Need advices for a project

[cyphyr]

Ok I've uploaded a simplified Floating Islands scene to the file sharing area, here.
It uses the Sweet Birch Xfrog tree model available [link expired].
Let me know if this is helpful, I've tried to make the nodes fairly self explanatory.
One point of note is that "Cast Shadows" has to be turned off on the plane model as the masking of the plane dose not mask the shadow, so the shadow is projected as a full square shadow, not the shape of the island!
Cheers
Richard

[Henry Blewer]

That's what I meant... This thread has really been turned into a nice tutorial.

[Dune]

That's a nice method, Richard. You get nice flat islands that way. Intrigued by this post in its early stage I quickly threw something together (30' work), based on a second planet, which is very easily populated.

[Henry Blewer]

I wonder if your method can be made more 'ripped' out of the ground on the bottom Ulco. I would take some hard displacements to do and not have the exploding difficulties.

[cyphyr]

That's a nice method, Richard. You get nice flat islands that way. Intrigued by this post in its early stage I quickly threw something together (30' work), based on a second planet, which is very easily populated.

Thanks
The islands don't have to be flat of course, I've just used a fairly low displacement in this example (250m for the top and 500m for the bottom). It dose have a lot of issues however, foremost of these is the shadow bug (which was why I stopped developing it any further). Also I found that getting the populations to work well on the underside (for hanging ivy and creepers etc) was very difficult and never properly satisfactory. If I can remember how I may post a similar short tut on my work flow for that. I tried using a second planet and it works well enough as long as all your after is a planet shaped rock. If you want something more "pandora-esque" then its next to impossible to displace a sphere into a rough cube!!
cheers
Richard

[etto]

Wow guys, I'm speechless!! The help on this forum is invaluable!
I just come back home and found all these posts. This morning I've spent half an hour trying Oshyan method and I did this image. I used a basic paint shader for displacement (positive for upper plane and negative for lower plane) and used a distribution shader on opacity with slope 0° and fuzziness 0.
Then I talked with the art director and because I have to do 4 big island in the foreground and many other in background (then you know how many modification you could be  asked for in a single day...) plus liana connections between them and other little things, I decided to give up for now and use softwares where I'm confortable with. I started modeling in lightwave and probably I'll sculpt normal maps in zbrush. I have an old vue version (5 infinite) and I think I'll use it for trees and vegetation..
Btw Dune, I had the same idea of using a second planet but only with atmosphere enabled to have better control on clouds distribution around the island; you did much more and if a spherical island was in my needs your solution could probably be the best way to go.
This doesn't mean I've lost interest in this beautiful app; so as soon as I finish this project I'll try the 'challenge' of doing it in t2 analyzing and sectioning Richard's scene  .
And doesn't mean, also, that this thread is come to the end..

Ettore

PS obviously I'll also show you the final result

[dandelO]

Richard, quick question on this. I haven't actually downloaded these files but, if I remember right, before, you were managing to populate from the 'object normal'. I mean outwards from the object, instead of only upwards. Am I remembering this correctly, or is that pie-in-the-sky?

If I am remembering it right then, how did you achieve that? Using a planet will only allow you to populate upwards in XYZ space. Of course, you could invert/offset an object and populate the bottom of a planet but, the 'equator' is always going to be a dodgy area...

[Dune]

...its next to impossible to displace a sphere into a rough cube...

Perhaps with huge fake stones only above a certain angle, it would be possible to 'populate' the equator sides with these and thus expand the planet into a horizontal shape. I used two sets of fake stones here, with slope limitations. The clouds are localized from the main planet, the floating planet's atmosphere was unchecked.

@Henry: I think that's possible, just play with the displacement of the rim shader, and throw some 'fast rising clouds' into the crater, add some light source(s) in there as well, etc. Or invert the crater to act as 'molten rock' being pulled up with the 'exploding new world', with cracks and all. Maybe redirect it outwards near the top again where it meets the second planet...  Give the rock some glow...

[otakar]

You can displace planets just fine. I tried Dune's approach, see for yourself. You can restrict populations via a distance shader for example, placing a camera centered hovering 'over' the second planet.

[cyphyr]

Richard, quick question on this. I haven't actually downloaded these files but, if I remember right, before, you were managing to populate from the 'object normal'. I mean outwards from the object, instead of only upwards. Am I remembering this correctly, or is that pie-in-the-sky?

I've had a long time inkling that you could (I mean used to be able to in an earlier version of TG2) populate from the object normal as you say.
Alas this is not true now (and may never have been )

You can displace planets just fine. I tried Dune's approach, see for yourself. You can restrict populations via a distance shader for example, placing a camera centered hovering 'over' the second planet.

But try getting the population to go over the underside of your planet

Richard

[Dune]

But try getting the population to go over the underside of your planet

Just position the hanging planet underneath planet 1, and rotate your camera?