[Tutorial]- How to make surface maps in Terragen.

Programs needed: Terragen

Dificulty Level: Beginner/Some advanced

PART 1: How do surface maps work?

A surface map is bascly your texture for terragen. Without one you are left with just grey rock.

however, how do they work? Well, first you need to understand the Child-Parrent system. An example of a child/parrent is bellow:

the one highlighted in blue is the parrent layer.

the one highlighted in green is the child.

Basicly, a child can not be where a parrent isn't. So for example, the layer I highlighted was my "grass" layer. the child layer (which was another shade of green) Can not be present anywhere my main layer is.

Surface maps are built from the bottom up. So for example, the Surface map text is the very base layer. and then the dirt goes on top of that, grass on top of that, ect. ect. Fairly simple, eh?

Now that i've explained how they work, i'll explain the controls.

PART 2: SURFACE MAP CONTROLS

bumpiness:- Basicly, how bumpy the terrain is. I usualy keep it near the default, although for snow its nice to have a smoother texture, rocks generaly bumpier.

Mimic Terrain:- Again, another no brainer. does what it says it does. Again, this is another feature I usualy don't use much.

Tex:- This is for different plugins and such. I will discuss them lightly at the end of this tutorial. If you have no plugins, this has no use.

Coverage:- This is how much of the terrain your texture stays on. Basicly said, The higher it is, the more of your texture you will see.

Fractual Noise:- Fractual noise is a bit harder to explain. However, it works somewhat like this:

- the bigger the fractual noise, The more of just "big patches" of that color you will see. It's useful to have a parrent have a large ammount of fractual noise.

- The smaller the fractual noise, the more "noisy" it will get. Basicly, it will give the effect of somewhat sprinkling a texture around. This is great to use on child layers, because you can add so much detail into your texture with it.

Altitude constraints: (in yellow) The altitude constraints are probaly a feature you will use a LOT. They work so very simple, yet.. so effective.

For example, lets take snow. On a mountain, the snow would be near the top, right? Well, simply give it a min hight (play around a bit) of a few hundred or so, depending on the mountain size, and wallah! snow on top. This is also useful so that a warm texture, such as nice, bright flowers, don't end up on a top of a mountain!

the Sharp/Fuzzy does what it says. The sharper it is, the sharper the cut off line is for alitude. The fuzzier it is, the more lineiant, or Allowing it is. Usualy a value around the middle is good for stuff such as snow.

Slope Constraints:- The slope constraints work the same way the altitude ones do. However, it is for slope. For example:

you usualy don't see grass on steep Pieces of land, correct? It can't grow there because of the insane ammount of slope. For grass, you would give it a max slope it can go up to, and then use the slider to somewhat get a right look for the ammount of slope.

However, some things you might only want on realy steep slopes. A strata would be a good example (talk about them later) for that, you would make its minimum slope very big.

So now that i've actualy explained the basics of what the surface map controls are, I'll walk you through one of my surface maps.

CREATING THE SURFACE:

The first layer is the base layer. For the base, you almost always want it to be pure rock. As i'm sure many of you know, textures will most likly pile up like such:

-Rock

-Dirt and such

-Grass

-Snow (if any)

-Rocks,ect.

this isn't realy a "set" rule, but its generaly how i see things, this is going from the bottom up to the top.

so anyways, I start off with a rock layer. I used a SO overlay. Basicly, It's a plugin (which i will explain) that allows you to put real world textures into terragen. Very helpful at times.

I than went onto the dirt layer. I created the parrent, and just kept it with the rough, dirt-like apearance. This was the base dirt layer:

I than gave it a child. Generaly, when you make a new parrent, you want at least 3 childs. This dirt however won't be showing much, so I only did two.

but why 3+? Well, simply quality. In the real world you would not see "1" shade of green for grass. No, you would see hundreds, if you looked hard enough. Basicly said, the more shades you have (put on correctly that is) the generaly better that said texture would look. which brings me into the...

Grass. As you can see, my grass had a parrent and 7 childs. The parrent layer looked somewhat like this:

I too used a SO overlay for this. Each of the childs was a different shade of green. I used low fractual noise in each such as the picture bellow of a child layer:

as you can see, I had a low fractual noise and coverage for it, so i could effectivly fit a lot of different shades into a texture.

Finaly, I had my snow layer. This one Was simply a white texture (although, I should add more Icy-blues to it) that had an altitude constraint so its min. hight was controled, to where it would only apear on the top of mountains (such as in my sig)

FINAL WORDS/PLUGINS:

I hope you guys liked this tutorial. As you noticed, I like to use plugins in my work. Here is a few links, to plugins and terragens main site.

Terragen Home

SOPlugin Pack

you can also look under my sig for links to many very good terragen art sites.

soo.. hope you guys liked! The next tutorial I'm doing will probaly be a terrain one.

i have no idea what any of this is talking about cause i dont even have terrangen, but it looks like a sweet tutorial that you spent lots of time on.

i have no idea what any of this is talking about cause i dont even have terrangen, but it looks like a sweet tutorial that you spent lots of time on.

thanks.

and if anyone doesn't understand, I can help explain more :)

hey!! great job!!!

im using this in my next terragen

great idea with the color codeing

i think i finally get the parent/child priority thing down!!!

great tut!!

cant wait for the next ones!!!

^^^

thanks. The parent child thing is actualy realy easy to understand :). I usualy just think of childs as "extra shades" for the parent layer. :P

anyways, thank you :P glad you liked.

great tut, maybe u should have a tut on how to add the surface into ur design, and maybe a basic way/tut to make an atmosphere/landscape thing :wink:

there realy isn't any thing for putting it into your landscape. you just edit whats there, and it apears on your creation :wink:

thanks. And i'm going to work on other tuts, yes.

kk, now i get it i did this and used the tut, thanks heaps :wink:

EDIT: I"ll post the pic soon...

kk, now i get it i did this and used the tut, thanks heaps :wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I"ll post the pic soon...

sweet, can't wait. If anything my goal of these tutorials are to get more people interested in terragen :D

kk, here it is :D

I posted some C&C on your thread :)

Adding onto what Nadril said about fractal noise, a higher fractal noise setting makes colour patches sharper and more distinct. If the fractal noise level is lower, it creates more of a blanket coverage, and gives a softer appearance. It's very useful for transitionary colour.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/7229 ... fel6by.jpg

There's an example of low fractal noise settings on the grass. It's not terribly good, but it gets the point across.

yes, like I said, a higher fractual noise is usualy the way to go for a parrent layer, unless of course it's just something you want added on, for example, flowers. You could make a yellow color texture, with very low fractual noise, and wallah :)

It depends, really... If you want a parent layer for sand or something, you'll want a low fractal noise to begin with, since that makes it look a lot smoother. Child layers could be given high fractal noise ratings and low coverage to scatter them around the terrain.

Bascially, experiment with those two sliders, because they're VERY useful.

It depends, really... If you want a parent layer for sand or something, you'll want a low fractal noise to begin with, since that makes it look a lot smoother. Child layers could be given high fractal noise ratings and low coverage to scatter them around the terrain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bascially, experiment with those two sliders, because they're VERY useful.

yeah, of course :).

and I agree, they help a ton.

WOW nice tut 100/10 i think ur are the best on tip it with terragen and PS

I decided to do a test, to show the importance (and effect) that fractual noise has on your surface.

This was a simple rock+ 1 grass layer surface, just to show.

also, note, for all 3 they had the middle coverage.

MIDDLE NOISE:

MIN NOISE:

MAX NOISE:

So, as you see, different noises are better for different textures :)

EDIT: thanks alot JD :D

*yawn*, hmm very informitive... very educational... thank you for taking the time were others have not

thank you :P

very nice