Modelling mountains?

# 1 03-01-2004 , 09:37 PM

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Hello!
I will need to model mountains for my scene, so I was thinking is there a way perhabs that you make an alpha map, and us it as hight map for generating mountains? I have heard about terragen, but can you export actaul model to Maya and modify it later? Is there perhabs any tutorial or tips about it?
Tnx!

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# 2 03-01-2004 , 09:47 PM

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Hmm, you are probably thinking of a bump map. basically, you just make a greyscale image of what you want your mountains to look like from overhead. You take this image and map it to a plane's shader's bump map attribute.

umm... I'm not entirely sure how easy it would be to make mountains from a bump map though. Seems like it'd be easier to simply model.

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 3 03-01-2004 , 09:53 PM

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No, I don't mean bumb maps. I mean if there is any function in Mayaor plugin that helps you making a mountain easier. I have seen somewhere(can't remember where) that you can make the mountain with terragen and export the mesh into maya. With bumb maps you actually simulate bumbs, but what I need here is actual model of mountains.
I hope I said it clear. Tnx anyway for trying to help me user added image

p.s.: oh, and with that alpha map I ment if there is a way to generate a model (and not bumb on a singel plain) using that alpha map. So at the end of process, you have the model of mountain, not only a singel plane (where the results are only seen when rendered).

Last edited by Sil-Valeor; 03-01-2004 at 09:56 PM.

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# 4 05-01-2004 , 02:47 PM

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create a nurb plane, 50 subdivisions, and use nurb sculpt tool to push and pull the plane into mountain shapes.

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# 5 05-01-2004 , 05:23 PM

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Read up on displacement mapping.

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# 6 05-01-2004 , 05:28 PM

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Tnx for suggestions!
@NitroLiq:
yeah, I just found out about that thing and it just what I need. user added image

The only problem is, that when I convert displ. map into polys, it has a height of 0 (or at least I think so;when you look it from the side view, it looks just like a plane), so I have to scale it when it's already converted (which is not a problem). Anyone know perhabs why?

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# 7 06-01-2004 , 12:41 AM

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0 is the default. You can edit the attribute in the displacement shader.

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# 8 06-01-2004 , 04:40 PM

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make a nurbs plane with 50 x 50 spans

nurbs scuplt tool

assign a map to control displacement

set max displacement

afterwards you may want to convert it to polygons -> convert with "fit" option, that way you get only a few polygons ...

you got better control that way than using disp-maps directly

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# 9 08-01-2004 , 08:33 PM

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Someone gave me a link to a superb mountain tutorial a few days ago, too bad I don't have it anymore, Since it screwed up maya so badly that I couldn't restart it user added image

. But I must say bump mapping in 2d and 3d combined is quite effective, so I would experiment witht that approach user added image

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