Hi all! I'm a junior in School of Visual Arts computer art department. Right now I'm doing research for my thesis and I think Vue is going to help me flush out my ideas a lot. I am mostly an animator, but I am not too bad at modeling. I work mostly with Maya, I tried 3Dsmax and Zbrush very briefly. I experimented with Vue a little bit and created a beach scene. I am unable to make the terrain (standard terrain with some modification to make it flat) smooth. There are always these little bump/spikes that pop up. I tried doing some decay on it to get rid of the bumps, but now I'm left with many waveform-like marks on the beach. How do you make a piece of terrain completely smooth? Also, would it be possible to import a terrain model from Zbrush? Modeling in Zbrush give more control and is much easier than editing in the terrain editor. Lastly, please recommend any tutorials that you think might help a beginner like me! Thank you!

A simple way to make a flat slab of terrain is the 'Altitude' button and typing any value in range (0, 200 )then paint with the brush (first create the terrain in editor with 'Generate fractal..' unchecked, or use 'Reset' in editor.) If it is only a part of the terrain you want flat,and local effects/diffusive erosion is not enough, use the altitude locally. Also you can export the terrain as a bitmap ('copy' icon in top bar of editor)then paste it in your favorite 2D app. White zones are high altitudes, dark ones low altitudes. Sure you can import geometry from ZBrush but I found that native Vue terrains are better (faster and less demanding in resources) than imported meshes. What you could do, is model the terrain in ZBrush, then make an 'alpha' of the model (tool in zbrush) and use this BW bitmap in a Vue terrain of the same size as the alpha. To load the image in Vue, use the 'Picture' icon in terrain editor, starting with a flat terrain (non fractal.)

Create your own in Vue. Select standard terrain, unchecking the Generate Fractal Terrain box, then use a large airbrush, 50% soft and 100% flow. You should get a soft, low terrain. Also, minimally use 512x512 terrain resolution. That's how I do my beaches (and I do lots - live in FL).

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/%7Evue/backroom/terrains.html

Thanks for all the help! I'll post what I had come up with ASAP when I have time! (during the Thanksgiving recess probably)

Also, if you do use the Terrain Editor "Altitude" brush, you can pick the altitude you want your flat spot to be, right off your existing terrain, with a picker tool.

_jc
Art Head Start.com
eBook for digital art students

Message edited on: 11/22/2005 18:38