Terrain Altitude Blend

[mogn]

@efflux. I dont if it would be faster to delay the conversion from vector to displacement by replacing upper displacement functions by "add scalar".

[efflux]

Mogn.

That's probably true but the displacement nodes are a way of giving each voronoi a different displacement value.

To be honest, this all renders reasonably fast anyway. My other stepped terrain on the other hand isn't too fast.

[efflux]

OK. I've rebuilt that graph to do essentially the same thing but without the extra displacement nodes. It obviously requires a lot more nodes and is not exactly the same results but is certainly more or less the same effect. I'll do a test to see the render differences. It could be interesting.

[efflux]

I've run the test. I built blue nodes to do as close as possible to the version with the red node displacements. Blue nodes rendered in 8.57. Red nodes in 9.17. So it's not earth shattering but does make a small difference.

[efflux]

Here's a file of the chained voronoi. Quite simple but I'll put a file here anyway. It's the exact setup in the last render from the stepped terrain thread. Nothing tweaked for artistic effect.

The voronoi are just added unlike the last screenshot which shows displacement nodes. You could multiply before the add.

This really needs some serious experimentation. Different noise functions and different maths effects applied to them.

[Dune]

Thanks for sharing this efflux!

[Matt]

I think you can almost do anything with TG2 except make erosions which are quite flat like rivers etc. We have the Alpine Fractal which goes a bit in this direction but I've noticed there is a nasty problem with that shader. You get horrible vertical breakages.

There is a fixed version of the Alpine Fractal Shader in the next release (2.4). You'll need to use Alpine Fractal Shader v2.

Matt

[mogn]

Nice and clean programming. The use of a "Get position" for each of the of the Voronois is free of charge.
A curve tool (a 0..1 soft profile with 3 settable points) is soon coming.

[efflux]

Thanks Matt. I never used the Alpine Shader much until recently but I kept seeing those breaks.

[efflux]

Here's that last file slightly tweaked. Colour added and terrain slightly redirected. Global ocean added. More pronounced beach areas could be created with this technique. There is still no surface texture other than one flat colour. Image is exported as exr then edited in Blender and Lightzone.

[choronr]

Thank you efflux, this is a marvelous piece of work.

[efflux]

Thanks Choronr.

I thought I would add that last picture for better example of the idea here. Most of the files I've worked on lately have been kept very simple and grayscale to concentrate on getting simple basic forms to expand on. Especially before any fancy surfaces go on.

For anyone wondering how to create global ocean (I'm assuming it's elsewhere on the forum but since I did it here), it's just a sphere the same size and place as the original or very near. You'll have to slightly tweak it's size to fit. It's just got a water shader applied.

EDIT: That global water method is wrong. A second planet casts shadows. I've changed it to sphere which can have cast shadows disabled.

[masonspappy]

The last image is unique and well done

[efflux]

You ain't seen anything yet 

[choronr]

Hi efflux,

Have worked with your Tab7 file and came up with this. Added some additional nodes, surfaces and vegetation. The additional nodes included files by FrankB (wavey strata and terraces) and dandelO (1 and 10m cracks).

Bob