I am checking out Geocontrol 2, I am convinced GC2+TG2 should be a winner.
Sadly I can not figure out the workflow from GC2 to TG2. I can of course get my mountain in TG2, but I can not shade the GC2 "selectors" (i.e. rivers etc.).
Basically I am following the GC2 to Vue tutorial here http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/geocontrol-2-vue1.html#thumb, using the very same files, only trying to do the same with Terragen.
I would appreciate if anyone familiar with GC2 could please post a basic workflow.
It should be fairly simple, given that you've already got the terrain in. As long as you're outputting the images in a format that TG2 can read, you can load them with either an Image Map Shader or a Default Shader.
What you'll want to do is setup the texture you want to control with the "selector" image. So for example create a Surface Layer, give it a color, some displacement, etc. Then go to the Blend Shader input near the bottom, click the +> button and go to Create New Shader, Colour Shader, Image Map Shader. Now find your image in the file dialog that pops up and select it. Next, you need to set the camera projection to PlanY at the top, and then set the size of the image to be the same size as your heightfield (Geocontrol should be able to tell you how big it is in meters). Once that's done, it should then be controlling the distribution of your surface layer as expected. Mind you it may also be under the influence of the Fractal Breakup input, which you can disable if you want to control it exclusively with the "selector" map using the Blend Shader, or just disable temporarily to see the full influence of the selector on the surface layer distribution.
Of course I didn't cover the Default Shader, and there are in fact other ways to do this as well. That's one of the things about TG2, there are often different ways to do things that may provide similar results. The underlying techniques that make several methods possible to achieve a single effect are usually available in order to achieve other effects not otherwise possible.
- Oshyan
Oshyan thanks for your help. I did it, just as you said. As a test I colored the four shaders with intense colors red, green, blue and yellow.
As you can see, first it appears that the river is not exactly where it should be, and second, most important, the other three "features" do not show up. A bit of fluvial (the red one) is visible in close ups, as three or four red dots here and there. No sign of green and yellow. The bitmaps created by GC2 are all full of information and quite contrasty.
(http://www.fineartplatinum.com/kate/alpsscreenshot.jpg)
Oshyan please don't waste more time on this. I managed to try with Vue and the three features hardly show up there either! So it must be either the bitmaps or the tutorial itself are wrecked.
I can't believe a proper example of walkthrough from GC to Terragen is not available anywhere on the net. ???
<teasing on>
You could ask Cajomi, he is the developer of GeoControl and is a user on this forum, too. Just send him a PM. I hope that he'll give some explanations in this thread. ;)
<teasing off>
The procedure as described by Oshian is correct, there is not much else to do from our (Terragen) side. If Cajomi has chosen to offer his product without proper tutorials on how to interface it with the only two landscaping applications out there it means that he prefers that way or he has no time, either way there is little point in asking IMO.
Both TG2 and GC2 come with little documentation, it is apparently up to the users to find out, "having fun" experimenting. But where TG2 (as well as the old Terragen) have a certain subtle charm that makes this enjoyable, Geocontrol is a bit more harsh.
Maybe one day some giant such as Eon or Autodesk will buy both and come out with a $2000 product with 3 GB of content and 500 pages of manuals and everything will be sorted... not sure I will like that either though ::)
I think the issue is liable to be down to the difference between procedural data and rasterised data. Both GC and TG produce all their own internal procedural data to create their heightfields. This data is near infinite in resolution but once exported it becomes a raster bitmap of some discription which is inherently limited in resolution. You will have to use MASSIVE bitmaps to get around this and it will become impractical very quickly. Maybe 64 bit will help (anybody know if GC is 64Bit or planned?) but the only real solution I can see is a direct export of whatever functions are used to create the details in the terrain your after. A possible use for the SDK when released ...
Richard
There seems to be no issues on my end. What i did was made a 1024 by 1024 resolution terrain inside of GeoControl, saved the .ter export, made the selections for the masks and added surfaces layers with image map blending like what you did and set the image maps to 16,000 meters according to the 1024 size and everything fit perfectly. Best to make 4096 by 4096 height fields and image maps for the masks that way your raster data can be viewed close up. Adding fractal details to your imported data from Terragen helps as well.
Note: The borders looks funky but just turn Border Blending all the way down.
Here is the .GTS and .TGD files to get you going. Just render out the provided .GTS file for GeoControl for the Terragen file, both thin flows selections, river and lake selections because they are too big to upload here. The TGD file should read them accordingly and make sure the GeoControl resolutions match to Terragen's measurements.
CCC thanks for the files and tips, worked like a charm. I was totally misled by the Vue (!) tutorial which I was following at the start, now everything makes perfect sense. Thank you everyone! ;D
I have been playing with Vue a little. It's workflow is different than Terragen 2's. The way terrains are handled and made is also different.
Quote from: Parrot69 on September 13, 2009, 06:15:05 PM
CCC thanks for the files and tips, worked like a charm. I was totally misled by the Vue (!) tutorial which I was following at the start, now everything makes perfect sense. Thank you everyone! ;D
No problem. The terrain sizes take some getting used to but once it all fits well then it is all good to go.
Quote from: cyphyr on September 13, 2009, 02:10:11 PM
I think the issue is liable to be down to the difference between procedural data and rasterised data. Both GC and TG produce all their own internal procedural data to create their heightfields. This data is near infinite in resolution but once exported it becomes a raster bitmap of some discription which is inherently limited in resolution. You will have to use MASSIVE bitmaps to get around this and it will become impractical very quickly. Maybe 64 bit will help (anybody know if GC is 64Bit or planned?) but the only real solution I can see is a direct export of whatever functions are used to create the details in the terrain your after. A possible use for the SDK when released ...
Richard
I check the geocontrol forums often and i do not recall seeing any plans for 64bit but i am sure it is on Cajomi's mind.
CCC one last question I don't understand in your post when you say to "set image maps 16000x16000 according to the 1024 size" but I just don't get it why since the terrain is 22500x22500 ?
Quote from: Parrot69 on September 14, 2009, 09:05:09 AM
CCC one last question I don't understand in your post when you say to "set image maps 16000x16000 according to the 1024 size" but I just don't get it why since the terrain is 22500x22500 ?
For a 1024 by 1024 terrain resolution for the Terragen file format in meters, the correct size once inside of Terragen needs to be 15,360 by 15,360 meters otherwise nothing will line up correctly. With larger resolutions, just double everything at that point. Don't go by what GeoControl is telling you as you are using Terragen units when exporting .ter files.
I meant to say 15,360 meters. I was off a bit.
So basically don't trust GC size but multiply its resolution by 15 instead... got it thanks! ;D ... jeez I don't know how people are supposed to find out all these info!
Quote from: Parrot69 on September 14, 2009, 11:29:34 AM
So basically don't trust GC size but multiply its resolution by 15 instead... got it thanks! ;D ... jeez I don't know how people are supposed to find out all these info!
Well, it really depends on what Terrains application the user intends to use. They all read terrain resolutions slightly differently then one another. Like video formats, there is no solid standard. ;D
I don't know how GC outputs to TER format, but the TER format does include a "point spacing" parameter that determines how many meters the terrain should occupy in world space. This allows you to spread very low resolution terrains over large areas (useful, for example, for orbital views), or use very high resolution terrains in small areas (useful, of course for high detail). So the *resolution* is independent of the *area* of a terrain. Now again, how GC handles this I don't know. Many - perhaps even most or all - of its other formats may not support this, so it may in fact only export with some default scaling value. But ideally it would be controllable from within GC as it is in many other apps, and I imagine it is. If you can find where the terrain size is indicated in meters, and not just pixels, that would be the size you should set your Image Map Shader to.
- Oshyan
In GeoControl it would be 22,500 meters for 1024 by 1024 where inside of Terragen it would be 30,720 meters. The terrain size however can be changed to much larger sizes in meters or much smaller but the output can remain 1024 or up to 4096 or as small as 64. It depends on how much large scale terrains a user wants weather it be a hill or a chain of mountains in GeoControl meter sizes. Other then that, GeoControl does an excellent job of outputting .ter files and it looks very good on higher resolutions like 4096.
I don't really understand the reason for the discrepancy, but I don't have GC myself to experiment with...
- Oshyan
Hello, all
I am the author of the Geocontrol 2 Vue tutorial (http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/geocontrol-2-vue1.html).
I had included the Geocontrol .gts file to enable you to generate the terrain (right click and save as)
Was your issue solved just by using a different export format and resizing the terrain?
I propose other terrains in free download in the 3d models (http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/models.html) section of my website. If the filesizes are not too large, I may include additional formats to make it easier to use them in other programs (typically Bryce and Terragen). Would that be of interest to you?
I believe that more tools are better. Each program has it's strengths. The main problem I have is affording the tools.
Answer: Yes
@offrench - Yes.
Offrench thanks for the GC2>Vue tutorial that got me started.. with GC2>Terragen ;D
I must say GC2 in Terragen yields the best terrains I have ever seen with any other application. The example below is a very basic TG2 scene with a *1024* Geocontrol terrain, look at the details there is not even need to slow down GC2 with higher resolution terrains.
To recap the workflow from zero:
- make terrain in GC2 and export for Terragen, (e.g. an 1024 terrain)
- in Terragen add Heightfield Operator Load to get the terrain
- add Heighfield Operator resize and resize to 15x the original resolution, (e.g. 15*1024=15360)
if it doesn't look the same as in GC2 (i.e. lower or taller) :
- add Heighfield Operator adjust vertical and either half or double the height accordingly
- back in GC2 go to the Selectors Tab and Create and Export all of them
- in TG2 add Surface Layer Shaders accordingly
- check at the bottom Blend by Shader and assign Image Map shader
- in the Image Map shader choose Projection Plan Y and correct size (e.g. 15360)
- disable Blend as coverage may help or not
- enable the purple color and you should see the coverage of GC2 flowmaps and... that's it!
I have noticed that often Geocontrol flows and sediments don't show up enough because exported bitmaps are too dark, if that is the case I usually raise the whites with the Curves tool in Photoshop.
(http://www.fineartplatinum.com/kate/hs.jpg)
I just download the demo version to have play :) I think I had this quite a few years go not sure, long time gone pc, different email etc, no way of being sure :(
The version I dl'd says its a beta version (GeoControl pre-release / Build 36) and some of the functions are disabled (The project functions are disabled in the pre-release)
but the site says:
"The demo versions are limited to 31 day
They are fully function enabled."
Is GeoControle still in pre-release development? Not an issue, I'm kind of used to that by now lol :)
Richard
If the exported raster maps are too dark, what else you can do is lower the gamma inside of the image map shader to 1 or less therefore raising the whites in the imported image.
The latest version of GeoControl is build 41 and i believe it is not in beta anymore. However Johannes is back to work with it and will be adding more goodies in the near future. ;D
Hi Parrot, nice terrain ... it looks like that some of the details here are due to the heightfield shader itself. This is good as it adds more details to the loaded/generated heightfield. :)
Most of us want to do what it is we want to do. Terragen 2 is so flexible, we find ways to do the things we do. There is always a way. After using the program, things become intuitive; you know what to try.
Quote from: Parrot69 on September 15, 2009, 05:47:24 PM
I have noticed that often Geocontrol flows and sediments don't show up enough because exported bitmaps are too dark, if that is the case I usually raise the whites with the Curves tool in Photoshop.
Same problem in Vue, but I handle this with a brightness/contrast filter within the Vue function editor.
The rivers generally show up correctly.
As shown in my tutorial, I also use selectors based on roughness to place rocks in specific areas of the terrain.
I don't know if it can be useful for Terragen, though, as there may be other ways to do this.
My latest picture with GC2 / Vue 7.
6 or 7 different materials mixed in there (plus ecosystems)
(http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/assets/images/gallery/land/-canadian-rockies.jpg) (http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/canadian-rockies.html)
I will probably post this terrain on my website.
I am curious to see what you Terragen guys can do with it!
That's actually a very cool image. I'd really like to try emulating that in TG2.
:)
Richard
I have uploaded the terrain here: http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/tyrol-3d-heightfield.html
The masking maps are included.
You may have to increase the contrast of the flows map as it is a bit dark.
Let me know if there are any problems with the file.
The river mask shows up correctly because it is almost solid white anyways which helps a lot but i do hope that in the near future that the masks are anti-aliased for good close-ups.
I am working on a nice eroded canyon from GeoControl which uses a few masks but i am going to need to render it over night soon. :)
Thanks for the files, this topic was most interesting, here is a quick test of the results :P
Quote from: offrench on September 16, 2009, 02:59:15 PM
I have uploaded the terrain here: http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/tyrol-3d-heightfield.html
The masking maps are included.
You may have to increase the contrast of the flows map as it is a bit dark.
Let me know if there are any problems with the file.
This thread shows a great piece of sample data made by GC2 and using it TG2
http://www.cajomi.de/Forum/showthread.php?t=501
I made it when GC2 first was released. That was in Oct 2007 - its moved on since then and its a great program (IMHO).
The mechanism described earlier in this thread is ideal. (use surface layers - one for each feature map you decide to use)
Cheers...
Thanks offrench for the generous offering.