[Michael Lansdell]

It also won’t pick-whip the Element 3D variables. Probably should have mentioned that!

I made the pre-comp by duplicating the main comp, if that might have any impact?

[Michael Lansdell]

Thanks Adam! I won’t be able to check this until Tuesday but hopefully will solve the problem. Will be great to have a Terrain shader I can use to top other materials. I think I can imagine how this would help with creating coastlines (the next thing to work out!).

[Michael Lansdell]

Actually, what would be REALLY powerful for something like this would be to use the Terrain Shader with something like the Hair simulation in C4D so there could be actual blades of grass…

In the meanwhile turning down the number of repetitions of the shader has helped:

Michael Lansdell

Online/Offline Editor, Motion Graphics and VFX

http://www.michael-lansdell.co.uk

[Michael Lansdell]

So just to keep this up to date, I realised I could get 75% of the look by copying attributes from the material in to the Shader. It doesn’t look as good to me though. Definite disadvantages in that there will only be one texture controlling the specular, bump, etc…

Anyway, this is what that looks like:

If this is the way to do it, is there a way of linking attributes from the Terrain Mask in say the Colour channel to the other instances of Terrain Mask you would need for the Displacement, Bump, Specular channels?

Also, whilst I REALLY like how the displacement alters the way the grass lies on the object, I wonder if there is a way so make it a little less rigid to every bump. It would be good to be able to fill in the gaps slightly, like this very (VERY) crude photoshop sort of shows:

Thanks again! I’ll be sure to share the final result/material with the community here at Creative Cow (I’ll swap out any Video Copilot stuff for copyright free stuff) once I’m done.

M

[Michael Lansdell]

Hi Adam,

Yes, of course, I should have thought of that! I want to be able to make a pile of grains something like this:

Thanks for your time!

M

[Michael Lansdell]

Great, thanks!

[Michael Lansdell]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your reply and the demo scene, great to see what I was hoping would be possible at work. I’m not sure I understand how that shader is telling C4D what things should look like at each level though, but I’m sure if I spend some time with it I’ll work it out.

Michael Lansdell

Online/Offline Editor, Motion Graphics and VFX

http://www.michael-lansdell.co.uk

[Michael Lansdell]

Did you ever find a solution? What was your source? I’m assembling the TrueMarble 250m .png tileset in C4D at the minute, but I can’t find a specular map that even comes close to the resolution that isn’t in a .dds format.

Michael Lansdell

Online/Offline Editor, Motion Graphics and VFX

http://www.michael-lansdell.co.uk

[Michael Lansdell]

Hi Brian, thank you! I’d actually just worked that out about 45 minutes ago but useful to have in writing online for anyone else. Cloud transparency and masking glows (on lights on the dark side of the earth) are my next challenges. Any further suggestions welcomed though!

[Michael Lansdell]

I had the bright idea of splitting the sphere in to 8 and using the relavant tiles on each piece, but they don’t line up. I don’t think the square 21600×21600 textures map to the 8th of a sphere properly… Very frustrating!