Rectangular Noise

[Dune]

Hey mogn, thanks a lot!

edit: mogn; did you know a lot (or all) of the nodes are there 2 times?

@Michael: here's mogn's file in tgd shape.

[TheBadger]

Thanks Ulco.

But can you state that the alterations do only what you intended? I mean can we say that replacing the one node with other only has the effect you wanted and nothing else? I am happy with what I see, I just want to grab as much info as I can while we are on this topic.

mogn; did you know a lot (or all) of the nodes are there 2 times?

I was curious about this too. Is there a simple explanation for it? This build is much more complex then earlier versions. I was not going to dare to ask lest my head start to spin around several times and pop off... but since Ulco did.

Anyway, all of the complex stuff aside. I am very happy with these solutions! And I want to say thank you again. It was very nice of you Mogn to take time and solve some problems. Personally, this topic was one that caused me problems for a long time. But now I have some great working, reusable groups.

And thank you all for helping me make use of the ideas, and Ulco for simplifying how to test.

I will now sing the happy song  Which you may not hear lest your ears bleed and fall off.

[Dune]

You mean replacing the get position by the get position in texture? That has side effects, but the get position can't be transformed or warped later.

I simply tore off all duplicate nodes one by one, and ended up with a single setup. But I'm still not happy with what you can do with it, have to do some epxeriments with stretched, rotated and combined PF's as well.

[TheBadger]

But I'm still not happy with what you can do with it, have to do some epxeriments with stretched, rotated and combined PF's as well.

To achieve something like what? And have you had time to try this on fake stones or rock object yet? Any results worth mentioning? Have not tried my self yet, been just working on Utah. But I would love to be able to get a cut stone look out of fake stones or rock object... I have to do a lot of playing yet, too.

[Dune]

Squarish rocks protruding into any angle, that's harder. You'd need to stretch the blocks into the angle they should displace and mask them by that angle, although if you add the tgc as displacer simply to a displaced SSS you get squares allright.

[bla bla 2]

I made a nice cake with similar approach.

Peut-on mettre en pyramide carré dans un sss ?

Can we put in a square pyramid, sss ?

[Dune]

That's simple.

[bla bla 2]

Thank you, Ulco.

[Tangled-Universe]

Here's some rectangular'ish stuff I have been working on and off for the past 6 weeks.
It uses some of the principles described here as well as some of my own approaches.
If there's interest I might be able to disclose something at a later stage, am not sure yet.
It's not that special and not what we're really after I think, but I like the looks of it so far.

Cheers,
Martin

[Dune]

Nice rock, Martin. I found that really square rocks are hard to make. Mogn's noise, though nice, is not 3D but in XZ with infinite Y, so I've added some Y fracturing blue nodes, but I still need to get it to work well.

[Tangled-Universe]

Well I doubt if any of TG's surface/noise stuff is "real" 3D.
If you'd ask me, anything before a compute node is treated the same, "added up"/combined and then draped over the existing surface.

Just put some extra compute nodes in between your displacing PF's/functions and you'll be amazed how much of a difference it will make if you have your PF/functions can use the updated surface.
It then works much more like you have it in mind. At least, I visualize that an extra layer of PF/noise displaces along the normal created by preceding PF/noise, but it just doesn't work that way.
This only works this exact way if you compute again first. Otherwise, like I said, the whole set of nodes/functions is evaluated into 1 single "result" and then sampled over and applied to the existing surface.
It makes sense actually, but don't ask about rendertimes though

[Hetzen]

Its always a juggling match on where you apply a Compute Normal/Terrain to get these effects to work.

I've realised that you need a solid 2d projection with good masking that you can use after a compute node as a guide to drive these lateral displacements really helpfull. SSSs do that well. Modulating a modulo on that gradient can create nicely uneven strata layers, when you displace them, but maintain that data after a compute node for later surface effects.

Martin is right about putting resolution into a compute to get more info into a near verticle surface.

But you could look at the problem as needing to push a slanted surface horizontaly to become more verticle in steps. It's a tough one. It very much depends on your input terrain on how successful the effect is.

[Tangled-Universe]

A big underlying issue of getting it to work the way we want is like this example:

Terrain -> compute -> thick strata -> rectangular noise

This gives a very stretched result, since the strata node stretches the terrain strongly in the vertical direction.
As a consequence, the rectangular noise is also stretched accordingly.

No problem if we compute first, right?

Terrain -> thick strata layer -> compute -> rectangular noise (-> compute -> texture)

Well....No.

The result is quite much the same!


What I really really want is to let TG more easily "start over with a clean slate" after a compute node.
If I compute the terrain I'd like to have it to create equal resolution on the vertical sides as well as on the horizontal sides and especially I'd like to have the coordinates behave similarly.

As it behaves now, and has always done, stuff still gets stretched along despite computing terrain in between/before.

[TheBadger]

Hey guys,

I hope you will continue to work on these problems, preferably out in the open. I am really frustrated on it... So close yet so far 

It really sucks that its so hard to get what I think is a basic fundamental form in nature. I mean, rectangular rock faces are just about everywhere.
And aside from that, there is a simple esthetic quality to the shape that can add a lot of compositional structure very easily.

Of course we could use a displaceable object in TG (i think), for a few individual forms. But that will not solve what we are really after here. Although I really want to try that this week.

Perhaps Matt will chime in. Hard to imagine that he has not thought about and even found some ways to make this work a bit better. At this point Im not even too worried about render times. I just want it to look better and perhaps some simplification.

I am really glad you guys are working on it.

@Martin
Nice looking stone!

Dont give up guys. If it is possible, you will find it!

Oh and,
Just for breaking this down a little more. Don't you find that the strata shader has a lot of the power we are after in a single node? And perhaps there is a way for PS to make a single node from the strata node, that will give us what we are after here? I mean I have seen people use the strata node pretty simply out of the box, and it gives the results we want in various places. So could it be striped down and repurposed some how?
Just asking.

The thing is, that I am finding everything I want is already here in some way, I just am not getting the various parts to play well as a whole.
And then there is the discouraging matter of if it is hard for you guys, then how will it ever be simple for the rest of us. And by the rest of us I mostly mean me

[TheBadger]

Please tell me how to toggle the color from mogn's noises on and off for rendering. As it is now I get the colors from the noise patterns in my render. Its good that way to see whats happing of course, but how do I turn it off without losing the displacement?


*added pics so you can see how it nearly works for me. However there are a number of issues yet. And I have to try the beveled in place of the noise that is here now.
Also, the distribution shader is clearly working on the color, but not the displacement, explain that.

some other problems too like where the shapes begin and end, but that just needs tweaking I think.