Planetside Software Forums

General => File Sharing => Terrains => Topic started by: sjefen on October 30, 2018, 06:03:25 PM

Title: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 30, 2018, 06:03:25 PM
Hi,


Not sure if there's any interest of stuff like this, but I'm sharing the heigtmap for this
terrain I've made with Gaea.

It includes masks for flow, deposit, wear and also a color map, but I'm still learning this software, so I'm
not sure how the color map is gonna work out as I have not tested this is TG.

Hope someone finds this useful  :)

Here is the link to the files on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lc4nc53p3wpp60a/Old%20Volcano.7z?dl=0


- Terje
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 30, 2018, 06:15:01 PM
Ohh, thank you! This is a beautiful landscape! Lots of detail here it looks like.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 30, 2018, 06:32:22 PM
No problem  ;)

I wanted to get it in 8K, but it doesn't work for now. Gaea is still in development so I was
only able to do 4K. More details next time maybe  :)


- Terje
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 30, 2018, 07:54:05 PM
Still looks pretty good, better from a distance. Did a quick test.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 30, 2018, 11:53:35 PM
Try turning of fractal detail in the heightfield.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 31, 2018, 04:45:37 AM
I'll give that a shot, also Terje, what displacement multiplier would you suggest for the heightfield? It seems by default it's near flat. I used 5 for a close approximation.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 31, 2018, 05:51:16 AM
I always turn of fractal details when importing a heightfield. Otherwise I'll end up with details that is not intentionally for that terrain. If you turn it off, you'll see the terrain as it is  ;)

I have no idea of how to get it exactly the same height as in Gaea, but I often end up with 8-10.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 31, 2018, 03:53:37 PM
From what I've understood from conversations is World Creator is already in Meters but there is also a full range clamp to exporting, by default I believe it's off? And meters by default start at sea level (0m) which should be about right for TG.

What is the meter height of the scene in Gaea?
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 31, 2018, 04:06:21 PM
I did a quick 7m render with no fractal detail, and upped displacement multiplier to 7, which does look more like your preview, however their are weird anomalies in the terrain, which I believe is because the original heightmap is not at the right range for TG, so low ground details are being multiplied with the rest of the terrain beyond what should be their maximum.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 31, 2018, 04:25:53 PM
Yeah, somethings not right here. I'll look into it.
I don't know the height of this scene, but I'll check later or tomorrow.

- Terje
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: Oshyan on October 31, 2018, 05:06:59 PM
Not sure what you mean by the "right range". Terragen doesn't care what resolution or height range is represented in the file, generally. The reason you need to multiply is because this terrain (image) format doesn't have built-in scaling values. .ter does, and others can too (.tif with georef data, i.e. geotiff). EXR can be used too, with meter values instead of 0-1 color values, but that's not a standard.

Anyway I would guess these artifacts are part of the original heightfield. That could easily be checked in e.g. Wilbur (free terrain editor/viewer).

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on October 31, 2018, 05:30:00 PM
Thanks Oshyan. I'll check out Wilbur  :)


- Terje
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 31, 2018, 05:32:46 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 31, 2018, 05:06:59 PM
Not sure what you mean by the "right range". Terragen doesn't care what resolution or height range is represented in the file, generally. The reason you need to multiply is because this terrain (image) format doesn't have built-in scaling values. .ter does, and others can too (.tif with georef data, i.e. geotiff). EXR can be used too, with meter values instead of 0-1 color values, but that's not a standard.

Anyway I would guess these artifacts are part of the original heightfield. That could easily be checked in e.g. Wilbur (free terrain editor/viewer).

- Oshyan

The range are clamped values, which do effect even a TIFF output.

Take a look at Quadspinner's documentation: https://medium.com/quadspinner/terrain-scaling-33e6fc35c7a9

From what I'm looking at here, compared to a 4k heightmap in TIFF format from the same application, his heightmap is clamped and not full range.

In TIFF format, this will effect the desired scale range because of inherently how TG reads it expecting it to be 0-1 range.

Edit: That being said, small, low scale details will not be appropriately represented in a 0-1 range when clamped in TIFF format.  Being barely present and/or clamped/cut off, they will be exponentially effected by scaling up the terrain in Terragen beyond it's read 0-1 range.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: Oshyan on October 31, 2018, 07:26:47 PM
The clamping is the issue in that case, which is an (optional) Gaea output setting.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: Matt on October 31, 2018, 08:55:57 PM
The heightfield renders just fine for me. Maybe there's some displacement happening in your shaders? Start from just the heightfield and re-enable your shaders one by one to find the culprit.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on October 31, 2018, 10:18:05 PM
Quote from: Matt on October 31, 2018, 08:55:57 PM
The heightfield renders just fine for me. Maybe there's some displacement happening in your shaders? Start from just the heightfield and re-enable your shaders one by one to find the culprit.

Exactly how it's set up, but I went through though and checked the shaders and found that the snow I downloaded at some point has a whopping 5m offset for some reason, which, probably because I don't have access to the new fuzzy zone calcs was creating weird flat arcs in the fuzzy zone in areas where it cuts off to black too sudden (uses South Faces mask).
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on November 01, 2018, 04:45:29 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 31, 2018, 07:26:47 PM
The clamping is the issue in that case, which is an (optional) Gaea output setting.

- Oshyan

I don't think I understand this. What am I supposed to do?
Unclamped on or off?
And what format is best for export: exr, png, tif, psd, raw or hdr?


- Terje
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on November 01, 2018, 06:04:54 PM
Quote from: sjefen on November 01, 2018, 04:45:29 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on October 31, 2018, 07:26:47 PM
The clamping is the issue in that case, which is an (optional) Gaea output setting.

- Oshyan

I don't think I understand this. What am I supposed to do?
Unclamped on or off?
And what format is best for export: exr, png, tif, psd, raw or hdr?


- Terje

EXR would probably be best, but being a free user, I can't load EXR into Terragen, so TIFF would be more cross compatible. Additionally, if available 32bit TIFF is usually float like 16bit EXR.

With the terrain unclamped, it would probably represent the meters better for Terragen without upscaling dramatically.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on November 17, 2018, 05:37:49 PM
"With the terrain unclamped, it would probably represent the meters better for Terragen without upscaling dramatically."

Ok. In Gaea the is this option:

Unclamped - on/of

If I understand this correctly it should be on, right?


- Terje


Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on November 17, 2018, 09:08:13 PM
Quote from: sjefen on November 17, 2018, 05:37:49 PM
"With the terrain unclamped, it would probably represent the meters better for Terragen without upscaling dramatically."

Ok. In Gaea the is this option:

Unclamped - on/of

If I understand this correctly it should be on, right?


- Terje

"Off" will provide the best results for TG, as clamped clamps the results, to some maximum I think is meant for proprietary purposes (loading in World Creator or something?).

Right now TG is reading the colour as height, and when clamped, it produces nearly flat terrain. With it unclamped it's likely we won't even need to add much displacement multiplier.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: WAS on November 17, 2018, 09:20:33 PM
For example, this terrain is generated in Terragen by DK erosion, and than Heightfield Generate (reduces file size), and is shaded by height by Terragen itself. Notice how much brighter the high areas are.
Title: Re: Gaea Terrain
Post by: sjefen on November 17, 2018, 10:01:31 PM
Thank you. I'll do some testing and post a new terrain when I know it's working  ;)

- Terje