Gravel Road

Started by CredePendrel, July 20, 2019, 02:11:12 PM

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CredePendrel

Hey guys

Here is the progression of this Saturday's sketch. I have a question for you. The grass and trees use the "Gravel Road Mask" as a inverted density shader to keep those objects off the gravel.

I also want to add a distribution shader to give the grass a little breakup as it still looks a little uniform. How can I add a distribution shader and keep the Gravel Road Mask intact?

CredePendrel

Bumped the brightness.

WAS

#2
For some familiarity, are you using my gravel road share?

If so, the setup should allow you to add a Fractal Warp Shader to the distribution mask, which you can use a small scale to give the grass line some more variance.

Additionally a softer white balance/black balance on the distribution mask adjustments could help with a less hard boundary of grass.

Oshyan

To be clear, are you wanting to make the road edge (at the border with the grass) more varied and random, or are you wanting the *overall* grass population to be a bit patchier? In the first case WAS's suggestion would help. In the second, you'd probably need to use an additional noise function (e.g. Power Fractal) with scales appropriate to breaking up the grass the way you want, then use a Merge Shader to combine that with your road mask before it goes into your grass population.

- Oshyan

CredePendrel

#4
Thanks WASasquatch! Yes it is one of your Gravel Road shares from the File Sharing section. Actually Oshyan now that you say it I want to do both! I am wanting to change the *overall* grass population to be a bit patchier and wouldn't mind changing the breakup at the road edge as well....Will try and do as suggested and report back. Lot of experimentation ahead Thank you!

WAS

Quote from: CredePendrel on July 20, 2019, 03:01:28 PM
Thanks WASasquatch! Yes it is one of your Gravel Road shares from the File Sharing section. Actually Oshyan now that you say it I want to do both! I am wanting to change the *overall* grass population to be a bit patchier and wouldn't mind changing the breakup at the road edge as well....Will try and do as suggested and report back. Lot of experimentation ahead Thank you!

What you'll want to do is head on into your Gravel Road Mask and give it some more edge border. Maybe from 0.45 to 1.1 - 1.3. You can also change the fractal warp scale to to 1 for something like the following: [attach=1]

To end up with a more varied road: [attach=2]

And you can use a setup like the following to add more breakup to the dist boundary: [attach=3]


WAS

#6
You can push out the grass population by making the grass mask larger, with 100% radius, than redefine the mask with a colour adjust for the road and stuff, but use the soft mask for the grass, also adjusted. Here is a illustration and example file. Can play with that grass mas, maybe even not lowering the white point for softer edges.

DannyG

Good looking road there WAS
New World Digital Art
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CredePendrel

Quote from: WASasquatch on July 20, 2019, 03:50:26 PMYou can push out the grass population by making the grass mask larger, with 100% radius, than redefine the mask with a colour adjust for the road and stuff, but use the soft mask for the grass, also adjusted. Here is a illustration and example file. Can play with that grass mas, maybe even not lowering the white point for softer edges.
Thanks WAS! I have another question about your Gravel Road setup.

Is it possible to warp that road so that it isn't a straight line? I was studying "road setup v2 Dune.tgd" which I found on the file sharing forum; in it he adds a Warp input shader (with a Vector displacement and PF) as the Child input on the Surface Layer. Your Gravel road set up already has the Child input filled up by the "Gravel and Rocks". I tried adding a merge shader in to combine the "Gravel and Rocks" and the Warping but it seemed to have no effect on my scene (i doubt that's the right away to go about it anyway).

WAS

Quote from: CredePendrel on August 12, 2019, 07:53:35 AM
Quote from: WASasquatch on July 20, 2019, 03:50:26 PMYou can push out the grass population by making the grass mask larger, with 100% radius, than redefine the mask with a colour adjust for the road and stuff, but use the soft mask for the grass, also adjusted. Here is a illustration and example file. Can play with that grass mas, maybe even not lowering the white point for softer edges.
Thanks WAS! I have another question about your Gravel Road setup.

Is it possible to warp that road so that it isn't a straight line? I was studying "road setup v2 Dune.tgd" which I found on the file sharing forum; in it he adds a Warp input shader (with a Vector displacement and PF) as the Child input on the Surface Layer. Your Gravel road set up already has the Child input filled up by the "Gravel and Rocks". I tried adding a merge shader in to combine the "Gravel and Rocks" and the Warping but it seemed to have no effect on my scene (i doubt that's the right away to go about it anyway).
Yes you can. Basically you want to apply a warp input shader to your master road SSS, and warp by either a redirect using only X or Z, or a Vector Displacement. Both can be fed a PF with no noise variations, 0 noise roughness and decent amount of displacement. 

I'll try and do an example later. Out and bout right now.

WAS

Alright @CredePendrel here is an example of a path setup for you. Highlighted shaders in the screenshot are the new additions to the project.

CredePendrel

#11
Thanks WAS. I haven't had a chance to look at this yet but will try to do so soon. Thanks a lot for taking the time to show me this!

edit: Been working on some new Nature Assets for Blender. Eventually am going to get around to trying to make a version for Terragen. Thing is, these were made with the Cycles Engine and that doesn't translate to .obj very well.

WAS

Quote from: CredePendrel on August 14, 2019, 05:49:04 PMThanks WAS. I haven't had a chance to look at this yet but will try to do so soon. Thanks a lot for taking the time to show me this!

edit: Been working on some new Nature Assets for Blender. Eventually am going to get around to trying to make a version for Terragen. Thing is, these were made with the Cycles Engine and that doesn't translate to .obj very well.

Looks very nice. Though isn't Cycles just a type of project for the Cycles renderer? IE their Path Tracer. Should be able to export.

CredePendrel

#13
It is but it was made with a complex material node setup. It can work if you bake the texture maps out but I always seem to get some errors that I don't like. Otherwise, I found that with an .obj export I can't add all the other textures used in the blender model, just the "main" texture used as part of that material. It has been a while since I tried though. Will have to give it a go and see!

WAS

Quote from: CredePendrel on August 15, 2019, 01:36:41 PMIt is but it was made with a complex material node setup. It can work if you bake the texture maps out but I always seem to get some errors that I don't like. Otherwise, I found that with an .obj export I can't add all the other textures used in the blender model, just the "main" texture used as part of that material. It has been a while since I tried though. Will have to give it a go and see!

Oh I see. That's pretty common regardless of Cycles. Been a issue long before Cycles was introduced. I think other software has the same quirks about bating out procedural/in-house materials sometimes.