POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.newusers : Terragen-style landscapes. Server Time
30 Jul 2024 20:27:44 EDT (-0400)
  Terragen-style landscapes. (Message 1 to 5 of 5)  
From: Josh
Subject: Terragen-style landscapes.
Date: 28 Jul 2003 04:19:47
Message: <3f24dca3@news.povray.org>
Anyone know of any tutorials which can provide examples about how one can go
about taking a heightmap and basically plugging it into PovRay and almost
magically getting out decent landscapes with only a little tweaking, like
one can with Terragen?

Lame question, I know... but Google isn't being very helpful (got a lot of
pretty good PovRay created landscapes, but no explainations!).

Anyway, thanks,
Josh


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From: Gilles Tran
Subject: Re: Terragen-style landscapes.
Date: 28 Jul 2003 18:29:13
Message: <3f25a3b9@news.povray.org>

3f24dca3@news.povray.org...
> Anyone know of any tutorials which can provide examples about how one can
go
> about taking a heightmap and basically plugging it into PovRay and almost
> magically getting out decent landscapes with only a little tweaking, like
> one can with Terragen?

Well, Terragen is a specialised landscape/atmosphere generator and is very
good at what it does. Btw, making good TG landscapes that doesn't look "out
of the box" requires *** a lot *** of tweaking. Few people really master TG.

Anyway the heighfield isn't the issue there, it's the atmosphere and skies
that are more difficult to do in POV-Ray than in TG, again because of the
latter's excellent atmospheric engine (which is not a raytracer). Doing the
same in Pov is sometimes impossible, particularly if one wants to use media
to recreate atmospheric effects as the render times make the solution
unworkable. Often, it's more practical to use a TG background or sky box.

If you want some examples of code for some decent (but far from great)
Pov-Ray landscapes, see here :
http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources13.htm

I also wrote about using a TG background in POV-Ray :
http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/mkofdark3.htm


G.


--
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters


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From: Josh
Subject: Re: Terragen-style landscapes.
Date: 29 Jul 2003 02:44:23
Message: <3f2617c7@news.povray.org>
"Gilles Tran" <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote in message
news:3f25a3b9@news.povray.org...

> 3f24dca3@news.povray.org...
> > Anyone know of any tutorials which can provide examples about how one
can
> go
> > about taking a heightmap and basically plugging it into PovRay and
almost
> > magically getting out decent landscapes with only a little tweaking,
like
> > one can with Terragen?
>
> Well, Terragen is a specialised landscape/atmosphere generator and is very
> good at what it does. Btw, making good TG landscapes that doesn't look
"out
> of the box" requires *** a lot *** of tweaking. Few people really master
TG.
>
> Anyway the heighfield isn't the issue there, it's the atmosphere and skies
> that are more difficult to do in POV-Ray than in TG, again because of the
> latter's excellent atmospheric engine (which is not a raytracer). Doing
the
> same in Pov is sometimes impossible, particularly if one wants to use
media
> to recreate atmospheric effects as the render times make the solution
> unworkable. Often, it's more practical to use a TG background or sky box.
>
> If you want some examples of code for some decent (but far from great)
> Pov-Ray landscapes, see here :
> http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources13.htm
>
> I also wrote about using a TG background in POV-Ray :
> http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/mkofdark3.htm


Hmm, those examples are truely magnificant (I practicaly grew up in the Rain
image, it looks very much like my hometown)! I see what you mean, though,
about TG being basically "not so easy" to come up with a non-"out of the
box" landscape. But I think you've pushed me in the right direction here at
least. I think that POV-Ray is potentially more versatile than TG for larger
landscapes, I'm hoping this'll prove to be true.

BTW, since I have the opportunity to say so, you have great talents. I love
your IRTC submissions, as I'm sure practically everyone does.

Thanks,
Josh


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From: Gilles Tran
Subject: Re: Terragen-style landscapes.
Date: 29 Jul 2003 14:48:17
Message: <3f26c171@news.povray.org>

3f2617c7@news.povray.org...
> I think that POV-Ray is potentially more versatile than TG for larger
> landscapes, I'm hoping this'll prove to be true.

Actually yes. It's possible to make a very realistic atmosphere with POV-Ray
using media. I have a incredible sunset scene by someone else for instance.
It's much better than what Terragen can do but it's just so slow to render
that it's barely usable, a too common common problem with media skies. My
feeling is that unless someone implements a stand-alone atmospheric engine a
la Terragen in POV-Ray we won't see much progress here.

BTW, there's a macro to make realistic sky pigments, look for Philippe Debar
"Skylight include file in p.b.scene-files, dated Dec 7 2002.
You can look up "Forester" too http://www.dartnall.force9.co.uk/
(commercial).

> BTW, since I have the opportunity to say so, you have great talents.
Thanks !

G.

--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters


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From: gonzo
Subject: Re: Terragen-style landscapes.
Date: 29 Jul 2003 17:30:02
Message: <web.3f26e66bda2cdc23a0c272b50@news.povray.org>
Josh wrote:
>Anyone know of any tutorials which can provide examples about how one can go
>about taking a heightmap and basically plugging it into PovRay and almost
>magically getting out decent landscapes with only a little tweaking, like
>one can with Terragen?
>


Well, as Gilles said, a large part of Terragen images is the atmosphere. But
if you are just trying to get a height_field to look like a Terragen
landscape then look at layered textures.

If you look in the texture editor in Terragen and see how it layers its
colors by altitude & slope, then you should get a pretty good idea how to
achieve this in POV, since you can create both altitude & slope gradients
in POV as well. (And some more types that Terragen can't do...)

Still, it's not a simple task... I've been trying for a few months and still
only have a couple of really usable textures :-(

Your wish for a magical result with only a little tweaking is probably not
possible.

RG


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