Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: Evilsoap on September 04, 2009, 06:51:39 AM

Title: What does the the childlayer do?
Post by: Evilsoap on September 04, 2009, 06:51:39 AM
Hi,

I have been playing around a while with TG2 and its awsome! At the moment im trying to make nice terrange surfaces for rock, sand etc. I have been reading the tutorials and some forum posts and i think im getting a hang on it but... What does the childlayer do in the Surfacelayer? Color, displacment, breakup etc is all explained and kind of clear to me but not the childlayer, what do I do with it!?:)

Cheers for an excellent forum and posts!

Martin
Title: Re: What does the the childlayer do?
Post by: Tangled-Universe on September 04, 2009, 07:00:45 AM
The childlayer function of a surface layer acts like a parent for another layer on top of that surface layer.
This shader/layer connected to the childlayer input is then called a child-layer, logically.

This child-layer can be anything. A powerfractal with just displacement, or just color, or both. But also other surfacelayers for example.
You can stack childlayers this way, it's very flexible.

The parent surface-layer over-rules the restriction settings of the childlayer. You should consider it as a hierarchy similar to how folders are organised on your harddrive. Do you delete the first level then you also delete the second, third etc.
If you have set a max slope of 30 degrees in your parent-layer then all its childlayers will have the same restriction.

A lot of this info can be found in the documentation section of this forum, but if it is not clear then feel free to ask.
Hope this helped so far.

Cheers,
Martin