Understanding the detail Materials for the Terrain

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hey.

Started to experiment with the new LandscapeTerrain.

Can you add a few more infos or your thoughts about the concept of the details/masks/Materials please.

I dont fully have a breakthrough in understanding the Detail Materials (Details in the ObjectLandscapeTerrain).

There is the option, to add  Detail Materials to a mask. This masks are used by the LandscapeLayerMap and synchronised to the ObjectLandscapeTerrain. Which I guess means the positioning and tiling.

But for what case would I add more than one material to a mask. There are no ways to apply them in a useful way, and as they are synced to the masks, they are used for all LandscapeLayerMaps  I would add. (For higher resolution I guess).

So basically I can use 20 Materials (Masks) for one ObjectLandscapeTerrain? Is this correct?

Best. Werner

Edited November 29, 2019 by werner.poetzelberger

[bmyagkov]

On 11/29/2019 at 9:00 PM, werner.poetzelberger said:

Hey.

Started to experiment with the new LandscapeTerrain.

Can you add a few more infos or your thoughts about the concept of the details/masks/Materials please.

I dont fully have a breakthrough in understanding the Detail Materials (Details in the ObjectLandscapeTerrain).

There is the option, to add  Detail Materials to a mask. This masks are used by the LandscapeLayerMap and synchronised to the ObjectLandscapeTerrain. Which I guess means the positioning and tiling.

But for what case would I add more than one material to a mask. There are no ways to apply them in a useful way, and as they are synced to the masks, they are used for all LandscapeLayerMaps  I would add. (For higher resolution I guess).

So basically I can use 20 Materials (Masks) for one ObjectLandscapeTerrain? Is this correct?

Best. Werner

Hello Werner,

Details are blended between each other, you can have as much details as you want to make your terrain more detailed and various.

Each "Detail Mask" has it's own "Mask Image" which is applied for whole terrain object, each Detail could also contains additional mask too.

Here is an example of our most recent demos made using ObjectLandscapeTerrain. There is three detail layers which is contains same data but with diffrerent settings and masks:

ObjectLandscapeTerrain it's only renderer object for geometry and details, it's doesn't contains any data by itself. There could be 20 masks per map, as you already rightly noted.

Thanks.

 

[werner.poetzelberger]

Thank you for that reply.

Can you give me some usecases for that please.

I do understand the technical possibilities but cannot see a practical application for that.

Maybe dynamic usage, such as changing terrain surfaces?

Best. Werner

 

[bmyagkov]

Let's imagine that you have a DetailMask called "Rocks", this layer will contain all the stones on your terrain, each of them will be placed by the same mask specified in the LandscapeLayerMap

If you use only one detail, then you can't make your objects various and different from each other, they all will be placed in the same way, have same size, orientation, colour, texture and will look unnatural.

Therefore, you add another detail layer, where you set, for example, same textures but change other parameters like size, contrast, albedo and all this rocks is also placed by the same mask mentioned above.

Create a third detail layer to decreases stones size even more, use a different albedo and additionally apply another mask which will works inside of the mask already used for stones, making the terrain even more various and unique.

(see .gif in a post above, there are three detail layers which is all have same texture but different settings, first one contains rocks with base size 50, second one 25 and last one most smallest 10 units.)

Also, there is "Mask By Height" which is also allowing you to plant same rocks at different terrain heights within a same single mask.

Thanks!

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hey ehh ....bmyagkov ;) (cool name btw),

i think i kind of starting to understand the detailing methods.

So the idea is to combine materials in a way, that they will depict a unique appearance for each mask.

You can use any (Terrain)-material (up to 1024) to create such combinations.

There are 20 masks per Terrain (in the end, 20 Material-Masks made out of many complex combinations).

That sounds logic to me.

There is one thing which looks even more cool, but I couldnt get it to work, and thats the: Mask by Albedo.

Does this mask a detail layer (Material) by the color of the overall Albedo Color? That would give us 24 million masks oO. 

Which Albedo is meant by "Albedo"?

;)

Thx. Werner

 

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by werner.poetzelberger

[bmyagkov]

On 12/3/2019 at 5:47 PM, werner.poetzelberger said:

There is one thing which looks even more cool, but I couldnt get it to work, and thats the: Mask by Albedo.

Hello Werner!

Here is an example how to use "Mask By Albedo":

Few notes:
* Alpha Channel at "Pick Color" menu has been set on "255" to get "Mask By Albedo" works, other way detail texture or it's albedo will completely cover terrain
* Mask Image used for "DetailMask 1" contains only white color what means it's applied on whole terrain map
* Detail Albedo Opacity set on 1 to make used detail texture visible

On 12/3/2019 at 5:47 PM, werner.poetzelberger said:

Does this mask a detail layer (Material) by the color of the overall Albedo Color? That would give us 24 million masks oO. 

It's sounds like we need to stock up with a lot of RAM and popcorn

On 12/3/2019 at 5:47 PM, werner.poetzelberger said:

Which Albedo is meant by "Albedo"?

Means Albedo used for "LandscapeLayerMap Albedo" here:

I kind of agree that it might be not obvious to understand how to get it work by the first sight, but I want to remind that much of functional still work in progress and it will be slightly improved to upcoming release.

Thank you for feedback!

 

 

[werner.poetzelberger]

Thank you bmyagkov.

That trick helped.

I have to say, that this is definitely big.

If I see that correctly, now there are basically no limits to materials, ja okay 256³, but that should do the deed.oO.

Best.W.

Edited December 6, 2019 by werner.poetzelberger