Mediterranean Tile Set Testing and Topo Testing. II

[bustr]

The post in the general forum about this terrain was slowing down due to screen captures. I only intended to show the micro trrain work I tested but, it got a bit farther along.

Yes and check out Chikov's new terrain post, it looks like a winner. http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,391743.0.html


Third rift valley on riftval and I finished the the rough of the secondary upthrust range inside of the valley. It's going to be interesting when I clean that up and do the feature finishing.

[bustr]

Many times getting things ready for a new segment is boring make work. For mountain ranges outlining the base even if you will probably not conform later on to that outline helps keep things on track during the build up phase.

[Arlo]

Seeing the progress of this is illuminating. I appreciate it. 

[bustr]

There was a method to all this pulling diagonals madness, I got a generic pressure ridge for some boring time investment. That has been one of the primary goals of how this rift vally's walls will look. How you use the TE tools and the mistakes you have made, can become purposeful techniques later to save you development time on geo structures and their look.

I wanted the look of an upthrust edge due to plate expansion that I saw looking through photos of the rift valley in africa. There is a rift in Iceland that is just too chaotic to try and reproduce with the limitations of this terrain editor.

[bustr]

Now both sides are finished being roughed in and I've created ridges to work with once I randomize this along with textures I can take advantage of while I start shaping in and adding the face weathering work. Still have to add in more in the valley on each side of the river, it can happen later when I lay down feilds and need to work micro terrain in all these valleys.


It really helps to have a few terrains under your belt and an idea of how the terrain editor works and a terrain concept mapped out to follow.

[bustr]

Because I'm changing up the strata type in the last upthrust valley I've changed the texture for the runoff weathering on slopes. Harder rock will have fewer runoff canyons while having larger faces or a more rolling hill look to the face. This gets harder to implement as the angle of the face becomes shallow as I'm showing in these screen shots. It is easier to produce this texture with a 2.5-3 mile diameter brush and the raise hill tool while you blip on instances at a shallow angle pulling at a diagonal. Then you se the raise hill tool in it's cutting mode and work the slope vertically. Eventually just short of the ridge you pull a few raised areas almost running parallel to the ridge, then cut them to open into the diagonals or straight down. The top of this feature has to be lower than the ridge line which gives some rise to then work more feature down a shallow slope.


It's easy to work texture into a more vertical slopes as the first screen shot shows. By the last one you can the importance of that first line of texture just below the ridge line. Building these mountain ranges it always looks like I'm carving a giant Chinese dragon body.

[bustr]

One side textured.

[bustr]

That side of the valley is painted. Got the other side to texture and paint.

[bustr]

You speed up production of large formations with prep work which becomes the majority of the task. Mapping out the area of the formation then laying down the base block shape turns the final production of it into surface texturing, small feature tweaking and painting. It ends up being anticlimactic how fast that last part goes if your prep work is well done.


Prep work for the second wall of the rift valley.

[bustr]

Textured and base color coat, ready for final painting.

[bustr]

And the final rift valley is done, all three will have a few more geo structures added in the wider valley section as I reach them cleaning up the rivers, adding airfields and spawns.

[bustr]

Now I start the canyon land stage.

[bustr]

A better idea in this spot and it flows with the sinuous gorges.

[bustr]

Put in a better transition above the volcano field.

[bustr]

Got that corner, hope the Catmul smoothing tool can blend the walls on the canyons so I don't have to pull all of them with the bulldozer tool. Still have to pull canyons down through the 5000ft level to the 500ft level to define the separation between ridge systems or feed the gorges.