suggestions for a thatched roof?

Dartanbeck

diomede64 said:

Dartanbeck said:

Looks cool!
Then I ran that as a height map on a 10' x 10' terrain, and set the height of the map at .07ft. It also looked cool at .12ft.

Terrain? Good idea, Dart.

I took my closeup image of the thatch and threw it into the terrain modeler with low settings. I then applied the same thatch image in the color channel of the terrain modeler. The result was a flat panel for a roof.

Creative thoughts? Maybe apply a bend modifier to fit it to the roof? Maybe have a series of narrower panels with increasing rotation? Anyway, thanks for helping me think of ways to go about this, Dart.

And yes, I am trying different ways just to learn the tool box. For the purposes of my project, I have enough tests now that I think I know what I am going to use. But, it is still fun to try to learn the toolbox.

Maybe making a ridge cap, using scaled down versions with the bend modifier, then duplicating them across the ridge? You can also increase the texturing of the terrain mesh by increasing the preview/render qualities in the terrain modeler. But that depends upon how much 'focus' is actually directed on the roof.

I like the idea of a mix of textures for further objects and some sort of replicator solution for nearby ones. I don't know if you have Filter Forge (I didn't until recently when it was on sale here) but I'm finding it a great source for image textures. This was made using the "Thatch and Straw" filter to generate diffuse, bump and normal maps with a quick alpha mask I made in in photoshop applied to a plane.

I don't have Filter Forge, but I would also go for this option, myself. Dis-assembling Stonemason products over the years has taught me a lot about using maps on low numbers of polygons to get some really efficient scenes together, that still look fantastic. It also allows me to very quickly increase or decrease quality depending upon where the camera is, for added efficiency in the final renders.
I certainly do not wish to knock the importance of replicators, but I have learned to use them most sparingly.