good methods of generating realistic terrain, plug-in, standalone or otherwise?

[stayinwonderland]

I want to take my environment design to the next level. I saw this video recently and it kinda blew my mind:

 

 

That uses a C4D plugin called DEM earth I think. I wanted to find something I could use with 3ds max.

 

I don't need geographically accurate terrain either, but one factor is that in geo data terrain, you get the texture maps and that can make up for a lack of geometry detail.

 

I dunno, what do you guys think? world machine? vue? importing DEM data manually?

[Virgil Johnson]

I import DEMs myself and then drape them with hi res images.

But then again I do accurate work for a living.

 

Using Civil 3D can be a big help but not necessary.

 

Virgil

[stayinwonderland]

Could you elaborate on your process please? As in, do you use say MicroDEM to get the height data? and then how do you go about getting the hi res images which perfectly match the terrain? (I've seen a few things online where they're using medium res textures but I'd want massive 4k+ texture if poss).

 

So yeah, would just like to know a good workflow and ensure that the images are large.

[Virgil Johnson]

Have you seen this?

 

 

sort of walks you through it.

 

Having Civil 3D working for you helps.

But you can just import the DEMs into Max and use logic to set the image.

 

I am doing a viz for a long bridge at Cape Canaveral and the engineer had the nerve to give me an ACAD file (- how quaint is this that?).

 

So I have to do it the long way around but it works.

 

Virgil

[stayinwonderland]

Hmm, I'm not so sure that's the software for me. I don't just need sateline pics over terrain, I need very dense, realistic hills and mountains for landscape stuff. Not necessarily real places from google earth. But I'm currently looking into DEM data as well as World Machine as a possibility. But then there's atmosphere to consider, which is not really doable in 3ds max with Vue or maybe Octane sky. Not sure if Corona allows for atmosphere, I think it allows for fog in its RT engine.

[Virgil Johnson]

As I said I have to be accurate in my work. I am sure the FL DOT has some kind of provision for hanging people by their heels.

 

You don't need Civil 3D - if you watch the series you see how to download DEMs and hi res images separate from Civil 3D.

 

Maybe you can use Forest Pack to enhance what the images are showing or just make up your own stuff.

 

I don't dare make up a thing myself.

 

Virgil

[brendanrogers]

Try world machine or terragen 3. http://planetside.co.uk/products/terragen3

[Scott Schroeder]

This is a pretty good vid to watch in terms of getting dem data from USGS, putting that into global mapper, and spitting out height maps for use in Max.

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/1076/Creating-Terrains-with-Satellite-Data%2C-Volume-1#.VoNEUVl-o3g

[stayinwonderland]

seems good, although a bit focused on maya/mental ray. I'm sure the other principles could be applied though. I've had a play with World Machine today and it can generate some half decent 4k maps for background terrain...

 

 

Foreground is photo obviously and a bit of that mountain has some photo overlaid too. But like I say, not bad for some distant environments if you wanted to sculpt/model the foreground in some other package.

 

But you'd have to work hard to get some realistic textures out of it. Very crude compared to satellite photos. So my next pursuit will be to find one of the many ways to get high res DEM images and their corresponding textures. Every tutorial I've seen uses a completely different (but always arduous) method and different software, so it's very non-standardised.

 

Then after that my mission is to find a renderer that has real-time atmosphere previews. Vray sucks big time for that.

[Josef Wienerroither]

One rarely known Max plugin for terrains is West Racing's "Terrain" plugin

 

http://www.west-racing.com/mf/?page_id=2979

 

It pulls DEM data right from the net and provides interactivity while doing so, i never experienced with any other tool on the planet. Demo version is available on their website

[brendanrogers]

This is a pretty good vid to watch in terms of getting dem data from USGS, putting that into global mapper, and spitting out height maps for use in Max.

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/1076/Creating-Terrains-with-Satellite-Data%2C-Volume-1#.VoNEUVl-o3g

 

I use Globalmapper too for DEM and other terrain data conversions. However Its only going to look as good as the data you get in, which in my experience hasn't been good enough for the type of high-res backgrounds hes after.

 

It might be an idea to try and use a mixture of your terrain scanned textures (in my experience not high-res enough) and then blend in some layered procedural texturing based on the slope angle as well as image masks from the scanned textures to use with your procedural layers.

You could import the data into Terragen as a heightmap and then blend in procedural layers using the image masks (from the sat data) to give detail and output higher res maps. It also has the ability to output .HDR sphericals and .EXR files which can be used in your lighting setup with Vray.

http://planetside.co.uk/images/rapidgallery/slides/54c9f34fcfe74b2e8a4a084bd0988342~ryana-archer_mountain-lenticulars-v3-large_lightroom.jpg

Edited December 30, 2015 by brendanrogers

[RyderSK]

Great image Andy, even for test :- )

 

During UE4 competition I had my brother research every method of doing this, and we tried every DEM resource available on planet, even asked for demo from paid systems.

They're never detailed enough for photorealistic portrayal of foreground or midground, and even for background, it's good enough only if we're talking large surface areas like 16x16km, when the density starts to look really right, there simply isn't that kind of precision.

 

But mixing it with procedural macros from GeoGlyph (or even some generic) and than some weathering in WorldMachine did the trick. Than you have to texture it with the general masks.

 

Anyway, if you don't need to move real-time in it later, and just need good image base for matte painting, I would perhaps try staying in Vue/Terragen to get benefit of further procedural geometry detail and texture.

 

I am really kinda pissed you can't export geo or textures from the newest GoogleEarth iteration, that is literally amazing quality they have. Again, tried every shady method researchable, just no way anymore..completely closed, and really good protected.

[stayinwonderland]

Here's a few more tests with that same height map:

 

 

 

Although I don't know what the hell's going on with this weird diagonal striations here. They're not in the height map. (worsened with turbosmooth iterations):

 

 

My main goal is to have something pretty photo real (within reason) for arch viz and also maybe concept art for film etc.

 

Here's an example that an industry concept artist did using Zbrush, Maya and Octane (I have more making-of images from this scene if anyone is interested):

 

 

Just had a quick question about masks. I don't quite know what they are. Are they masks that World Machine can output to denote different bands of height?

 

And thanks a lot Juraj, you likely saved me a week or more of trying to figure out DEM stuff only to realise it's too low res! Life saver.

 

Next up, I'm gonna play with GeoGlyph (just downloaded it) and maybe try Vue again. I played with it once and wasn't too keen due to enormous render times for fairly simple scenes.

[brendanrogers]

Your tests look pretty good!

I havnt used world machine or VUE but i reccomend Terragen 3 for its ease of use and supported formats.

A mask is just a black and white image (most of the time) that denotes where a texture should be distributed. You should be able to use a mask on features such as height and slope for example. but you could also try and mask out areas of interest like soil/dirt/grass from a satmap texture.

And then try and re-build it in one of the programs your looking at.

I abanonded the use of DEMS with sat maps as well, much too low res.

[christosviskadourakis]

Here's a few more tests with that same height map:

 

 

 

Although I don't know what the hell's going on with this weird diagonal striations here. They're not in the height map. (worsened with turbosmooth iterations):

 

 

 

They look a bit cartoony

[beestee]

Not sure photogrammetry would be feasible at the grand scale you are showing in the concept renderings, but for smaller scale projects using a drone to capture hundreds of high resolution images of a site, and software such as Agisoft Photoscan, 3D Zephyr, Autodesk ReCap, or etc to generate a point cloud, mesh and textures, can generate very good results.

 

Just to test some of this software out in a site capture scenario, I took screenshots from google maps 3d data and it did an excellent job of reconstructing the subject site. It does take a while to process that much data in this workflow, and the more GHz and RAM you have the better, not unlike rendering.

 

The software is also useful at smaller scale as well. I have used it to capture sculptures for various projects successfully.

 

This is a pretty great series of articles on the workflow, covers de-lighting and such that many tutorials for photogrammetry do not touch:

 

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/imperfection-for-perfection

 

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/imperfection-for-perfection-part-2

 

Agisoft also has some good tutorials for their own software that can get the ideas rolling:

 

http://www.agisoft.com/index.php?id=28

[stayinwonderland]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was pondering photogrammetry, but mainly just for assets like rocks and larger rock formations rather than scenery or terrain. See, the core issue is design. Almost all of these programs and techniques, including DEMs etc. involve a certain amount of luck and lack of control.

 

So what I've come to understand from the kind of workflow that DOES allow for control is that a base shape is often created in a regular 3d package and then brought in to World Machine or Zbrush for adding fine details. And it's that kind of control I'm looking for. I'd hate to have a scene that I want to create and have to hope I can find the right shapes and spend ages trying as opposed to creating them custom.

 

But that said, the idea of scanned rocks is very very tempting. I just watched a video of someone scanning some old stone/brick steps using Agisoft and it looked suspiciously simple... ?? is it fairly straightforward to do then? Maybe the main skill is in optimising it later? not for games in my case just to keep poly counts sensible.

 

While we're on the subject, here's a bunch of free assets from the Unreal Kite demo that I gather were high res scans.

[brendanrogers]

 

So what I've come to understand from the kind of workflow that DOES allow for control is that a base shape is often created in a regular 3d package and then brought in to World Machine or Zbrush for adding fine details. And it's that kind of control I'm looking for. I'd hate to have a scene that I want to create and have to hope I can find the right shapes and spend ages trying as opposed to creating them custom.

 

If your working from DEM maps, you should be able to take it into globlmapper and output a heightmap. You can then import that into Terragen, 3dsmax, or probably world machine for adding detail. Of course its only going to be decent for background sceneries then.

[beestee]

But that said, the idea of scanned rocks is very very tempting. I just watched a video of someone scanning some old stone/brick steps using Agisoft and it looked suspiciously simple... ?? is it fairly straightforward to do then? Maybe the main skill is in optimising it later? not for games in my case just to keep poly counts sensible.

 

It is straightforward and simple as long as the source imagery is consistent, the software is pretty amazing. Turning off auto-exposure, setting focus to infinite, and resisting zoom can take care of most of that. Optimizing is the bulk of the effort, whether you are attempting to remove the baked in lighting or trying to reduce poly counts (an understanding of remeshing with z-brush probably trivializes that last part).

 

This discussion actually reminded me of some news I saw a few weeks ago...one of these photogrammetry packages is in beta and available for free until the end of January:

 

https://www.capturingreality.com/

[Jon Berntsen]

One rarely known Max plugin for terrains is West Racing's "Terrain" plugin

 

http://www.west-racing.com/mf/?page_id=2979

 

It pulls DEM data right from the net and provides interactivity while doing so, i never experienced with any other tool on the planet. Demo version is available on their website

 

I use this one, and it works. You can insert custom height data files as well, and they are all based on georeference.

But you mentioned that it doesn't have to be geographically accurate, so I guess other solutions might fit better.

 

Note regarding Vray: They have implemented a new sky model in vray 3.3, although I haven't tested it, it seemed promising.

[caseyworkman]

I like the video.