Chuck,

Good point about not understanding them. You might try checking out http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/altTerrainBuilder/UsingaltTerrainBuilder.htm for a simple example of how they work.

Veritas777,

I'm not so sure Vue doesn't already support 16-bit grayscales as terrains appear smoother when I paste native 16 bit grayscale vs 8-bit. Course it might be my old eyes;-) In anycase, it's obvious a few clicks of the Diffusive button under Erode tab helps smooth things nicely.

Check out this smooth tent map create using altTerrain Builder. The resolution is low at only 256 x 256, but the rendering is pretty smooth.

(from the website)This tent terrain is an example of an object created completely using terrains from altTerrain Builder.

The first profile was used to render terrain A, and the second profile created terrain B. Both are 256 x 256 terrain maps.

Then A was imported into a terrain, followed by importing B and setting the Mixing Mode to Blend, inverting B and rotating it 90 degrees.

A dozen or so pushes of the Diffusive button creates a very smooth surface.