Mojoliths Clip

Started by RichTwo, July 23, 2010, 10:04:59 AM

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Volker Harun

Well, one thing to have in mind is, that this clip has the option to control many aspects.
This way of control is proportional with complexity.

The things I was thinking about loud would clean up the node network and might give some speed - but I think that it will be less understandable.

The best way to understand the clip is to plug in the different shaders to the input of the planet node ... starting with the compute terrain on the left, continuing with surface shader below it and so on. Play with the scales ... i.e. set the minimum of the bulges to 500 or something ...

Volker

schmeerlap

Thanks for the quick response, Volker. I understand the reverse engineering approach you are suggesting. And I know which nodes adjust the parameters. I think your saying that functionally the clip (network of nodes) is ok left as it is.

John
I hope I realise I don't exist before I apparently die.

AndyWelder

Thank you, Volker.
Quoteplug in the different shaders to the input of the planet node
That's an approach I will try.
"Ik rotzooi maar wat aan" Karel Appel

RichTwo

Dang - I thought this thread had dropped off the map, but here it is rearing its ugly head, and I've failed to respond with whatever meager knowledge and wisdom I could possibly impart.  But here goes...

On the Bulges group, notice the Colour Adjust shader.  This is singularly the most important control of all.  Mess with it and you'll have to go to the displacement (secondmost important) shader and tweak it to keep it all in a palatable state.  Really it's a balancing act that seems defy the laws of the universe.  Same goes for the Grooves group.

You can adjust powerfractal / displacement for the standing structures as well, but you'll find yourself going back to the bulges and grooves and adjusting them, too.  As the wise and benevolent Volker says - it's all adjustable, just very sensitive.  And you'd have to spend some time to see what does what to what. Believe me, I've trashed more overnight renders than I've cared to say.

If that didn't confuse you, then you understand more than I do about this clip.  Again, I only assembled it, not invent the functional parts.
They're all wasted!

Volker Harun

Quote from: Rich2 on September 06, 2010, 05:29:55 PM
If that didn't confuse you, then you understand more than I do about this clip.  Again, I only assembled it, not invent the functional parts.
LOL ... There is an old song that describes your last post ... 'Humble Stance' by Saga ...
In my opinion you just did what this forum is aimed for ... collecting knowledge and reassembling it to your own matter ...
That thread of Efflux and me for example is just a collection of questions like 'what is this node good for' and answers like 'I do not know, but it works!'.

The use of the Colour adjust is not the most intuitive ... though there is no real alternative.

One thing I learned from your clip is the use of the mix scalar ... thanks to Rich2 the Great and Majestic ,-)

;) :)

RichTwo

#20
"Great and Majestic"?  Me?  Hardly the case, Volker my friend.  It is the works of yourself and efflux that are the most intuitive in my humble opinion.  Here is how Mojoliths came about, best I can remember:  

The bulges and Grooves came from efflux's "Perlin Strata", I now know.  The standing structures is actually a stripped-down and heavily tweaked version of an early canyon-generating clip - I think it was by Cyphyr but I can't be sure.  And I no more than stumbled into discovering how to make that work.

As posted earier in this thread, if there is a way to simplify this clip, have at it.  Anything I tried to do in that respect only caused it to fail, especially when disconnecting blue nodes.  I suppose until single node do-everything-plug-ins become available, we'll just have to live with working with functions.

Peace be unto you and your family.
They're all wasted!

Volker Harun

First thing to scratch in your node network are the 'Add Scalar Nodes' ... you are having some high scaled noise adding values from 0 to 1 ... This feature might be interesting for scales below 10 ...

Second, compare the power fractal with the outcome of the voronoi ... i.e. set the power fractals colour contrast to 1 and set the offset to something by -0.4 to -.3 - if I remember correctly ... it should be very close to each other.
Driving the Voronoi with a power fractal gives very beautiful results when using colours from i.e. 0 to 10  (no clamp high colour!)inside the PF and Voronoi scales of i.e. 7 to 9 ... still the voronoi just adds some minor detail to the distribution of the PF.

These were the first two things that came into my mind ... more detail later ...

By the way ... you only need one Get position within a scene. More versatile is Get position in texture, as it can be scaled with a transform shader.
Texture is like a piece of cloth that can be stretched and moved ... the get position will be still the same though.

,-) Peace upon You and your beloved

Volker Harun

Quote from: Volker Harun on September 08, 2010, 03:23:29 PM
By the way ... you only need one Get position within a scene.
I was a bit wrong here ... for this scene one Get position is fine ... you only need one Get position until the next Compute terrain node ...