Looking for some ideas on realistically texturing mountains using Cycles. What I’m specifically looking for is how to layer, say, snow over rocks, with the distribution and fall-off defined by altitude and slope, as can be done in Carrara and Bryce. All the tuts I’ve seen do mixes, with varying random distributions of materials, but I’m looking for more specific control.
First prize would be as above - my searching found reference in an old post to a plugin which could do that, but it wasn’t revealed whether this was for Cycles or Internal and I couldn’t find it anyway.
Second prize would be to texture paint over an existing rock material, using external textures as brushes - I don’t think this is possible? Perhaps if the texture was baked?
Third prize would be to be able to export an existing node-based texture, edit it in Gimp and re-import. Is this possible?
Thank you eppo - you have made me hungry for more!
Seems to me that NRK’s development on this project has been abandoned, no posts since 2012? It looks interesting - looks like he was trying to pre-define textures, which is obviously a huge task, but would end up with very stereotyped terrains. I would have thought that having slots or nodes for users to input their own textures would have been more logical and a lot less work for the developer? These are the methods used in Carrara and Bryce for many years.
The first links in your post are exactly what i would love to be able to do; he shows what he is doing, but doesn’t explain how. Seems to be a mix of nodes and texture paint? Do you know anything more on this subject?
The last is very technical and me not being a mathematician, I’ll really have to study it to try to understand.
I get it about baking and editing in an external application - how would one go about editing it in Blender?
Interesting remark about using sun and shadows to influence material distribution - how to go about that?
Sorry for all the questions - I come from using apps where these functions are straightforward, but a bit limited in scope, to a much more diverse and powerful Blender. Slowly coming to grips with the nodes system, which is very different than what I’m used to:)-
I’d suggest get a bit more comfortable in using Cycles material nodes (shouldn’t be too alienated from what image editing layer mixing does + main difference - influencing lights, material reflectivity) and then follow any of mentioned links.
Sun and shadows - if you think about how would snow or vegetation be distributed based on this information and apply that to mixing materials using shade/no shade mask which could be get as a baked shadow pass or image taken from camera above the landscape model…You get the idea.
Somewhere in Mike Pan’s links is example .blend - this, explanations and video, provided you have some grasp on nodes, is all to start experiment i think. And well, unfortunately or not, there is quite a bit of math and programming around in 3d content creation…
Image editing in Blender is done by either painting in 3d space directly using Texture Paint mode or in 2d on image in UV Editor if this is switched to Draw from a default View. Brushes and such are located on T-panel. Important: Save paintwork from UV Editor menu - image painted wont be saved by saving .blend file!
Look for answers here on forum if you feel stuck somewhere.
Took another look at Mike Pan’s video and found links to a more in depth explanation, as well as the .blend, so that gives me something further to study.
Yes, Blender is very technical, which is both a strength and a weakness. A strength in that it is so versatile and attracts so many very talented developers and a weakness in that artists don’t enjoy having technicalities getting in the way of creativity. It has so many rewards for those who persist. There was a time I thought I’d never understand the modelling methods, now I wouldn’t go back to my previous modelling app, which I really loved!
I find the node system much more logical than the tree systems I previously used and will persist with it - understanding is growing:)
K, now when the first place’s part is covered…
Make sure your rock is UV unwrapped and has new image texture assigned (you’ll be asked to do that as soon as you will try next).
Change to Texture Paint mode.
Open one of texture files you plan to use for painting as a brush (there is a special Brush Texture mode on Texture tab)
Choose this image as a texture for painting - T-shelf.
Switch to Stencil paint mode, use Ctrl, Shift, Alt to move, scale and rotate semitransparent image in front of your rock, paint when ready…
Texture from stencil will land on your rock.
Third. Look into baking. This will allow to get whole texture for object, take to Gimp or whatever Dark Room, modify, save and reload in Blender.
Or - position your object in 3d view so that you see texture part you want to modify in external editor (editor has to be assigned in User Preferences- File tab; even M$ Paint would work) and press Quick Edit on T-shelf (all in Texture Paint mode). You might want to adjust resolution below button first. When done editing, overwrite opened in image editor file and back in Blender press Apply button.
Nice for adding stencils, texts and so on.
Shall i PM my Post Office Box number now ?
To be honest, all you write about other 3d apps and initial panic getting into nodes… We’ve been through this here too. Seems inevitable, somehow.
I now understand Mike Pan’s node tree - what I don’t understand is how he made the colour map shown in the attached pic from the three BW pics.
Open one of texture files you plan to use for painting as a brush (there is a special Brush Texture mode on Texture tab)
Choose this image as a texture for painting - T-shelf.
When I select the checkerboard symbol in texture paint to browse to a texture image - the only option I get is for a blank black texture. See second pic. If I import an image texture in the normal way, that replaces the base texture, so I can, for instance, have a base rock texture and paint on it, but can’t use an external texture of, say, grass to paint over it.
That is progress - just one more hurdle to overcome:)
Texture: If you had tried to add a texture from T-panel, newly created one gets added to the material texture stack which is not necessarily what you’d expect. Me as a user would rather see it added to the Brush textures but you know… welll… Maybe my logic fails and we need to rtfm more…
Instead of adding texture for Brush in T-panel using ‘+’ icon use Texture tab and select not the default Material icon from three in a row [World, Material, Texture] but Texture (checkerboard). See image: As soon as you establish texture here it will be available as Brush texture. If you ask me - no comment…
Concerning MP images- you have attached image where solution is in front of you already: composite RGB image where R is selected from above row greyscale tileable clay, G is greyscale tileable grass and B is rocks.
Converted to Cycles nodes: add 3 Image nodes you load with 3 greyscale images and use Converter - Combine RGB node to mix all of them.
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