These are 4 views of a terrain generated by Perlin noise and eroded by a thermal erosion algorithm I’ve developed during the project:
All the renderings are based on 1024x1024 heightmaps and use a 256x256 grid with 2 render levels of subsurf (Catmull-Clark) modifier.
The sky is obtained by a mix of clouds and marble procedural textures (improved Perlin as noise basis).
Do you have any suggestion about how to improve the quality/appearance of my renderings? (something different than using better textures ;))
Looks good. The textures could be a bit better but I’m not sure exactly what you are using these renders for. I would add a bump map for some more randomness (just a subtle one, to make grass and rocks).
In order to have better textures I should write a more complex texture generator, but I’ve not time for that now (but I’ll do sooner or later :p), I’m doing those 3D renderings just to have a (3D) visual feedback of the heightmaps so they shouldn’t be perfect, I’m just trying to learn how to improve them for my own knowledge.
A bump map could be a good idea, do you have any link/reference about this subject?
I was thinking about a details map too…
Cool, you did a fine job with your idea. Here is what I mean by a bump map adding some realism, look at the ground in this picture: /uploads/default/original/3X/c/2/c2aec0d96f43dd8e0f193578ce723cbffdbdf265.jpg
Heres a PDF to explain how to do it:
You can make one the same way you make a texture then you can even UV map it for more control, but I don’t think you’d have to go that far in this situation.
top-left square is the original rendering, top-right uses Musgrave-ridged multifractal as bump map, bottom left uses Musgrave-multifractal, bottom right uses a cracked terrain 256x256 gray-image.
For all the bump maps I set “Object” in the Map Input tab and “Nor” in the Map To tab (Nor = 1.0)
in what direction are you trying to “improve”? As a denuded landscape on a mossy planet without any sense of scale, it’s good. Me, I would suggest some trees, a building or a hiker, so we get some sense of whether we are looking a single mountain or the whole rocky mountain range.
Really I think he was just showing off the script he made. That’s what I get out of this anyway. But yeah, some scale, trees and life would be good for it too
Here’s a tip, you can use 2 lamp groups, two materials, nodes, and a ramp shader in one of them to make slope detecting terrain that’s not in camera coordinates.
Thank you nfollmer, I really appreciate your help!
Using your textures I get these results (far and close view):
The top-left image is the original rendering with no bump map, the top-right one uses this ground texture as bump map, the bottom-left one uses this other ground texture and the bottom-right one uses your grass texture.
I think the last one (your grass texture) is better.
I’m just trying to get a more realistic ground, something between my first renderings and the example image posted by nfollmer
However I can’t add other elements because I have to show just the generated landscape.
Excuse me if I’ve omitted these details in my first post!
What you should really do is UV map your terrain, and use rocks where your dirt is and the grass where the grass is, but the bump does make it look better.
oic. ok, well, to improve the accuracy of your renderings, where you are trying to show a 10k or million-year period, consider that mountains rise up over time. erosion is not uniform. the valleys fill in with silt from erosion, and the dirt sloughs off downslope.
above the tree line, erosion is slower (no rain). Above the snow line, even slower but chunkier as chunks of rock break off.
Bump on the grass areas looks too big. Repeat the texture more times in the x and y direction to scale it down a bit, or just scale the texture down in GIMP or something.
