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Pulling It All Together A Simple Example Project |
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1. Go to the File menu and select New. The create new project interface will appear:
2. Call the new project "TexturePower", and click on the Create and Save button. WCS will create you new project and will ask if you wish to import some data. Click Yes. We are going to import some terrain from an existing project. 3. When the Import Data file requester opens, navigate to the WCSProjects:TexturesEverywhere folder, select the file named TexturesEverywhere.1.elev and click Open. 4. Click Next three times and Import once on the Import Wizard interfaces that appear. 5. Now that you project has been created, and terrain data imported, right click in an empty matrix cell and select TexturePower Camera as the View:
6. Let's move our Camera to get a better view. With the TexturePower Camera view active, hold down the space bar, select the Move icon and click and drag in the view to move our camera to a more suitable location. Left-clicking allows you to move the camera from side-to-side and front-to-back and the right mouse button allows you to navigate up-and-down. This is the view I had once I had finished manipulating my camera:
7. Do a quick Preview Render to see how our default lighting looks:
8. Looks OK to me, so now I want to quickly populate the scene with some other features. The best way is to use pre-built components and then modify them to suit our exact requirements. 9. Select Landcover
Task Mode 10. Click the
Component Gallery icon 11. When the Component Gallery opens, locate and load the Generic Environment component by double-clicking on its icon in the gallery. 12. When prompted to scale elevation lines, select Yes. This Environment was not built around this terrain quad, but on a quad with a very different elevation range, so we are going to allow WCS to proportionally scale the elevation ranges of the ecosystems in this environment so it can be used with our current terrain model. 13. Do another Preview Render of our TexturePower camera:
14. Expand the Ecosystems category in the s@g and you will see the list of Ecosystems added to the project automatically when we loaded the Environment. In this case, there are 6: Generic Conifer, Generic Deciduous, Generic Desert, Generic Grass, Generic Rock, and Generic Tundra. 15. With the
exception of Generic Conifer and Generic Grass, select each of the
ecosystems in turn and click the Disable Component icon
16. Let's add
a lake to our scene: Click on the Water Task Mode icon 17. Double click the Lakes category in the s@g to add a new Lake component. 18. On the general page of the Lake Editor, set your lake Elevation to 65m. Do another Preview Render:
19. Things look very basic, but that is the idea - we are going to use texturing to achieve some clever results. First, I want to increase Fractal Depth, to remove those horrid polygons in the foreground and give us a better idea about the exact distribution of our ecosystems. 20. Switch to
Terrain Task Mode by clicking the 21. Set Maximum Fractal Depth to 5 and Vertical Displacement to 1. Do another Preview Render:
22. That's better!
Now we are going to concentrate on each of our ecosystems in turn
and see how they can be enhanced. Switch back to Land Cover Task Mode
by clicking the 23. Double click the entry for the Generic Conifer ecosystem in the s@g, to open its editor. 24. Switch to the Material and Foliage page of the editor by clicking on its tab. 25. Click the icon to the right of Overstory in the Selected Material Ecotypes section. Select Edit Ecotype from the popup menu that appears. The Ecotype Editor for the Generic Conifer Overstory will open. 26. Switch to the Ecotype page of the editor by clicking on its tab. Set the Minimum Height to 20m and the Density to 250. Do another Preview Render:
27. We have a small render error in reflections caused by the fact that our foreground foliage is obscuring (or occluding) the rendering of background foliage that needs to appear in reflections:
Let's solve this problem now, before we go any further. 28. Switch to the General Page of your Generic Conifer Overstory Ecotype Editor. Enable the checkbox marked "Render Items Occluded By This Ecotype's Image Objects" by clicking it. Do another Preview Render:
29. Now that we have everything rendering as expected, let's modify the distribution of trees using the texture Editor to gain a more realistic scene. Click the Ecotype Tab of the Generic Conifer Overstory Ecotype Editor to switch to that page. 30. Click the
31. Select Turbulence from the Texture Elements dropdown list. 32. Set the scale of your Texture to 100m on each axis. 33. Rerender a preview:
Now, wherever our texture has values of 1 (white), our foliage will be at full density (250 stems per Acre). Wherever our texture has values of 01 (Black), our foliage will be at zero density (0 stems per Acre). Intermediate values will give intermediate coverage. 34. However,
the variance is too subtle - I would prefer to see the distribution
a little more clearly, with clearings and pockets of dense foliage.
Click the 35. Leave the remap function as the default Bell Curve, but change the parameters to the following: Amplitude = 100, Shift = 0. Do another Preview Render:
36. We are getting there, but all our foliage is still at 20m. Copy the texture you have just created in the Density channel to the Maximum Height channel. If you are unsure how to do this at this stage in proceedings, you weren't paying attention in the earlier tutorials! Do another Preview Render:
The texturing is now driving density and height and we have a reasonably natural distribution of foliage. Note that the overall placement of foliage at an Ecosystem level is still being achieved with Rules-of-Nature. Our Coniferous ecosystem will still not grow on slopes exceeding 35 degrees, for example, regardless of the texture settings used. If you want to control distribution solely with texturing, your Rules-of-Nature must be as all-encompassing as possible. 37. Let's do similar for the Generic Grass Ecosystem. Open its Editor and access the editor for the Overstory Ecotype. 38. Switch to the Ecotype page of the Editor. Set Minimum & Maximum Height to 2m in the Ecotype Height section. 39. Set Density to 10 in the Ecotype Density section. Do another Preview Render:
40. Let's add
some variety to the color of our grass. Switch to the Objects page
of the Ecotype Editor by clicking on its tab. The images of grass
are grayscale and are being colored at rendertime by WCS. With GrassClump
selected in the Foliage Objects list, click the 41. The two colors in the disabled Fractal Noise texture are a little too harsh for my liking (probably one of the reasons why it was disabled!). Edit the colors until you have a couple of more realistic colors for mountain grass. I used RGB 115, 120, 55 and RGB 50, 95, 55. 42. Set the scale of your texture to be 10m in each axis. 43. Click the
44. Click the
45. Select GrassClump1 in the Foliage Objects list. 46. Click the
47. Now it's time to texture our grass distribution. Switch back to the Ecotype page of the Ecotype Editor. 48. Click the
49. Leave the default Fractal Noise as our driving texture, but change its scale to 10m in each axis. Do another Preview Render:
50. We could
continue this process at a foliage group and even foliage image level
- anywhere you find a 51. Click on
the Water Task Mode icon 52. Click the Beach Gradient tab to switch to the Beach Gradient page of your Lake Editor. Set both Beach Height Minimum, and Beach Height Variation to 1m. Do another Preview Render:
We now have a bit more beach to texture! 53. Click the Beach Mat'l tab to switch to the Beach Material page of your Lake Editor. 54. I want to
texture the beach to simulate the effect of damp sand near the water's
edge. This is darker and slightly more reflective than the sand farther
from the water. We can simulate this effect with some clever texturing.
Click the 55. Select Dynamic Parameter as your texture element from the Texture Elements dropdown list. 56. Select Water Depth as your Parameter from the Parameters dropdown list. 57. Set Input High to -1m. 58. What we have done is set up a texture that will drive Diffuse Intensity (%) with Water Depth. By using a negative water depth, we are telling WCS to apply the gradient over a distance ABOVE the water's surface. The diffuse Intensity will go from the Output Low (%) value (0%) at the Water's Surface (Water Depth = 0m) to the Output High (%) value (100%) at a point 1m above the waterline (Water Depth = -1m). Do another Preview Render to see the effect:
59. The darkening effect is too extreme - we don't really want all of the diffuse color to disappear, so change the Output Low (%) value to 50%. That way, the gradient will go from 50% diffuse intensity to 100% diffuse intensity over the same distance. Rerender a Preview to see:
60. That's better. Now we can use this texture as the basis of a texture to drive the reflectivity of the beach material also: Copy the texture we have just created and paste it into the Reflectivity Channel. Set your Reflectivity value to 25%, then open the Texture Editor for the copied texture. 61. With the settings as they are, Reflectivity will go from 12.5% at the water's edge, to 25% at 1m above the waterline and beyond. The gradient needs to be reversed to get the required effect of increased reflectivity nearer the water's edge. The easiest way to do this, if you remember, is to reverse the Output Min and Max values, so set Output Min (%) to 100 and Output Max (%) to 0. 62. We can use the modified texture to drive Specularity, also, which will increase as we approach the water's edge. Copy the texture from the Reflectivity (%) channel and paste it into the Specularity (%) channel. Set Specularity to 100%. 63. Let's finish
the beach off with some Bump Mapping: Click the 64. Do a Preview Render to see how the default Fractal Noise Bump Map looks:
65. It has added detail to the beach texture, and in some cases will help show up specularity and reflectivity settings. However, I don't really want the beach to be 100% bumpy over its whole surface. Ideally it should be smoother where the action of water has created a flat bed of densely packed sand. This happens to be the same area we have been focussing on - the 1m of elevation above the waterline. We should like the bump map to be nonexistent at the water line and gradually become more distinct as we travel away from the water's edge. 66. Copy the texture from the Reflectivity (%) channel and paste it into the Bump Intensity (%) channel. Edit the texture and reverse the values for Out Low (%) and Out High (%). ie: Out Low (%) = 0, and Out High (%) = 100. Render a Preview to see the changes:
67. The beach is now looking great, so Let's add some waves to the water: Switch to the Water Mat'l page of the Lake Editor by clicking on its tab. 68. Change the Diffuse Color to something a little more "muddy" - I used RGB 65, 60, 35. 69. Change Optical Depth to 2.5m. 70. Click the Waves subtab to switch to the waves page of the Water Material. 71. Set the value of Added Roughness to 0.1m. 72. Click the
73. I am pretty
happy with the water now, so let's add some clouds to our scene: Switch
to Sky Task Mode by clicking the 74. Double click the Cloud Models category in the s@g to add a new Cloud Model component. 75. On the General page of the Cloud Model Editor, Set Map Height N-S and Map Width E-W to 500Km each. 76. Switch to the Vertical Profile page by clicking on its tab. Click the Volumetric checkbox to enable it. 77. Switch to the Shadows page by clicking its tab. Click the Cast Shadows checkbox to enable it, then select the Volumetric radio button to tell WCS to use volumetric shadows, rather than shadow maps. Also select the lowest two checkboxes in the Receive From list (Volumetrics, and Consider Light Falloff, Spot Cones, Earth Umbra) 78. Expand the Atmospheres category in the s@g, and double click on the TexturePower Atmosphere to open its editor. 79. Select the radio button marked 25X for Speed Boost in the Common Atmosphere and Volumetric Cloud controls section of the Atmosphere Editor. Do a Preview Render to see our Cloud Model with the current settings:
80. I am not sure either about the distribution or the size of our clouds, so let's change them: Switch to the Aerial Attributes page of the Cloud Editor by clicking on its tab, and select Cumulus from the Cloud Preset dropdown list. 81. Click the
82. Change the scale of our cloud texture from to 10km in each axis, and increase Roughness to 50%. This will have the effect of making the "wispy" strands of cloud at the edges of the globular cloud masses. 83. Change Shading to 35%, and Coverage to 10%. 84. Render another preview:
85. Some of the more blocky artifacts are the result of the volumetric acceleration setting in the Atmosphere Editor. For final renders this would be set to as close to 1x as possible (at the obvious expense of render speed). I would like to add another cloud model above the existing one, but we will keep this one simple and use a planar, rather than volumetric cloud model. 86. Select the Cloud Models Category in the s@g. 87. Click the
Add Component icon 88. On the General page of the Cloud Model Editor, Set Map Height NS and Map Width E-W to 1000Km each, and Base Elevation to 10Km. Rename your Cloud Model to High Altitude Cirrus. 89. Switch to
the Aerial Attributes page by clicking on its tab. Click the 90. Change the scale of your texture to 100Km in the X axis, and 10Km in the other two axes. 91. Change your Preview Size to 100Km to better see the effects of the changes you are making. 92. Select Remap Function 2<-Bell Curve in the Texture elements list. 93. Set Skew (%) to 25% & Phase (%) to 30%. Render another Preview:
94. I think we will draw things to a close there. There are many other areas of the World Construction Set and Visual Nature Studio interfaces that utilize texturing extensively to achieve their results. In this simple example project, we have not examined Streams, Walls & 3D Object Materials, amongst other things - all of these examples form sufficient material for a tutorial of their own! However, hopefully you should have gained not only a good understanding of the texture editor itself (from parts 1-8) but also how those concepts apply within a "real-world" scene, and can be used to enhance the visualizations you create. |
and expand the Environments group. Double-click the TexturePower Environment
to open its editor.
on the left edge of the Environment Editor.
above the s@g. When you are finished, do another preview render:
above the s@g to switch Task Modes.
icon. Expand the Terrain Parameters category in the s@g and double
click the TexturePower Terrain Parameters component to open its editor.
icon
to the right of Maximum Height in the Ecotype Height section. Select
Create texture from the dropdown list.
icon to the right of Replace Gray, and select Edit Texture from the
popup menu.
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icon above the s@g.
to add a new Cloud Model. Close the Component Gallery when it opens
as we are going to create this cloud model from scratch. Some high-level
Cirrus might be good: