I've been having a go at Terragen, and I think I've made some pretty nice stuff. I've decided I wanted to make a second planet, and have a image taken of it from a different planet. I'm trying to make terrain on it, but I cant find a Fractal Terrain node to place, which I think would cause it to make the terrain. Also, the clouds on the planet seem to stick straight to the planets surface, rather than hovering above it at some distance.
EDIT : I also can't find Base Colours :(
A planet is an object. You'll find a that under the surface shaders tab the is a fractal terrain and an atmosphere node. These are where you would link the node setups for each; the fractal terrain for the new planet and the atmosphere settings and clouds for the new planet.
You can create new groups for each. It makes it easier to edit. Then just connect the last node into the surface input of your new planet.
Quote from: njeneb on July 30, 2011, 03:30:01 PM
A planet is an object. You'll find a that under the surface shaders tab the is a fractal terrain and an atmosphere node. These are where you would link the node setups for each; the fractal terrain for the new planet and the atmosphere settings and clouds for the new planet.
I'm confused. Where is this surface shaders tab? I'm at the planets internal network, but I have no clue where the surface shaders tab is.
When you are working in the nodes, you can right-click to get the various shaders, etc. When someone mentions "tabs", they are referring to the Tab group near the top of the GUI (Objects, Terrain, Shaders, etc.)
There is the default planet. The normal methods for adding surfaces and other nodes are very straight forward. You simply click onto the tab at the top of the program where you want to add your shaders... etc.
Click on the Objects tab. The default has two blue boxes, one for background and one for planet 01. Click on the Add Object/object and last planet. A blue box with planet 02 should appear. Click on planet 02.
Near the bottom of the input area which appears, you will see two inputs. They are right above the Displacement tolerance slider. The default for the Surface shader input is Power fractal v.3 01. This is where you would connect the more complicated node setup I mentioned before. To do this you need to click on the box on the right of this input and use assign and then select the last node of the planet's shader group you built.
Below the Surface shader input is the Atmosphere input. You would assign the more complex atmosphere group's last node here.
I hope this is making more sense.
Alright. The planet has hills and mountains now ;D , but I don't know how to give the terrain colour. I can do it to planet 1, but I don't know how to do it to another planet ???
You can set up the planet 02 using the planet 01 shaders. Create a new group. Name it something which makes sense to you. Now select all the nodes in the shaders group and move them to the new group box. Assign the last node to the planet 02 Surface shader input.
Now you can add a new base colours to the old shaders group. Assign this to the Surface shader input of planet 01. You should be able to go from there normally.
Alright, the terrain has colour, and is looking pretty good. I'm trying to use the Atlantic clip, and I have managed to import it into the planet, but I don't know how to link it up.
To connect a clip file (tgc) to the input of another node, left click on the small triangle at the bottom of the last node in the clip file. A line should appear when you pull the mouse away. You pull this line to the connection triangle on top of the node you are connecting the clip file to. Usually there are two of these triangles at the top of the node box. The first is the input. This builds onto the node you are connecting to. The second is the blending connection. This is used to alter the coverage (for an example, it does more).
Of course. But I don't seem to have a place to link the water to. The final input area just don't seem to have a section for it.
If you create a lake object in the water tab, there is a link there for a water shader by default. Just use the assign button on the right of the input to link to the last shader of the tgc clip file you loaded.
Quote from: njeneb on August 17, 2011, 03:23:51 PM
If you create a lake object in the water tab, there is a link there for a water shader by default. Just use the assign button on the right of the input to link to the last shader of the tgc clip file you loaded.
The Atlantic clip comes with everything it needs, but the lake part's output goes no where.
That is where you connect the lake object from.
Quote from: njeneb on August 18, 2011, 12:04:40 PM
That is where you connect the lake object from.
Now I'm extremely confused. The Atlantic clip comes with everything it needs, including the lake set up. I've pasted it inside the planet's node network. I just don't know where to connect the lake's output, as the planet does not have a final input for water.
Can you post your tgd file to the file sharing section? I'll take a look. Maybe if I can see it I will be able to explain things better.
I'm not exactly sure what a tgd file is, but here is a screenshot of what I mean.
(http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5972/atlantic.png)
I'm not sure where the output from the lake goes. I assume it would go to a the final input section, but there is no input for it to go to.
Have you added a Lake object from the water tab? If not do so. Now click on the surface shader tab of the Lake object. There will be an input that says water shader 01 or water shader 02. Click on the box to the right of this. There should be two choices, assign and create. You'll select assign. This will bring up the node tree selection window. You'll select the Surfacelayer - Foam.
On the main tab. There is a slider for the water level. You'll need to increase this until the water appears in the preview image.
In your screenshot, the red nodes are the shaders. The gray node, Lake 01, is the object; in this case a plane.
The Lake node is an Object Node, so it does not need to be connected to any input. However you do need to specify the planet it references on its Planet tab (inside the Lake node's settings).
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on August 18, 2011, 05:34:20 PM
The Lake node is an Object Node, so it does not need to be connected to any input. However you do need to specify the planet it references on its Planet tab (inside the Lake node's settings).
- Oshyan
Thank you. I completely forgot about that. I hardly ever do any planet renders. At least that is my excuse and I'm sticking with it.
Alright then, this is getting very strange. I've linked it to the planet, but nothings happened. Not a single damned change. Its width is the same as the planets, which I assume should make it a planet wide ocean. The depth is set up to what I think should make it fairly deep (7500).
But nothing has changed.
You may need to create a sphere object at the same location as the planet object. The new sphere will just be slightly larger than the planet object. (You can copy and paste the size from the planet) Now link the ocean tgc file to this sphere. You should have a planetwide ocean.
Getting the size correct is tricky at best.
Easier to just simply use both spheres at exactly the same size.
This might seem a silly thing to say on first look, if you're only used to seeing surface-level shots, but even then, it's apparent what is happening with fractal displacement. Fractal displacement doesn't just happen in the upwards direction...
A power fractal with displacement amplitude of '2000m'(default terrain) will displace 1000m(maximum) each way, both up and down. The displacement is measured from the default planet normal(the surface before displacement).
This is very easy to understand once you realise what's happening, and with the fractals displacing in each direction, this will create peaks and troughs, so that the planet-sized water sphere will still be visible where the surface displaces downwards into troughs. :)
Agreed, if you want a planet-wide ocean don't use the Lake (note: "lake", not "ocean" ;) ) object, instead use a 2nd sphere with a water shader and play with its scale (starting at the same as your planet) until you have the desired water level.
- Oshyan
And if you don't really need depth (meaning transparency), you might consider a reflective shader, added to the water shader, where the water shader has transparency and/or reflectivity set to 0. The water shader just provides the waves. The Reflective shader is faster to render.
Quote from: Dune on August 20, 2011, 03:21:59 AM
And if you don't really need depth (meaning transparency), you might consider a reflective shader, added to the water shader, where the water shader has transparency and/or reflectivity set to 0. The water shader just provides the waves. The Reflective shader is faster to render.
In that case, why not just set transparency to 0 on the water shader, then you don't need a separate reflective shader?
Why didn't I think of that :-\