Hey everyone,
I am a developer doing some sort term tests to see if Terragen is worth our time.
I am looking for a little information/best practices on how to create and control the terrain to create cliff meshes. I have read and watched all the intro tutorials I can find, but cant seem to find any information on what the terrain nodes actually do, and the best practices when using them.
I am pleased to see that it looks like there is a great bustling community around this software though, which gives me a lot of hope!
I am following along with a work flow like seen in this presentation (slides: 26-34)
https://www.slideshare.net/VesselinEfremov/authoring-of-procedural-rocks-in-the-blacksmith-realtime-short-51753674 (https://www.slideshare.net/VesselinEfremov/authoring-of-procedural-rocks-in-the-blacksmith-realtime-short-51753674)
For those not familiar with game development, I am looking to use Terragen to create some High poly (not game ready) cliffs.
So really... How do I create some cool cliffs in the terrain, that I can then Export out. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be eternally grateful!
Cheers,
John
It would be helpful to see some reference images of what you're trying to create, but here's a basic overview of what you should know to get started.
First, everything starts with a "flat" planet (i.e. normal planetary curvature, but locally it is essentially flat). You then displace upward. Unless you are using vector displacement, you cannot create overhanging surfaces without secondary displacement, and even truly vertical surfaces end up very stretched and problematic. For that reason it is best to displace upward with very steep but not truly vertical initial features. Then you apply secondary displacement laterally. The simplest way to do this is to use a Redirect Shader and only apply the X/Z direction, not Y (vertical).
You can get a good start on things by just adjusting a base noise function (Power Fractal) to have a high contrast (use the shader preview to accomplish this) with large scales (1000+ meters), then use that for high-amplitude displacement. This gets you sharp cliffs and rises. Then apply a second Power Fractal with much smaller scales and send it through a Redirect to get those lateral displacements. Obviously you need to find the right noise functions and settings to achieve your desired look, but this is the starting point you may need to iterate on that.
Aside from that I recommend checking out the canyon scenes and resources from both NWDA:
http://www.nwdastore.com/
And Luc Bianco:
https://www.lucbianco.fr/store/
For reference, starting points, and inspiration. Also look around in the forums here for "square rocks" threads and related.
- Oshyan
Hi
Here an illustration of the flow with an example starting from a Voronoi noise shape and applying several iterations of different noises at smaller and smaller scales until to obtain enough details
Hope it helps you to understand the process
luc
Quote from: Oshyan on October 05, 2017, 12:38:23 AM
.... a good start on things by just adjusting a base noise function (Power Fractal) to have a high contrast (use the shader preview to accomplish this) with large scales (1000+ meters), then use that for high-amplitude displacement. This gets you sharp cliffs and rises. Then apply a second Power Fractal with much smaller scales and send it through a Redirect to get those lateral displacements. Obviously you need to find the right noise functions and settings to achieve your desired look, but this is the starting point you may need to iterate on that.
Aside from that I recommend checking out the canyon scenes and resources from both NWDA:
http://www.nwdastore.com/
And Luc Bianco:
https://www.lucbianco.fr/store/
For reference, starting points, and inspiration. Also look around in the forums here for "square rocks" threads and related.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Luc Bianco on October 09, 2017, 03:02:51 AM
Hi
Here an illustration of the flow with an example starting from a Voronoi noise shape and applying several iterations of different noises at smaller and smaller scales until to obtain enough details
Hope it helps you to understand the process
luc
Thanks Luc
Quote from: Luc Bianco on October 09, 2017, 03:02:51 AM
Hi
Here an illustration of the flow with an example starting from a Voronoi noise shape and applying several iterations of different noises at smaller and smaller scales until to obtain enough details
Hope it helps you to understand the process
luc
Thank you so much for the step by step! This is super helpful! I will send an update when I progress more!
Many Thanks!
John