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Bryce F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 21 4:12 am)
Subject: Tiled terrains - what am I doing wrong?
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The greatest part of wisdom is learning to develop the ineffable genius of extracting the "neither here nor there" out of any situation...."
I think you're doing it backwards... You have to make each tile as a new terrain. It doesn't change already existing ones. (Such as those made by replication or duplicating.)
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No You duplicate the first fractal terrain, and then click tile direction and then click fractal again. If you make completely new terrains each time they never match up.
The greatest part of wisdom is learning to develop the ineffable genius of extracting the "neither here nor there" out of any situation...."
This completes this set of tiled terrain.
Points:
Make copy of the terrain just created
Hold down Shift key and hit arrow keys 8 times for large movement
Hold down Alt key and hit arrow keys 2 times for nudge back to align terrains.
Right arrow=east
Down arrow=south
Left arrow=west
Up arrow=north
Hold down Shift and click fractal type button after selecting tile direction
Gosh, I hope this helps! LOL
Well that is certainly a more detailed explanation than mine, and I actually learnt something as well. I never thought to use the shift key to move the terrains. Thanks for that tip.
The greatest part of wisdom is learning to develop the ineffable genius of extracting the "neither here nor there" out of any situation...."
That looks great Quest. Thanks. I'll try it out this evening. Geez, Quest. You should open a Bryce college online. Create an info-mercial and have Sally field offer all the benefits of a Bryce degree.
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Aye, there is a much easier answer than going through all of this, Bandolin. Don't bother tiling terrains, it's a waste of time, energy, and space in Bryce. Instead, just raise the resolution of your main terrain, and generate a more complex fractal. Use 2048x2048. It won't kill your computer, it's just kinda slow when running filters in the Terrain Editor. This will produce the same results as four 512x512 terrains, without the headaches. Originally they made tiling because Bryce 3d (it moves!) didn't support terrain source textures past 1024. Bryce 5 takes care of that problem, and makes tiling obsolete.
I tried this over and over with the manuals and even Kitchens' Real World Bryce and never could get it to work. I cried like a little girl and never tried again.
This is not my "second childhood". I'm not finished with the first one yet.
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Okay first, Theres really no real need to hold down the Shift key when you hit the fractal type button, its just a habit Ive gotten into after reading several books. Some suggest you hold down the shift key, others dont.
Bandolin, obviously something is amiss. You can see from my example that it matched up brilliantly. And Ive done several very large (planet sized) resolution tiles since without problem. Theres something youre not doing right. Assuming you started your tiles as I did, first going east then south and finally west, perhaps you didnt make the right selection in geographic direction. Hummm, I wonder, is your startup default.br5 (or default.br4) file set up so that you know exactly in which direction your scene is going?
The best way to create tiles is to follow a pattern, that is: starting with your first terrain, create say, 3 terrains going north. Then 1 terrain going east, 2 terrains going south. Then 1 terrain going east again and then 2 terrains going north etc. You follow this zigzagging pattern in the same winding direction.
Bryce creates one very large terrain when you first create the first one. It then reveals the rest of it as you tile. It is not created as you tile. So any terrain you create is really only part of a larger one, like a mini world. Each tile offers a continuing new scenario of the layout of that hidden master terrain.
The hold down shift hit arrow keys 8 times works only if you do not change the original parameter size of the terrain. You can change it vertically along the Y axis and still hold true to 8. But once you change the parameter size of the terrain (along the z and x axis) the 8 no longer holds true. Depending on how large you scale it, you may have to hit it 16 times to butt the terrain grids together.
Chohole, page 210 of Susan Kitchens Real World Bryce defines the nudge keys:
Shift+nudge=1/2 grid/unity unit
Nudge=1/4 grid/unity unit
Alt+shift=1/8 grid/unity unit
Alt+nudge=1/256 grid/unity unit
Message edited on: 04/11/2005 18:30
The very, vitally, important part that Quest ommited from his brilliant tutorial. Although it is shown in the picture.
Right above the section for Tile North....
Turn off Random Extent.
Turn off Random Position.
Turn off Random Character.
That way it's the same fractal, just tiled north or south or east or west.
Message edited on: 04/11/2005 21:23
Hummm, perhaps Im wrong but arent those off by default Xenic? Good point nevertheless! TobinLam, if you bring the terrains close enough together, you shouldnt see the creases generally speaking. For instance, in my first illustration of this post I used 2 alt+nudges to get the terrains close enough so that you couldnt see the seams. In my zigzag post above I found that I needed 8 alt+nudges get them to bud. You have to zoom in close in the top viewport to see if they are budding together. It depends on the terrain and the texture you put on them but if worst comes to worst, you can always postwork them out.
Message edited on: 04/11/2005 21:35
Message edited on: 04/11/2005 21:37
Aye, but back to my point, people. You're missing something terribly crucial here.
You don't NEED to tile terrains anymore. That feature is obsolete since they allowed for larger source resolutions than 1024. There is absolutely NO reason to tile terrains, period. It's a complete waste of time.
Also, like TobinLam pointed out, you cannot rid yourself of these edge artifacts. Which means that tiling is not only useless in the first place, but useless in the second place as well. Add those two together, or even multiply them, and what do you get? COMPLETELY useless!
And to make matters even worse, what if you wanted to adjust a terrain? What if you wanted to erode one, or do ANYTHING to it? Well, there goes your entire tile set. Good luck trying to arbitrarily filter two terrains, much less four or 16. In case you weren't keeping score, that is useless x three. Useless cubed, if you will... Normally I don't care about stuff, and normally I don't get frustrated about stuff, but for the love of Dragons, people! Knock this tiling-talk off, it's just silly...!
Message edited on: 04/12/2005 00:22
you can erode any of the tiles you want.Just have to set your brush to erode change the size of it and erode away. wont be able to go over seams, but everything inside is changeable.You can even change resolutions the change them back to get say deeper eroded parts. also you could just make the terrain the size you want by using the attributes button.Change the default size toanything you want (within reason) also goto top view with the default size terrain and 16 clicks of any one arrow will move the terrain exactly flush.If you duplicate a terrain all you realy need to do is flip it x or z after it was moved by the clicks.
"Reinstall Windows" is NOT a troubleshooting step.
Okay, LSD, I think you are totally wrong trying to dismiss a perfectly viable Bryce feature. I truly enjoy it and find few other programs that do the same. You cant tell me that because a user cant find it within themselves to bring 2 terrains together that they should forego the whole technique. Thats ludicrous! Especially from an artist such as yourself who advocates postwork! Theres more here than meets LSDs eyes, to be sure. There is no way, anyone can compensate for this feature otherwise. Now, I must admit, I havent at all tried Moyo, but aside from that, what other program will allow the user to investigate readymade worlds just a few clicks away from their computer and at this price? Nonsense! I see loads of potential here unless something else takes its place.
P.S. LSD, where did you hear that this feature is obsolete? If you can show us that, I would be beholding. Thank you!
Message edited on: 04/12/2005 01:25
Well, Quest, I'll stop ranting, I was just having some fun!
(and I hope nobody took me too seriously, although I am totally right)
Quest, my problem is your logic, here. The fractals that generate the tiled terrains are NO different than the fractals that generate untiled terrains, only the scale is different. You aren't exploring anything you wouldn't be exploring in ONE terrain, which you can actually make all-at-once with the TE. And if you crank up the resolution on ONE terrain, you'd actually be getting way more detail out of a given fractal when you regenerate it. (with all three randoms off, of course)
It's not a mystery what will happen in the unmade-as-of-yet tiles, any more than it would be a mystery to fly your camera around to the other side of a single terrain.
Basically, it's a useless "feature", much like Bryce's rainbows or the Bryce programmer's faces in the moon easter egg. The only reason to use it would be to piece together terrains of 1024 or less resolution, which as I've pointed out in multiple ways is completely useless.
Don't waste your time tiling terrains, just make a huge one with a really complex fractal. Even better, ditch the fractal generators in Bryce and go for something entirely more potent, such as Photoshop-rendered fractals, or the wonderous KPT5 Noize filter. It's ridiculous to waste energy on a technique that is entirely useless...
It's also ridiculous to type a bunch about something you don't care for. I am now celebrating the Ridiculous. Laugh if you must! (sorry, Quest, cross-posting a bit is messing us up!) I didn't HEAR that it was obsolete, I'm telling you that it IS obsolete because of the dozen or so reasons I listed. Scroll up and read them, and you will agree with me.
Message edited on: 04/12/2005 01:27
y Ive pretty much said the same thing. kinda :) "also you could just make the terrain the size you want by using the attributes button.Change the default size to anything you want (within reason)"this is what you ment isnt it? should have put this in last. just made a 10,000 x 3000 x 10,000 single terrain. default is 81.92 x 20.48 x 81.92 no need to tile unless you need the 4x4 format for in game terrains (like for comanche 4 and blackhawk down pc games):)
"Reinstall Windows" is NOT a troubleshooting step.
You have not answered my question and Ill not bate you further. But in comparison, Id like to see one of your Bryce generated complex ready made terrains that this feature cannot hold a light to and in as much time. I believe you elucidate yourself my friend. Yes, youre good, but not that good! You will have to show me.
LSD, You are still showing me differences between 128 and 512, but sorry, I cannot buy that. Respectfully, you are totally wrong from what I can see here. Create a terrain, then go into terrain editor and increase its resolution to the highest amount 4096x4096 (planetary resolution). Yes, it will take some time. Now click new. All is wiped clean and we go from the start at 4096x4096. Go down the fractal type and select one. Any one! Then click the fractal type button. That new fractal, whatever it is, is created in a master size not seen by the user because its random. And the only portion that will be seen by the user will be that arbitrary portion slice, no other, although much more exists! The user has no idea what is to the left, right, top, or bottom of this tile geographically being produced at 4096x4096 geographically speaking. This user can continue going north on this scale and every time see what is north of his last terrain and still not know what the next tile will hold in complexity. Are you suggesting that you can provide more complexity than this feature? Then, you will have to show us.
My next question which I didnt put into the last post is: can you see what that geography extended is and can you have it come on your Bryce display before we tile? If youre asking me, can we make a more complex geographical texture, I will say yes, because I know how to. But thats a different question.
Message edited on: 04/12/2005 03:10
Quest, re-read your last line in #30. I'm saying that it's the SAME complexity, and that at 4096 you are viewing a vaster slice of it in the Terrain Editor, with no need for tiling. A 4096 texture IS as complex as 64 512 x 512 textures, in fact exactly as complex. Without the time-intensive process of making 64 of the smaller terrains and arranging them. If you wanted to tile 4096x4096 textures, though, then I can see where you're coming from. Still, you're looking at a very finite amount of them : 33 Million polys at render-time is no joke. There's not enough RAM in the world to remap the Earth itself in this fashion, for example... Now we're getting on into Mojo-land, though... (grins) So as long as you guys aren't multi-tiling huge textures for some massive project, then I can't see any point to tiling at all... Make any sense now? (you made sense to me, anyway!)
I'm too lazy to do a fancy graphic this morning, but I think you two are discussing two different points. A fractal terrain is defined by a mathematical formula. When you generate one, Bryce gives you a chunk out of that formula. Random extent gives you the value range for x and y, or the size of the chunk. Random position determins the starting values of x and y, or where in the formula to get the chunk from. Random character is kinda like the noise or octaves in the fractal. Increasing the resolution will give you more detail covering the same chunk. Tiling will give you the next chunk of the same fractal, at the same detail level. For more detail, increase the resolution. For a larger area when you found a terrain you like, tile.
Wow! It's along time since I've seen such an in-depth discussion. WTG guys!!!! This what the forum is all about. Now, having read most of the above I suddenly thought of something that could have a bearing on all of this. Some DEM files come in 3 parts. i.e.: 3 parts makes up one DEM region. The problem I had was with making them match up to create the complete region. Nothing seemed to work. Reading all this stuff from you guys gives me the idea that by tiling East, South, West or similar I may actually succeed. I'm not about to try this out yet, but I will when I get more time....that is....unless one of you guys wants to try it out for me.....!
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So what's the deal? Does higher resolution simply give you greater detail of a small chunk or does it give you the same resolution but a bigger chunk. It seems to me LSD is arguing the latter, whereas Quest and xenic are arguing the former. I did a test of my own to answer the question.
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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>No that's not the way tiling works in Bryce. See Quest's post #13.
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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>Perhaps we are arguing 2 different arguments LSD and Im sorry if in fact that is the case. Excellent comparison Bryster, with the Dem analogy. Maybe this will help make my point clear. Lets assume for the sake of argument that we have the Bryce option to tile the world at different resolutions. Lets tile Western Europe starting with Portugal. We go into fractal type and click Europe and the fractal slice that comes up is Portugal at 128 resolution. But we find that this resolution isnt quite good enough for us, it appears too smooth with little geographic convolutions. So we up the resolution to 512. We get the same tile, Portugal, but with more geographic detail and this makes us happy. But now we want to cover more ground at the same resolution of 512 to add variety to our landscape thus offering other vantage points for our camera. We ask Bryce to tile east and this all of a sudden, takes us into Spain. We still can see Portugal from Spain at a resolution of 512. Wanting larger landscapes with more variety we continue to extend our tiles going north and we enter France. We can now see the landscape of Portugal, Spain and France and all the varied topography that goes along with them. Point is, were no longer just stuck in Portugal and Portugals geography at 512 or any other resolution but we also have Spain and Frances landscape at our disposal to look at from any angled vantage point we desire and manipulate the resolutions of those vistas. That is what Bryce tiling does for us. It expands our fractal vistas instead of just being stuck visually on one slice. Maybe the Pyrenees mountain range looks better from the French side as opposed to the Spanish side. Now we can rotate our camera around it and see which angle is more esthetically pleasing to capture.
Why not make the close area the high res. and then tile more distant parts of the landscape at lower resolutions? That way you cover the amount of landscape needed for a scene, but keep the detail only where it's necessary. There's a reason that tiling was kept, even though the resolutions have become more massive. Just something to think about while on the topic.
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There might be something worth downloading.
I think this feature would be very useful if you could just tell the program that you would like a 9 tiled terrain, and whatever multiple of that, and have them all pop up in your workspace, perfectly positioned in relation to each other, with no visible seams. As it is, even playing around with two that are supposed to fit, I still see the seam. Maybe in a future version?
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"I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather....not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus." - Jack Handy
Now I want to go make some huge terrains. Thanks people :)
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I can't seem to get this to work. Is there a bug in Bryce? No matter how many times I try to tile using this feature, it never matches up to any side. I've tried North, South, East and West. I duplicate the terrain, select a tile direction and click on Fractal, but it doesn't match up. Arrrgh!