At 12:59 PM 11/17/2005 -0500, you wrote:
> Anyway I was reminded of doing this by the current discussion on
> landscapes. You could, for example, analyse your landscape and assign
> channels for slope, rate of change of slope, northfacing etc and then
> reference your channels in the VSL shader. I had other applications in
> mind, but can't remember them now.
I'm hearing the echo again :
Anyway, same with RPL . I know many of us clamoured for a
language that was easier to use than RPL ... Realsoft pro-
vided it (Java scripting) , but outside of BB , I personally
haven't seen it used much but has tons of potential .
Yes, we have JS and RPL now... it's there but I'm not enough of a
programmer to figure it all out. The languages themselves aren't my
problem, it's how to use them in RS, which is only hinted at in the manual.
> So is if possible. I'll keep asking until I know :-)
> George
The screenshots I posted a few weeks ago of a Landscape
rendering interface did of course provide many different
ways of texturing a mesh , depending on the many , many
"qualities" of that mesh .
After playing with snow/rock some more, I realize what would be nice:
hierarchical materials. For example, Vue has 'mixed materials' whose
component materials can depend on slope etc, and the component materials
can be mixed too, ad infinitum. I think most landscape renderers use such a
system, and with reason
It can all be done in VSL but if you're going to mix several materials it's
going to be complicated and it requires careful 'input/output management',
planning and endless test rendering.
I'll have a look at Level materials (never used them much). We could build
a hierarchical material system a la WCS, Terragen or Vue if these Level
materials could be controlled by Scope. Frankly, what's the use of level
materials if this can't be done?
....
I asked if VSL could "talk" to a Java/RPL script , but no
reply . You're saying it is possible , and if so , sounds
exactly what is needed to go beyond a simple "3 or 4 textures
per landscape" scenario .
Garry Curtis
Is that possible, combining VSL with JS or RPL? Worth a look... I remember
that in V3, RPL scripts could be attached to materials - in fact I already
made an RPL slope-dependant material in V3. It would be strange if this
wasn't possible in V5, but the great power of VSL alone makes it less
necessary.
A few more tips:
- tilt the snow/grass/rock/whatever material primitives to fake wind
direction. Simple.
- use a volumetric atmosphere with turbidity decreasing from low to high,
with a flattened big sphere as atmosphere object and dark blue background
sphere.. I'll post an example if you're interested.
Enough ranting for today - back to the landscapes,
-Mark H
