Rocks, sand, dirt

[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?

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.

Hmm.When I switch on smoothing on both surfacelayers I get a really strange artefact, doughnut shaped fake rocks...

Update- after switching one of them off and playing with the patch size I get usable results!

[Martin]

"Dad!Can I go over to Billy's house?  I  finished my homework, and fed Mr. Whiskers!

Oh, and one of Saturn's biggest moon has deviated from it's orbit and will collide Earth in minutes"

[bobbystahr]

Very good, glad you figured it out...a quite strange image, big LIKE

[Martin]

Jesus...found the problem with the grass layer's displacement error. Forgot to switch off the displacement on the colour node's fractals. Ugh.Obvious mistake...

[Martin]

Sadly I lost a few renders because my pc just froze during render(I was rendering 4 scenes at the same time)
So I made a few fake stone trees. The thing is when I switch on the limit maximum slope on the main surface layer(the fake stones layer is it's child layer) I get properly distributed fake stones but mostly without colours. How to solve this?
This is some old basic problem but sometimes it gets really bad.

[luvsmuzik]

Usually I use separate layers for shading terrain and adding fake stones. You can....use the child but uncheck the color of that surface layer to keep the color you designate in your fake stone shader. You can also make an independent fake stone shader in shaders and hook a distribution shader to that.
When you are experimenting also check out effects....intersect underlying, favor rises or depression...neat stuff there too.

A very useful tool is the search tool too Martin, just give it the basics and usually get great results, although a personal reply is always great.

[Martin]

Usually I use separate layers for shading terrain and adding fake stones. You can....use the child but uncheck the color of that surface layer to keep the color you designate in your fake stone shader. You can also make an independent fake stone shader in shaders and hook a distribution shader to that.
When you are experimenting also check out effects....intersect underlying, favor rises or depression...neat stuff there too.

A very useful tool is the search tool too Martin, just give it the basics and usually get great results, although a personal reply is always great.

Of course I use the search tool here, but lot's of several years old unanswered questions and threads with not working links.

And sure, I used to use the intersect underlying  a lot.
I tried to use a distribution layer to mask the fake stone layer itself but I get the same results.

Update: sorry for the question flood, it's just sometimes when I finish a complicated picture and then getting stuck with the simplest things are the worst.
I realised I have to use the terrain normal and it works.

[luvsmuzik]

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20665.msg205605.html#msg205605
This thread may help, but you may have it done already.

[Martin]

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20665.msg205605.html#msg205605
This thread may help, but you may have it done already.

Thanks! I've seen this thread before though, they're talking about a population not fakestones.
But I have the solution - the terrain normals button ,that's all, it fixed the problem.

I have to tweak the colours etc, but I don't think I will use vegetation at all.
And the procedural  monoliths are not really working. Chopped of top halves etc(WHAT  were you thinking, terragen?! lol)
But I have the basalt- granite stone layer. Finally it works.

[Martin]

And with this I've done everything I had in mind with the merge shader last week:)

[luvsmuzik]

I was referring specifically to the discussion  pro/con rock pop  and fake stones where Dune suggested smoothing terrain to obtain proper coloring. sorry I am sure I misunderstood the content and conclusions discussed there.

Very nice results!

[Martin]

I was referring specifically to the discussion  pro/con rock pop  and fake stones where Dune suggested smoothing terrain to obtain proper coloring. sorry I am sure I misunderstood the content and conclusions discussed there.

Very nice results!

Thanks! Its coming together:)
oh and sorry, its just I don't really use populations.Smoothing was already switched on, so really, the problem  was solved with the terrain normal option:)
I had this problem 1-2  years ago when I was doing some pictures in terragen 3, but totally forgot about this solution.

I added some bigger sized colour variation and big crack textures to make it look less uniform in greater distances.

[AP]

Such an amount experimentation going on here, interesting results.

[luvsmuzik]

Such an amount experimentation going on here, interesting results.

Yes AP, I immediately thought of your ground cover displacement clips with the wonderful plant simulations when he did the fake stone trees.

[Oshyan]

Yes, the pace of experimentation and iteration is really something! Reminds me of when Chinaski was active...

Martin, to fix the tops being cut off of large displacements, you can try increasing Displacement Tolerance in the Planet node settings. A value of 2 should fix it, or at least significantly improve it. It does increase render time though.

- Oshyan