Suggestions for ocean front and Ground...how to really??

[helpdesk]

I need help figuring out how to put an ocean front on this model and a sandy/rocky beachfront. This is a very large Desalination plant I modeled in Microstation. I do have Dreamscape available but don't really knwo how to use it yet.
I am using VRAY GI and An HDRI in the environment slot also.
I would appreciate any help!

Dave

Image links:

[instinct]

I´d definately go for dreamscape. Just thro in a Terrain plain and draw the elevations, followed by a sea-surface. Add a Sun and the dreamscape + dreamscape subsurface atmospherics. then tweak it and create a nice texture using the dreamscape terrain texture...will render decently fast, look nice and if you got time left you can even let dreamscape create correct reflecting waves + foam on the coast :P

Regards,
Thorsten

[helpdesk]

Won't this screw up my vray sun and hdri though?

[instinct]

I would do the compositing in post to be honest....but it shouldnt screw up your vraysun if you dont want it. you can turn off both the dreamscape sun and the skyrendering if you want to do so. I would go for rendering it in 2 passes tho and combine them in PS.

Regards,
Thorsten

[helpdesk]

Could I export out a top view wireframe to PS and Paint out a grayscale heightmap for the terrain? Is that even a good workflow? i don't have the site contours or anything like that yet?

[instinct]

You could of course. And simply import that into a dreamscape terrain object. But you could also paint the height-map directly in max...as dreamscape has a quite good landscape heightmap editor included.

Thorsten

[helpdesk]

I tried using Dreamscapes heightmap editor....I can't seem to get it to amtch up to the coastline (yellow planar lines).

[instinct]

is it horizontally even ? If so, then i would paint one side entirely white and align the object to the shortline. And then add details to the rest

Thorsten

[helpdesk]

ok...I painted this out in photoshop real quick.

How do I smooth out the shore lines triangles and get some believable texture on it as a dreamscape terrain?

[Da_elf]

wow. thats quite a drop off. actually why use dreamscape when vrays displacement is much faster and smoother

[instinct]

I dont find it faster at all...at least not if your not rendering it as geometry. The built-in implicits or whatever they user render incredibly fast here and tho there is no parameters at all that i am aware of i never found an edge so far

Back on topic. Do you have "render as geometry" on ? if so turn it of. If you really WANT geometry then you´ll have to raise the subdivisions in the terrain object.

To get a decent texture assembled just use the Dreamscape Material and a bas material and a mix material. Then you can blend textures based on slope, height etc etc...they can also be nested if needed.

Regards,
Thorsten