My 1st Terrain done with Isolines

[Criss]

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1388978

Overall i like how the canyons turned out. There are 4 seperate 4048 size terrains here pieced together and a complex procedural material added to each with displacement although i can not see the displacement details. I never did like Vue's material quality. Also there is a funky cross pattern in the meta clouds off to the upper left. I have no idea what that is.

Anyways the Isolines really helped define these canyons quite well and this i am pleased with.

[cajomi]

Hi Criss, I did not know that you post under "Sethren".
It is really visible, that you do not like the func. editor and materials.
Well, first and very important, if you import the terrain as tif in a proc function you must enable "bicubic" for interpolation in the function editor, else you get stairs.
Second: Try the fractal, no complex functions, to add some details. Use simply the standard setting, with a roughness a tick above 0.5.
I too did not like the Vue material, but I am learning, that it is really good, only not so easy to handle. The environment functions are a pain. I possible, I use a selection from GC. In general, nearly all mats in Vue are extrem to complex, and now with to many images. The simpler the mat, the better it looks. Try, building them up from simple to complex.
The most important part in the func. editor is the filter map:
Often it happens, that Vue ingores values above 0 or below. This can be corrected using the map filter. This is most important for the combining functions, which does only work in the value form 0 to 1. So after combining, you have to map to -1 to 1.

May be I write a special tutorial for using the func. for terrains.

Except that cross pattern, the clouds looks very good.

I hope, I will be able to get the structure of the Vue functions and mats, and may be, GC will be able to export a complete func set and mat set. So, the workflow and the results with Vue will be extrem good.

[Criss]

Yes, i use Sethren more then anything. :)

I like the concept of the function editor/node interface but the quality i seem to question, for example if i did a shader/s inside Terragen 2, i can zoom in and in and still see complex textures over the surface but with Vue 6 i do not seem to get this. It looks smooth and contrasty. I very well could be doing something seriously wrong here.

I had not thought about the bicubic part, my bad.

I can honestly say the function editor for me at least is very easy to use, i am very used to the concept of nodes. I use Genetica 2.5 for my custom texture creations so nodes are very easy for me overall.

I wish the clouds looked better, Vue lacks the hard edged clouds i see in Terragen 2 and this lacks realism in my honest opinion but perhaps by Vue 7, the spectral clouds and meta clouds will become more detailed in terms if bump patterns and inner-shadows.
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Quote: I hope, I will be able to get the structure of the Vue functions and mats, and may be, GC will be able to export a complete func set and mat set. So, the workflow and the results with Vue will be extrem good.


WOW! That sounds very neat. I really like Vue a lot. The more i use it, the more interest it becomes. It's just a matter of how photo-real can i get these renders. I am very picky about this kind of thing. :)
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Thank you for the tips, i will have to attack this again soon.

[cajomi]

So far I have found, not to use the build in textures. And I found, that the fractal noise, where you can set the size of the greatest and finest details gives good and infinite results. But most presets work with pepeat and turbulence.
Well, we will see, what we can get out Vue.
TG2 does not work for me at time. And I need a software, which has an xlt communation with 3DS max (team work for a teaser).

[Criss]

I have yet to play with the fractal noise, there is just so much to experiment with but i will definitely have to look into that noise as soon as i can.

Good communication with 3dsmax. Would this be Vue 6 x-Stream? I always seem to read that there have been a slew of troubles with Vue communicating with external softwares.

[cajomi]

It works. There are sometimes problems, but at all, the team can build a normal 3DS max scene and get from me the landscapes, and these landscapes are then rendered out of 3DSmax with all the buildings and the landscape together.

[Criss]

Well, i have the 16 Bit terrain imported through the procedural function but now half the terrain is under the zero-elevation. I sent an image to show what happend.

[cajomi]

You first must change the terrain to procedural. Then open the func. editor and there load the map/tif.

[Criss]

Goodnees, i missed that part. Opps. :)