[SVN] Texture Nodes + Mesh Modifier: Displace = Terrain Generator

[panzi]

Recently I wrote two tiny texture nodes. They don't do much, just exposing the coordinates (x,y,z) to the node system and a node that calculates the distance between two coordinates (vectors). However, those two nodes just got committed to the blender svn repository!

You can use the texture node system to create terrains. See:

Terrain Node Setup


Terrain


The displacement modifier and weight painting is used to achieve this effect.

Now I wrote another patch that adds a new node "Gauss", which implements the gauss function. It takes two parameters, x and sigma.

Terrain Node Setup


Terrain


I guess using these nodes and the displacement modifier renders inner world obsolete.

See my blog to download the .blend files. Keep in mind that the first one only works with the current SVN version of blender and the second only when you apply the gauss node patch manually.

[pildanovak]

congrats on getting something commited .

Also gj with the terrain generator idea(I use that myself in some of my projects). What I still miss is some kind of "erosion" algorithms which would work as in some advanced terrain generation tools...

[TweakingKnobs]

Great man ! Congrats !

[txrx]

Nice work! Well done!

[panzi]

Thank you all.

[TeslaReaper]

Great! I have something that requires exactly something like this. I'm not sure how to get the right blender version to get this to work, is there an easy way to use this? I have even checked out the blenderSVN but have no clue what to do with it..

[panzi]

Originally Posted by TeslaReaper Great! I have something that requires exactly something like this. I'm not sure how to get the right blender version to get this to work, is there an easy way to use this? I have even checked out the blenderSVN but have no clue what to do with it..

Just go into the blender source directory. (The dir that contains the ChangeLog, COPYING and README files.) Then type this to your shell to build blender:

python scons/scons.py

However, this will build using the default options. To see what options are there type:

python scons/scons.py --help

For me this yields this options (after a lot of configuring output).

You can pass options like this:

python scons/scons.py BF_NUMJOBS=2

This example tells scons that it should use 2 processes to build the source (this makes sense on a dual core system like I have).

You can put the options into the file user-config.py (create it if it does not exists), so you don't have to pass them to scons every time. I use following options:

BF_OPENAL_LIB='openal alut'
WITH_BF_GAMEENGINE=True
WITH_BF_ODE=True
WITH_BF_PLAYER=True
BF_NUMJOBS=2

However, in order to compile you need a lot of development packages installed (gcc, freealut-devel, etc. etc.). Scons will tell you waht packages are missing on your system (or compilation will fail because of a missing header. you can guess what package you need using the header name).

[renderdemon]

There is a way to pass texture mapping coordinates to texture node(not at the end,but as input)?
For example,if i want to connect the size of a checker to a texture(a gradient,a vertex colors)how can be done?
I think geometry node is missing.
Bye

[panzi]

Originally Posted by renderdemon There is a way to pass texture mapping coordinates to texture node(not at the end,but as input)? For example,if i want to connect the size of a checker to a texture(a gradient,a vertex colors)how can be done? I think geometry node is missing. Bye

Such coordinates are not available in the context of textures. For that you have to use materials. In the material node system you then can feed the manipulated coordinates to the texture. See attached images (blend file).

[renderdemon]

Thanks,but I think is a bit limiting.
I know that texture have to generate intensity,color or normal(not mapping),and mapping is outside of them...but,isn't so useful in this way.
This I think isn't a great design for nodes,separating node material from texture(or from compositing)means:
A)you must,for every type of node,have a clone node,for example math node.
B)you have to jump from/to different context,and,for big task,it's becoming daunting visually.
C)some things are impossible to do(or at least much more difficoult than needed)
I hope one day nodes can be only one type,at the end you want to connect something to something else.
btw,cool stuff you have done.

[DL007]

It looks good.

Is it really worth all of the trouble though? Why bother with complex nodes when you could achieve the same effect with sculpting and proportional mesh editing?

It looks really great nonetheless, keep it up.

[motorsep]

How to texture such landscape using nodes? (without UV mapping)

[Ace Dragon]

Originally Posted by DL007 It looks good. Is it really worth all of the trouble though? Why bother with complex nodes when you could achieve the same effect with sculpting and proportional mesh editing? It looks really great nonetheless, keep it up.

Procedurally generating details is usually a big timesaver over manual methods. If you want an epic very detailed terrain stretching for miles it saves time to just have procedural displacement visible before doing manual work and object placing.

[reynante]

Thanks so much! I would even try to discard Terragen for this matter. Thanks. ^_^ Guys like you just makes my everday life happier.

-Reyn

[ShnitzelKiller]

Am i the only one for whom the distort -> translate texture node crashes blender?! I am using mac os 10.5.5.

[DL007]

Originally Posted by Cyborg Dragon Procedurally generating details is usually a big timesaver over manual methods. If you want an epic very detailed terrain stretching for miles it saves time to just have procedural displacement visible before doing manual work and object placing.

I am not saying that mesh displacement is bad, but why bother with the nodes when you can do it by hand and get the same effect in less time?

[Ace Dragon]

Originally Posted by DL007 I am not saying that mesh displacement is bad, but why bother with the nodes when you can do it by hand and get the same effect in less time?

Why do you make renders with Blender anyway, you can make higher quality pics. using clever pixel-by-pixel placement in MSpaint.

There's nothing wrong with tools like this, you'll see an even larger difference in quality in less time when the displaced mesh gets to be much higher resolution.

[Alitorious]

Procedural terrain like this gets to be even more important the larger your scene is. The time to create something like terrain by hand scales linearly with the area (which scales quadratically with the dimensions). Procedural terrain, on the other hand, has a higher overhead but is almost infinitely scalable.

[motorsep]

Guys, how to texture such terrain? (based on height, like bottom is material1, dirt, and the higher terrain gets material # will change. The highest is material let's say 10)

[ShnitzelKiller]

ARE MY POSTS INVISIBLE??? I'VE NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE OR BEEN ABLE TO POST ANY THREADS IN ALL MY TIME AS A MEMBER! I'd just like an answer or some help with my problem, which no one else seems to have; the translate node in the texture node editor crashes me dead. I tried posting a thread on this before, which never showed up.