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Downloaded program..
registered on the site..
totally flummoxed
closed the program
left the site
started to eat a bag of mixed nuts.... and watching the footy :-(
I saw this thread and it occurred to me you might find the following useful (or maybe not) I don't use Carrara, however Horo did make a very useful little conversion tool for dealing with Bryce heightmaps and you can find it here...
http://horo.ch/docs/sys/index_en.html#DocTop
Look under
> Programs
> Terrain
This is a windows program (sorry Mac users) that will convert various types of heightmap file formats into other formats. Bryce is quite fussy about how it likes to read its heightmap data. If you want more info on the program I'm sure Horo will oblige you if you track him down on the Bryce Talk forum.
Just a thought.
Thanks for that !
I have seen a lot of nices renders on the Bryce forum, I think you have an additionnal follower now. ;-)
Thanks for that, David!
Also, Phillip Staiger shows some glimpses on various ways to create your own height maps in river canyon - the deep dive, part 1 - elevation maps, which is just a fraction of what can be done using Holwer.
Thought I'd add that, just in case one of our new Carrara users might win the Howler 9.5 Pro in the November 2014 Carrara Render Challenge!!!
Here are more videos in that series, showing off some of the new features in the 3D Designer, and using it with the rest of what Howler has to offer:
river canyon - the deep dive, part 2 - exporting terrain resources
river canyon - the deep dive, part 3 - coloring parts of the terrain
river canyon: deep dive - part 4 - adding a snow storm
river canyon tutorials - part 5 - erosion and sediments
...and there are more where that came from, at the pdhowler YouTube Channel
You are welcome folks. It wasn't really my intention to drum up support, but only to point out that if you are exporting terrains from Bryce to other software, this is something I've tackled with Bryce to Octane.
Bryce to Octane - Another Islands (two) scene conversion - by David Brinnen
And there are a few other videos on my channel as well... er... over 400 now - so... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCldbpx-WrHFHUD-w3IaIKkw
You must be the Bryce version of Cripeman. ;-)
David is the Bryce version of Merlin :)
Has anyone seen David, Cripeman, and Merlin in the same room? Just sayin'
Thanks for the tips, David. Very helpful.
That's funny! Talk about a huge catalog of awesomeness!
...and David dives right in and takes you to the subject at hand. Very good tutorials!
Thanks Roy, will check it out !
Terragen has changed somewhat since I last used it - still trying to figure out how to get a terrain into Wilbur to make a height-map. Suspect this will only be possible with the Pro version!
In the meantime, here's one done in Terragen and used as a backdrop in Carrara, with rhino's and XFrog trees added in Carrara.
A scene from the African Bushveldt :)
Thanks for the interesting thread, everyone. Something I've been struggling with in terrain simulation is how to get the effect of slanted uplifting & /folding that occurs so often in geology. IE the original rock strata are not lying horizontally but with an eg 30 to 90 degrees tilt. The different layers form different heights (ridges) due to differing erodability, and usually have differing colours.
This can be simulated with texture≎ maps correctly aligned to a mountain mesh, but its would be interesting to achieve this better with the mesh itself. Tilting the mesh does not easily achieve the effect due to the "foot" of the mesh showing up. Maybe a Bryce Symmetrical Lattice would work but Ive not managed it satisfactorily yet - any ideas?
I believe that it is very difficult with the terrains, if that works on a side, that does not go on another.
The first manner is to create some shaders domains and to apply various textures to them.
The second, it is to create duplicated and superimposed layers, as in this example.
May be somebody else has a better idea ?
Do you mean this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fold_Belt I often travel through this area and the rock formations are absolutely astounding!
Here's a quick mockup done by loading a pick of a cliff onto a Carrara terrain. I'm sure this effect could be achieved procedurally in Carrara, but not by me - yet:)
I bet David Brinnen could do this in Bryce with his eyes closed!
Just got a reply from the guru's at USGS on how to navigate their system to get DEM data. I'll study that and hopefully have a nice work-flow for Carrara by tomorrow.
My EnvironKits products were a result of my searching for the very same idea, if I'm reading you right. The solution for me was two-fold.
1 - Use the various filters and generators in the Terrain Modeler Editor to add extra details, like Terraces, for example. Erosion is awesome, but I didn't use that in a product as it can become so intense on a system that it can crash your computer, if you're not careful with it.
2 - Use multiple pieces, rather than trying to rely on a single terrain piece. Keep in mind (or look at a picture) what different shapes and textures are needed to create the type of terrain you're looking for, and make several Carrara terrains to fill the need. Then inter-place them to work together as one.
Here is a quick solution that I threw together, just now, using EnvironKits - Badlands, the "Canyon Mons" preset.
The background canyon is only a small pimple on a 10,000' x 10,000' piece of terrain. But the prominent part that I see in the preset (aside from the ground and minor details) is the large bluff traveling along the horizon. I thought that might work nicely for this example, so I duplicated (Cntrl + D) the whole terrain, and moved it so that the bluff was up front, rotated it and lowered it just so, and then moved the hot point into camera view for my Film Camera (Caps Lock to reposition the Hot Point).
Then I duplicate that new piece, raise it up, turn it a bit, and duplicate again.
So this quick example is three duplicated of the background bluff, which still remains in its default location.
The ground area is the default for that preset, giving a decent example of what can be done using just the filters and generators, and some maps for textures.
Here's one from Woodlands called Mountain Fog. It is using the larger detail terrain piece as its base, for the steep incline, with it rotated and placed to where it levels off a bit where the main camera focus ends up. Then I took the smallest detail terrain, removed the trees and placed them where they'd fit the scene nicely. The detail terrains in Woodlands are set up to be somewhat tall, so the user can sink them to the appropriate level. So for this, I sunk it down to just barely poke out of the main terrain.
Now, the cool part about Carrara's Duplicate feature: If actions are uninterrupted between duplications, those actions with follow through onto the next duplication.
Here's a more wordy, but easier to understand version of that:
Duplicate an object. Move it, rotate it, scale it, but never hit undo or change selections. Now hit Ctrl + d again. You'll notice that it will repeat the Move, Rotate and Scaling that you did onto this one, after duplicating it. Hit Cntrl + d again, and it will apply all of that to the next duplication, and so on.
So for this, I left the z (up and down) position and the scaling the same. I selected the first detail terrain that I sunk into the ground and duplicated it. Then I moved it out a ways and gave it a bit of a rotation. Then I duplicated it again a few more times. Then I selected all of those and grouped them (Cntrl +g) and set the hot point to the center of the scene. Duplicate the group and rotated it a little, then duplicated it again until they surrounded the area.
You'll see that, by doing this, we can create some immensely diverse terrain features. For my EnvironKits, I've made all of the detail terrain pieces (the pieces in the Objects > Terrain tab of the browser) for doing this sort of thing as well as for use in surface replicators.
So then I took all of those terrains out of their groups so that I could easily select them with a single click in the work space. I went through them individually and further lifted, lowered, rotated, and scaled them to give the look I wanted. Like painting with pre-painted chunks of canvas - sort of. It was ultimately fun!
Then I just loaded in a spherical background from the kit and set up the volumetric clouds. This is the way the preset turns out upon opening it - except that, for this image, I've backed the camera off a bit.
Here's the same scene with the volumetric clouds group turned off.
If you click on the above picture, and look around toward the middle of the scene, on the ground, you'll notice that there is a lot of variance in the ground. Very much like our cliff side woods here, in Wisconsin.
Now search the center of the scene's ground, just a bit to the left, and you'll see a very flat spot. That's a big enough area to load in a figure and apply a walk cycle to for a second or two, maybe three. I try to have these zones in every scene preset - right where a figure loads into the scene, for ease in setup. Just a tip if you're looking to do figure animations on your landscapes
Hi guys :)
Here's the reply I got from the guru at USGS:
You can search, preview, and download Lidar data at no charge through the EarthExplorer site: http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov
(I found that the LIDAR gave "No results, so used Digital elevation ->ASTAR Glogal DEM)
Lidar product page - https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/LIDAR
In Section #1, (Search Criteria) select the area of interest. You can choose this by typing in the Address/Place name, picking area on the map, or using Latitude and Longitude.
Under Section #2, (Data Sets) pick the Lidar dataset by clicking the plus sign next to the product. Select the Lidar dataset from the drop down list.
Under Section #3, (Additional Criteria) this will allow you to enter additional information. This is not mandatory.
Finally, Section #4 (Results) run your search. It may take a few minutes, before it displays the results. Once you have the results, you will be able to view Footprint, Show Metadata and Browse, Download, Order, and Exclude. You will be prompted to log in to download and/or submit processing requests.
EarthExplorer Help Documentation - https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/ee_help
Here's my workflow after downlaoding the data.
The DEM comes as a .zip file containing two .tif files and a readme. Unzip and open the -dem.tif in Microdem http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdemdown.htm
The .tif file looks like a black blank pic and is no use as is.
(I'm also going to try 3dDem, http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/3dem an old standby which is out of development - more about that later)
In Microdem, change the multicoloured reflectance file to a greyscale elevation map and save as .bmp. I found that Bryce gives an error opening the .bmp and the pic is in any case too bright and sharp to use in Bryce. I open that in Gimp, tone down the brightness by 50% and give it a 5-pixel Gaussien blur and trim to 512 X 512. Save as .tif.
In Bryce, I load the map, give it some erosion and any other editing it needs to give a realistic terrain, then export as .obj, around 150K polys.
Import the .obj into Carrara and texture.
My first pic is of False Bay, where I live - and incidentally the world's greatest concentration of Great White Sharks - no connection :) I overdid the blurring and lost some detail, but it is still very recognisable as False Bay.
The second pic is made from the data for the Grand Canyon, Arizona.
Why not take the height-map directly into Carrara? Firstly, because they always need some editing and the height-map editor in Bryce is so much better and secondly, because you can make a solid base, or clip the base, so you don't get that Carrara "flapping blanket" terrain.
The fourth pic is Uluru, especially for Stezza:) If you don't want to go to all the hassle, I can post the .car file for you.
A couple of quick points.
1. Ground Control, by DCG, lets you import real terrain data into Carrara, both, IIRC, from USGS and from NASA's Shuttle Mapping program.
2. Wilbur, IIRC, lets you generate terrain from Pro-Fantasy's Fractal Terrains.
Very cool!
The owner of a landscape firm I used to manage visited our local survey office and, after some doing, was able to get elevation data on the entire county. He then had his LandCad operator convert all of that data into useable information by address, so that we had actual measurements to go by for our laser transit readings.
I'd imagine that this global endeavor takes all of that data and translates it to grey scale, for use in elevation mapping? Pretty cool, nonetheless, especially if you really want to work up a specific place.
Is 512 x 512 the Bryce maximum? Or is that what you get from the above downloads?
Carrara can take much larger maps, and of many types. It can also export a resulting elevation map, after applying numerous (as many as you like, I think) additional filters and generators, etc., so perhaps try taking those directly into Carrara at their original size (without brightening first), scale down the overall size if that's what you want to do, and then export the resulting map as a tif for use in Bryce.
I have a feeling that the original dark data image would work really well in Carrara. Then just use the controls to set the height strength and the size of the features/land. Just a thought.
If you set the preview for the elevation map lower than the original, and the render output even higher than the original, making it easier to keep your system from crashing while working on it.
It's cool, you can import the map at one size (left dark blue Arrow), Preview the result off all of your terrain work in one size (Red Arrow), and render at yet another (Yellow Arrow). We may also set the overall scale of the terrain we're working on according to the detail of the map, adjusting the height of the map's information to fit. When we're done getting that set just so, if we need a completely different size, but the same proportions, we have a further setting below, where we may Rescale the whole thing to yet another size! Sweet!
All the while we also have the ability to smooth (or not) the normals. The higher the mapping size, either in Preview or Render, the more accurate the resulting model will turn out. Too low and you'll see single-point peaks and jagged transitions. Too high and you miight wait forever for the render. No such thing as too high? Then you can use the option to the far right and further subdivide the mesh at render time! Yikes! I've yet to try that one!
I tend to use quite low resolutions for the more distant terrains. So on the previous page in this thread, the image I've posted toward the bottom, the bluffs are actually a very, very low resolution, as they are meant for background. For this, if I were taking my time, I'd have double-clicked it (to enter the editor shown here) and set the render quality higher, say, 1024 x 1024 or so.
Thanks for the heads-up. I'll test that as well :)
Edit - just looked at the price - ouch!
Just a thought, Spooky - you doing research for Studio's upcoming environments - wink, wink, nudge, nudge - say no more :)
No, they come in at 3601 X 3601 and cover a few hundred square Km - I find the part of the image I need to use and trim it down to a square - happened to be 512 X 512. Microdem outputs at 590 X 650 - I haven't come across any resolution limits with other height-maps I've imported to Bryce.
Just to test, I imported the same map into Bryce and Carrara, without altering the brightness and not blurring, at 590 X 650. See the results below. This is a huge chunk of the Australian outback, with Uluru circled in red. No way to get rid of those spikes and still keep detail without lowering the brightness and blurring it a bit - unless someone can show me how inside of either Carrara or Bryce :)
Many times the harsh spikes can be caused by a low resolution view and/or render setting, also by not using "Smooth Normals". Then you tweak it further by typing in precise increments on the height value, with "Editable Terrain" selected in the filters/generators section. I have no clue how to use Bryce :red:
It's probably good, then, that you've cut out the piece of the map that you wanted - sizing down the world size in Carrara will make the whole thing smaller against the map, so the height would have to be adjusted accordingly. So if you knew the true dimensions of the elevation map you've got cut, and you knew the peak height, you should be able to get pretty close.
Oh... right... I was talking about World Size:
Although you can change the actual size of the terrain piece using World Size, it still projects that size against the image map and the height field's value. In other words, you'll still need higher resolutions (either preview, render, or both) to help get rid of the harsher spikes. The world size does make a difference, however, towards entering in heights. Larger World can take higher increments to make subtle changes, whereas smaller world size requires smaller increments for subtlety. If that makes any sense.
But if, say, you have either an Ocean primitive or a really bumpy water plane, you may need to either tweak the height of the overall water plane (or Ocean) if the details on the terrain are fairly small. In this case, the easiest fix is to simply make the World Size of the terrain object larger, making room for the height variance in the water used.
The resolution in Carrara's terrain editor (from what I have gathered from my own experiments) determines how many polygons are used to create the model. So raising the resolution of the render quality will really help to remove spikes of single vertices.
Now we can add even more to that, if we wish, by using the panel on the far right and adding Sub D Smoothing. It does a decent job of describing what will happen at render time, and that these changes will only occur during render time.
What the SubD actually does is to split every polygon of the model into four. That's if you use a SubD level of 1. A llevel of 2 will do that, and then follow up by splitting each of those divisions into four again. This is called smoothing because it does more than just subdivide perfectly. It uses an algorithm or some such, to translate the differences between virtual panes to cause a transition which removes sharp edges. That's why, if we don't want sharpness taken away from our subdivision smoothing, we have to identify those edges and set them to remain sharp. It's cool that Carrara allows us to do that so easily. Anyways, back on track, this smoothing will dramatically remove single vert spikes, but at a huge cost at render time.
Since the Terrain Editor makes such excellent variances in the flatness, SubD can make for some really nice looking grounds, if they are to be the main focus and shot at close range. If you convert a Carrara Terrain into a Vertex Modeler object, you'll see that it's a bunch of triangles. The higher the resolution, the more and the tinier the triangles. While in the Vertex Modeler you'll once again have the ability to use SubD smoothing, but this time you can decided whether or not you'll see this in the working view.
Top Image: Woodlands Base Terrain in the editor rendered at 2 x SubD Smoothing
Second Image: Underwater Realms Detail Terrain with Smooth Normals on
Third Image: Underwater Realms Detail Terrain with Smooth Normals off
By looking even at this small piece (above, bottom two images) you can see why I always have to turn Smooth Normals on and off a few times to decide which I want to use.
The Terrain Editor is a fascinating, wonderful piece of work. With its own, built in height map paint room and all of its wonderful generators and filters, options and Carrara's super-awesome combined, layered Terrain Shaders, making terrain look like you want it to can become an entire hobby in it's own right! Very addicting, very nice results, in my opinion. Now I need to figure this stuff out in Bryce.
I really want to get my hands on Terrain Tools next! Based on the Anything Goos technology, Terrain Tools adds a variety of new tools for shading the intersections of water planes, terrains, and other objects. Very cool!
Here's a nice Tutorial of a typical use of Terrain Tools - by DCG. So simple - so powerful!
My Day off is done now, as I must catch some shut-eye for a solid week of work toils. I'll be back though.
Unfortunately none of the suggestions you made worked - because they all work proportionately and globally across the terrain, so any smoothing action also smooths out the detail. Worked in your example because the roughness is all over the terrain and you don't have individual spikes. By the way, try using .tif for a smoother transition between levels, so you don't get the stepping.
What I have to do is make sure it is good at source - the .tifs I'm getting from USGS simply have too many small, high spots. Found one of their data sets that gives an HDR view, which converts nicely through Microdem to a decent height-map without spikes. Still looking for a source of proper DEM files instead of the .tif files. They have so many hundreds of different data sets, it'll take me a year to go through them, so I'm in correspondence with an official at USGS - hopefully they can point me in the right direction.
Always bearing in mind that this is about reproducing actual and not just generic terrains - Carrara does that part well enough:)
The next one - just for kicks - I took the Grand Canyon .obj into Sculptris and made some peaks, gullys and a cave with overhang. Decimated in Meshlab to 150K polys, UV mapped in UU3D and used my Cape Fold texture in the diffuse and bump channels. Added some Xfrog shrubs.
I think it turned out pretty much like what I see in our arid regions :)
You're right. I normally don't get much of that because I hand pint mine. All it takes is a single pixel that is slightly brighter than those surrounding. I just experienced that yesterday. Perhaps a very subtle noise filter could help with that?
Wow is Howler ever cool for making/editing height maps. There's all the artistic tools and filters and such, but then I can test the look in the 3D Designer. Image > Store and Manage Copy" allows me to save versions before making changes, and 3D Designer has a Cancel option if you want to tweak some more on just the plain height map. The obj's are a bit slow to import into Carrara, and seem to be a little resource intensive, but this is likely due to a high number of polygons, which I like. I can always decimate it down if need be. Now it would be cool to have the option to convert vertex objects to terrain objects!