Planetside Software Forums

Support => Terragen Support => Topic started by: AP on December 01, 2013, 04:22:23 PM

Title: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 01, 2013, 04:22:23 PM
I have an issue that I was fighting all day and for the life of me, I can not figure our as to why the shader input is only effecting the background mask and not the entire masked zone as seen here. What could I possibly be doing wrong?
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Kevin F on December 01, 2013, 05:34:18 PM
please upload the file, as what you've provided gives little or no useful information.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 01, 2013, 05:42:32 PM
Right, that part I forgot. Been a busy day.    ;)

Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: yossam on December 01, 2013, 06:08:38 PM
You have a few unconnected nodes in your file......................could that be the problem?
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Kevin F on December 02, 2013, 05:30:06 AM
I don't really understand your problem. What do you mean by the "background mask and not the entire masked zone"?
Where's or what is the mask? What are you trying to achieve say with the purple test colour area?
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 03, 2013, 05:33:47 PM
The mask is the colored area in the image I posted. I wanted to displace the masked area using a power fractal but when i displace it, only the far background is effected and nothing takes place in the close foreground.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Oshyan on December 03, 2013, 09:55:39 PM
I'm not sure what you're unclear about. Your Power Fractal is a child of the Surface Layer 03 node, which means it is constrained to the area of its parent. That means it will only displace in the "test color" area as shown in your image. Your displacement scale is also quite small, despite a very large amplitude, which probably won't give you great results. What were you intending to achieve instead?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 04, 2013, 12:31:03 AM
I was adjusting both large sale and small scale features and still came up with no difference in displacement. What is odd which I failed to mention is the color shows up on the power fractal but again displacement is zero. Unless something is going way over my head here.

Could I just send you the file because I do not want to make it public as it is for a personal project of mine.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Oshyan on December 04, 2013, 02:09:49 AM
Sure, send to support AT planetside.co.uk, and be sure to specify what you're expecting to happen or intending to accomplish. So far as I can see it's working very normally.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 05, 2013, 09:11:14 PM
I emailed you guys twice and both failed. May I send it to you through PM?
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Oshyan on December 06, 2013, 03:04:54 AM
PMs don't allow file attachments. Did you get a reason for the failure? How big is the attachment?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 06, 2013, 10:43:20 AM
Gmail does not recognize the address for Planetside. The file is just the TGD. 40KBs only.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Oshyan on December 06, 2013, 07:48:05 PM
Er, are you sending it to support AT planetside.co.uk ? I usually "obfuscate" the written version of email addresses in the forums to avoid email harvesters...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 06, 2013, 09:00:29 PM
That is what I did. I will try it one more time and get back to you.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Dune on December 07, 2013, 04:26:28 AM
now take the address out again, Oshyan!
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 07, 2013, 12:49:11 PM
It did go through. Sorry for the late reply. 
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 07, 2013, 08:46:36 PM
Did you folks get the file I sent?
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 08, 2013, 08:29:04 PM
Edited!
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 10, 2013, 01:17:35 AM
Please, anyone? Or am I that clueless?    ;D
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Klas on December 10, 2013, 02:14:08 AM
Add a Compute normal between Surface layer 02 and Strata and outcrops shader v2 05.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Dune on December 10, 2013, 03:20:55 AM
I did have a look at the file, but don't really know what you want to achieve. The slope restriction mostly inhibits displacement, and overall it's better to do all bigger displacements before a compute terrain. And adding a PF's displacement just like that also gives negative values, so the purple areas might as well drop down. Or stay level if the PF happens to be gray at that (purple, masked) spot.
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: AP on December 10, 2013, 11:33:23 AM
The compute terrain worked. I had a compute terrain in there at one point but I think I had it in the wrong spot.  :)

All I wanted to achieve is some light displacement in the mask, nothing more.    ???
Title: Re: Shader mask issue
Post by: Oshyan on December 12, 2013, 09:16:05 PM
I tried to reply to your email but got a bounce-back. I'm sending now to your forum email...

Edit: nope, got a bounce on that too! Chris, are you specifying bad emails for some reason, or blocking our mail? This is very odd as one is a Yahoo address, the other is Gmail (both bounce with a sort of "account not found" error).

So I guess I'll put my original response here:

There are 2 major reasons for the results you're seeing, neither is a bug. They have to do with the way you have set your constraints on that surface layer. Your slope constraints are very narrow indeed, and this is limiting the range in which the displacement effect can take place. Yes, the color shows up, but not the displacement, and this can be confusing, except that displacement has an altitude component that is then limited by your altitude constraint. The bottom line is that you are very narrowly limiting the effect of your surface layer which controls the displacement area, and thus severely limiting the effect of displacement. I suggest you look at other ways to accomplish whatever your goal is, settings like this are fairly unusual.

There are some other odd settings in here too that suggest you might have arrived at these results through some fairly extensive experimentation, without always having a clear understanding of the results a particular setting is creating. It's generally best to experiment with 1 setting at a time and do iterative test renders to see its effects. Hopefully that is helpful.

- Oshyan