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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: sirhoff on April 12, 2008, 05:20:29 PM

Title: trees meet water
Post by: sirhoff on April 12, 2008, 05:20:29 PM
I'm trying to make a mountain lake where trees will go to and stop at the water's edge.  I have the trees and the water but they go right into the lake.  Anyone know how to do this?
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: nvseal on April 12, 2008, 05:41:58 PM
Use a color distribution shader as the blending shader (or it may be density shader). Set the minimum altitude to just above the water level.
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: Mohawk20 on April 13, 2008, 02:51:22 AM
You can also use a surface layer for the populations distribution.
Remember, after setting the correct altitude, to decrease the fuzzy zone, otherwise they will be 200 meters from the water, in stead of at the edge.
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: wrestler4life76 on April 20, 2008, 12:59:24 PM
ok i am doing something similar to this my big issue i am have is when i parent the pop to the surface layer even with the alt. constariants set to the water level it is rendering trees across the water i have disable the water and made sure that my layer stops at the water line and it does. and in some cases like when i remove my max alt. constraints the trees on populate on the highest points and dont even reach the waterline how does one fix this.
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: Mohawk20 on April 20, 2008, 04:54:26 PM
Are you sure the surface layer is set as the 'density shader' in the populations settings?
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: wrestler4life76 on April 20, 2008, 06:11:08 PM
tg2 crashed shortly after posting so i have to start over from a prior save
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: mr-miley on April 21, 2008, 05:17:38 AM
Hi

This isn't something to do with earth curvature, or something, is it. I seem to remember a long time ago something being posted about alt. constraints and water. I have this happen all the time. If you are close to the shore and population, the min alt of the population behaves and the trees don't go into the water, but if you are a long way away the numerical alt of the water is completely different from the numerical alt you have to put into the pop min alt. I'm sure that Mat or someone posted that it had to do with earth curvature and the alt system as it related to water? Then again, maybe I'm talking out of my arse  ;D Even if I am, if you are a long way from the water, the alt of the water and the min alt of the pop don't necessaraly match. just fiddle with the min alt of the pop till the trees stop going into the water.

Miles
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: Mohawk20 on April 21, 2008, 11:55:24 AM
Ah, and another thing... how big is the fuzzy zone?
If it's 200 (standard), then perhaps you should lower that.
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: 3DGuy on April 21, 2008, 03:29:28 PM
Quote from: mr-miley on April 21, 2008, 05:17:38 AM
Hi

This isn't something to do with earth curvature, or something, is it.

Could well be, I've posted a question about that in the past. The lake object is flat and doesn't follow the curvature of the planet.
Title: Re: trees meet water
Post by: Matt on April 22, 2008, 02:42:28 PM
The lake object should curve with the curvature of the planet as long as the planet is linked correctly in the lake's parameters. You can test this by increasing the lake radius to something like 1e6 (1 million) and pulling the camera back out to space.

The problems with the distribution could be due to an incorrect use of the shaders. The distribution shader should be a single Distribution Shader V4 which is not connected to any other shaders in the project. If you use one of the shaders in the main shader network, any shaders higher up the chain will contribute colour which will add positive distribution where you don't want it. You don't need to feed terrain data into the Distribution Shader; that's all handled automatically by the Populator before it reads the distribution shader.

Matt