Twist and Shear

Started by oggyb, December 22, 2006, 12:02:32 PM

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oggyb

Quote from: efflux on December 23, 2006, 02:41:57 AM
OK.

I took things to extreme using the distribution shader and displacing the higher area which actually has no fractal just a displacement shader set to lateral only with a constant attached and I messed with the displacement shaders multiplier. The terrain was smooth so as to avoid problem areas but you can still see some. I'm just testing to extreme and I know oggyb probably wants realistic stuff but you could just tame it down and add more roughness etc.



That's really beautiful efflux.  Nice work!  Thanks for taking the time to update this thread with stuff :)

efflux

I'm glad you like it and I hope my brief explanation can lead to some others trying a few things here. I know for example with heightfields it is possible to get more spiky terrain using curve vertical so there are some interesting possibilities for creating totem like structures but a curve graph node would be a brilliant addition for all sorts of possibilities. Coming from Mojoworld, which can create all sorts of weirdness, I am interested in how far TG2 can be stretched. There are some things missing in TG which limits things but I prefer the state TG2 is in compared to Mojoworld. TG2 has no faults in the way things have been designed. It's easy to understand. Pandromeda have a real challenge on their hands now to make Mojoworld easier. Who knows, Mojoworld 4 may be better than TG2 but the competition will be very healthy for both parties. I will be using both programs.

I wish I had more time to experiment further but I'm sure other users will start to push what can be done in very quick time. Next year I aim to put a whole lot more time into computer graphics and TG2 completely changes what I can do so keep up the good work. It is way beyond what I expected.

efflux

Just another point to add here. You can create spikes with the crater shader by inverting the depth. You could of course bring in simple meshes and displace to get mushroom effects.

Oshyan

Sounds good! I am very glad to hear this kind of feedback from Mojo users. There's no doubt that Mojo forged some ground in some of the areas we're moving into here with planetary scale and massive displacement and whatnot so it's good to see Mojo users enjoying TG2 as well. The otherworldly columns and the like are still a bit difficult in TG2 but I am confident that future development will improve control and ability to do things like that.

- Oshyan

efflux

#19
Next phase in these tests. Displacements in this one have an entire displacement with no fractal and one with a fractal to bulge it further with some shaping. There are some problem areas in the shadows but I'm tweaking further. I have entire forests now and I'm adding in 3D skies, better ground etc for a bigger render.



I really want to start rendering at higher resolution now but I notice when buying TG2 you have to specify Mac or Windows. I'm running TG2 on Windows at the moment due to my Mac being dual core. My PC is actually faster with it's one core. However ultimately I want to buy the Mac version. What I'd really love would be Linux but I'm guessing my only solution is to buy the Mac version and run two instances of TG2 to render. That way I can still use the free TG2 on the Windows machine to work on scenes before rendering. I'd rather avoid Windows.

Oshyan

You continue to get ever more interesting results. Great stuff! I hope you'll put together a little tutorial or share some scene files at some point. I know your Mojo compatriots would love that. :D

We ask for the platform only for our own information. You can use your purchase on either Mac or Windows, as long as you're not using it on 2 machines simultaneously (the bundled render nodes are something an exception to this of course, but they are for rendering only).

We are not likely to provide a full GUI version for Linux any time soon but we do hope to provide a Linux CLI render client.

- Oshyan

efflux

#21
OK. Thanks Oshyan.

I now realize that I can run the full TG on my Mac or PC because I went ahead and got the upgrade from v0.9. I don't use it on two machines simultaneously. I just like to work with the Windows version for now until multi core support is implemented. My XP machine's single core is faster than one core on my Mac.

As for my experiments here, I kind of went too far with it. Long render times when I need to look at simpler things in TG2 and then come back to this to improve it but I just wanted to know how far I could go with a style that Mojoworld can achieve. This is just a small rough test render. The detail is bad on the displacements but I have test rendered sections at high detail and they turn out OK. Very interesting in fact, because I think TG2 might actually have less bad artifacts than Mojo when pushing displacements. These rocks have more roughness than my previous posted render. In that one, where you see the blend at the bottom of the spike (an inverted crater by the way) the textures look really nice. I expected more dodgy artifacts but it seems with rough textures on big displacements that they turn out pretty good. I notice for example in a perlin ridge terrain, overlying smaller displacements don't mess up noticeably where they cross a ridge. They do in Mojo. However to give Mojo credit here, it does have a lot of power to change the effect of the fractal. There are lots of ways to control where the displacement is orientating from e.g. world position, surface position, undisplaced surface position and more.


MeltingIce

Those are some pretty cool effects you are getting.  If you want to write up a tutorial on how to get those effects, I can host it on my tutorial site for you if you like.

MeltingIce Network | Wii Number: 3881 9574 8304 0277

king_tiger_666

has anyone has success in putting a population of objects ontop of a shear terrain?... it doesn't seem to want to populate on terrain if there is a overhang..

<a href="www.hobbies.nzaus.co.nz/">My  Terragen Downloads & Gallery</a>

Tangled-Universe

Well, those formations look pretty cool, but honestly I'm much more curious how to create sheared/displaced terrains like these ones:



and



There's got to be a way to at least mimic this effect. I've been fiddling with almost everything since the TP release, still with no results :(
So maybe you displacement guru's know a way to do it  ;)
You would make me REALLY happy, and I'm probably not the only one ghehe  ;D

Martin

Oshyan

Those are fairly easy actually. In both cases I believe Luc started with a heightfield of an existing canyon from a DEM. The fact that you already have the canyon shape really helps a lot. Then you just apply lateral displacement at an appropriate scale and you get those kinds of shapes. Add a Strata and Outcrops shader if you want the stratification effect.

- Oshyan

JemDaddyO

Can you say Roger Dean?  I knew you could.  Efflux those images are awesome and totally remind me of Roger Dean's artistry on a couple of Yes albums.

VermilionMartyr

Hey Efflux, that's some pretty neat stuff you've got there... can you upload your .tgd files?  I'd really appreciate it.  ^_^

oggyb

Fabulous stuff Efflux, you're making real progress!

M.