suggestions on how to start for creating something like this

[Nala1977]

hey guys i'd like to start creating something more precise instead of just random terrains, im trying to gather some ideas where to start into creating the shapes for this image.

i think it should work with strata and outcrop shader, but im having an hard time getting the vertical stripes on the left "column" terrain.
I am going to take this as an exercise and post here some updates on how to get the closest possible to the reference picture, any help is appreciated

[René]

Hopefully this will get you started.

[Nala1977]

Hopefully this will get you started.

thanks René i'll get straight to it

[Tangled-Universe]

If you don't mind I took the liberty to add a few more steps.

1) applied thermal erosion
2) merged eroded terrain with original in "highest" mode
3) added strata to talus
4) eroded talus
5) added rock population

Currently there are 2 versions of talus erosion and I'm not sure which looks more natural.
Which one do you prefer?

I'll make the file available soon, as I need to make a few annotations and might as well make a video about a process like this?

Cheers,
Martin

[WAS]

If you don't mind I took the liberty to add a few more steps.

1) applied thermal erosion
2) merged eroded terrain with original in "highest" mode
3) added strata to talus
4) eroded talus
5) added rock population

Currently there are 2 versions of talus erosion and I'm not sure which looks more natural.
Which one do you prefer?

I'll make the file available soon, as I need to make a few annotations and might as well make a video about a process like this?

Cheers,
Martin

 People would probably adore you for a video on that. Greater effect. I usually try to do a soft underlying terrain and offset for mesas, that way you get the soft rubble pile buildup you can than add rocks too and such.

[Dune]

That's a nice addition. I think I like the top erosion better; deeper gullies. One thing you should take care of perhaps, is getting rid of the banding in the fake stones on the talus, likely due to the strata subridges. I would think the smaller ridges would be eroded away with all those stones. Or at least mask it by some fractal. Or vary the stone size more, so it's less opbvious. Just my 2 cents.

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks guys, cheers.

That's a nice addition. I think I like the top erosion better; deeper gullies. One thing you should take care of perhaps, is getting rid of the banding in the fake stones on the talus, likely due to the strata subridges. I would think the smaller ridges would be eroded away with all those stones. Or at least mask it by some fractal. Or vary the stone size more, so it's less opbvious. Just my 2 cents.

There are no fake stones, they are instanced rocks and can not incorporate any of the underlying surface displacement (for which you normally would use a smoothed surface layer as sit-on shader for the fake stones).
Perhaps you want to have the slope restriction tighter so that the ridges become more visible? Or you want to have only lower octaves of strata visible?
It's really dependent on what you are looking for. When looking at mesa references you find all kind of variations. There are mesa with heavily stratified talus slopes and there are mesa with almost perfectly smooth talus slopes.

[Dune]

Ah, I see. I now see the pop boundary indeed. Maybe indeed leave out the higher octaves, or break up the strata. It's not for me, though, so I'm just commenting

[Nala1977]

im having an hard time understanding some things in terragen on terrain creation, and out of frustration i went and done it in Gaea, even tho Gaea has its own issues when it comes to lateral displacement since its basically a displacement on Y app.

this is what i came up with, still trying to understand the logic behind the file René posted.

thanks everyone

[Nala1977]

If you don't mind I took the liberty to add a few more steps.

1) applied thermal erosion
2) merged eroded terrain with original in "highest" mode
3) added strata to talus
4) eroded talus
5) added rock population

Currently there are 2 versions of talus erosion and I'm not sure which looks more natural.
Which one do you prefer?

I'll make the file available soon, as I need to make a few annotations and might as well make a video about a process like this?

Cheers,
Martin

can you show what parameters did you use for adding the thermal erosion?
did you use Daniil Kamperov erosion? im having an hard time using the plugin, because i can not get back the details, everything ends up being always too soft, nothing is crisp, reading the documentation isnt helping for me, i guess it depends on the scale, but im not sure what parameter to use

[Dune]

There's a checkbox somewhere to render detail, masked by wear or so.