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3D Mountain Ranges?

deleted userdeleted user Posts: 1,204
edited December 1969 in The Commons

Hi all. I was looking into finding some mountain ranges for a background. I'm unsure what's all out there.
I tried making a mountain range in zBrush but, it just didn't seem right to me.
If anyone can direct me to some props, or perhaps a tutorial on how to create mountains in zBrush, that would be super. Thank you.

Comments

  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,760
    edited December 1969

    Stonemason has these:

    http://www.daz3d.com/winter-terrains-for-daz-studio

  • ameesa001@gmail.com[email protected] Posts: 282
    edited December 1969

    There's also Infinito : http://www.daz3d.com/infinito-1-0

    Or if they are just for background shots, Flipmode's Easy Environment's are excellent:

    http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-autumn
    http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-mountain-trail
    http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-top-of-the-world
    http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-greenlands

    I recently used Easy Environments Greenlands here: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/43112

  • jpb06tjpb06t Posts: 272
    edited December 1969

    Programs like L3DT, WorldMachine and GeoControl/Cloddy can create super realistic terrains and export either displacement maps or meshes or normal maps. All the 3 have free versions you can try.

    The best way for Studio is to export a low-ish poly mesh (16-64k vertices) and use a normal map to fake the high frequency details (unless you want to try the 16 million quad mesh of a 4096x4096 terrain :ohh:).

    Get ready for some very unpleasant texture distorsions because all the programs I know create a simple project-from-top UV mapping which, in high slope areas, create very nasty texture stretching.

    Feel free to ask any further info, I am a terrain generation junkie since late 1980's :lol:.

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited December 1969

    A side note, some sets don't include the mountain backdrop. Case and point, that "Dragon's Tower" has a cool promo image with two towers on a ridge of mountains that kind of forms an arena. That arena of mountains is NOT included with that set. (Attached pic).

    Other sets include really nice 'Environment spheres' with a distant mountain range image on the sphere. Such a set I will vouch for is that 'Top of the world' set. I've used that as a backdrop for the images of the tower in my thread here,
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/655278/
    on threw the next few posts there, a few different angles of the backdrop.

    Another option, If you have photos of horizons you want to use, is to put them on a plane, and place the plain behind your foreground set. An example of such here;
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/645307/

    If you want real 3D mountains to fly around, I don't know about that in Daz Studio, yet. I'm still fairly new here.

    S_DragonsTower__.jpg
    1000 x 1300 - 284K
  • BTLProdBTLProd Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Carrara does mountains. If you get the Ground Control plug-in from DCG they even do real world mountains using NASA data.

  • SlimerJSpudSlimerJSpud Posts: 1,453
    edited December 1969

    There's a free set on ShareCG that has misty mountains in the background:
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/39996/browse/11/Poser/The-Hills-environment-for-DAZ-Studio-Poser
    The ground itself isn't high res, but the mountains look good.

  • ElowanElowan Posts: 388
    edited December 1969

    Slimer_J_Spud said:
    There's a free set on ShareCG that has misty mountains in the background:
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/39996/browse/11/Poser/The-Hills-environment-for-DAZ-Studio-Poser
    The ground itself isn't high res, but the mountains look good.

    Thnx for the link

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited November 2014

    latego. That is surprising about the distortion of the maps on steep slopes. What about areas with overhangs? Flipmode did an incredible job on the textures of the rock mound that came with Top of the world. Including the vertical face. There must be ways to get around that distortion?

    BTLProductions, I'v got to have some data here somewhere. I would love to see "Caloris Planitia" and the Antipodal chaotic terrain up close and personal. How difficult would it be to export that to Daz Studio after doing whatever with whatever "DCG?" is?

    Post edited by ZarconDeeGrissom on
  • jpb06tjpb06t Posts: 272
    edited December 1969

    The distorsion comes from the fact the the UV unwrap created by terrain generation programs is a simple projection from top so, if the terrain is flat, the distorsion is low but if it is steep (e.g. like a canyon side) the distorsion is horrid. You can UV unwrap "by hand" but then you have to pain the textures by hand too.

    Overhangs: all the terrain generation programs I know of compute terrain a z = f(x,y) so you have a single height value for each point so no overhangs, arcs, caves etc.

    I discovered that you can render highly detailed terrains using 3dlight and here is a blog description.

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 11,505
    edited November 2014

    Long time ago I tried making my own mountains.

    I think the image below was done with Carrara 4 or 5

    However, at that time I also had a copy of MojoWorld which made fantastic fractal worlds but was very complex to use. This may have been one of my few MojoWorld successes.

    Hunters_cropped.jpg
    475 x 594 - 63K
    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,040
    edited November 2014

    ...nice scene.

    I was able to get great results using Bryce coupled with another terrain builder which had realistic erosion controls (I don't remember the name of it as it was a trial version and I did this years ago). Never bought it because it was from a European vendor which only took PayPal.

    The only way to import into Daz is to render the terrain in Bryce and use the .jpg as a backdrop. I used to do this a lot for sky backdrops as well.

    origimage_2_1581161.jpg
    1120 x 613 - 100K
    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • BTLProdBTLProd Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    zarcondeegrissom said:
    latego. That is surprising about the distortion of the maps on steep slopes. What about areas with overhangs? Flipmode did an incredible job on the textures of the rock mound that came with Top of the world. Including the vertical face. There must be ways to get around that distortion?

    BTLProductions, I'v got to have some data here somewhere. I would love to see "Caloris Planitia" and the Antipodal chaotic terrain up close and personal. How difficult would it be to export that to Daz Studio after doing whatever with whatever "DCG?" is?

    It has to be the right data, which I am not sure anything but the NASA Earth Mapping project used. Carrara exports Objects (obj format) which DAZ Studio imports. It isn't a complex process, though for most terrain you are better off applying your shaders in Carrara, then allowing Carrara to bake those shaders to texture maps (Or use the Carrara plug-in Baker) on export so you have textured terrain in DS.
  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,760
    edited December 1969

    Vue will also give you stunning mountains options, though you probably want to get some of the higher end version available at Cornucopia http://www.daz3d.com/vue-11-frontier

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,040
    edited December 1969

    ...right now Cararra is a less expensive option especially if you are PC/PC+ member.

    You can also create and save terrains made in Bryce as a.obj as well. Unfortunately it appears Daz no longer is marketing the base application or it was lost in the shuffle with the site change.

  • srieschsriesch Posts: 4,241
    edited December 1969

    Here's the link to Bryce: http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro . A few quick notes about terrains exports: One, Bryce shaders are not compatible with DAZ Studio, and while there is an option to make an attempt to fake it, it doesn't look the same so best to assume you will need to use a DAZ Studio shader on an untextured terrain.

    Also, when exporting a terrain, don't use the bridge. Instead, export/import. Select the terrain, then from the menu bar select File > "Export Object". Change the filename to have no spaces, or it won't work. Change the "Save as type" dropdown to "Wavefront OBJ Files (*.obj)(Mesh Export)" and press the Save button. Drag the slider at the bottom of the next window all the way to the right to increase the resolution to the desired level (the default is far too low) and press the green checkmark.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,040
    edited December 1969

    ..thanks for the link. The current store search ids horrible.

    Exactly, do not use the bridge, as mentioned above. Just export to a .obj and then import it into Daz.

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