I am having a lot of fun with Terragen, to start with. Would love to see some of my projects rendered in full scale someday.
So, I have a forest. I want to get a population of many types of trees, without the trunks, or main portion of the tree to be within another populations object. The closest I can think of (not sure how effective it is) but inverting the breakup. But a foreseeable problem is I am limited to two populations.
Two, how does one go about patchy distribution of wooded areas. I figured out altitude constraints but the breakup always seems to be one here and there rather then patches of trees.
Any input would be awesome. :)
Quote from: WASasquatch on December 03, 2014, 07:41:36 PM
I am having a lot of fun with Terragen, to start with. Would love to see some of my projects rendered in full scale someday.
So, I have a forest. I want to get a population of many types of trees, without the trunks, or main portion of the tree to be within another populations object. The closest I can think of (not sure how effective it is) but inverting the breakup. But a foreseeable problem is I am limited to two populations.
Two, how does one go about patchy distribution of wooded areas. I figured out altitude constraints but the breakup always seems to be one here and there rather then patches of trees.
Any input would be awesome. :)
Do a
Search for 'Grouping Populations' by 'Jo' - a former staff member of the Planetside staff. You should get your answer there.
Seems to be no results under Jo. And under all users came this topic and alpine view and another.
Check out this link: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=search2
Or, search: group populations
Bob, I believe he's done that. I tried it too. Not sure what thread you had in mind. As I think you know, population *grouping* is not actually possible currently. I think the methods originally mentioned, masking in particular, would be the main options currently.
- Oshyan
Oshyan, I recall that sometime over the past two years or so, Jo gave a hint on how to group (clump) populations of grasses, trees or anything else by use of a Power fractal. I saw it in the forum but it does not come up as started by Jo Meder.
OK, I guess my feeble mind has failed me again. I apologize everyone, what I thought was a post by Jo actually was a subject about color variation in plant populations. If there is such a thing as vitamins for the brain, I better start taking them.
Haha it happens. So, about these masks. What is the best way to get get a mask working? I'm assuming you want a somewhat dense population to start with so the patches masked look nice. My issue is I've had problems understanding masks and what shaders/functions to use.
I would be interested in learning how to mask a population with a power fractal to give it variances in color, models do tend to be stale in color and I had planned to paint in those variations later via Photoshop but that's only possible once i actually get T2/3 to render a large enough version to paint with detail.
Check here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,2489.msg24523.html#msg24523 (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,2489.msg24523.html#msg24523)
You can use any shader/node that provides color as a mask for populations. One approach that often works well is to create your new shader that you intend to use as a mask, let's say it's a Power Fractal, enable High and Low color so you'll be able to see it, then put it into the shader network as the last shader before the Planet object (in other words the output of this shader feeds directly into the Planet object, and all other shaders feed into its input). What this should do is completely replace your terrain colors with those of the Power Fractal noise function. What you can then do is visualize exactly how your noise function is going to apply to the terrain. The white areas will show your masked shader, the black areas will show whatever comes before it in the node network. So you can tweak your shader to create the shapes you want (this works with a Painted Shader or most any other color-generating shader too), and then disconnect it from the main network and feed it into the shader you want to mask and viola!
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 04, 2014, 11:59:21 PM
You can use any shader/node that provides color as a mask for populations. One approach that often works well is to create your new shader that you intend to use as a mask, let's say it's a Power Fractal, enable High and Low color so you'll be able to see it, then put it into the shader network as the last shader before the Planet object (in other words the output of this shader feeds directly into the Planet object, and all other shaders feed into its input). What this should do is completely replace your terrain colors with those of the Power Fractal noise function. What you can then do is visualize exactly how your noise function is going to apply to the terrain. The white areas will show your masked shader, the black areas will show whatever comes before it in the node network. So you can tweak your shader to create the shapes you want (this works with a Painted Shader or most any other color-generating shader too), and then disconnect it from the main network and feed it into the shader you want to mask and viola!
- Oshyan
Good method, wonder why I've never done that as it seems blatantly obvious now I see it written down....sigh...
I use that method ALL the time, always have a TEST surface layer at the end, which is off when rendering. Mentioned it before as well, very important method for checking all sorts of masks.
Yes, actually Ulco's approach is even better: have a Surface Layer at the end of your shader network at all times and have it disabled. Then when you want to test *any* shader, just plug it into the Child Layer input and enable that Surface Layer. Disable it when done. That way you can more quickly test the output of almost any shader in your network, without having to plug and replug things. You want to make sure your test Surface Layer has a coverage of 2 and no Fractal Breakup though.
- Oshyan
Yes, or plug into the masking input.
Quote from: Oshyan on December 04, 2014, 11:59:21 PM
You can use any shader/node that provides color as a mask for populations. One approach that often works well is to create your new shader that you intend to use as a mask, let's say it's a Power Fractal, enable High and Low color so you'll be able to see it, then put it into the shader network as the last shader before the Planet object (in other words the output of this shader feeds directly into the Planet object, and all other shaders feed into its input). What this should do is completely replace your terrain colors with those of the Power Fractal noise function. What you can then do is visualize exactly how your noise function is going to apply to the terrain. The white areas will show your masked shader, the black areas will show whatever comes before it in the node network. So you can tweak your shader to create the shapes you want (this works with a Painted Shader or most any other color-generating shader too), and then disconnect it from the main network and feed it into the shader you want to mask and viola!
- Oshyan
Now this is what I was looking for. Cause when making masks I usually had no idea what on earth I was doing and having re-populate and render tests is just... well, mundane. Thanks alot! Again!
Quote from: Oshyan on December 05, 2014, 07:05:01 PM
You want to make sure your test Surface Layer has a coverage of 2 and no Fractal Breakup though.
This made me very curious. Any special reason for a value of 2? I'd think that 1 would do the job by definition (100%). What am I missing?
Quote from: otakar on December 09, 2014, 01:50:12 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on December 05, 2014, 07:05:01 PM
You want to make sure your test Surface Layer has a coverage of 2 and no Fractal Breakup though.
This made me very curious. Any special reason for a value of 2? I'd think that 1 would do the job by definition (100%). What am I missing?
I think that may just to be sure it's 100% coverage in case of any special layering or something. Dunno. I have noticed sometimes with no density fractal on surface layers, that the coloring isn't 100% with coverage at 1.
Don't forget that 1 is not a maximum. You can get interesting and often useful results when using higher numbers in colors, density, even negative smoothing, etc.