Middle Earth DEM Project

[monks]

hehe- no, the ice is too thick- need to make some changes.

The crashes were almost certainly caused by the settings I was using: render detail = 6. Apparently 2 is the highest one should ever need to go....!

So, that's good news- hopefully can avoid crashes now. Got a repeat one coming down with detail @ 2 for comparison.

monks

[Redrobes]

Monks, head over to this thread and see GM's link and my post...

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3338

[monks]

Dmytry Lavrov, yes amazing programmer. Last time I heard, one of his wee projects was a volumetric terrain editor using isosurfaces...? I heard it on the grapevine- hehe dunno if anything ever came of it.

spot the difference...

http://www.skindustry.net/medem/file...iontest_17.png

So, it's either tackle the ice again or incorporate more veg...

monks

[Redrobes]

Nope - none that I can see. Must be pretty subtle and if that saves it crashing then go with it I say !

Y'know I have been wracking my brains trying to think why I am familiar with Dmytry and using some serious google fu and then it occurred to me to check - he was with us on the TS boards a while back wasn't he. I feel better now. That was doing my nut. Yeah his work is very cool. Is Pandromeda and Pandemic tied together cos his stuff looks just like something I was given to play with a while back as a company demo - well anyway thats beside the point.

[monks]

haha yeh, he did make an appearance over there early on. hmm, I wouldn't know about Pandemic.
I started another render last night with the grass clumps back in and it predictably crashed so I'll have to do some tests with those to see what the problem is.
I also had another look at the ice and I still can't get it right. I tried Ben's suggestion and it doesn't work- doesn't work in my setup anyway. I'll persevere. I want to use a setup with only a heightfield rather than the ice mask as well. One can always alter the thickness via a heightfield adjust node.

monks

[monks]

2 populations of grass and a fake stones shader.

http://www.skindustry.net/medem/file...iontest_23.png

This is with 2 pops of grass, 2 fake stones ,and the trees of course:

http://www.skindustry.net/medem/file...iontest_27.png

monks

[Redrobes]

Thats pretty good. I guess it just needs more of it. More types of veg with more randomness to it to break it up as much as possible. Although it looks fake because its lacking that diversity the lighting and atmosphere, cloud and depth are really good. You can see that its really not all that far off. The new stone pattern helps a lot. I know that its probably not possible but its the uniform shades on all the leaves especially when many trees are put together that makes it into blocks of solid colour. The same with the grass too. I would imagine that it will be one heck of a complex shader when its all done tho. My worry is the same on this as when I was doing it in mine where I wonder whether the one shader is capable of multiple terrains that we shovel at it. I hope it will be tho.

[monks]

just tinkering tonight. Tomorrow on with the meat of it...more pics in the links.
the rivers don't quite line up with the terrain in some places at the moment; just a matter of importing the updated river data.



http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/m...screenie08.png









http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/m...nCurunir02.png

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/m...ollshaws05.png

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/m...arth/Wold2.png

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/m...arth/Wold3.png





monks

[monks]

correcting the rivers...compared to the one above



monks

[Steel General]

I know I've said this before, but this is some really cool stuff you're doing.