I was thinking about this with my 18x12 wacom.  All I need is a projector to project onto the tablet and align it so that the cursor matches the image.  In my case the projector is much more expensive than the tablet.  I wonder if it would end up being cheaper than a Cintiq though.  I'd still need to build a frame and such so that the tablet and projector won't move out of alignment.  The above link would also have a bit of problem if someone bumped the tablet.

Damn you Mark!... I mean, Congrats Mark! Very nice image indeed.

I don't plan on upgrading to C5P. Still working with C4 for now. Anything Grooves does an decent job but it has it's issues as well.

I wasn't clear. When I mentioned "paltry grid" I was trying to say the following.

Say I have a terrain of 4Kx4K points. Converting to a vertex object will just take (I believe from observation) the displayed appoximation version of the terrain not the 4Kx4K data points. The displayed approximation version maxs out at about 512x512 I think (I could be wrong) which really is a poor approximation of the full terrain.

I wanted to use this trick for a render I had in mind. I had a column that I wanted to look broken. So I figured I'd take a terrain and convert it to a vertex object and with some clean up use boolean logic to make the ragged cap. It didn't really work. :(

I've also noticed, not sure if this really matters here, is that terrains, if given a modifier in the scene, like bend, will not work on the full terrain but on the displayed appoximation version to perform it's operation. As a result the render is not what you are expecting. Which I find really bites because I wanted to make a detailed terrain and then bend it 90/180/360 degrees to make a column.

Just attaching a texture map to a terrain, that texture map should stretch to fill the entire terrain. That's why I suggested to match a texture map image with the terrain's x and y point count or multiple of the counts so that placing a detail on a terrain is pretty trivial.

Message edited on: 12/29/2005 18:20

If you convert a terrain to a vertex object you lose all fidelity of the terrain as it'll be reduced from what you started with to some paltry grid... Or at least it did everytime I've tried. But in case you want to try it out, there is a menu option to convert to different modeller. I don't have access to Carrara where I am at the moment but it shouldn't be too hard to find under the menus.

What you could try it to create a texture at the same resolution as the terrain (or some multiple). Using masks and such to only block out the areas you want to work in. Finding and texturing the mountain you want may not be as difficult then.

Can you post some of the results you are getting and maybe more insight as to what you are trying to get? I'm not sure I'm exactly following what you are hoping to achieve.

I've only seen this or something like this once before and that was due to some spotty beta video drivers. If you have the latest 'stable' release of the video driver and this still happens then try turning down the hardware accelleration of the video card. I'm poking at straws but I've seen some problems fixed this way. Control Panel->Display Settings; Go to the Settings tab; Click on the Advanced button; Click on the Troubleshoot tab on the dialog that pops ip; There is a slider on that tab that should have the indicator at Full. Maybe drop it down a step.

Tom's Hardware had a recent article on a color accurate LCD from NEC. http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20051028/index.html Not cheap but so far the only LCD that I've seen that is targetting photo professionals and the like. (I'm not entirely sure it's out for purchase yet.) The cheap LCD's (even the not so cheap ones) don't display enough of the color gamut that someone who is fussy with color would like. Ok, I'm no help. :)

It's still a high price tag. :( Someone else went with a tablet PC. Not exactly the same being 14" instead of 21" but similar reason. I'd love to have one of these but I'm not going to be paying that much for it. I might consided the tablePC route though but they aren't cheap either compared to other notebooks. Unfortunately not experience with any of these things. I'm still using an older Intuos at home.

I didn't use a primivol solution but a number of repeated planes with the same transparency stacked above one another. Only problem with that solution is that you have a limit of say, 20 before Carrara's renderer calls it quits. (max ray depth) It worked pretty well also but this solution probably is better in that it isn't limited by the max ray depth. I'll have to keep this one in mind. You might want to add some Index of Refraction to the water surface.

One thing about tablet PC's that you won't get with the Cintiq is the pressure sensitivity. Or at least I think it doesn't exist on any tablet pc's that I know of. I was playing with the idea of getting a tablet PC as well for the exact same purpose. The ones I'd like are pricy. I'm still not a fan of the limited battery life of any laptop though. Apple has also made some noise that they may be coming out with a tablet. That should be interesting to see what they come out with. The thing that annoys me most is that tablet pcs seem to have some dorky specs compared to other laptops of cheaper price. I wonder if the Microsoft tax is pretty high for these machines. They probably don't exist much anymore but you might want to stear clear of Carusoe (transmeta) chiped devices as there is a bit of speed penalty which can affect the responciveness of the machine. Or at least with my toying with them in the shops it seemed to be the case.

One thing that might be a little off would be landscapes. Carrara can do it but possibly not as nicely as Bryce. Or at least from what I've read in the past. Others may want to chime in on that though.

Official golf course design for the real world deals heavily with volumes. It's just basically moving dirt from one place to another and hopefully not to have too much to remove entirely or add in the process. So something that can report total volumes of the cuts and fills is needed. Some CAD add ons to AutoCAD, MicroStation or whatnot to compute volumes between surfaces or of solids are about the least you need (I figure.) It's sort of funny in a way, I program for a company that makes Mining software (planning, sheduling, design yadda...) and our software was used in the planning of one or two courses. Namely the owner's brother or best friend who was in the golf course design biz. got a deal on our software. Mind you our software is way overkill for the task. But then this is irrelevant to the topic. I think most graphics programs can make passable golf courses if it's only to be really used for fantasy display purposes. Heightfields/heightmaps are simple to get the lay of tha land a big. But they are really limited in number of height levels the surface can take. Silhouets will give away the height map if done poorly. Because of the limited number of elevations to play with you end up having to play with the resolution of the map with the world. Too high a resolution and the elevation changes and bitmap nature of the surface is evident. Too low and there's not enough definition to the surface. Also, not always simple to visualize the result of the surface when painting a gray scale image.

I'm dealing with dated software, PS5 and PSP5, the big difference I see between the two is which one works better with large images. PS wins hands down. PSP will bog down after a few edits. However, I haven't used the newer PSP or PS to see if this is applicable anymore. I generally us PS for drawing. PSP for file format conversion and minor editing.