Rocks, sand, dirt

Started by Martin, December 04, 2016, 11:05:21 AM

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Kadri

Quote from: Martin on December 05, 2016, 01:54:33 PM
Quote from: Kadri on December 05, 2016, 01:46:30 PM

Hmm not sure but only the professional version i think:
https://planetside.co.uk/terragen-product-comparison/

Don't know if there is a difference in the demo version or free version.
Have a look at the render saving options.

Oh well, not even the creative version is enough for that. Well I don't think I can afford buying the professional version for...just my art stuff.

I had a closer look. There is a  "16bit/compressed image load+save"  feature in all of them.
So you could use 16 bit tiff too i think. Have a look and see if it helps Martin.

Martin

Quote from: Kadri on December 05, 2016, 01:57:45 PM
Quote from: Martin on December 05, 2016, 01:54:33 PM
Quote from: Kadri on December 05, 2016, 01:46:30 PM

Hmm not sure but only the professional version i think:
https://planetside.co.uk/terragen-product-comparison/

Don't know if there is a difference in the demo version or free version.
Have a look at the render saving options.

Oh well, not even the creative version is enough for that. Well I don't think I can afford buying the professional version for...just my art stuff.

I had a closer look. There is a  "16bit/compressed image load+save"  feature in all of them.
So you could use 16 bit tiff too i think. Have a look and see if it helps Martin.

Thank you! Though I can manage with simple tiff files. I'm thinking about getting the creative version later on, because the higher image resolution-and micro detailing.

Martin

#32
Okay, the merge higher thing didn't work. Something went wrong and its a bit spiky, messy, and took 9 hours  to render. Btw, this is the mixed Voronoi cell displaced granite stone I made yester day. still ,doesnt work the way I imagined, I will tweak it later today.
And I made a planet object with a new better texture- again merge layers.Though those cliffs should be tweaked as well to look right on close up too.

Also about compute normals. How often should I use it? Maybe it can solve these smaller displacement errors?

Martin

#33
Okay, found something.
I have all the fakestone layers as child layers on separate surface layers. 3 or 4(bigg mossy rock surface layer, small rock surface layer, sand crack dirt surface layer etc)
I switched them off except the granite layer- to see if the problem is with the granite rock displacement itself. Well There's this small spiky error and I don't know where it comes from. All the displacement on that layer is  some voronoi soft cells. And it's masked by some big voronoi -with adjust colour.
Nothing should cause this...
The granite surface layer is a child layer of another surface layer named "granite distribution" with a mask that masks big parts of of the terrain so there are sand dune only parts.
I tried to change the mask seed to see if that's the problem but no, the spikes remained the same.

Also I made some purple coloured meadow -rock scene with green  atmosphere and a big moon.

Martin

#34
I saved the nodes as a clip file and started a new world. Tweaked the settings a bit and it seems I managed to put all these terrains together. The render will be done in a few hours.
Also made a new planet object, using references- Io , Europa, Ganymede, Callisto etc.
I want to put more Europa like canyon displaces on it, but I'm a bit  stuck how to mix displace maps together with the colours- as the planet 2 object only have one 'surface' input.
Update:got it! When I use the merge shader with the mix colour option unchecked, it will use the first input's colour but mixes the displaces. Neat.

Dune

Hard to tell from the node view what the spikey problem is, but it could either be a smallscale mask or smallscale displacement. Also; sometimes you need to unclamp colors, sometimes you need them clamped. If converting (negating, complementing or inverting, dividing!) unclamped colors you can get strange things to. So you really need to build up carefully and check each step for (unwanted) changes.
The compute normal should be used as sparingly as the compute terrain, as it takes render time (unless that's no problem). Once for large displacements and following laterals is often enough, perhaps one more if you want the newly created overhangs to further displace by latera/normal for more detail. Tex coordinates from XYZ is also very handy to use.

Martin

#36
Quote from: Dune on December 06, 2016, 02:16:00 AM
Hard to tell from the node view what the spikey problem is, but it could either be a smallscale mask or smallscale displacement. Also; sometimes you need to unclamp colors, sometimes you need them clamped. If converting (negating, complementing or inverting, dividing!) unclamped colors you can get strange things to. So you really need to build up carefully and check each step for (unwanted) changes.
The compute normal should be used as sparingly as the compute terrain, as it takes render time (unless that's no problem). Once for large displacements and following laterals is often enough, perhaps one more if you want the newly created overhangs to further displace by latera/normal for more detail. Tex coordinates from XYZ is also very handy to use.

Thanks!
I tried unclamped colours in the past, but this time, with carefully adjusting everything, I didn't feel the need-and I was worried it will cause unexpected problems-the node network is complicated as it is to find a problem if something goes wrong- Is it useful with displaces for example?
The thing is about those spikes, even when I switched off everything (plugged the base colours to the compute terrain) there was this error in places on the flat terrain. So I saved the important nodes as a clip file and started a new file- and it worked. But I have to remake that granite rock. I have to smooth the terrain bellow it I think. I will make a printscreen of it's node network tomorrow.
Didn't use overhangs or lateral displacement this time at all.
Also never used tex coordinates from XYZ, when is it a good choice to use it?

The new node network is ready to use on a worldmachine heightfield I think. I hope it will look good with the flow map masks etc.

Thanks for the tips!



Dune

Try a power fractal with colors on and feed that into a displacement shader. The planet will look a bit spikey, due to the smallest scales. Now if you up those scales you can get decent displacement, but the tops are flat. Then unclamp the white color and the displacement will rise. You can also add a dark color; try a negative black (-10 or so).
The XYZ shader gives your next node the latest XYZ coordinates, so if you want say a XZ stretched fractal to displace some sort of ridges (like strata), it won't work without the XYZ shader.

Martin

#38
Quote from: Dune on December 06, 2016, 02:38:05 AM
Try a power fractal with colors on and feed that into a displacement shader. The planet will look a bit spikey, due to the smallest scales. Now if you up those scales you can get decent displacement, but the tops are flat. Then unclamp the white color and the displacement will rise. You can also add a dark color; try a negative black (-10 or so).
The XYZ shader gives your next node the latest XYZ coordinates, so if you want say a XZ stretched fractal to displace some sort of ridges (like strata), it won't work without the XYZ shader.

Ah thanks! I didn't know I need an XYZ shader before stretched fractal displaces.

Here's the test render for all the shaders in one scene-
and the next step- applied to a WM generated terrain. Needs tweaking but looks nice.

And the new moon I made.

luvsmuzik

Hesitant to comment, but what progress in just a couple of days! Great stuff!

Martin

Okay,  made a solar eclipse render, some lush tropical like environment, a closer look at the sand dunes shader(realised It wasn't visible in any of the previous renders)

bobbystahr

Good progress...Keep On Tweakin'
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Martin

Quote from: luvsmuzik on December 06, 2016, 07:50:58 AM
Hesitant to comment, but what progress in just a couple of days! Great stuff!

Thanks! I've been playing with terragen for a few years now, but this is the first time(after getting use to a node based workflow in world machine) that I used merge shaders ,colour adjust, etc properly. Works like a charm!

Martin

One of the simplest things are still not clear to me.
For example , I have a base terrain with extensive displacement(dirt, grass, cracks etc) and I'd like to put some big fake stones on top of it, how do I smooth it out for the stones? I mean sometimes it's fine, but this time, when I tried to use the paint shader to mask a stone circle and use the previous rocks with 4-5x tallness, they've became ...this strange exploded mess.

The node network for the fake stone layer is_

Big mossy rock surface layer with the basic distribution mask- this time the paint shader

A child layer with a merge highest- merged with smaller fake stones- but the main rock layer is a bigger fake stones layer-
There's another surface layer plugged in to it's surface layer input
the big mossy rock texture layer- with the colour layer input is the texture mix and the displacement input is the displace mix.
Do I need to switch on some smoothing in a surface layer? or Do I need a new compute normals somewhere?
The ground is mainly grass here with one mm small grassblade  displaces- the rocks are 2 meters big with 3-4-6 tallness. 

What's your typical way to get rid of this excess displacement , and messiness?

bobbystahr

Quote from: Martin on December 06, 2016, 02:48:35 PM
One of the simplest things are still not clear to me.
For example , I have a base terrain with extensive displacement(dirt, grass, cracks etc) and I'd like to put some big fake stones on top of it, how do I smooth it out for the stones? I mean sometimes it's fine, but this time, when I tried to use the paint shader to mask a stone circle and use the previous rocks with 4-5x tallness, they've became ...this strange exploded mess.

The node network for the fake stone layer is_

Big mossy rock surface layer with the basic distribution mask- this time the paint shader

A child layer with a merge highest- merged with smaller fake stones- but the main rock layer is a bigger fake stones layer-
There's another surface layer plugged in to it's surface layer input
the big mossy rock texture layer- with the colour layer input is the texture mix and the displacement input is the displace mix.
Do I need to switch on some smoothing in a surface layer? or Do I need a new compute normals somewhere?
The ground is mainly grass here with one mm small grassblade  displaces- the rocks are 2 meters big with 3-4-6 tallness. 

What's your typical way to get rid of this excess displacement , and messiness?

You have to enable Smoothing in any Surface layer that interacts with the Fakestones I've found in order for them to keep whatever colour/texture you've applied.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist