Terragen 2 crashes - painted shader session

[N-drju]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if you perhaps experienced similar problem;

Recently I am trying to make a path using regular painted shader with a texture image attached to it (doing it the easy way - I don't want to apply any vectors, scalars and other stuff for now). The path itself is quite long actually. From time to time TG2 crashes when I hold down the mouse button, trying to apply the painted shader.

This usually happens in roughly the same place in the scene so at first I thought that perhaps there is some limit on the total surface of painted shader that can be used.  Still, when I try to paint the same area again from a higher altitude everything seems to be back to normal, no crashes whatsoever.

Can anyone explain this oddity? 

[Dune]

Did you pause the 3D preview? That's really important. And I wouldn't venture too near the sides with the brush. My habit (if I use the Painted shader, which = rarely) is to stop and save some times and then go on.

[Oshyan]

If you've got a very large/long Painted Shader data set created, it might be causing problems due to that. We have a new Painted Shader "back end" in an upcoming 3.1 release due out in February which should help with that sort of thing. Ulco's general caution with the feature shouldn't be necessary with the new updates we've made.

- Oshyan

[N-drju]

Okay, I'll be on the lookout. Thank you. You definitely hit the spot Dune, because TG2 crashed exactly on the moment I moved the brush to the edge of the preview window...

Somehow it did go through my mind that I exaggerated with PSh a bit...

On the other hand I was wondering whether there is a possibility to actually create a procedural path or road that winds, turns and so forth. Do you know any good tutorial on that topic? I've seen old_blaggard's, and although it's pretty well written it is still a straight road...

What I'm afraid of is that if I make a procedural road I won't have too much control over it's layout. That's why I use painted shader right now.

[Dune]

Use the search button and you'll find some threads regarding roads. In some posts there are tgd's. Basically you can use a simple shape, with position in terrain (not final position, or it won't bend) and bend that using a vector displacement shader + warp shader + power fractal. Like this. Old version TG, but I can't post in alpha version.

[N-drju]

Ahhh, yes. That's what I was looking for, I just did not remember the name of those shaders. Gotta use them sometime. Thanks a lot, once again. Case closed.