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AlphaCentury, a Terrain Creation Tutorial

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#241

Well done jaundel. Very authentic looking winterscape :slight_smile: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :smiley:
As might be expected here is my effort.

#242

mucho refreshing looking ocean, DeeVee! powerful surf if there ever was one! :+1: :+1: :+1: was the basic terrain alpha centuried? i partl. like the translucency of the front breaker!

here is one you might like for vegetational purposes:

it seems like i suffer from an urge to cover the cubicalskinned terrains with something, in the wintercityscape on previous page its snowflakes, this time palm- and other trees:

frontfronds were done the way showed here, middle ones are a zspheretool, the ones in background 2ds done with simplebrush/drag retangle with an alpha mrgbz-grabbed from zspheretool. terrain was done creating a multisphere, multimarker object, making a unifiedskin with no smooth, mrgbz-grabbing that cubil look and applying the alpha to a plane the usual way.

  • juandel
#243

Thanks for the links jaundel. This is the type of surf that is best enjoyed by looking at it and not to be in it. :slight_smile:

#244

an attempt to get rid of softridged mountains and to win a texture the material-way:

terrain was done by painting with simplebrush on colour filled canvas the alphacentury way, but i wasnt filling the canvas. mrgbz-grab, alpha-make 3d-cubical way. applying alpha (i had to switch to UVP-texturing, i think), inverting, some z-offset. making unifiedskin of alpha3d-tool the cubical way, then dragging on slopes in move-mode to get rid of uniform terraces. deformations of various kinds, i remember noise, negative and positive smooths at different axis, inflate z to get some kind of snowcaps… the materials are two variations of gradient sky with changed colours in S1: white-white-brown-white and a few modifications in S2. for the front part i reloaded the saved mat with less noise and painted over the materials whites to fake nearby snow. GI-render, export, reimport to new (stretched) document in 1.51, trying to loose the blocky look in front (midground was easy with lowintensity smudge), then decided to enforce it with filterbrush. best-render + adjustments. hope you will like it!

  • juandel
    ( :mad: at retarded isp and hoping it’ll upload)
#245

beautiful image
great idea to use cubical skinning this way , wonder what you come up with next :slight_smile:
:+1: :+1: :+1:

#246

thanks, Namek :slight_smile: like always, right after uploading it i saw many things that could be done much better, but didnt return to improve - too lazy or distracted or whatever :angry:

same will probably happen this time:

starring
Dave’s :+1: :+1: :+1: Seagull and making use of the deformation-magic explained here. the terrain was made when an experiment at creating a 3d-wave-tool from a spiral-3d failed - the awkward tool was mrgbz-grabbed from above and so on along the traditional alphacentury-way. it looked terrible. but when making alpha from texture things started to work out - thanks for viewing!

  • juandel
#247

That’s fantastic sea again Hansl, you really do an excellent job of it. When Aurick gets a chance to see what goes wrong with those scripts you sent me, I shall look forward to studying your methods. If you are looking in Aurick, I do appreciate you are busy, but when you get a chance to check Juandel’s script I sent you, It would be much appreciated, Thanks. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
Dave

#248

thanks for compliments, Dave :slight_smile:

one of my basic believes derives from the alchemical sources that say that what shows in makro is represented in mikro and vice versa - so i believe the main ingredient to a successful (not that i was really satisfied with any of them) seascape to be a sealike alpha. for the above one i created alpha via texture>make alpha :slight_smile: *

rest is tweaking of materials (including grabbing texture of sky) + adjusting lights. when using a gelshaded material like i did i recommend to use main lights placed below and/or backlights.

  • heres the texture i won the alpha from:

this texture was dragrectangle-painted with simple brush using an mrgbzgrab of a deforemed very low coverage spiral-tool.

  • juandel
#249

some more kitsch:

lets have the first z-convention on las islas lunaticas (still to be discovered) :smiley:

  • juandel
#250

Muy Beatifico! where be my skippin stone

brings me back to those silken caribbean nights under the moon listening to reaggae drifting across the water in time to the waves crashing on the reef. Nights so clear that you could see where you were going on the white sand by starlight without the aid of the moon.

ah, and here I am in commuterland, bummer

#251

Well it doesn’t look like you will need Vue Hansl, another good one. My Zlandscapes are rubbish I’m afraid, so Vue is my Poser of landscapes. Nice work with Z d’Esprit. :slight_smile: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
Dave

#252

Hi Juandel
We can ear the undertow :slight_smile:
Pilou

#253

Two more magical images in your own inimitable style, Hansl. :+1: :+1: :+1:

I don’t comment on them all individually - the thread would get even more ridiculously long - but they are all much appreciated. Keep 'em coming maestro.

#254

Congratulations Jaundel! It is a joy to see you posting again. Those months without your images were not very pleasant ones at all. Welcome back!
Excellent images All around,
DeeVee.

#255

thank you for your kind, feedback, ZBs! :slight_smile: its mucho appreciated - but i understand it would get as repetitive as my experiments, FC :smiley: Deevee: for a little while i have more time left for doing what i like most and as its pretty chilly over here and cozy indoors and i am without a juandelita at the time given :roll_eyes:, zbrushing is my choive :smiley:

here is a cliff-coast starring Dave’s :+1: :+1: :+1: Seagull once again… i thought i would sepia it (mrgbz-grab -> texture make alpha -> alpha make texture -> fill canvas -> coloradjustments in render palette), but looking at it i am not sure, which one i prefer, so here are both versions:

  • juandel
#256

Hi Juandel
That’s damned good ! Except on the right down side : rocks are too ragged :slight_smile:
First version more potetic
Pilou

#257

Nice work once more - I think I prefer the original coloured version over the sepia, but like you I’m not sure. :+1:

See - you’ve forced me to reply again already. :smiley:

The last thing I would accuse your experiments of is repetitiveness. In fact their diversity (everything from abstracts through cityscapes, seascapes to dreamy landscapes) shows up the power of the method almost as much as the quality achieved. :wink:

#258

Now that reminds of a section of Isle of Wight coastline, between St Catherines point and Blackgang Chine. It’s one of the worst landslip areas on the Island, and is little terraces where it continually tumbles. I think you have done a great job in Z to create that. It’s taking me all my time in Vue to try to create that sort of landscape, and though I love the IOW scenery, for quick scene creation purposes, I need to live on a geologically simpler island.
:+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
Dave

#259

I think that I am leaning towards the second image. Both are very good as usual but that is just my personal preferance.

#260

thanks, my friends! here is a re-do of the coloured version with less jaggied rocks and trying to improve foreground grass and horizon :slight_smile:

next one:

the rocks arent alpha-centuried but were done with a single drag-rectangle-stroke with depth(3d)-brush using a radial faded alphaversion of default texture #02. this layer was duplicated and baked after i liked the material-settings and a best render. the reason for baking was, that as far as i get it refraction works within the same layer only. i had created an alpha with fiberbrush for the water-ripples and applied it to a plane with reduced rgb and refraction “on” - about 30, i think. a flat plane isnt really good for refraction purposes :smiley: so i tried to improve the pic by a) increasng transparency of water material, b) z-displacing the original rock layer a few pixols into front, c) switching flatten layers off and d) doing a best render after i had played with lights and the water materials settings for some time. some 2d postwork was done on an exported version. the procedure i am blahblahing about can be viewed in this recorded session (hopefully - its unchecked but i am pretty sure very boring, as many renders take place :))

hope you’ll like!

  • juju