water level problems, solution crashes terragen

[AlanR]

Hi, so I have sorted a lot of issues I was having, bringing in referenced models, now adding water has become an issue, i have read up most of what I have found regarding water levels and geo referenced terrains, and am following a suggestion about linking the lake to a surface layer in the node network, but cannot get any further, as anything i do from then on just crashes terragen, so I suspect i am doing something wrong, the suggestion also had a tg file which I downloaded, and worked fine(attached) any ideas
cheers
Ps, will re look up where I got the suggestion and post his username just to reference him and his help

[Kevin F]

Hi, well I don't know why you've used a surface layer and not the water shader, but if you do and adjust the level by copying the co-ordinates and pasting into the lake, it works fine.
here's a very quick amendment:

[AlanR]

Hi tried that after, but still have a crashing issue, so trying to see whats causing it, your ammendment works fine, thanks for that, had tried it previously, but only coppied altitude, saw his example, so gave that a try, once I have sorted the crashing issue,

[Tangled-Universe]

What's causing the crash?
Seems like you're having them a lot, so I have the feeling you're repeatedly trying to do something not possible which may cause those crashes.
Or some other action.

[AlanR]

seems to be the y or altitude terragen doesnt like, or the centre of the lake, ie, if I copy the co ordinates from the preview window, and enter them it crashes, if I copy the co ordinates, x+z from the position of the terrain, its ok with that, they are in lat long, (decimal degrees) so what it looks like it doesnt like the altitude in that format, does that make sense, I then increase its radius, that crashes it instantly

[Dune]

Why don't you use a sphere (shadows off) for global water, and add a (temp color for testing) surface layer where you use the offset for level adjustment. Then you can add the water shader as a child.

[bobbystahr]

I can't understand why there's a Surface layer and no Water shader......I haven't been able to crash TG3 by the way.

[WAS]

seems to be the y or altitude terragen doesnt like, or the centre of the lake, ie, if I copy the co ordinates from the preview window, and enter them it crashes, if I copy the co ordinates, x+z from the position of the terrain, its ok with that, they are in lat long, (decimal degrees) so what it looks like it doesnt like the altitude in that format, does that make sense, I then increase its radius, that crashes it instantly

How much RAM do you have? I used to have crashes copying coordinates, or pasting in large clips, etc, anything that causes RAM to hit it's peak and rollover on scratch, but if scratch is on default settings (VRAM) then you have low VRAM too, which when rolled over could hit it's peak as well. Leaving no memory for the operation. Though this happened to me on a 512mb machine few years ago.

[Oshyan]

I think we'd want to get to the bottom of the crashing issues first and determine whether it's due to "bad" settings/node connections (technically this should not really be possible, e.g. loops are prevented, but there are still cases where it can crash), or to memory issues, graphics card driver compatibility problems, or something else. Given how frequent your crashes seem to be I do wonder if it's graphics driver related, which is unfortunately a common problem. You can try closing the 3D preview before changing the water level and see if that prevents the crash, for example...

- Oshyan

[AlanR]

HI, Machine spec is win7 ultimate, I7, 32 gig ram, gforce gtx750 (4gig) I am not doing anything that I would regard as complex, simply loading in a height map adding water and copying centre of terrain co ordinates to the lake centre, and off it goes, I have checked ram usage as it loads and have plenty in the bank, this was my first thought as it is a 500m*500m map at 10cm resolution, file size is under a GiG, am I pushing terragen to its limits, cant see that as I have no problems with the terrains, its only when I add water, that it crashes, I am no expert in terragen, but 15 years experience in 3d and about 5 years in gis, so not a complete novice. but obviously doing something wrong i reckon
have attached a low rez asc file (have tried geotiffs as well) its a bit ugly on the edges as its a quick output, see if anyone can recreate the problem, or better still show me where Im going wrong by adding water to it (its a coastal area)
cheers

[AlanR]

created sphere, with a water shader, size of planet and increased diameter a little after realising lake was a flat plane!!, no crashes, so seems to be ok now

[bobbystahr]

created sphere, with a water shader, size of planet and increased diameter a little after realising lake was a flat plane!!, no crashes, so seems to be ok now

woo hoo..Dune to the rescue,... again.

[Dune]

I'm glad that resolved your problem. The lake, btw, isn't a flat plane, but IMO a sphere works better for large/global bodies of water.

[AlanR]

I'm glad that resolved your problem. The lake, btw, isn't a flat plane, but IMO a sphere works better for large/global bodies of water.

Ah, ok, thought i read it somewhere on here, but anyway, hopefully can move on now, and enjoy the creative part