Example Terrain Material?

#1 I would read this entire thread, and then go read any posts made by Andy Wright and Dan Webb.

www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/132065

Diffuse is a regular texture that provides color on a large scale. I use a single large diffuse texture the size of the entire terrain for every material. The editor hides how beneficial that is.

Detail is an up close detail texture. I use a mostly greyscale image that has been run through a high pass filter.

Macro works exactly like the detail texture, but doesn't support normal/parallax maps. It is designed to work at large scales and distances to provide more distant detail and break up any obvious tiling artifacts in the detail texture. I use similar textures as the detail texture at lower strengths for this. It's pretty optional.

Parallax scale should be pretty low, like 0.01. A parallax map is just a height map stored in a single channel, in this case the alpha of the normal map. Making good materials with detail, normal, and parallax maps that all match up is an art. You can try to fake it with photos and something like crazybump, but the best results are made by hand with a 3D package - I see ZBrush/Mudbox being used for this.

#2 here is a quick PDF I made for creating the parallax maps in T3D: 3tdstudios.com/downloads/Parallax_Mapping_Tutorial.pdf


Ron

#3 Thanks guys, the Tutorial helped, I wasn't aware of tools like crazybump or njob.

Kind of got something working with njob and a supposedly seamless texture off the internet. It turned out not to be completely seamless, but I got a decent screenshot.

Also, the terrain is real world data that I pulled through L3DT. I used the texture from L3DT as the diffuse. The texture as macro, then made a detail map from the texture. Ran the texture through njob to produce heightmap and normal map. Then put the heightmap in the normal map alpha in photoshop.

#4 Scott, that rocks.

L3DT is...ok. I prefer World Machine, and some others on the boards like GeoControl. The free demo version of World Machine will output 512x512 maps, which is enough to make a small terrain and get a feel for what it can do. I found it easy to get the real terrain feeling after switching over from L3DT.

Good luck, and keep at it.

#5 Scott, that is one gorgeous looking beach! However (and this is really just my personal opinion) it looks to me like you're letting L3DT include the water map in your diffuse map. While I do like that particular feature of L3DT, I also noticed that because of the water fog in T3D, it's actually better to leave that out. Alternatively, you could edit your diffuse map in an image editor with the water mask layer (from L3DT) to lighten it somewhat. The above image clearly shows the very dark L3DT water gradient burnt into the diffuse map. Hope this is helpful to you.

That sand looks bloody great, though. Good work!

#6 Yeah, I noticed the water mask was too dark, at least around the edges.

I ran into issues with the lighting and the textures in the screenshot above. As soon as I would set it so the TimeOfDay put the sun up in the middle of the sky, the sand material would turn pure white. Any idea what causes that? I'm guessing maybe the bump map is too high or the detail map is too light.

I tried out World Machine since you mentioned it, and 512x512 is not high enough resolution for real world elevation data.I'll stick with L3DT for now, its also much cheaper if I decide to purchase it.

Does anyone have suggestions for getting different textures to blend well together?

Scott

#7 @Scott that could be a postFX issue. Try disabling postFX and see if it solves the issue.

#8 For reference, this is the texture that I used seamless-pixels.blogspot.com/2013/01/seamless-beach-sand-footsteps-texture.html

#9 In my material, the detail map was causing the pure white issue. Try toying around with it.

#10 @Scott - the whiteout effect is indeed caused by the lightmap from L3DT. To remove (or at least reduce) it, simply set your light strength in L3DT to 0.5. Also, if you're using a TOD object and a scattersky (or even a skybox) you probably don't want the lightmap to be baked onto your diffuse map at all. If you want to try out something different, try making the sun height 90 degrees, and then using an image manipulation software like Gimp or Photoshop, blend the lightmap image (exported from L3DT) in multiply mode, then merge it with the diffuse map.

#11 Hmmm I don't think I'm using the lightmap from L3DT. I only exported the heightmap and the texture map. Used heightmap to generate terrain, and use the texture map as the diffuse for every layer.

The main thing that affects it is the amount I blend in the detail and macro layers. If I keep them at around 0.1, it looks fine, though I don't get much color.

The problem with that, if I want to add something with more color detail, it doesn't really work out. I tried to edit the sand texture to have some clumps of seaweed and it looks way too desaturated at such a low blend percentage.

#12 You need to desaturate the image you are using for your detail map, stuff thats light like sands and snows usually need to be a fairly mid tone grey, you still get your colour detail from it but it doesent get over exposed like youre experiencing

Are you using a image for your detail that has colouring similar to a sand like this ?


I make my detail maps to look more like this via highpass and manual desaturation



You also have to be careful with the macro layer. As it starts at 0 and textures the terrain as far as you set it, it overlays with the detail map, if they are the same or similar pattern and scale, they will multiply eachothers shadow strength for the length of the detail view distance

#13 These pics here are of that texture, the full diffuse colour used as a detail in the first pic, the desaturated detail used in the second pic, and the detail also used as macro in the third to show what i mean

Diffuse as detail
Detail as detail
With Detail and Macro

#14 With regards to the lightmap part of the process in L3DT, that program will ask if you want to use the various maps in creating the final diffuse map. If all you want is the colour info, then you won't need the normal, light or any other map, apart from the attributes and height maps. All others are for the lightmap only, and won't be needed in T3D, as it has its own dynamic lighting.

#15 "here is a quick PDF I made for creating the parallax maps in T3D: 3tdstudios.com/downloads/Parallax_Mapping_Tutorial.pdf"

The link is broken. Can someone share this tutorial?

#16 In gimp it is add layer mask, and copy and paste the heightmap into the additional layer in the normal map -done

#17 Correct me if I wrong: 1) I need add alpha channel for my normal map, 2) paste displacement map in alpha channel of normal map. Right?

#18 Yes.

#19 Thanks a lot!
I`ll try

#20 My first probe.

http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1380966390/4f04b9fa/3235450_m.png

http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1380966391/1c824eb6/3235451_m.png

http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1380966391/c492db6b/3235452_m.png

So I don`t understand what paralax scale does. I thought it controls strength of paralax but it seems that change the size of material