Sulfericacid, heres something to experiment with:

Create a terrain then while still in mesh mode, click on E in the drop down control panel for the selected terrain to bring you into the terrain editor. Since your planet terrain will be in the foreground and closest to the viewer, we need to increase its resolution for better detail rendition.

The default resolution is 128. So, along the left bottom youll see an icon that looks like a grid. Click on that and choose a higher resolution. The higher the resolution the more detail but this comes at a cost of larger terrains which translates into longer times. I would select 512 to start with, later if youre not satisfied you can up it to higher resolutions.

Go over to the Terrain tools panel and click new. Poof! Your terrain disappeared leaving you with a clean canvas. With the Elevation tab selected slide your mouse cursor down to Fractal and over to the little down turned arrow along side it and click on that. A list of different terrain types unfolds and you can select any of these as your new terrain type. Once youve checked one, go over and click on the little blue button next to Fractal and your new fractal will appear at the higher resolution on the canvas. Each time you click on the button, another but different terrain comes up of the same type you selected. Don't like that type, select a different one.

Once youve gotten one youre happy with, click the check mark at the lower right to accept the changes. The new terrain type is now on your main display. Here you can continue to edit it.

You can if you like, turn your terrain on its side the using the edit tool elongate along the y axis. Then angle your terrain back to level. Also, while in the terrain editor, you can select the Paint effect brush behavior and in the elevation tab of the terrain tool panel hold down the space bar and click on a effect, like eroded (the button will stay selected) then using your brush on the canvas apply the effect around the highest (brightest areas) slowly and deliberately. Experiment with some of the other effects as well and different brush sizes and flow speed. You can even paint on different fractal types onto you existing terrain. While using this brush behavior, if you dont like the way something turns out, you simply hold down the Alt key and go over the area and it will become undone. This is just a few of the things you can do. Most importantly, have fun!

Message edited on: 04/24/2005 03:15