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Terrain Mixer Manual 1 86

The document provides information about using Terrain Mixer, a terrain generator made of Cycles materials, objects, and textures. It discusses downloading and installing Terrain Mixer, the nodes and node groups used to generate terrain features, potential issues, and how to bake heightmaps and diffuse maps. Key steps include enabling viewport shading in Cycles, experimenting with node sliders, and following baking instructions to create high-resolution heightmap and diffuse textures from the generated terrain.

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Phillip Park
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154 views17 pages

Terrain Mixer Manual 1 86

The document provides information about using Terrain Mixer, a terrain generator made of Cycles materials, objects, and textures. It discusses downloading and installing Terrain Mixer, the nodes and node groups used to generate terrain features, potential issues, and how to bake heightmaps and diffuse maps. Key steps include enabling viewport shading in Cycles, experimenting with node sliders, and following baking instructions to create high-resolution heightmap and diffuse textures from the generated terrain.

Uploaded by

Phillip Park
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 17

> DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION (here) 2

> ABOUT 2

> CYCLES NOW, EEVEE LATER 2

> GRAPHIC CARDS 2

> AFTER YOU DOWNLOAD 2

> WHEN YOU OPEN THE FILE FOR THE FIRST TIME 2

> BEFORE YOU START (watch the video) 2

> NODES AND NODE GROUPS (watch the video) 4


TERRAIN 4
Mixer 4
Grand Scaler 4
Grand Shifter 4
Scaler (watch the video) 4
Shifter 4
Rotator 4
Skewer (watch the video) 5
Cascader 5
Canyonizer (watch the video) 6
Color System 7
Fastshade 8
FAKE SKY (watch the video) 9
PLAIN TERRAINS 9
BLENDING 11
> FAST TERRAIN GENERATION (by animating sliders, watch the video) 11

> POTENTIAL PROBLEMS 12


Flat Plane 12
Optix Issue (Blender 2.83 LTS & 2.91) 13
Banding 13
Border Walls (stretched edges) 13
> BAKING 14
Heightmaps (watch the video) 14
Diffuse maps 16
> WATCH ALL THE VIDEOS 17
> DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION (​here​)

> ABOUT
Terrain Mixer is a very fast terrain generator. It is made of Cycles materials, 3D objects, and
textures (image inputs). Terrain Mixer materials combine dozens of nodes and node groups.
Although it is very easy to use, there isn't really ‘the right way’ of using it. You have to
experiment and find your workflow. We suggest that you start by simply moving sliders left and
right. You can also enter the node groups by selecting any of them and pressing TAB. The
package already contains a lot of heightmaps and colour maps, but of course, you can use your
own heightmaps and colour maps.
..

> CYCLES NOW, EEVEE LATER


At the moment Terrain Mixer works only in Cycles. We plan to make it compatible with Eevee,
but that depends on the future development of the Blender. This doesn’t mean that you can’t
use Eevee to render your terrains. When you’re happy with the result simply bake the
heightmap and apply it through the Displacement modifier. It is a two minute process.
..

> GRAPHIC CARDS


NVIDIA is what we recommend at the moment. We are doing all of our terrain mixer tests with
the 1080 TI (CUDA enabled, because OPTIX is 99.99% compatible) and we’re very happy with
the speed that it provides. If, for example, you have a 3090 built in your machine you’ll be able
to work super-fast in Cycles, probably without any lag.
..

> AFTER YOU DOWNLOAD


After you download the Terrain Mixer, make sure to place the ‘Maps’ directory inside of the
‘Terrain Mixer’ directory. Additionally, make sure that all the Image nodes are linking to the
images (heightmaps and diffuse/color maps) that are placed inside the ‘Maps’ directory.
..

> WHEN YOU OPEN THE FILE FOR THE FIRST TIME
The terrain object has the Subdivision modifier applied to it. If you want to work faster in the
Viewport, make sure to set it to a lower Subdivision level. For example ‘4’. For an even faster
workflow, we suggest you to use the ‘Fast Shading’ which you can set inside the Terrain Mixer’s
material node setup.

..

> BEFORE YOU START (​watch the video​)


You must enable Viewport Shading, otherwise you won't be able to preview the changes you
make inside the Terrain Mixer. Also, make sure that the Cycles render is the active render
engine, because, at the moment, Terrain Mixer doesn’t support other render engines (Eevee,
etc.). If your terrain is displayed as a flat plane, double-check that your Image source nodes are
actually linked to the image files inside the ‘Maps’ directory.
> NODES AND NODE GROUPS (​watch the video​)

TERRAIN
Scene object: Terrain_2000x2000
Material: Terrain

Mixer
This is a really powerful node group, because it allows you to mix four different height inputs.

Grand Scaler
With this node group, you will be able to scale all of the inputs at once.

Grand Shifter
With this node group, you will be able to shift all of the inputs at once.

Scaler (​watch the video​)


With this node group, you will be able to scale the inputs individually.

Shifter
With this node group, you will be able to shift the inputs individually.

Rotator
With this node group, you will be able to rotate the inputs individually.
Skewer (​watch the video​)
This node group allows you to skew the terrain details (cliffs, etc.).

Cascader
Use the cascade node group to add cascades to your terrain.
Canyonizer (​watch the video​)
With this node frame you’ll be able to transform your terrain into canyons.
Color System
Add some color, roughness, and specularity to your terrain with the help of images or
procedurally. You can also add snow or sand.
Fastshade
If you switch to FASTSHADE you will gain more speed when previewing edits inside the
Viewport.

..
FAKE SKY (​watch the video​)

Scene object: FakeSky


Material: Sky

Fake Sky consists of the object that has a texture applied to it and an Empty that is used for
rotation, translation, and scaling. You can render the terrain and the Fake Sky together, or you
can render them as two separate passes.
..

PLAIN TERRAINS

Scene object: PlainTerrain_2000x2000


Material: TerrGround

You can generate Plain Terrains procedurally, which allows unlimited variations, and you can
also achieve amazing ground details. This is very useful when rendering objects which are
closer to the camera.
..
BLENDING

Scene object: Suzanne


Material: BlendWithGround

For even more realistic results, you can blend objects with the ground. To see how it works,
make the Suzanne object visible (the one that is already in the Outliner/3D Scene) and look
inside its material properties/node setup. To avoid any unnecessary headaches, we suggest
that you apply this material to your object and make adjustments (adjust color, roughness, etc.).
Feel free to replace that blue colored node group inside the ‘OBJECT SURFACE’ frame with
your own color setup.

..

> FAST TERRAIN GENERATION (by animating sliders, ​watch the video​)
If you need multiple terrains fast, the easiest way of doing it is by animating the inputs of one or
more nodes or node groups. For example, go to the Mixer node group, define value for any of
the sliders, and add keyframe . Then, in Timeline, move 30 frames forward, change the value of
that same Mixer slider and keyframe it. When you press play in your timeline, or scrub it
manually, you should see the terrain changing.
..
> POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

Flat Plane
If your terrain is displayed as a flat plane, double-check that your Image source nodes are
actually linked to the image files inside the ‘Maps’ directory.
Optix Issue (Blender 2.83 LTS & 2.91)
At the moment Optix doesn’t support Bevel and Ambient Occlusion nodes for Cycles. If you’re
using Optix make sure to mute the Ambient Occlusion node inside the Suzanne’s material
(Material: BlendWithGround).

Banding
Sometimes, when you come really close to the terrain’s surface, you might notice a banding
effect (stripes/lines). It is actually related to Blender/Cycles more than it is to Terrain Mixer.
Inside the Material Properties, under Surface/Displacement change ‘Displacement and Bump’ to
‘Displacement Only’. Of course, this means that you will lose bump details. If your machine
allows you to push subdivision levels way up then it doesn't really matter, but if you have a bit
weaker machine/card you might want to use bump as well. So, if you need bump details, you
can change the Texture Interpolation (those 4 Image source nodes for heightmaps) from
Closest to Linear or Smart. That usually solves it.

Border Walls (stretched edges)


Sometimes the terrain geometry can end up having border walls (stretched edges). Unchecking
the 'Interpolate' (Texture Properties) checkbox usually solves the border walls issues.
..
> BAKING

Heightmaps (​watch the video​)


1. Inside the 'Scene Properties' dialog select the 'OrthoCamera4Baking' as the active camera for
rendering.
2. Inside the 'Render Properties' go to Sampling/Render and set the value to 1.
3. Inside the 'Output Properties' dialog set the resolution to any value but make sure it is a 1:1
ratio. 8192x8192 px will be more than enough, but you can also start with lower values (4K, 2K,
or 1K).
4. Select the 'Terrain' object (from the Outliner).
5. Open the 'Shader Editor' so you can edit the 'Terrain' material.
6. Go to 'Material Output' (the last node), clear the 'Displacement' input, and plug-in the
'Extremer' node into 'Surface' input.
7. Render (F12).
8. Save the image as OpenEXR (32 bit) and set the 'Color Depth' to 'Float (Full)'.
Diffuse maps
1. Inside the 'Scene Properties' dialog select the 'OrthoCamera4Baking' as the active camera for
rendering.
2. Inside the 'Render Properties' go to Sampling/Render and set the value to 1 or above.
3. Inside the 'Output Properties' dialog set the resolution to any value but make sure it is a 1:1
ratio. 8192x8192 px will be more than enough, but you can also start with lower values (4K, 2K,
or 1K).
4. Inside the 'View Layer Properties' dialog go to Passes/light and click the 'Color' checkbox.
5. Render (F12).
6. In the upper right corner of the 'Blender Render' window choose 'DiffCol' instead of
'Combined'.
7. Save the image (PNG).
..

> WATCH ALL THE VIDEOS

Click ​HERE

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