How can I make large areas Flat?

[cyphyr]

Well the title says it. I want to make a planet and ass their is no "Sea" shader I would like to just colour in Areas below a certain altitude blue for ocean. Easly done but I find that the lower areas of my terrain are not flat, deep troughs are in the middle of my oceans. The effect looks like the topographic maps of earth you see. I/m using Alpine fractel to displace my planet terrain but I cant see a way to completely switch off its influence bellow a defined altitude. I have tried using a surface layer in the blend channel with constraints on altitude but this seems not to work. Suggestions please.
Thanks
Richard

[FrankB]

no, no, that's not a good way of doing it. Try this: disconnect all shader you might have connected to the surface input of the planet node. Then, create a planet surface shader and connect it to the planet. In the properties of that planet surface shader, you can make all the modification you would need from a space view, including oceans.

Cheers,
Frank

[cyphyr]

Hi
Thanks for the quick answer. I thought of using the planet shader but it doesn't give me the detail level I need. I'm aiming for quite close up shots, the sort of thing you'd see looking out of the space shuttle window.
Richard

[FrankB]

Well, in this case I recommend using a power fractal (not alpine, may be too slow), and withing the power fractal properties you would have to tweak lots of things to get continental shapes and ... look at the attached file, you may start your more complex planet from there.

Cheers,
Frank

[Oshyan]

You can simply use a large-scale Power Fractal as the Blend Shader for your Alpine Fractal. Remember that altitude constraints have to operate on an existing altitude, which is only provided by your Alpine Terrain, so it's a case of "chicken before the egg". That's why you need to use a non-altitude based distribution, in this case defined by a Power Fractal.

- Oshyan