Expand (Clamp) in Improving Real World Terrain Tutorial

[amr92]

What is the purpose of having these devices in this tutorial?

The Expand after File Input really deforms the original terrain while the expand after Advanced Perlin seems to bring it back to normal.

Could someone please clarify?

Thanks in advance.

[WFab]

@amr92 I have no idea what tutorial you’re talking about. Please link it with the post if a question refers to an external content.

[blattacker]

@WFab I believe they’re asking about the example world under “Techniques” → “Intermediate” → “Improving Real World Terrain”.

@amr92 If I’m correct about which tutorial file you’re looking at, the purpose of the first Expand (Clamp) device, as best as I can tell, seems to be to increase the overall height of the terrain, most likely to match the real world heights inside of World Machine, or just to make it more visually appealing. In any case, it isn’t necessarily “deforming” the terrain, just expanding the actual height values of the terrain, as the name implies.
The second instance is doing a similar job, though it seems to be increasing overall contrast (both raising the higher points and lowering the lower points, whereas the first simply raised the higher points), as the mentioned Advanced Perlin device was relatively flat compared to the original terrain.