~~ Landscape Tip's! Useful for any program! UPDATE 3/13/05.

Ok... i have finaly decided that Instead of writing a tutorial, i will orginize a list of Tip's for creating landscapes as a whole. basicly, these ideas can be used in any program, it's mostly going to be on how like different things work in the real world.

i will update it daily (or whenever) and try and keep this up on top. Anyways, here we go:

Terrains:

- Always try and avoid having your terrains become just a vertical point (or filled with mountains like this) Terragen is especialy bad at doing this, and i can't stress how bad it looks in images.

- World machine is a great program to use. It's mainly used with Terragen, however some programs can accept it's terrains as well.

Surface map's / Textures

How different textures work:

-Grass: usualy is very evident on lower alitudes, and it can't grow on higher slopes. It might be present up high in mountains, but in higher mountains will "probaly" be covered up with snow.

-Snow: is almost always on mountain peaks. it too, like grass, usualy isn't on big slopes, and in paticualry snowy scenes it can be on the bottom alot.

-Dirt: Basicly everywhere. Although not on extreme slopes (I mean like.. nearing 90 Degrees, 80 degrees) and is on all elevations. Its very important that you have it for a scene :P Even if it isn't realy shown.

-Rock: Almost always the base of a scene. It can appear anywhere, on any slope, any altitude. Not much else to say.

Surface map techiniques:

- make sure that you don't have a bunch of different textures in one piece. For example, don't have a desert texture, than move to a snow one.

- In terragen, make sure that you use the parrent/child layers to the best of your abilitys. That is, don't just make your texture a random jumble or colors, but have each texture work like it would in real life.

Atmospheres:

- Try and refrain from atmospheres where you can not see any of the surface map at all. Sometimes these can be used efectivly, depending on the mood your trying to get a cross, but usualy its not that great, especialy when your learning.

- Depending on the program you have, making an atmosphere might be easy... or harder. Either way, most programs can give you a realistic represention of what you are putting in. However, do try and not just go "all out" and start going crazy with colors and stuff. You may get lucky and get something weird, but cool, but try and work on it. usualy, you want to start with working on the sun, and then go out.

- Don't be afraid to try some other settings you are un aware of for atmosphere controls. A lot of settings sometime's confuse users (mostly talking about Terragen/Vue) but they may be the key for your atmosphere.

- Fog can be a great adition to scenes. It realy helps also when you are trying to get rid of bad transitions from land to water, but making some low altitude fog, that covers it all right up :P

General Composition:

- A tip from my buddy Theakman2, that I always keep in mind for landscapes, is make sure that your world does not sudenly end. When you do a landscape, you want to make sure that it is realistic, and in the real world, you don't just see nothingness after a while. In programs like bryce 5 and vue, this is easy enough, just place mountains in the back of the world, untill you get a nice look of the world realy going on and on. In terragen it gets tougher, and sometimes you want to scrape a camera angle you have if it just sudenly cuts off. The unregistered version of Terragen is realy bad at this.

- Try and match up colors. This is kind of easliy said, but dont have a summer settings, with palm trees and stuff, than have snow. Or don't have a fully snowy mountain on one side and then just a perfectly warm Grass texture. Same thing goes for anything else, try and make sure your stuff stays within realisim a tad.

- On another note, don't be afraid to try something "unrealistic" I usualy choose the slightly unrealistic route if it looks better, than to achive realisim and have the image become booring.

- Always try and make sure that it is interesting to look at. It might just be a nice surface map, or mountains, or whatever, but make sure you have something. This does not mean just a randomly generated terrain, with endless rows of mountains.

Advanced ideas:

- sometimes people take their "landscapes" to serriously, or to put it in better words, try and drag too much realisim out of it. Now sure, if your going for realisim and you can acheive it, awsome for you. But it might turn out booring. If you want to make an interesting landscape, be prepared to try ideas that arn't "ubar realistic" but still keep it somewhat in boundarys.

For example, one person created a kind of Rock fortress thing in terragen. He used photoshop to create the terrain (using a greyscale image) and then imported into it, making a very interesting, if not unique piece. Don't be afraid to try ideas like that. Or perhaps, try an above the clouds look. Or even a look from under the sea.

if you can get it to look good, than good. Too often i just see the same booring camera angles in landscapes, sure, it might be the most realistic angle, or easiest , but there may be other angles that are just kind of nice.

Individual Program Tutorials:

none yet. expect this space to be filled soon

ps: This WILL be updated a bunch. if you have any tips, feel free to post them, i'd love to get as many good ideas as i can here.

~Nadril

Changes:

-UPDATED 3/13/05

I'll work on some realism tips for you tomorrow, Nad ;). (If you want that is.)

~Cal

I'll work on some realism tips for you tomorrow, Nad ;). (If you want that is.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Cal

Definitly :D

btw, i will give credits to hints that people give me :D

I'll write how to brush smoke/fog maybe later.

^^^

Cool :P

btw, if you do an actual tutorial to say, make a new post about it and i'll post it in here, under a tut's section :)

Nice tips and hints nad and i look forward to seeing cal's one also he always gives great cc so now time to see a tut from him.

I also think its great since the media discussions board has come out that there are a lot more tips, hints and tutorials being made!

Neanderslave

Hehe, so you finally decided to actually post some useful tips for landscapes :P Some good points there, now just keep it up and don't let this die after one day.

Hehe, so you finally decided to actually post some useful tips for landscapes :P Some good points there, now just keep it up and don't let this die after one day.

yeah, thought it would be better than a tutorial too :P

And i'm going too add some more tonight :)

GO NAD! He's our man haha, will be def. looking into your tutorial soon.. Once I finish watching ESPN lol.

^^ Thanks commando.

I updated a little bit. Going to add some tutorials for different programs soon. Just small things though, like surface maps in Terragen, or how to use world machine, ect.

:D

Tomorrow i'm going to get around to doing some mini tutorials "probaly" if i'm not too busy.