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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

How do I create mountains and background scene??


Noganite

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Well the topic says it all! I want to know how does one make mountains, etc in A:M? I am almost done with the model I want in the scene, but I never saw a tut on making background scenery etc. Thank you ahead of time for your assistance. :D Desert type terrain would be nice for my plan.

 

 

NOG@N1T3 :P

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Well, you can model something by hand, but "displacement maps" for this type of thingis quick and easy. A displacement map is nothing more than a black and white image. Pure black is as low as any part of the terrain will go and pure white is as high as any part of the terrain will go and all levels in between these 2. Nuetral gray (128,128,128) -in color settings - is basically even ground/middle ground. You can make them on your own in any paint program. Or you can take a colored texture of some desert terrain and turn it black&white through the same program. You can even download a free/partially working program like world machine to make these b/w images for terrain. Just make sure that you create a square patch with enough cross sections to allow for deformation correctly (use AM grid wizard for this. 50 by 50/100 by 100 etc). The displacement map to be used in AM will also have options to intensify the amount of displacement performed, under the properties section for the image inside AM. Its definately the easiest way for quick terrains in which youll have good control over.

[updated section]

As for realism, that highly depends on the texture of the terrain. Thats a whole other job. But you could do it yourself in a paint program with textures aquired. Or if you know enough about procedural materials in AM, thats another option. But for starters to see what happens, just draw any arbitrary black and white design, and make a gridded (wizard) patch, and simply add the image as a decal (planar), to the patch. Then throw the texture on last through this same method (by adding another decal). Just remember the "varying" shades from black to white, as to what texture will occupy the geometry. Lowlands grass(green)/High peaks snow(off-white), etc.

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Making the scene depends on more than one factor, is it cartoon, other, semi-realistic or realistic then question yourself the camera-speed, if you hoover the cam around with 40-mph even with a 'realistic-scene' the product-detail will be low... Then there's the question of re-useablilty, ergo using the same scenery for more than one purpose...

 

A mountain could be handmodeled and painted correctly or using a simple circular extrusion with a few CP pulled, a displacement-map and diffuse-map applied...

Another approach is a small(er) ground-plane with an image of mountains or 'painted' in the dome(matte).

 

Niels

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First off, thanks "Mage"! Didnt know this existed. Im wonder though just how similiar it looks to the old plug-in that used to work with AM as to whether its an improved version as an EXE? But I downloaded it, and wasnt sure if I had Net2.0; turns out I didnt. So I downloaded that. But the program just throws all errors when inside it (continue or quit dialog)? Cant even use it. Dont know if this is a bug or just my PC? Or even V12 of AM?

(below reply) -> "Mage" - Was really just throwing out a thanks to you. And the rest is to anyone really. Just checking to see if anyone else has these problems.I have the page and will contact this person.

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There are several things which can help here... one very powerful thing is the magnet-mode + the grid-wizard...

Just make a grid, use the magnetmode and you will get nice hills etc.

 

Another thing is the toonnation plugin Terran which should work with the newer versions and v8.0 of A:M.

 

Or you could use AM Terraform, which will create a high density-mesh for you based on a height-map.

 

Or you can just use a displacement-map with a grid...

 

Depending on your intend, quite everything can work very well....

 

*FUchur*

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