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Need help with landscape
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Need help with landscape // Archive: Tech Forum
Post by splinters // Oct 15, 2007, 1:03am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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As I have always said in the past; 'aint too proud to beg'
Well, not quite that bad but I am struggling to get a landscape for my latest project 'Little CLoud'.
You may have seen WIP's so far and I am fine with architectural/interior stuff...even outside scenes with fairly small scale geometry but I am really struggling here.
For the first page I need the boy running along a beach...a rough is provided here to show the view but I want to get this right so I can use it for the other 'beach' shots in the book (there are around 10). In one page the cloud takes the boy high into the air so the beach is quite far below them and so I need to make a great looking beach/sea/skyline that can be viewed from different angles.
I come unstuck with the sea itself; how to get it following the shore line and then map a 'foam' edge to it to represent a real sea. I want it simplistic like the rest of the story but not too basic i.e. simple plane. I have done simple overlapping planes for the other WIP's (see larger image) but they will not flow into the contours of the landscape quite right....this is great for a close up but not for the wide shots I need.
So, any ideas on how to do this effectively? or should I just fudge a flat plane into the hills so I can map a shore line onto the sea plane.... |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Oct 15, 2007, 2:08am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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I may not be understanding you correctly but just in case I am... for the terrain/water the displacement brush is your friend. Quad divide a few times and paint away, gives great organic results. For the shoreline, imagine you're looking at it from the side, the land gets a slight clockwise rotation, the water a slight anticlockwise rotation so that there's an imperceptible 'V' and there's you're smooth join.
If that's not what you meant I didn't understand the question and sorry to have wasted your time! :-) |
Post by splinters // Oct 15, 2007, 2:17am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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No WWOTW, your answer is great but I still have the problem of mapping the sea edge, floatsam or whatever it is called. If the edge of the water is defined by how it meets the land mesh, how do I map a texture to follow that edge?
For instance, I get the geometry to look right but if I use Photoshop to draw a 'foam' edge on the sea plane it would follow the straight edge of the plane (disappear into the land in places) not the contour of the water's edge.
Am I asking too much of tS with this I wonder?? |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Oct 15, 2007, 2:23am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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Right, I got ya. It's called UV mapping! One method (though there are many others) is to paint a temporary striped material onto the sea (with the stripes running parallel to the shoreline) and number the stripes, that way you get a rough idea of where the edges move in/out to paint on the proper texture. The slight randomness/hit and miss method will help to stop it looking too perfect. As you're still Model side based, UVCow will probably be a very good friend. |
Post by splinters // Oct 15, 2007, 2:33am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Nice one, thanks for the tip...will post any progress I make on this one...:D |
Post by TomG // Oct 15, 2007, 2:37am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Another thing you might do is use the Top view, ensure you can see all (releveant bits) of the shoreline, and save a screengrab (or write to file if you use the workspace side for this).
Now use this image as a background in Photoshop. With your land and sea different colors, you'll see the edge of the shore. Paint on your texture, and apply with appropriate UV to the sea (best here if the top image matched the UV, eg if your sea is a plane, ensure the top view captures the whole plane and nothing but the plane, then it should fit automatically - if not a bit of scaling and moving may be necessary in the texture shader).
If you do use displacement brushes to paint foam in (flotsam and jetsam are bits of "rubbish" carried by water I believe, from washed up crates possibly even seaweed etc, but I think you just mean foam?) you might be able to use a height / surface angle sensitive shader to blend between blue and white.
Also of course the UV mapping image would then show the geometry you painted on using displacement, and you could just use that image as a background in your paint package to paint on the foamy details.
So, several ways to tackle it :)
HTH!
Tom |
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