I'm working on desert rocks landscape and have a question.

I’m new to WM, but having a blast trying to make some vistas!
I have included a dump of what I’m working on, I’m trying to create a scene with rocks resembling those
in Wadi Rum (The desert we saw in Indiana Jones and the Last crusade:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharnik/4654776969/sizes/l/in/photostream/

I’m using 2 advanced perlins, the terrace outcropping macra(that adds terraces) and then erosion and basic coverage for colors.
I would love to get some more “plateau” to all those small rocks and also get more of them and break the pattern.
How do I add distortion? I tried to add a perlin to the distortion input in the advancen Perlin, but I think that is wrong right?
Cause it’s not working.
Would I also be able to make some small “holes” into the stones so some look as if the are cracked and destroyed?

My other problem is that I have flatten my landscape so the ground is pretty much in zero (So I can get a decent hightmap that starts in 0), but that also means that my “basic coverage” doesn’t cover all, but only two of the colors despite the fact that I change the settings.
I want to take advantage of all 4 colors in order to get a variety of textures.

Overall I’m pleased with the direction, but still looks very artificical. Can’t wait to hear some suggestions and learn :slight_smile:

Kind Regards Dan

Looks great WTG. I will try and make something like that also

Thanks a lot hotshot.

I was reading that it using erosion devices several times can create some really awesome things.
How would I need to connect that? I guess it wouldn’t work if they were just in serial, so what’s the trick?

Hope someone can direct me, and I would so much love to break up the terraces a bit in this scene, but don’t know how…
any clues? :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Hi there,

That’s a great example landscape to try to emulate. The first thing I would do to get that “mesas and flat desert below” is to take your main terrain and hook it into a Curves device. Draw a curve that drops down steeply then goes flat the rest of the way.

To break up the terraces, I believe the macro you’re using should let you reduce how common they are. But if it doesn’t, you can mask out some of the effects by hooking up a chooser after the macro and piping the “before and after” terrain into the first and second inputs, then a mask into the third (drive the mask with a perlin noise, or anything else you want that gives a nice mottled effect).

As for the color issue, I encourage you to open up the Basic Coverage macro and check out how the texture is being created (Double click on the macro and then choose “Enter Macro”). If you follow the texture layers as they are combined together, you should be able to find out why you are only getting a single color.

I’ve attached a quick landscape that shows using the curve to get that flat look. I’ve also included the world file, although be aware it is a World Machine 2.3 beta world file so if you are using 2.2 it will not open correctly.

Thank you so much Remnant. I love how things makes sense when each device is learned one step at the time. Curves is new to me, have just been playing around for a few weeks.
Amazing reading about folks here who learned how to master a setup of hundreds! Geez…guess that will take a long time before I’m there.

I’m really considering making a professional purchase, in order to play around with the 2.3 beta.
Do you plan any Christmas offer and will 2.2 give access to a full version of 2.3 when it’s released?

One last thing, say you wanted to add some “desert-ish” sand look and feel to the flat terrain of the terrain you made, would you then
use a layout and mask everything else but the mountains and then add a new perlin noise and play around until you
found a decent look?
And then add another basic coverage to be able to use 4 new colors?
Just trying to learn:o)

Cheers, Dan

Regarding 2.3 : Yes, purchasing 2.2 now gives immediate access to the 2.3 beta (http://www.world-machine.com/beta), and the final 2.3 when it is released. I don’t have any christmas deals planned, although I AM trying to get 2.3 final out before Christmas, which should be a nice enough present for all :slight_smile:

About enhancing terrains: Yep, you have the right idea. Most sophisticated World Machine terrains are just basic ideas strung together. To get at only those flat areas, you could either:

  1. Use a layout generator to create the mask, but if you do this it is all manual. More control, but more work
  2. Use a height selector set to select the low area of the terrain. Tweak the settings until its just picking out the low desert area. Now you have a mask you can use to guide additional terrain and/or texturing!

That is a nice present indeed 8)
Can’t wait to try it out.

Thanks a lot Remnant for the continuous help and support here, even for those of us who are using the free version.
Merry Christmas to everyone.

Cheers, Dan

PS. Is there a list somewhere with the new “features” in 2.3? Couldn’t find a specific list.