Glacier Macro (Update 8/10)

Macros and Plugins
#1

Update 2:
The new version can be found here: http://nkblog.nkdev.de/?page_id=446 and contains some significant improvements:

  • Erosion now has to be done outside the macro
  • removed a lot of devices that weren’t necessary anymore (splitters) or didn’t have a big enough impact to justify their existence
  • The adapter is gone - you’ll be able to handle this stuff yourself :slight_smile:

[size=9px]old posts:
Update:

I tried to improve the macro…
Changes:

  • better control over the shape of the glacier
  • better mask output, own structure can now be applied easily using a combiner, mode: “multiply”
  • less devices/memory used
  • includes an adapter macro to use your own terrain instead of heavily eroded one the macro creates

I called it b(beta) because its hard for me to test it due to the extreme (low) speed of my pc. :?

http://home.arcor.de/nicokorn//worldmachine/downloads/glaciers1_2b.rar

Here it is as promised in the geology thread.
It isn’t perfect or absolutely realistic, but it does a quite good job. At least I don’t now of a macro that does the same better. :mrgreen:
(if such a macro exists , I’d really like to take a look at it :slight_smile: )

http://www.nicokorn.de.vu/worldmachine/downloads/glaciers.rar
(edit: for standard edition only)[/size]

#2

Very nice work Nikita. I am currently working on adding a little vironoi noise for “breakup”. It’s hard to get the scale small enough and subtle enough, but I’m getting there.

  • Oshyan
#3

good idea :smiley:

#4

Neato! Going to play now. :smiley:

#5

Well, it works. :smiley:

See full-size here

I added the voronoi noise for breakup, as previously discussed. I’ll post what it looks like without the voronoi in a little while (after the render finishes :D).

  • Oshyan
#6

NICE! :shock:

#7

Thanks, I thought it turned out pretty good. :slight_smile: If possible I’ll try to refine my results and then parameterize my additions, with Nikita’s permission of course.

Anyway, here’s the original version, just as in the original macro above:

Full size here

I like the general impression of mine better, but the original does have better boundary constraints. Mine seems to be flowing up the walls a bit, which I need to solve. Overall both are missing the edges that appear to have been carved by the glacier, although that could be explained by changes in the glacier’s path or the glacier receding. Still I think it might be good to smooth out the edges of the glacier’s carving path a bit.

  • Oshyan
#8

woooooow! :o
Very nice indeed! I love the the detail you mannaged to get with the voronoi breakup! The flowing-up-the-wall thing doesn’t look bad, IMO… I mean, the ice has to go somewhere, and it is rather natural to see the pressure building up there… but if you can tune it better it will look really neet!
The only things I now see missing, are some more separate ice chuncks at the end of the glacier, and… …A river!!!.. Glaciers don’t just stop, dry!! :smiley:

#9
If possible I'll try to refine my results and then parameterize my additions, with Nikita's permission of course.
That's fine by me :) You can also add your name to the macro description if you want.

btw… to get smaller vorononoi patterns, you can multiply the output several voronoi noise devices. :slight_smile:

After I got your version of the macro, I’ll try to implement Fil’s ideas :smiley:

#10

hmm… I’m not so sure you can easily do all this in one macro… You might need to manually specify the placing of the “ice chunck position/dumping area”… The river mask also sounds complicated to do if you only want it to come out of “the clacier” and not all other glacierless valeys arround…

#11

Could you just apply a erosion device to the glacier device and use the channel flow output for the water flowing out of the glacier but add a rotated ramp device as a mask and the glacier shape itself as a mask below the ramp and combine the two using the combiner device to the flow channel output so that the channels only go one way down? Am i just stoned or does this make any sense? :?

#12

Thanks Nikita, Fil. Good idea on the multiplying of voronois. I had thought about that but I seemed to get the results I was after without doing that so I didn’t bother. It might be nice to be able to vary the size of the breakup in macro however, so maybe there could be a switch for “breakup scale: large/small”, which would switch between a multiplied network and not. Or better perhaps a slider/drop-down that had numbers 1-5 for example for base breakup scale, along with a normal slider for fine control (that would hook directly to the voronoi scale slider).

For rivers Sethren’s idea sounds pretty reasonable. I’d start with something similar anyway. You might be able to get the ice chunks the same way. I certainly agree that these things are what is missing now.

I can provide my current .tmd with my modifications now if people want to play - it’s pretty rough. Otherwise you can wait for me to parameterize it, hopefully in the next few days.

  • Oshyan
#13

So i am not crazy. OK! :slight_smile:

Hey JavaJones i’ll check your .tmd out. See what it is made off. Looking foward to your parameterized version to. :slight_smile:

I was doing some variants of the glacier macro getting what looks like tiny inverted channels. Wierd stuff but really don’t know if there is any use for these little buggers. More trials need to be done.

http://www.ashundar.com/datas/users/1941-results%202.jpg

#14

Righteo, here’s the current .tmd. Warning: it’s a bit messy. :smiley: I have included both versions of the macro, so you can compare the results yourself. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to parameterize and refine this soon…

http://www.oshyan.com/tmp/glacier_mod_4_comparison.tmd

  • Oshyan
#15

Awesome work guys! :smiley: :smiley:

The ice flowing up the walls seems quite natural as long as it doesn’t flow too high- it looks fine- I think it adds to the image. Taking a closer look, I think I see what you mean: the wall hidden from view seems to have ice flowing too high up it- can’t be sure.
The breakup on the surface is very nice. That adds a LOT to it.
I like Sethren’s idea. This could introduce the striations which are such a common feature on glaciers.

I’ve spent the last couple of days working on a glacier myself- in Wilbur though. I’ll be very happy if I can get any where near this. It’s really just for presentational purposes for something I’m writing for ME-DEM: it can be done in Wilbur.
It looks like WM is forging the way on this though.

Vary cool! :smiley:

monks

#16

Well i tried to use your .tmd modification but World Machine is telling me i am missing plugins and or devices. I have every single device and plugin installed already. What the heck?

#17

Erm, was made with WM Pro alpha. Sorry about that! :frowning:

  • Oshyan
#18

No worries! Maybie stephen will have a some beta canadates ready soon. :wink:

#19

That happened to me too :mrgreen:
I had to copy the network by hand - but it worked :slight_smile:

#20

Same here.
I tried the glacier macro on a File input (4097 terrain) and I get insufficient memory. Memory conservation mode doesn’t work either. I have 2 gigs. It said something about resolution- I’ll have another go later on,

monks