Landscape Tutorial - cajomi CG by Johannes Rosenberg

Landscape Tutorial
by Johannes Rosenberg / cajomi
In this tutorial you will learn, how to create landscapes in Carrara 4.
This is a first introduction, which keeps all most easy, but it is a base to understand the
principial way, how to build quick realistic landscapes.
It is concentrated onto shading and lightning. The terraingenerating in Carrrara 4 is so
easy, that there will less problems.
If you have finished this tutorial, you will be able to to render stunning landscapes by using
the standard generated terrains from Carrara 4.
Start
Start Carrara 4 and make a new scene with the scene wizard. Choose „Alpin Morning“, one of the
presets with the new Realistic Sky.
Now insert a terrain and open the modeller window.
In the upper left corner click on the „Add“-button. In the list a „null generator“ appears. Choose from
the list „Filter“ the Generator „Round Mountain“. On the right side set the render quailtiy to 2049
and the preview to 513. If you have not much memory on your PC, you will have to reduce the
qualtiy.
Thats all, the terrain is done, for this tutorial. Nethertheless, just pushing the shuffle button, and
playing with the sliders of this generator will bring you a wide range of stunning terains..
We go back to the assemble room and insert an infinte plane. Set its height / z to 0,005 and give
it in the shader room a simple blue colour, this will be the water in our landscape.
Back to the assemble room, we first search for a viewpoint.
Shading
Terrainshading Part 1: The Top shader
Below you see a first testrender from the viewpoint above. Many different parts should be visible,
high slopes and low slopes, high and low altitude and you should be close enough at a part, to
see the finer details. Often you need more then one viewpoint for shading. Make usuage of the
„Save Camera Position“.
Lets look at the first testrender.
The viewpoint is ok. If you prefer another viewpoint, thats also ok. The sun is not in a good
position. I changed it, so that the narrow parts of the terrain get light from the side.
For shading it is not so good, if the sun in in the zenit or throws its light on the surface without
causing shadows. Then you would not see the bump, and for terrains, the bump is very important.
Here the sun postion for this viewpoint:
It causes shadows in the higher sloped parts of this terrain. The
„Alpin Morning“ has a low sun, so it is a bit dark over all, but we
will keep it. If it is to dark for you, set the sunlight to 130% and
the ambient to 35%, then there is plenty of light.
Well, it is looking a bit unreal, okay the water is unreal. But for
shading a terrain we do not need a perfect waterplane, it only
takes rendertime.
The terrain is shaded with the Preset. The mountains in the distance are looking pretty well, but all
that is a bit nearer looks very soft and has not much details.
The first idea would be: increase the details of the terrain, increase the roughness, add noise,.......
but we will do nothing of that.
The landscape system of carrara has two elements, the terrain and the shader. The terrain is for
the general form and the high resolution here leads to well formed hills and mountains in one
terrain. For the final look we use the shader to add details. To see all available shaders and to
follow this tut you must have unchecked the „Filter shaders according to context in Popup“ in the
„Preferences - Shader Editor“.
So lets select the terrain and
then push the „shader edit“
button. Now, in the
textureroom, we have a first
look at the shadertree for
terrains.
On top there is the „Terrain“,
with one global shader. Below
are the terrainlayers, each of
them for a special part of the
terrain. Okay, last look at
this, because we will now
delete them all, except the
top layer „terrain“.
Well, now we are at the beginning. We have
four parameters, which we could change: Size,
Amplitutde, Follow Terrain, Roughness.
So, begin to play: First, just take a look at the
terrain, without any texture, so put amplitude
and the roughness to zero. Make a testrender.
You might see now, the terrain looks softer. If you like, this is the right moment to change to the
modeller room and uncheck the „smooth normals“ and do another testrender. You can see, which
parts are soften through this function. Set it checked again, we will work with the smoothed
version.
The parameters of Bump are a complex mixture. The Size controls the Size of the structures of
the Bump, while the Amplitude controls, how much the Terrain is „deformed“.
Follow Terrain controls first the orientation of the produced Bump. But the produced Bump
depends also from the Bumpiness/Roughness of the Terrain. If the Terrainsurface is really flat,
there is no structure to follow and so, no Bump is produced.
The Follow Terrain controls the orientation as well as the amount of the produced Bump. If you
want to get Bump all over the Terrain, teh Follow Terrain value ahs to be low, if you want the Bump
to work out the Terrain, a higher value is needed.
At least the Roughness gives the produced Bump additional structure. It is a finer structure and
very important for closer shots.
It is now the time to play, move the sliders and render.
If you have finished, you might have
found a convincing parameter setting.
You can keep it, or change it to the
setings I used.
Size 0,5 m
Amplitude 46,73
Follow Terrain 81,31
Roughness 0,68
These settings are the „working“ settings. It may be, we will change them later, but first, they give
a good mixture of rough and soft parts. (0,5m are about 1,5 inch)
The Bump behaves not only like a shader. The Bump forms the terrain and any following layer
uses for the distribution the bumped version of the terrain.. If a layer distribute the shader
depending on the slope, the slope after calculating this Bump is used. So the details, which were
added here, more behave like a displacement map, but they do not change the primitve itself..
We see here the result of these settings: We have very rough surfaces at high slopes, but the flat
parts still keep soft. The size of the bump is very important. If you set it high, it overrides the
terrians basic shape, if it is set low, it does not work out the typical structure of the terrain.
To get wilder terrains, decrease the „Follow Terrain“ parameter. This usaully leads to a rough
surface over the whole terrain.
The high Roughness here gives even the Bump on the soft parts in the foreground a more rocky
look. They may cause a too rough surface on the higher sloped parts. So, it can be, that for some
shots you better decrease the Roughness of the Toplayer, for other parts you may increase it a bit.
In the Tutorial we will keep it as it is.
Terrainshading Part 2:The snow
Now we are going to set our first shader.
Select from the shaderlist „Terrain“ - „Terrainlayer“ and then for the distribution „snow“.
Set the Coverage to 62,5 %, the Size to 0,43m or 1,3 inch and the Noise to 100%.
What this parameters do:
The „Coverage“ simple is the percentage of terrain, which is covered. with snow. But this parameter
is linked with the other parameters.
The „Noise“: This is the heart of the new landscape generation of Carrara 4. This is not the usual
noise, like perlin and also not the typical „fractal noise“, but a real fractal noise. That means, that
the details of this noise are unlimited. The closer you come, the smaller are the details. The
parameter „Noise“ regulates, how much noise is mixed to the shader. This noise has first the
effect, that at higher settings, the snow is clustered.
Just set the noise to zero and the coverage to 100% and the whole terrain is white. If you
decrease the coverage now, the colour changes to grey. The terrain keeps coverd over all, but the
power of coverge decreases. So the colours of the snow and the layer underneath are mixed.
Set the slider to 50% and you have light grey. Now increase „Noise“. As you can see, the snow is
getting whiter, but some parts of the terrain are no longer covered. You can see a complex mixture
of the two layers, the basic grey and the snow. We do not want any grey snow, so we set the
„Noise“ to 100%. The terrain is covered randomly with snow. I set the „Coverage“ to 62,5 %, to get
much snow.
The „Size“ is the general size of the „Noise“. The lower it is, the more details can be seen. If you
want a scene typical for spring or with new snow, a higer size fits more to the reality. But here we
need a high mountain snow, so we take a middle size „0,43 m“, to get a closed coverage and also
details. (1 m are 3 inch, so multiplicate all parameters which are in „m“ with 3 to get it in inch).
Now we set the environment paramenters:
The Altitude for covering only the higher regions.
The Slope for not covering the high sloped parts, as it is in nature.
Very improtant for the altitude distribution is the Blending. The values for Blending often seems to
be a bit „unreal“, here 2900 m and 4300 m, but these settings produce the natural realistic look of
Carraras snow covered mountains. Lets take a closer look to blending.
The blend- parameter normally means a soft blending. Like an gradient, two different values are
blended over. This is, what we get, if the noise is set to 0%
If the Noise is set to 100% we have ereased all softness, so the blender tells the „Noise“ to
appear also in parts outside the altitude and slope settings, and how fare and how much the snow
will be shown there (outside these settings). The effect is, that we have not a sharp ending of the
snow, but some parts, where the snow is showed and others where not. This looks very real.
The slope should not have much blending, with the slope we draw the mountains. It shows even
from far away, the shape of the mountains and their surface. If we increase here the blend, the
distribution is getting more and more randomly. That also can look very interesting, but it hides the
interesting details of the surface, we have added by using the toplayer and defining the bump.
Lets change to the renderroom and make the next testrender.
The snow looks realisitc..
The first part of shading is finished succesful.
Terrainshading Part 2: The rocks
Back to the shaderroom, we will now create the rockshader.
Add a new Terrainlayer, name it „rocks“, by the way, give the snowlayer its name and drop the
rocklayer above the snowlayer. (Click on the layer, then drag it above the snowlayer. When it is
exact between the snow and the toplayer only a small highlighted line is shown. Release the
mouse. Or just drag the snowlayer to the big last „+“ at the end of the layer list)
Select „Custom“ for the distribution and „Colour“ for the shader and set the colour to red.
Noise: Coverage 100%, Nosie 100%,
Size 0,15
Slope: Influence 100%,
Minimum: 42,59°, Blend 0
Maximum 90°, Blend 100%
Now set the Noise and the Slope as shown above. We want to control the appearance of the rocks
mostly by the Slope and set the Influence to 100%. The Minimum of 42,59° wiil show the
Rocklayer only on higher slopes. For the Rocks it is the same as for the Snow: We want them
sharp and set the Noise to 100%. We can here now set the coverage also to 100%. This mean,
that the Rocks will appear everywhere , where the Slope is higher then 42.59°. But they will not
appear, where there is snow. This is because of the order of the Terrainlayers.
Every layer that is underneath covers the layer above.
-- Toplayer
-- Rocks (cover the toplayer)
-- Snow (covers the Toplayer and the Rocklayer)
So, the Toplayer is to be see, where no snow and no rocks are, the rocks are to see, where no
snow is, and the snow is exact there to see, where we decide it in the Distribution Channel.
We use red for the rockcolour to see clear, where rocks will appear.
It is good to see, how the Rock
appears only at the surface with high
slopes.
The part in the left foreground may
cause problems. The surface is
smooth but has a high slope. With
extrem high bumpsettings we give
even this smooth parts are more
rocky appearence.
It is up to you, to experiment a bit with the rocksettings and see, how the distribution change.
After you have found a convincing rockdistribution, it is time for the rocks finetuning.
First we set the bump.
Size 0,1m
Amplitude 162,62
Follow Terrain 28,97
Roughness 1.00
These are very high settings, and you may use lower settings. These setting will show very clear,
how the Bump forms the terrain and how many Details are generated by using this „Power-Bump“.
It is also better to have a rougher surface and then render with Antialaising as low bump and no
Antialaising.
The Shader Channel:
Mixer, with two Colours.
We still keep uneal colours, for better
adjusting. As Blender we use the
„Terraindistribution“ „Simple“.
Coverage 50 %, Noise 67,86%, Size
0,03 m.
Here we use the superb Carrrara Terrainnoise as mixingfunction. In nature, rocks mostly have two
or more different colours. We use two. The colourdistribution does not follow the terrain, that’s why
we use a softer blending by setting the Noise to 67,86%. The Coverage of 50% leads to a
balanced distribution of both colours, the „Noise“ a bit over 50% generates parts, where both
colours stand clear alone and parts, where they are mixed. The resulting colouring is complex and
give a realistic impression.
In the foreground you can see
good the complex mixing of
the two colours. We have red,
blue and mixed parts.
If we are satisfied with the distribution of the colours (feel free to play with the sliders) we set the
colours.
As you can see, I select
brown colours, with one
very dark bown and an
equal colour, with a lighter
touch.
Terraincolouring is a very special colouring. We are used to say, leafs are green. But this green is
far away from the green of the colour picker. It is much more grey and darker. In terrains, colours
must be very well balanced and the typical problem for beginners are too saturated and bright
colours.
The brown looks real bright in the
foreground, in the shadowed parts it
seems to be black.
Now you can see, why we used first
very cruel colours, compare the
images. It would not have been easy
to see the distribution with the final
colour. Do you can see, whether in
the shadowed parts there is the
Rocklayer?
Terrainshading Part 3: The green
It is time for some life in our landscape. As before we add a new Terrainlayer. It apperas at the end
of the list and we bring it above the „Rocks“ layer. Name it „Green“. Select „Custom“ for the
Disrtibution and Colour for the Shader and use the standard red.
First we set the noise:
Coverage 57,14%,
Noise 100%,
Size 2,03m
This will be the last layer. It should appear mostly everywhere, where no snow and no rocks are.
Nethertheless we use only a coverage of 57,14%. So, some parts of the terrain will stay grey. The
Noise is set to 100%, the green should not mix with the Toplayer. The greater size of 2,03m gives
a good visible distribution with greater holes.
The holes in the flat parts
of the terrain are good
visible. There theToplayer
appears. Later we will use
these holes to give the final
touch of realism.
Now we change the Shader to „Mixer“, add a second Colourshader and give it a blue colour. As
Blender we use the Terraindistribution „Simple“ with the settings: Coverage 43,75%, Noise 50%
and Size 1,03m.
We have as well red, blue and
violett parts. The parts itself are
great enough to give later the
illusion of a changing
vegetation.
As allways, try your own
settings.
Now we will select the right colours. As you can see below, the dark green is a very dark yellow.
When we later set the lights and use the SkyLight as Global Illumination, the green gets a blue
touch, so at least the green will be a middle green. As I said about the colours before: Terrains
need dark colours with much grey in it to look natural. The lighter green is even a bit more yellow
and brighter.
If you later want to improve this layer, and there are much oppertunitys for improvement, make a
second green layer. Give this second layer even more yellow to brown touch and use it for the
green in the higher regions and this one for the lower parts.
As you can see, the yellow
colour looks very green. It is
important to use higher values
for the Noise in the Mixer.
With low values the whole flat
parts would appear in one
colour.
The green looks a bit flat. Now we will give Bump to the green. The dark green should simulate
greater plants, so we need even a rough surface.
The Size is set to 0,01m. So hopefully with a
touching light we will have the imagination of a
forest or other green plants.
Do you see a difference?
Well, with this light it is
very small, but try another
sunposition and it will be
much clearer.
Close ups wil also look
much more different.
Terrainshading Part 4: The final touch
The terrain begins to look like a landscape. Only some grey parts do not fit. These parts will give
the last convincing touch.
We select the Toplayer and change the Shader to Mixer.
Noise settings:
Coverage 50%
Noise 67%
Size 0,08 m
The colours we pick from the Green and the Rock Layer, so they will fit.
These small green-brown parts, thrown more randomly over the terrain, close the surface and give
the final realsitc impression. Try to imagine, how this would look, if all the flat terrain would be
green.
The Water
The preset watershaders are not very convincing. We will here use a simple watershader, with just
an untypical bump: Terrainbump
The Transform is enabled and set to Overall: 0,01%. The Terrainbumb gives a more oceanlike
surface.
The Hightlight and Shininess here is set to zero, this is for the final image, where the highlight
gives a very bright light, where I do not want one.
The Hightlight and Shineness should be adjusted for every take new. A typical setting would be
Highlight: 60%, Shininess 30%.
The point of view (POV)
The shading is done.
Now it is time to leave. The render shows, that the landscape looks realistic, but it does not look
stunning. So began your journey through the landscape. Save the camerapostions you find. Keep
in mind, that the sunposition has a great influence to the apearance of the terrain. So, if you find a
interesting POV, let the sun walk around the scene. The preview of the Realistic Sky is very fast
and give a good impression for the right light.
If you have find your POV, means an interesting part of the terrain, do not hurry. Ask yourself:
What do I like most here? Is it to see, that you mean this part, or are there other parts more in the
foreground? Is there a source of irritation, like a to bright hightlight?
Do the compostion lead the eye of the visitor?
Good hints for compostion you can find in many books about painting or photographie. Often it is
the compositon that decides about an interesting or boring image.
So, do not hurry.
This is the cameraposition for my final render.
I like the mountain. It has
many rocks and an
interesting
snowcoverage. The
roughness of the texture
give the impression of
many details, and that
noisy apperance will be
gone with Antialiasing.
Sky and Lightning
The render really looks good, but not more then good. It is not amazing, so what is missing.
First: The feeling of depth.
Second: The light is too flat.
Third: The sky is boring
Now it is time to take a closer look into the Realistic Sky. These are the final settings.
First: The missing depth
Just below the sky preview there is the setting for the dimension of the sky.
As you can see, I have set it to 254cm --- 80 km. That’s very extrem. With the setting of this
values we decide, how the atmosphere is scaled.
The standard is 254 cm -- 1,67km. That means, that 254 cm in the scene correspondent to 1,67
km and to this size the sky is calculated.
If you take a look in the Terrainmodeller you can see the „Worldsize“, here it is 30 km. If we take
into account that the highest mountain is 4000m high, this terrain would have such a size. Now
change to the Assemble Room and look, how great this terrain is in the scene. It is
2,54m*2,54m*0,3m. That mean, the 254cm, which are 2,54m, correspondent to 30 km!
So, if you do landscaping, just set the skysize to 30km to have a real world size and a fitting
atmosphere. I have increased this a „little“ more to push the impression of fareness.
The next very important parameter is the „Global Exposure“. Global means the whole sky. If you
are working with Global Illumination, Sky Light, the power of this light depends on the setting of
the Global Exposure. The Haze is part of the sky, so its colour and brightness also depends on
the Global Exposure. In the conclusion: Use the Gloabl Exposure for adjusting the brightness of
the sky not for the brightness of the scene. If the sene is to dark, increase the sunlight and the
power of the GI. As you can see, I have set the Global Exposure very low, to 12,5. the scene looks
really dark in the preview. But increasing the sunlight to 200% and the GI Skylight to 200% solves
this problem.
At least I set the Haze Density very high, to 95% and its
Altitude to 11%. So, the mountains in the background are
darkend and the focus of the viewer is set to the foreground
mountain. The Hazecolour and the Skycolour are not
changed.
Second: The flat light
Landscape renderings often use opposite light
(about 30%). It gives structure to the surface
and a more dramatic look. The Sun is just
outside the image on the left side. I have set
the Sun Size and Aura Size to zero to get the
Sun as close as possible in a low opposite
position, without showing it.
Third: The boring sky
May be, boring is a bit to hard, but the sky is not amazing. I want to have a sky, like it is to see on
high mountains, a very dark sky with very white shining clouds.
I have changed the clouds from Cirrus to
Cloud and then rised the Altitude to
100%. Now I set the Silver lining to 200%.
The Clouds have the best Silver lining, so
that they are really shining. Some
adjustments to Thickness, Coverage and
Lumpiness and the clouds look like
shining Cirrus.
I have done this for both Cloud Layers.
Together with the low Global Exposure the
sky turned to a deep „High Mountain“ sky.
At least: Until now I have not find any significant difference between checked and unchecked „Fast
Simulation“ and increased „Accuracy“, except a fast growing rendertime. Frankly I must say, that I
often do no risk and render with unchecked Fast Simulation and Accuracy to 1000%, but as I
said........
Rendersettings
This are my final settings. The sunlight is 200% and
the Ambient is set to zero.
As you can see, I set the Filter Sharpnees to 100%.
Landscapes lives from there details, so do not blur
them, if it is not nesessary. I often render without
Anitalias, but here the rough surface looks better with.
The dark sky has not much light and I want a little
light in the shadows and some blue feeling for the
shadowed snow. So the Sky Light is set to 200%. The
Interpolation and Precesion are not so important, if
you are only using the Skylight. The qualtiy is extrem
high, even in Preview, no artefacts, and the rendertime
is extrem short for a GI.
Increasing the Photon Count has also not much effort
by rendering landscapes, the Photon Map accuracy
also not. The Lightning Qualtiy is with Fast really good
and the Accuracy is more then enough with 4 Pixels.
As you see, I do not use the Indirect Light. Indirect Light does only make sense, if objects are
standing closer together and there surfaces are vis a vis. Or if you are rendering an indoor scene.
Landscapes seldom have surfaces, which are narrow enough, to produce indirect lightning. At
least, the GI with indirect lightning is very slow and needs a higher Qualtiy setting (minimum
Good), so that a great landscape, with its high polygon count, takes over a day to render.
Conclusion:
It may now seem to you, that landscaping is a hard work. Well, it only seems so. If you once have
this tutorial done, you have a good shader. This shader is a basic shader which enables you, to
build very quick other shaders, so that they fit optimal to your terrain.
And then the adventure begins. You are moving in a landscape, nobody ever has seen before you.
Pushing the Renderbutton means, to bring a new world in this reality, even if it is only a virtual
world. You can let the sun go done where you want, make a rainy day or let the sun shine, yeah
it’s just a little „playing god“.
So, enter the „Godmode“ and discover, what nobody ever has seen before you. All you have to do,
is pushing the Shuffle Buttom in the Terraingenrator, or may be, a bit erosion, or more noise. Turn
a green round hill landscape into a deserts hell, just here some colours in the shader, a bit more
roughness and may be killing red clouds.
Or you are more like me: Just simulating reality.
So far, looking forward to your creatings
Johannes Rosenberg
(cajomi)