Creating and Texturing Terrains with Terranim8or (2)
Creating terrains by random generation
It’s a quick and easy way of generating random terrains. Refer to Settings for a description
of the different types of terrains and their parameters. This method allows for
a maximum resolution of 128x128 points for the generated terrain, but as you
will see below, more detailed terrains could be obtained with easy additional
steps.
Here is the work flow:
1. Click Build > Terrain > Generate
2. In the Terrain Editor set the terrain type, generation mode
and the parameters. The File Output tab has special settings like front
mapping, animated sequences, cloud mesh generation, smooth angle, etc.
3. After clicking OK, the terrain appears in the work space.
Example of generating a detailed mountain mesh of 125x125 points (see the picture
below):
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For this example, in the Terrain Editor check the “Island” terrain type. If you want to obtain a terrain like that shown in the picture, set the Seed to 1. Set the height to 45 and leave the default length. Enter 32 for the number of X and Z points. This seems to contradict what I have said earlier that we are going to obtain a detailed mesh. |
The technique we’ll use is to reach a high number of points alternating random displacement of coordinates with subdividing the faces. Using the noise modifier to randomly displace the terrain’s points gives a more interesting look to the mesh. This way the terrain is not anymore smooth as usually generated by Terranim8or. We can have overhangs, which cannot be obtained from height maps. After each subdivision, the amount of displacement is reduced (compared to the previous step) to keep the general shape. This is how a fractal algorithm works.
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Back to the job: the settings are shown in the image on the left. Clicking OK, we get this terrain (see the image below). Not quite appealing... Click Plugins > NoiseModifier and enter the following settings: Max.noise X = 4, Max.noise Y = 2, Max.noise Z = 4 and click OK. Examine the terrain (you may rotate it while the Noise Modifier confirmation box is open) and accept it, or start over with different noise settings. |
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| Click Build > Subdivide > Flat (tension 1). Apply again the Noise Modifier plug-in, now with these settings: Max.noise X = 2, Max.noise Y = 1, Max.noise Z = 2. Now the terrain looks like this (see the image on the right). Your terrain will look slightly different, because the noise modifier’s action is random. We make a third iteration, to get even more details. |  |
| Click again Build >
Subdivide > Flat (tension 1) and Plugins > NoiseModifier. Now
the settings are Max.noise X = 1, Max.noise Y = 0.5, Max.noise Z = 1. Finally,
we've obtained a terrain with a resolution of 125x125, but more interesting than one
generated using directly 125x125, or even 128x128 points (try it yourself)! Next, we shall texture the terrains. |
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