to do.
The project is to create a continent with the different terrains and vegetation.
I'll be starting off with the default scene, with the terrain stuff removed.
Now, from what I understand from reading the docs is that heightfields should be used to create
'local' terrain and power fractals are to create global terrain. With a power fractal, it covers the whole
landscape with mountains, which isn't want I want since the continent I'm building isn't all mountains.
So I'm guessing I'd need to create heightfields that would generate the 'right' landscape and patch
them together to create a seamless continent. (One of my concerns is the 'seamless' part since
I'd have to make each heightfield and its neighbour 'continuous'.) Is this the right approach?
Thanks for any advice.
Ed
You can also make 'local' terrain by PF, so e.g. if you want ranges of mountains and ranges of flattish lands (or terraced lands), you make all 2 or 3 terrain types, and mask each by a (contrasty) power fractal with some very big proportions (like 2000/10000/500). Merge by merge shader with the mask as controller or via masked surface shaders.
Or use image maps to get the terrains where you want them.
Will you get by on this info?
For continent scales you should definitely use procedural shaders (Power Fractal being the primary - but not only - one) and not heightfields. You can get non-global features by using masks, as Dune mentions above. Masks can be procedural (large-scale Power Fractals, as stated above), but you can also use Image Maps for example, so you could paint a rough continent shape in an image editor and use that as a mask for a Power Fractal to get the right continent shape, with procedural detail inside it. Taking that a step further you can then paint individual masks for areas where you want mountains, hills, and plains, then use different procedural shaders (e.g. Power Fractals) with different settings to create each terrain type and use the masks you painted to blend between them. You can also use the built-in Painted Shader for basic masking.
- Oshyan
Uh yup, that 'bout covers it it does it does....well done guys...
Quote from: Dune on January 02, 2015, 03:58:59 AM
You can also make 'local' terrain by PF, so e.g. if you want ranges of mountains and ranges of flattish lands (or terraced lands), you make all 2 or 3 terrain types, and mask each by a (contrasty) power fractal with some very big proportions (like 2000/10000/500). Merge by merge shader with the mask as controller or via masked surface shaders.
Or use image maps to get the terrains where you want them.
Will you get by on this info?
Yes. I believe that helps immensely as I was playing around with masking a main PF with heightfields, but it
got really confusing/complicated and even then I couldn't get what I wanted.
Thanks!
Ed