Simple Shape/Shader Array as blendshader...

[dandelO]

I'm having some trouble.

The following is a basic project where simple shapes are representative of buildings. Fine, it'll work for certain circumstances, low light, backlit scenes, etc.

My trouble is that I can't seem to make shaders, which follow the compute terrain node, blend correctly using the simple shape shader or the shader array nodes(these are before the compute terrain but also have 'apply colour' checked to enable them for blending purposes), there are offsets and things I can't get my head around at this point.

Any ideas on why the blended shaders don't follow the masks described by the preceeding nodes?

[attachimg=#]

Some line up, the 2 rows of displacements to the left, for example. Others don't, the octagonal displacement and 4 taller ones don't line up correctly, although, the shape of the blends are correct.

Very low render detail is used here just to show the problem, more detail takes away the displacement edge-rendering issues.

Thanks for any help anyone has to offer.

[Tangled-Universe]

My first guess would be that you could connect a compute terrain before the simple shape shader, but perhaps you might post a node-screenshot so I can be sure what you mean.
Another possibility is that the simple shape shader uses the same principle as the crater shader. You also can't use the crater shader as a blendshader. So perhaps that's the culprit?

[dandelO]

See, the crater shader has no colour output, that's why I believe it doesn't work as a blender. The simple shape shader does, although, it is only used here for masking the area that the simple shape takes up when used as a blender, here's a node-shot...

[attachimg=#]

As you can see, I've left the displacement to the simple shape shaders, none is added through the shader array nodes, I think I have had an idea as I type this, give me 5 minutes...

[dandelO]

No, without even trying it, my idea won't work, I need the edge profile controls of the simple shape displacement tab to get the shapes, I thought to use only colour in them and displace through the shader array but that would just displace from the colour outline of the simple shape, wouldn't it?

[dandelO]

Additionally, all my simple shape shaders use the same colour edge profile as their displacement edge profile, I will try to remove the colour edge profiles so that it is only the main shape being used as the mask. I don't think that this is the problem, though. The blending simply seems offset on some of the areas, not blended wrongly, the shapes are correct, they just don't fit their masks in some areas.
Tweaking...

[jo]

Hi dandelO,

Can you send me the project file so I can check it out please? My email address is:

jomeder@planetside.co.uk

Regards,

Jo

[dandelO]

Thanks, Jo. Done.

[jo]

Hi dandelO,

The problem seems to be with using "Terrain normal" as the slope key for your surface layer slope constraints as opposed to "Final normal". Why this is a problem I have to say I don't know yet, but I'll look into it at some point.

Regards,

Jo

[dandelO]

Thank you, Jo. I'll look into that as soon as I can open up TG again, I'm on the wrong computer just now.

Although, with the grass surface layer, I think I needed to use terrain normal for something to work correctly there, if I remember correctly. It's a surface layer I use often.

I'll check later, thank you!