Desolate Terrains

[jaf]

I had a few terrains made in World Machine that I threw together in TG2.  I like the terrains but just can't come up with an idea for a good scene.  It needs something more.  Any ideas?

[Dune]

I'd make the flat areas very sandy, maybe with some dunes, some color variation between low and high areas, white salt pans or something. And it needs some jets screeching over, was my first thought.
Not the stones that are there now. But more color variation, maybe push it to some extremes.

[jaf]

Thanks Dune.  Those are some good ideas.

Actually, I posted the wrong image to begin with.  The one I posted didn't have the proper erosion -- the nearest terrain to the camera looks much better (I think) and at least it matches the rest.  Not sure if I want to leave the background range in or not. 

The rocks in the first image were kind of a test.  They really should be flattened and smoothed a lot to match the erosion of the larger terrains.

[TheBadger]

I really like all the debris at the bases of the major forms in image 1, more than how there distributed in image two

[jaf]

I really like all the debris at the bases of the major forms in image 1, more than how there distributed in image two

Yes, I liked that and intend to do something similar, but the debris needs to match the erosion of the terrain and those rocks didn't cut it.  It was more a distribution test.  The stuff there now are dry bushes just to break up the scene a bit.

I've been throwing lots of small ideas at it to get some direction I want to go.  I've tried using water, very slight atmosphere and low light, but didn't see anything I liked.  I was thinking of an almost airless scene with a big transparent dome (sci fi) somewhere in the middle of the individual terrains (probably remove the background range and back the terrain up a bit to make some room.)

The trouble I run into on scenes like this is I want to detail it but I don't want to lose the scope, so what Dune mentioned seems to be the type of detail it needs --large terrain details like dunes and salt pans.   

[efflux]

I think this needs to be dry and more desolate looking. The World Machine terrains are really cool. I would concentrate on those. I think the terrain in the background detracts a bit and you want those closer terrains to be the main feature.

[inkydigit]

excellent terrain, I agree with efflux!
cheers
jason

[Mahnmut]

Hi,
great Terrain in the second one!
The placeholder-rocks in the first already looked like trees to me. Of courseyou could have your rockyisland loom out of a jungle, or some prairie like plain.
But it reminded me of a scene from the pliocene exile books: how about red rocks in a reflecting salt plain? some pattern of saltlakes to bring out the scale. I would like to see that. In thebooks it was the then dry bottom of the mediteranean, so maybe you could make your far range mutch higher?
Best Regards,
Jan

[Jo Kariboo]

Very beautiful land with lots of potential !!! May follow the advice of effux!

[Saurav]

Great looking terrain.

[jaf]

Thanks for all the replies.  All good advice and I have a bad habit of rushing into a project and losing what I wanted to achieve in the first place.  I named it desolate and I think that's what I should stick with.  I'm hoping to have TG3 on my machine at the end of the month, so I'll probably fix some things in World Machine until then (if you look close, you can see the straight lines or borders of some of the terrains where the elevation center was a little too high.)  This really shows on this image where I moved stuff back to see what adding a large environmental dome in the middle (that's why I played with the atmosphere a bit too.)

[pfrancke]

nice job with world machine -- the terrain looks very very cool!   Love that detail.

[efflux]

You certainly went for the dry desolute look. I was just thinking more dry and desert like. I think the small rocks that you see in the first image are important but you want them mostly smaller with some more variation. The distribution of their altitude was really good. That will increase the sense of scale. I also think that your spacing of the terrains on the first one was OK. I would just have some very subtle ground changes around these terrains or just flat.

You could put trees in. Sparse ones kind of like dry Savannah look. The rocks in the first image are almost suggesting that.

Also, the lighting angle in the first one was very good.

The big difficulty in scenes with these kind of POVs is getting the atmosphere and clouds right. It doesn't need fancy clouds because the terrain steals the show but simply getting the colours and the haze to look right is difficult. I think the atmosphere needs more density higher up or at least look that way. Is your terrain here really huge in scale because that can create problems with the look of the atmosphere.

Very subtle differences between the hill colours and ground colours would be good. Like the difference in the first image but maybe different colours with more subtle variety.

These terrains are great though and a good use of World Machine because you can't easily create that stepped look and erosion inside Terragen.

Another thing I have found is that using narrower angle on the camera can help in some scenes, especially when you are higher up. Just move further back. I think it's because we are in CG and big wide views of the atmosphere tends to show us that the atmosphere and lighting doesn't vary as much as it usually does in the real world. I've found that in the real world big wide angle works but in CG it often makes things look fake if you can see tons of atmosphere.

Am I right in saying that the steps you see in your far terrains are caused by their distance from the origin or is that this dome you mention? I haven't used heightfields that much.

[efflux]

I agree with Mahnmut's points but if you have terrain in the background I'd try not to let it take over from the foreground. Have it more sweeping in larger scale rather than mound like.

Just another thing though. The combination of stepped terrain and eroded terrain in the first one is really good. That provides a nice contrast. Don't totally lose the stepped ones. Is there a way in World Machine to create a terrain or combine terrains so you don't erode the whole terrain? That would look cooler in my opinion.

It's all your choices of course though. It depends what feel you want. I just really like that terrain.

[jaf]

Thanks efflux.  I haven't tried it yet, but I believe you can mask erosion in World Machine -- seems like I remember a question on their forum  about that a few days ago.

I agree and liked the stepped version better (actually a little of both, so maybe I will go back and lower the erosion power a bit and increase the terracing on the others.)

The last image was to illustrate the elevation center problem which is obvious in the terrain in the background.  When they are close enough to overlap or objects, like rocks, it is less obvious.

One feature I use a lot in WM is the randomize.  Once I get something I like, I save, randomize, save, etc. and have a group of similar terrains which I can throw into TG2 and see how they look with a real render.

I'm probably going to wait for my TG3 upgrade (four more days to go!) before getting serious with this.  I'd like to make this my first TG3 project.