World Map Testing

[RobA]

Following up on Torq's World Map basics thread and the gwTerraNoise Program, I figured I'd give a go to a world map...

It is quite easy to use (once you figure it out) though I can't seem to find a way to save stuff. One of the nicest things is the seeds carry across the various noise generators. Here I combined perlin noise with ridged multi-fractal (both having the same seed, so they follow the same contours) then clipped everything below sea level and applied an exponent to get steep mountain ranges.

Here is the colour-mapped, bump mapped globe rendered in POVRay (with a little cloud, atmosphere and stars to flesh it out)...

[töff]

Really nice! I love the colors. (Did you calculate how high those mountains are, vs. the planet's diameter? They look pretty high!)

[pyrandon]

Neato! Nice one!

[RobA]

Really nice! I love the colors. (Did you calculate how high those mountains are, vs. the planet's diameter? They look pretty high!)

I faked it - they are just a bump map, not really a height field. (I think I overdid it on the bump scaling factor

On that note, however, I remember looking at aerial photo stereo pairs back in university that effectively hyper magnified elevation because of the exaggerated spacing of the photos...(5 minutes of googling later...) Like this one:



-Rob A>

[töff]

You need shadows under your cloud cover (maybe like this: http://www.arcticcoconut.com/arcticc....supersize.jpg).

I still really like it, though. It has that je ne sais quoi.

[Robbie]

I did one in stereo...just for fun...I didn't bother with the atmosphere or stars, but I did get some semblance of cloud cover and my clouds cast shadows...sorta. I also experimented with some water methods...This is actually three spheres...one is the displaced land mass...the other is the water sphere that cuts through, which is 50% transparent...and the other is the cloud layer.

What you wanna do here is look at it, and cross your eyes, so that the images overlap creating a middle image that is combined between the two....look up the effect online if you want more info, or I can explain it better in another thread I guess.

Software used: 3ds Max 2008 (A&D Materials, mental ray renderer), gwTerraNoise.

[RobA]

That stereo version looked like fun, so a few minutes of tinkering with POV later....(also a cross eye stereogram)



I changes the camera position slightly to get more shadow.

töff - the clouds do cast shadow, but they were a bit too close to the surface to show up. I increased the cloud elevation and opacity a bit this time.

Also- if anyone wants the (very simple) Povray source code for this scene, just let me know. All you have to do is change the bump and image map parameters, and you will get the same scene with your own planet.

-Rob A>

[aratherstressedgamemaster]

Hehe, that animated sterogram cracked me up. I got a mental image of an entire planet of people vomiting from being shaken about wildly.

Yes, I am easily entertained.