Cinema and good looking landscapes?

[vimutti]

Over they years I've tried some things to get good landscapes in Cinema. This is posted here in case others are interested. I now use GeoControl terain generator and normals maps in the normals channel. The contours are approximations - not accurate.

 

Hope this may be of some interest. Just ask if you are interested and I'll provide more info.

 

vim

[Ernest Burden III]

Do tell!

[cranberry]

verry interested, tell more...pls

[STRAT]

wot dem 2 sed

[Frosty]

Are we only being teased? Hook us up!

[transformav]

Come on then!! we are all waiting for the info.......

 

Regards

 

Martin

[vimutti]

Oh, apologies! I checked back for a week or so and it seemed there was no interest, so I just sorta forgot about it.

 

So here is the deal. Check out the terrain builder "GeoControl" It will export a very high res normal map. In Cinema, put this normal map into the normal map channel of a material. (I'm using 9.2) You have to play with the normal's 3 variable settings and simple lighting source to get it right. It is not very intuitive - or not to me yet anyway. Also export from GeoControl the hightfield map - lower res is OK. Put this heightfield bitmap into a relief object and run the relief object up to around 300 - 400 width and depth segments. It still won't look like much until the Normals map is added as a material. You dont have to make it editable, but you can if desired. This process gives the same result as a very very high poly and high res object (simulating around a million or more polys) that still will not bog down average machines.

 

I try to get fairly close to the contours I need in Geocontrol - with varying success so far. slowly I'm getting a handle on it. When I get it into Cinema, then if not close enough to the contours I need, I will make the relief object editable and use the magnet tool or whatever to tune it up a bit. In GC there are ways to get spectacular close-up detail by "cutting" and repeat cutting. Use several relief objects if you really get into it!

 

I've tried high res and high polygon imports from other terrain generators (as .objs) and it just almost shuts my machine down. Get a few nice trees going and some grass and it all stops being fun any more.

 

GeoControl 2, which is in Alpha testing now, has slope, exposure and heightfield maps. So now slopes and various altitudes and the north side of terrains (for example) can be treated differently in all the ways Cinema can work with a bitmap. Export different slopes for different shaders maybe and combine a heightfield with a southwest exposure map put into the alpha channel or a fusion channel and it can get interesting. I shoot photos of big rocks and make up massive .jpgs to use on the terrains of some jobsites here in New Mexico.

 

GeoControl takes some experimenting to get used to it. I still don't know all the major tricks with it but it is pretty stable and mostly forgiving. I'll be putting together a tutorial for Cinema when I do get a handle on the basics. The documentation is a bit sparse at this point and GC uses much different methods to get really handsome terrains. Release 2 will be really spectacular.

 

Good luck. Keep an eye on my website for a little tutorial in a few months. site is: highdesertstudio dot net

[vimutti]

Here is one quick test for a slope map in GeoControl2 (Alpha). The left object is a relief object using the GC heightfield with no normal channel activated. On the right has the normal chanel activated with the normal map from GC plus simple textures and a little fusion bump using alphas. Not very pretty, I know. Was just trying to see what it would do in varied conditions.

[vimutti]

Here is a screenshot showing a test for the correct normal switches. Good thing there are only 3 switches! The right combo was difficult for me to find and the lighting had to be very simple to judge results. It seems that Cinema and GC don't know what each other are doing in aligning normals....or something. Plus each normal map out of GC seemed to be different. I think I will have to get into the shadow bias in Cinema next.