modelling terrain

[cristoforo]

What has everyone found to be the best method for modelling terrain?

[joconnell]

Personally I paint displacement maps or poly model to get the overall shape of the terrain, then use layers of smaller noise / displace modifiers to add some more natural looking randomness, then either a bump map or vray displacement for fine detail. It's the different levels of scale that make something look big - If you stick to procedural textures you get some other side benefits like having the texture controlling the displacement also being a good mask to blend between snow and earth or grass and earth for example.

[cristoforo]

Actually I was referring to the modelling of specific terrain and not just random irregularities here and there. I was just curious if there is some quicker better way to do it. Often I find myself making a big mesh (which sometimes gets complicated) in autocad with surftab. Other times I have imported the contour lines into max to then use the terrain function....which does not always work very well.

[efx2004]

Actually, it depends on scene. But you could try surface modifier (and turbosmooth)

[Sawyer]

I take splines in and use the terrain command - THEN I create a plane with lots of subs and have that conform to the terrain. Then delete the terrain. Then I will go in an paint with teh poly paint tools. Gets me a nice mesh.

[beestee]

I do much like Sawyer says, but I apply a normalize spline modifier before I use the terrain command and go through and clean up any tight areas that may have caused "kinks" in the splines. I mainly use the Relax paint deformation once the terrain is an editable poly, brush size is important in this step as well as a consistent mesh, much like the plane step that Sawyer outlined.

If I have a height dependant material transition, such as the banks of a pond, I will use a mix in my diffuse and bump slots with a gradient in the mix channel and my maps I want to transition between in the other 2 slots. I use 2 UVW's set to different channels on the terrain, one for the surface textures, and one for the gradient, which I use a planar UVW rotated and fitted to the profile of the terrain. I make the gradient visisble in viewport and adjust the color 2 position until I get the transition I want, which you can adjust further through the planar UVW map set to it.

I hope I havn't confused you too much