How to make broken cliff edges???

[mdunakin]

Hi, I am brand new to this program and am seriously debating purchasing it and have just downloaded the demo last night so I can check it out first.

OK, here's the deal.

I have been searching and looking through all the galleries and such, tutorials, etc. and so far have not found an image that let's me know if this program can recreate this sort of an effect that is natural in nature for some cliff edges where parts of the cliff has been cracked and fallen off and away and I so far haven't found any such examples?
So, looking at the image I have attached to this posting, can anyone tell me if you can first, even see what it is I am referring to, but then also if you know whether or not GeoControl2 can do something like this effect or at least maybe very close to it?
On the left side you can clearly see how the straight up cliff edge that runs along the length of this canyon has busted off parts from cracking and old age and weathering and such, and on the right side I "tried" (LOL) to draw the shapes that you can see there to maybe get a better example of what I am talking about, so I hope you all can see what it is I want to be able to do?
Cuz so far, all the images I've seen, the grand canyon style cliff edges and other monument style rock formations, none of them have this type of effect in any of the images I've seen so far.
Of course, if someone does indeed have an example of this being done with this program, I would really appreciate getting to see that image?

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/DevilsDen_ChoppedEdges_01.jpg

Thanx tons in advance!

.................................................. ..md :)

[mdunakin]

This is actually my own version of a place right near that image above when I went through there way back in the late, only I was going off of pure memory at the time I created that scene in Vue, since I couldn't find the fotos till months later.
But, I really had wanted to add in those broken straight cliff edges (what ever they are really called?) but could only make the same thing I see everyone else make, which is perfectly nice and clean straight up ridges, instead of the broken and cracked busted up ridges like you see in the real fotos.
http://www.md-arts.com/galleries/vue_renders/slides/Montana%20Air.html

You can find all these places in Google Earth too by going here:
File is attached.
It's a Google Earth file that all you need to do is run it and if you have GE installed it will take you right to the place I am referring to.
Look for the set of blue dots (squares) that open to about 5-6 spots and are named The Narrows.

..............................md :)

[nanaboso]

Hi mark

Did you see the Isolines video? the terrain he makes looks a lot like what you want. But then again, I could be wrong haven't used the program yet. I just bought it and it's good to see a few familiar names here also.

[nanaboso]

Started dabling arond, and in the filters tab you can add a filter called for terraces. Again I'm not sure this is the effect you wanted, but take a look at it.

[Plotinus]

I'll have a stab at creating something like this but would have thought that one solution to get the fragmentation features would be to do it with textures in Vue (bump maps or displacement maps if you need to get close up) using a selection created in GC2. The cliff face itself could most probably be done using a terrace filter as mentioned already.

I'll let you know...but you may get there first.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

Thanx guys for your awesomely fast replies! :)
I spent quite a few hours last night just going through everything
and litterally testing e-v-e-r-y last tool I could click on, though I found that it at least seemed to me that several features were dissabled in the demo, but I could be wrong?
But some of the options out right told me they were dissabled, so I was unable
to try them to "see IF" they would do what I was looking for?

No matter though, I already love the program enough that I will be purchasing the program today anyway, since from just the amount of time I spent with it and the few features that I "could" use pretty much convinced me I want this thing hehehe ;)

Personally, I thought and hoped I was through with spending money, after forking out all the loot I have over the past year on my new system (took me that long to save up for everything LOL), but now I see I have to spend more money again, cuz let's face it, as much as those of us who use Vue love that program, it's terrain editor is miles away from this thing and I want REAL looking terrains, not just the same old thing.

And Neuer, I spec we'll start seeing a lot more of the familiar faces here as the due date to purchase this killer program at this pricing runs out :)

I WISHED I could of shown you all the pretty good terrain I made last night, but I'll get to that soon enough, there is so much to learn and so little time.

Anyway, let me see what you all come up with and I'll be back after I get this thing for myself, the FULL version I mean hehehe

Oh, one last thing.
Yeah, I think for those special spots that I have been asking about, I think I can trick it into what I want with texturing or even for that matter, loading the object into LW/modo and just manually adding such things.

...........................md :)

[mdunakin]

Yay Me!
I just bought it! Yeah!
Can't wait to get to PLAY with the FULL on version now hehehehe

.......................md :)

[mdunakin]

OK, here's some more, better closer looks at some of the things I am aiming to create one way or the other.

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/BrokenCliffEdges_01.jpg

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/BrokenCliffEdges_02.jpg

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/BrokenCliffEdges_03.jpg

Anyway, gonna spend the day downloading any tutorials I can find and manuals, if there are any?
And of course, just play with the program and get familiar with how it works and all.

Wish me luck guys!

thanx............................................. md :)

[mdunakin]

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/BrokenCliffEdges_04.jpg

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/BrokenCliffEdges_05.jpg

[Plotinus]

Mark,
I'm no expert on these things but would think that terraces and textures applied to selections is the way to go. I tried it quickly and, although not near to what you're looking for, I get the feeling that with a bit of work on the textures you could get somewhere close.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

Yeah, yeahhhh.... I think thats it! :)
And the best part is, I just finished earlier today one of the tutorials that, though they only touched on the subject, it was enough to get my brain a thinking on how that could really have some profound affect on some of them settings and such, since you can isolate things as a layer!

And of course, this can also mean a mask or really any other thing that can be done from a layer.
Cool stuff and I'm hoping to be able to start moving into the more cooler stuff with this program later tonight, but maybe for sure by tomorrow, as I am working very slowly at this to make sure I actually understand what's what?
I'm right now up to the fun stages of IsoLines and how to work them and the whole idea of various level hights and strengths and all that, really makes all good sense, even though it does look like it would be too confusing to ever possibly get, it just isn't that way at all.
Weird, huh? LOL

But I'm having fun right now playing with the Post Work stuff, where you get to add flows and things and now I'm about to get into the next section of this tutorial, but took a breather for a few and need to get back to it now :)

And your image there, the small version looks like an actual foto.
A little work and the full sized image would too!
kinda reminds me of some areas near the beach here in San Diego too, though they have a bit different type of edges, which I guess you are saying they actually are terraces?
I need to try those more then, cuz I haven't looked at those enough, just the canyon presets and such, but not the terraces.
Probably because I think of how the terraces look in Vue and they don't look like that image you have there LOL

Anyway, back to it, and yes, I LOVE flows, mmmmmmm hehehehe
Setiment flows the best!

...............md :)
P.S. Can we post bug reports somewhere?
I keep finding the same one with trying to save or going to save and canceling instead and that also makes it freeze up so that I have to force quit.

[cajomi]

Hi,

with GC2 you can make niceties, like fine riffs or valleys or rills. It is allways the same: you set in your terrain isolines.
But it is important to try differnt metrics, thin, gross, high and so on.
Look in the tutorial "isolines".
The work with GC2 it also an artist work.

Johannes

[mdunakin]

Exactly.
I totally agree it is an artist program, no doubt about that.
You either can do it or you can't.
You can however always still make neat stuff, but the level to which that neat stuff rises to looking real or cool looking will depend on how good of an artist you really are.
Which for me is nice, since it is basically just a HUGE box of lots of little tools that let me carve things up to form any style of terrain detail I like.

And yes, I've been working my way through both sets of the Isoline tutorials.
Next will be errosions or what ever it's titled? :)

Loved the second tut on Isolines, more advanced and I still need to work my way through that one, but that whole deal with controlling things by using two lines that oversect each other and setting one to use Subtract, now that was pretty cool for tricks there, I thought.
I could see using that as a type of tool in and of itself to make for more detailed control for certain areas that won't do what you want, as that looks like a way to "force" things into submission, as it were.

All good stuff, feel free to post any other tutorials you may think of, cuz these are truly great!

.....................md :)

[mdunakin]

Well, decided to try starting my canyon project that is going to be based on the Narros near The Devil's Den by the YellowStone Park area, and needed a break from the tutorials hehehe, and anyway, I can so far get the actual canyon to work fairly good so far, and I means even with the falls and all, so I had to use various Isolines to make different hights for the river and all, and then the cliff edges and the dirt flows that settle on them and like that, so that is all going nicely so far.
Right now though, I am kinda stuck on which options/tools I should use next to make the sides of the isolines that are the top ridges of the canyon and one for the river, vary in how they look?
Well, the top isolines I can seem to make so that the river side of things looks all the way I would like, but the problem comes in on the mountain half of the isolines?
How do I, or what tools/options/settings should I use to make the mountain side of the isolines be more like a hugh mountant, buldging up, but not really jagged or anything like that, a little mix of mostly rounded hilly lookings spots and a few off towers and mounds and things that stand out and up?

Any help, tips, or what ever anyone might have, all would be very much appreciated :)

Still gonna keep working through the tuts, but I just had to just once see how it felt creating something of my own, and not doing what they do in a tutorial.

thanx..............................md :)

[Plotinus]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying for here (I struggle to visualise descriptions). However, what you may want to try (if you have not already) is to use some height or slope selectors (or both) to create a mask for the areas that you want to alter and apply filters to these selections. So if you want to round off the high areas, select them by height and then apply a filter (e.g. smoothing) only to this area. Play with the filter levels, of course, and the settings. I have used this technique to smooth out valleys (there is a valley smooth filter as well) or peaks. The added benefit is that you can export these selections to act as distribution maps for materials which means that you can align materials to areas that are affected by specific filters.

Don't just do smoothing, though, you may be better off with another filter (or combination) with the levels and settings used to moderate the actual effect that they will produce. Good luck. Do post a picture to the Gallery when you have something.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

Doh!
Ok, the second I got to the part where you start to mention "selections", I just thought out loud, DOH! LOL
Cuz that is sooo obvious yet I didn't even think of that one?
But, then maybe that's because I only glanced at that tut for a few seconds and haven't technically even made it that far along with the tutorials, as I am sooo very methodical with these things, that I tend to be really slow in my learning, as I don't like to "copy" what someone does in a tutorial, but rather actually have a "real" understanding about ALL the tools in said program.

I'd show you a sample screen shot, but I think at the stage I am at right now, you'd just laugh? LOL
I know I might hahahaha

I will however I guess, go ahead and post a sample screen shot to better show you what I am talking about.
The scene I will be (sort of) attempting to recreate, is from that region that I posted for people to go and visit with Google Earth.
I went through that place years ago and remembered it so well, that I made my first attempt at making it in Vue and later found a real foto I had of that and they kinda matched up, which surprised me pretty much, considering that trip was in the late 90s.
In that Vue scene though, I NEVER could get the sides of the cliffs to look like the actual place, so instead I faked most of it and covered it with low laying clouds hahahaha

http://www.md-arts.com/galleries/vue_renders/slides/Montana%20Air.html

Oh, and something else I found out, is sometimes you can cause GC2 to crash out completely if you mess with Isolines and filters in a way that the program may not particularly approve of hahahaha
Can't post a bug on it, since it's too random to really tell what it is that does it, but I was crashing quite a bit yesterday.
And Saving things still scares me real bad every time I go to do a save, since that's also a hit and miss crash action.

Anyway, let me get a screen shot posted here so you can see whats what?

And to those who notice I can't type worth a hoot, sorry, I only just noticed it too LOL
Sheesh, some of my words in the posting above, I barely could tell what the flip I was talking about hahahaha

Thanx much for that(blatantly obvious) tip that I didn't pick up on!

.......................md :)

[mdunakin]

OK, here's the first image (top view) that shows the areas I want to be filled in and full with mountain hill tops:

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/DevilsDen_TopViewMountainAreas_01.jpg

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/DevilsDen_RenderViewMountainAreas_01.jpg

The red outlines show the places I want filled in.
The canyon river is already how I want it, though it's obviously at it's barest base right now and I will detail it up later once I get the whole things to have the basic look that I want.

.........................md :)

[Plotinus]

That canyon is looking really good.

What I think you need here, to start with, is a fresh isoline layer to add height to the areas you indicate. You will need to be a little careful to stop the new isolines from impinging on your canyon but it should be doable. As you are on a fresh layer you won't damage your previous work if you need to mess around with the new isolines. Try using isolines with multiple heights that are high at the edges of the screen (away from the canyon) and blend in with the existing terrain heights nearer the canyon (just a suggestion, I haven't tried to emulate your terrain). Also remember that once you draw an isoline, although you cannot move it, you can change its height. So get it looking reasonably right and then tweak the heights a bit to get it exactly how you want it when combined with the level controls.

Once you have this looking good you can use selectors to moderate where you're applying filters (in the example I gave previously I did this - smoothing the top and applying sharp terracing to a small height band and hard fluvial terraces with high sedimentation applied to low areas). If using GC2's selectors doesn't give you precisely what you need for a mask, you can create one in photoshop (or similar) and import it. This is useful if you want to mask by area rather than by height, roughness or slope. So in this case you could create a mask for the two areas you highlight. Once imported these masks can still be combined with slope, height etc. criteria to give you even more control. This is probably also going to be useful if you want to prevent the existing filters effecting the new mountain top area. Just invert the area mask for the canyon filters. It should work.

Hope this helps, I'm as much a beginner as you.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

Hmm... ok, so far I'm with you pretty much here (which says a lot for a beginner like me who still has a long ways to go to finish these killer tutorials, that really people, if you DON'T thoroughly! view and re-view them several times each, then you are really missing out) but the last part of what you mentioned about using PS, I am now thinking this might be the answer to the question I was just getting ready to post up, when I found that you had already posted a new reply.

Basically, it's this:

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/DevilsDen_RenderViewSelectionAreas_01.jpg

As you can see when I went to use selections, there turned out to be an unforseen problem.
Since selections all seem to work off of actual "levels", this means that it (the selection/levels) will go across ALL of the terrain and NOT in ONLY the areas that you want them to, meaning it flows over into my canyon, which of course would be very bad.

(Side note to Rohannes, can you PLEASE bring back UNDOs!, or at least SOME sort of level of Undos, even if it's only a single undo level?)

So, now that you mentioned the PS masking method, I might see if I can manage to get that done, though I can also see it having loads of limitations from just doing it right in the program, since it would seem taht you would have to always know the rezolution needed BEFORE you ever make the thing and you never know sometimes what you may end up with later on, i.e. maybe you'll change your mind and use a much larger scale of terrain or what ever?
And I still haven't even figured out how to export any sort of an image map to work off of in PS anyway hahahaha
So I hope it's easy to find and figure out?

Anyway, back to this stuff you suggested, I spent the whole night last night trying out a few, then more, then LOTS of isolines to try and make the filler parts of that top of the mountain's hill side to work, but all I ever got was (besides nowhere) was lots more splotchy patchy areas, and nothing remotely like a nice BIG filled in area, like I was loking for.
I know of course this is purely due to my not knowing enough how to work this program yet, so no complaints about that, just stating the facts, that I am not up to par yet and ran into all those sorts of problems :)

In any case, I think that selections are and will end up most likely being pretty much one of my most favorite things after isolines, maybe even more so, since the controls you can get from using selections can do more things then I can right now even think of and though I am still sooo new to this, I am already planning on my first tutorial, which will spend a lot of time dealing with selections and levels in conjunction with those lovely isolines, since really they all work as one unit to truly get what you want for realistic detailed terrains.

Cuz I can already tell, taht most likely, most people will think like me, and not spend enough time with selections, when really THEY hold ALL the secrets to this program :)

Jeeze, do I sound like a commercial every time I talk about this program, or what!!!?? Hahaha LOL

.....................................md :)

[mdunakin]

Hey!, check it out!
I finally tonight made it past where I was stuck and now I can get on with my canyon terrain life! :)

Check it out, this is what I finally found that solved my level problems for me and it works like a total charm and I never would of thought of doing things this way, but using the Slope and some other features in the same section under the Selections tab, really made the difference for me.
Because once I found that I was able to get my isolines to work for me and made my mountain hill top buldge up like I wanted and slant downwards at one end, I then found that when using the selctions that they worked in a perfectly even way all across the terrain.
But!, then just for jollies I tried using the slope option and BINGO! it suddenly made it so that now I can adjust how the selection fills on the sides of my slanted shaped mountain and works exactly how I want it to!
Wowsers!
Now, I just need to figure out how to get back my cliff edges on the red areas that you see in this screen shot? LOL
I'm sure it's easy, but for tonight I think I'll quit whilst I'm ahead and just be very happy that I got this far along and now know a lot more about selections and just how much more control you get then I first thought of?

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/DevilsDen_RenderViewSelectionAreas_02.jpg

This kind of control is premo, simply premo!
Oh yeah, and this is already an old screen shot of what my last work looks like hehehe

...........................md :)

[Plotinus]

Mark,
Looking good there. Just a note on your previous comment re. creating masks in Photoshop being a potential pain if you later change the terrain resolution. I believe that GC2 automatically resizes these imported maps so it should work out fairly well without too much bother. As you have at least three major zones (left side mountains, canyon and right side mountains), it could be a simple solution to help you contain certain filters to certain zones.

Whatever you decide good luck. Post a render when you can.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

Ok, thanx for that on the PS bit, but do you have any ideas on how do I "invert" the red selected ares of the terrain so that I can then add the other type of terrain effect to only those red areas?
That part I still can't seem to figure out or find how to do that
and mait work?

Thanx and thanx for your comments as well :)

.....................md

[dballesg]

Ok, thanx for that on the PS bit, but do you have any ideas on how do I "invert" the red selected ares of the terrain so that I can then add the other type of terrain effect to only those red areas?
That part I still can't seem to figure out or find how to do that
and mait work?

Thanx and thanx for your comments as well :)

.....................md

Hi Mark,

I just tried a small example and I couldn't find an "Invert" option on GC2. The selectors doesn't have a menu like the filter either.

Have you tried to export the selection, invert it on PhotoShop and reimport it again?

David

[mdunakin]

Well, one problem with the importing of images is, that I so far haven't been able to do such a thing.
Not without it coming out too small or some other strange thing that I can't even discribe LOL
Haven't even actually found any tutorials on how you do such things with images yet, so if there is to be a new tutorial made, I would want that subject to be dwelt with.
Cuz so far, I have no clue how to do any of that, I mean I can get the image exported out, but bringing it back in, that's a whole other story.

And bummer that there isn't an "invert", I would of thought that would be an automatic tool to have in this thing, but I guess not? LOL

thanx........................md :)

[Plotinus]

Mark,
Not sure what the problem is here. In the Selectors tab there's an import button that allows you to import a mask from a file you've created in Photoshop or elsewhere. So you could take your plan view screen shot (the one in this thread) into PS, create a new layer and use this to paint a mask. Save the black and white mask layer as a .jpg, .png, .bmp or similar then import it in via the Selectors tab. Hit create and you'll see the masked area in red. You don't need to be pixel perfect here so you should be able to do all this pretty swiftly.

Once in (or indeed with any of the GC2 created selections) you can apply it to the filters by going to the settings tab for the filter. Here, underneath the sliders, is a box that probably says "No selection - everywhere". Click on this and it will bring up your selectors list. Select the one you've created and now the filter will only apply to this area (the bits in red in the selector). Here, you will see, you can also invert the selection so that it only effects parts of the terrain that aren't red in the selector. Neat.

So yes, you can invert selections. A very handy feature.

Regards,

Plotinus

[mdunakin]

OK, but just so you know, I DID try every last thing you just listed, down to the exact same details you laid out, so I must of just missed something?
The image that I brought back in was one quarter the size of the terrain, even though I never changed the size of the 1024 terrain.
So, now sure what happened there?
I also sometimes see that quartering bit too when I do other things and it just suddenly shows up for no apparent reasons that I can find and haven't yet figured out why that ocures or doesn't on other occassions?
Strange sometimes?

I'm running Windows 7 (build 7100) BTW, if that means anything, but I highly doubt that that has anything to do with the basic workins of the program though.

Oh, and I used PNG for my image map.

So, guess I'll see what's up again tonight, thanx and I'll get back to it here.

...............................md :)

[mdunakin]

Just like it says!
I'm "actually!" finally really starting to get something tht "looks" like something and it's nearing how I want it to look in the finals.

I know I keep posting my progress reports with images to go along with them, but I have my reasons.
I feel that it might be of some help for others, mostly newbies like myself, to see what steps I am taking to get to a finished product and so for that reason, I feel it ought to be a good thing, right? :)

At least I hope that's how others here take this?

Let's you see how I went from not knowing squat to learning how to get to where I'll end up at and maybe this will help in some small way for anyone else trying to learn the same or similar things?

Anyway, as blurry as my eyes are right now (after 1am right now) I decided to stop at a very good point before I ruin everything or something lame like that LOL
I am however, constantly saving out versions, I now have 7 versions, and this is more due to the fact that we have no Undos in this program, which are HIGHLY NEEDED, but I know how that is with these types of complex programs, so I do not want to push the issue too much, but DO hope that Rohhannes at least will think it over some more, even if all if is is a one undo level of what ever your last thing was that you changed, as that alone would make life a TRILLION times better.

OK, to the point, (before I start sleep rambling here hahaha) this is my latest image and though I still have no clue what so ever on how to add the texturing and materials and like that, you still can "easily" see how ell the program creates some awesomely realistic errosions and those canyon cliffs seen in my previous foto reffernce images posted at the start of this thread.
I mean, check em out!
They really DO look almost just like how the "real" cliff edges look, with the nice jagged, rough, outcropping type of sprouting upwards ridges at points on th cliffs of th canyonm just like what I was looking for to create!
How cool is that and how cool are "selections"???!!!
And I'm still! barely into this thing and already starting to create things that "I" want created!
Check out how the land slides of dirt and setiment and all flow so nice and fluidly down to the cliff ridges, isn't that cool!?

OK, that's enough for tonight for an update, as I'm having a hard time typing LOL

I just need to figure out how they go about coloring things, but so far, that whole deal totally eludes me for now hahahaha

Here's the latest image and remember, it'll end up being a fly through later down the road.
And of course, I haven't even touched anything about the detailing and all that, but first things first ;)

http://www.md-arts.com/scrn/WowThisProgramRocksCliffsEdgesAreReallyComingAlong _01.JPG

........................md