Early Gaea Imports

Started by SILENCER, May 03, 2018, 10:27:00 AM

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SILENCER

Dax (the only guy that seems to make Vue look marvelous) has been a busy cat, coding GeoGlyph for World Machine and now branching off to do Gaea.
Gaea is still in it's early stages, it appears, but its displacement engine is pretty gnarly.
These are derived from EXR files output from Gaea and brought into Terragen. Displaced using the displacement option in the image shader.  Another version has TG's Erosion plug applied.

Gaea's erosion tools are wild. I found the data sometimes too noisy to bring into Terragen, but that's likely user error. Like all the Terrain generators, the interface is pretty arcane, you just have to spend the time and learn it.

These were done about a week ago, but I didn't have the time to drop them here until now.
As the early release builds are updated, and the learning curve flattens, the results will be more interesting, realistic, and just plain far out.

Eventually I'll be adding additional TG displacement options on top of the Gaea data, etc. Nice to have tools that work together.


digitalguru

#1
nice results - Gaea looks interesting for sure

last image looks like something out of Oblivion  ;)

p.s can you bring these in as heightfields? (.ter)

luvsmuzik

Looks  pretty neat! Does this program have multiple noise options like WM? A sculpting tool like old TG? Can't wait to see some displacements!

Oshyan

Nice tests, some wild shapes! I particularly like the last one as well, Gaea_Whorl_01.jpg.

When you say the interface is "arcane", how do you mean? Because it is (partly) node-based? I thought they were designing it to be a lot easier to use than other tools like World Machine, so I'm curious if you feel that is not (yet) the case, and what you would want to see working differently for it to be easier and less arcane.

- Oshyan

WAS

#4
Quote from: Oshyan on May 03, 2018, 04:08:30 PM
Nice tests, some wild shapes! I particularly like the last one as well, Gaea_Whorl_01.jpg.

When you say the interface is "arcane", how do you mean? Because it is (partly) node-based? I thought they were designing it to be a lot easier to use than other tools like World Machine, so I'm curious if you feel that is not (yet) the case, and what you would want to see working differently for it to be easier and less arcane.

- Oshyan

Could be the lack of windows, and the use of a fixed simplistic GUI,  overuse of sliders (they don't convey high custom-ability at a glance, even if it's like TG and accepts extreme inputs). It seems really barren. Like old programs like Bryce, old TG, etc, or newer simple programs like Sculptris.

SILENCER

Nodes with little swirly pictures. There's a style element to it-- it's meant to be elegant, and I get that it's fine. You're going to be staring at it for hours, so it should look good, and it does. it just requires user adaptation.

As the software evolves I'm sure there'll be more little mouseover tips, as some of that was implemented in the recent release.

Vue's shader tools, for example, are a bloody snarl of unuseability. That interface will make you pull your hair out.

When TG2 first came on the scene, I didn't understand the node network, I'll admit. I now find it to be very straight forward, which is what I love about LightWave's GUI. Opening Maya makes me want to scream

Dax and his crew are really on to something with Gaea. Toss that variable into the mad scientist environment of Terragen and you're really off to the races.

Oshyan

Thanks, that's about what I figured then. Haven't had a chance to try it myself yet, but hope to explore it some time soon-ish. :)

- Oshyan

Dune

Nice terrain. But this can be done in TG as well with the vortex shader.

SILENCER

But this can be done in TG as well with the vortex shader.


No one said or implied that it couldn't.


You can make a box in Max and LightWave as well.
A 1911 and a CZ 97 are both .45 ACP.
There's blondes in Santa Barbara and Norway.

The point is that this came out of Gaea, a new Terrain tool, and much further exploration is in order. There's bound to be overlap in the ability of fractal generators. Coke and Pepsi, Broseph.

zaxxon

Nice examples. I've been exploring the app as well, but many functions have yet to be implemented. Sadly I'm among a fair number of initial users who find key nodes cause crashes (the new erosion node for one), additionally the export function is also problematic on my machine. There is no .ter output option at present, I'll request that, and I'm sure others will as well.  I wouldn't use "arcane" to describe the interface, to me it's very lovely and a pleasure to visualize the evolving terrain forms. There are a number of options to shade the terrain; flat, specular, tiled texture (eventually capable of imported textures), a couple of pseudo colored terrains, even a 'Zbrush' like clay. It is interesting to note that Danil's erosion codings are being incorporated into Gaea. As Dax explains Gaea is a 'platform' and will include various solutions to terrain creation. Gaea works with heightfields and is very much a set of 2D layers being modified by filters, so lateral displacements ala TG are not available. But who knows what will evolve over time. Gaea promises to have a complete library of presets to serve as starting points for the terrain generation process and the line-up of filters is really and truly impressive. Terracing, whether it's in World Machine or TG, or Houdini, always seems a bit artificial to me.  Not in Gaea however, the ability to progressively vary the 'steps', and the addition of a 'Sub-terrace' node make the best terracing effects I've ever seen. Gaea has some very interesting node linking techniques and it's node network is visually attractive as well. It also offers a 'Layers' workflow for the node resistive. Like World-Creator, Gaea has implemented some of the Unity Interface technology. While TG can still do things that the other Terrain creation apps can't do, what it (Gaea) does is provide a very facile creation environment with immediate visual feedback and loads of proprietary filters to simulate real world geological structures (and certainly the ability to get as weird as you can imagine). Plus it is constructed as an additional complimentary tool to World Machine/Quadspinner.

SILENCER

Had a little more time to putz around in Gaea.
When this thing is finished, it'll be a monster.
I haven't tried an extensive landscape yet, just peaks and other landmark type features. I think that's really Terragen's domain, as well as it's superb atmospheric lighting model and renderer. TG is the boss, this is just a tool.

But for specialized pieces, this thing seems to be pretty handy.

I also found that displacing through the image shader wasn't nearly as detailed as piping the image into the displacement node. That also allowed for transform nodes to be applied for rotation, etc. Up until now I had done everything procedurally, so this method is new to me in Terragen.

MD at .7  AA at 6
Soft shadows at 1 samples at 12
8K EXR files.

mhaze

I also have been exploring Gaea. I think the interface is great but the multiple windowing system needs work. You can get some great landscapes from Gaea and I'm sure it will become a very powerful beast. I looking forward to being able to paint erosion!   Use .png for output into TG works great.  If I had to choose I would probably go with Gaea as I think long term it will be the best of the landscape generators. But I don't have to choose so I continue to use all three and pass stuff between them till I get what I want.

mhaze


bobbystahr

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something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist