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AlphaCentury, a Terrain Creation Tutorial

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#281

thanks, Ron! :slight_smile: yes, i am alive and well, the latter esp. regarding the fact that theres a short vacation ahead of me, which i will spend hiking with a friend - weather forecast is absolutely fantastico :D. i hope to visit less deserted areas than the below one:

as you can see in the foreground, somewhere on the way to create the terrain some cubical skinning was involved - maybe its a terrace of a villa in ruins :rolleyes:

and below is a version done with mrgbz-grab>texture>make alpha>alpha>make texture and fill layer + render adjustments and experimental postwork with a few of zbrushs wonderful brushes.

treeshapes are imported alphas scanned from a book containing a few naked tree silhouettes - those i tried drawing myself inhouse z came out in a very kindergartenstyle :rolleyes:

  • juandel
#282

Some very proffessional looking landscaping work Hansl, excellent work. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: Dave

#283

Juandel you keep amazing me with your alphacentury work :+1: :+1:

#284

You’re on absolute top form with this last pair of sibling images, Hansl, and once again pushing the boundaries with this techinque. :+1: :+1: :+1:

#285

Hi Juandel
I can see some “remarquables” trees across this original cubical landscape :wink:
Is not the color landscape a litle bit foggy, misty, hazy ?
pilou

#286

Juandel, that red one from Feb 27th makes me homesick – looks like the view from my condo on Mars :smiley:

This thread is worth revisiting – so many different and beautiful terrains :slight_smile:

#287

And it’s amazing you’re only using a mouse Juandel, I think with a tablet you could really add another dimension to your already wonderful landscapes. Bravo+ :+1: :slight_smile:

And thanks for posting such great tips. :slight_smile:

#288

thank you, ZBs! :slight_smile: i am taking a tablet now and then, gummie - hangovers and such :smiley:

i did the follwing images while experimenting with materials for the fabulous Pixolator rock challenge :slight_smile:

same material and terrain, other light position, rotated in PS - mohenjodaro:

besides the material i think that the fact that i (involuntarily :D) used a tiny alpha only (created with fiberbrush) on a highres plane with sh and sv off might be responsible for the cubicmeshlike look of the images.

off topic: heres a 2.5d-brushes test with a similar material making use of MTBs fantastico distressedZ-technique, too:

hope you’ll like and that they arent too dark!

  • juandel
#289

Were you going for the ancient ruins/mayans look? Great, I like. :slight_smile:

Especially the 3rd rock texture one, looks very realistic. It’s not a photo, is it? lol

Nice job :slight_smile: :+1:

#290

Hello Juandel
This green color is not a little gloomy ? :rolleyes:
Pilou

#291

I like all three Hansl-even that "gloomy"green one.

#292

I took a shortcut :smiley:

First I painted the top-down depth map with simple brush and alpha Brush 02, ZAdd on, with variations in draw size and depth (checking the brush preview in the Draw palette)

Then I grabbed it with MRGBZ-grabber [MRGBZ-grabber sends depth info to a new alpha in the Alpha palette – I did not use the texture that it grabbed]

The current version (1.55b) has a Depth Brush (the one that says “3D” in its icon) which I used with the Drag-rectangle stroke and the grabbed alpha to draw a 3d terrain object

I rotated and scaled this 3d terrain into place, then snapshotted it (shift-S) and rotated and positioned the 2nd copy intersecting the first one – of course one could stock up several different terrains in the alpha palette first and then overlap them

The rest is just tinting and decorating with some Fiber-brush grass

[note: I had some clipping artifacts at the bottom of the canvas – probably since I started at 640 x 480, the front edge of the terrain was passing beyond the max Z nearness – but displacing the layer down a few pixels with Layer Wrap mode off got rid of the bad edge]

afterthought: hmm, looking at that valley floor, Alpha Brush 02 and a shallow draw depth might be a good way to make a water surface 


#293

thank you my friends! :slight_smile:

rhom: hope to see a flood of yours asap! :wink:

gummie: as in most projects/doodles, i was “allowing” zbrush to take over :smiley: i wasnt going for anything, but then, after changing some light settings i bowed my head 90%s to the right, thought it looked ok, and imported it back as a texture in a 480x630 document; only after filling the canvas with it i was thinking of ancient ruins. it reminded me more of what i have looked at regarding Mohenjo Daro Brickworld (use right arrow to have a little virtual sightseeing) than Mayans :slight_smile:

Pilou: the above link proofs that you are right and that my version is much too gloomy instead of being sunbaked :slight_smile:

thats a very :cool: image and an excellent idea, havran! off topic or not :wink: - here is the final result of my second try at the suggested water-technique:

here is a script recorded while doing the basics of the above image. next time with comments :slight_smile:

  • juandel
#294

ZSC+ZMT+ZLI

#295

Sarabel goes to the mountain :cool:
Pilou Sarabel’s fan
Ps I Appreciate the concision of the message :slight_smile:

#296

wow - like all 123s you posted, thats a fantastico one, Sarabel! :+1: :+1: :+1: incredible depth, mat, lights - excellento!

here is a vista taken from an oasis i did this afternoon (i had the palmtree tool at hand :slight_smile: ), everything but the sky was done with texture 25 - the grass-one, other colours all via material/fog-settings:

i experienced something strange that i hope someone might explain
 when i tried to apply transparency to the tiny water-material/layer by switching flatten-layers off in render settings without changing anything of the other rendersettings (fog, depthcue and so on) i got this result:

the water layer was made the last one (of seven), when it was active i did a best render (which was exported and later edited via a few brushes + adjustments to get the upper image) - then i turned flatten-layers off - the result looks like the depthcue and a few other settings were lost while rerendering the other layers, and i cant make out any transparency :confused:

  • juandel
#297

Maybe someone has a definite answer, but in my experience, if I turn off Flatten Layers then I have to do a Best Render on each layer separately. Therefore, I think what you are seeing is that the other layers are rendered with Preview mode, so Depth Cue is not visible.

I looked in the manual, and the only thing it says about Flatten Layers is how it behaves when it is ON. However, it seems to imply that what I stated above is true.

#298

Hi Sarabel
The genesis and the walking through your landscape was marvelous :cool:
Pilou fan

#299

121 Welcome

#300

Here is a pic of water that is translucent without using transparency.

Refaction was used for the water.