Blender Terrain Modifiers - TerraNode v5 for Blender 4.2

[@uabarahona]

Among all the tools related with terrain in blender this is by far the most intuitive one, also great job with the presentation and format of the video that is a big plus also.

[@markonar140]

Thanks for the New Update for Blender 4.2!!! 👍😁 TerraNode is Really a Very Powerful Addon!!! 👌😉

[@looseEdges]

You're welcome!

[@Maya-f4v4u]

The tools look really cool but, could you maybe make a video where you show how it can be used to make some larger landscapes?

[@diyvideojunk2066]

Looks like a powerful system but it is unusual in that it doesn't use a brush to paint the terrain, does this limit it at all ? Also, any news on the Gadot compatibility ?

[@looseEdges]

It limits it in that you cannot use a brush to paint the terrain, and maybe you lose a bit of very fine control because of that. But generally there are other ways of shaping / placing features on the terrain using control objects, and I personally prefer those over a brush because they remain in the scene and can be easily edited and tweaked. It is compatible with gadot in the sense that the data is exported in standard image formats that can be loaded into gadot, but I have not made a dedicated importer for gadot. I did some experimenting and started making one, but I have not gotten around to finishing it.

[@diyvideojunk2066]

@@looseEdges So layered modifiers could be considered akin to layers in Photoshop. If you didn't like the road, for example, you could modify it or even delete it without upsetting any other layers in the stack. The control for the road (eg curved line) remains in place allowing modification to the road if required. Super powerful !

[@looseEdges]

@@diyvideojunk2066 Yes, exactly, stacking modifiers is like adding a layer with a new detail, and the control objects function sort of like layer masks.

[@zboy303]

Nice!

[@MadpolygonDEV]

Hi there, how hard would it be to replace the assets with custom models and textures and how difficult do you think is it to export the terrain layers as vertex colors?

[@looseEdges]

Hi! All that should be pretty straightforward. The scattering can be done with any collection of assets, so all you should need to do is import them into your .blend file and group them into collections. Making your own material slightly more involved, but not too difficult, I made a video specifically about materials here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2mlZnSIYrdsrs0 By terrain layers, are you referring to the attribute masks such as erosion or elevation? Those are all generic float attributes, so it should be as simple as packing them into RGB and storing a named color attribute. As a potential alternative, TerraNode also comes with an addon that can export all those attributes to textures.

[@webinatic216]

Is it possible to apply everything and then import to Godot engine?

[@kewa_design]

Wanna know this as well

[@looseEdges]

Technically, yes it could all be converted to a mesh and imported. However for performance reasons...depending on the scope of what you're doing... it my be better to export the terrain as height and attribute maps, the export addon that comes with TerraNode does this. I'm afraid I don't have much experience with the Godot engine, I have been told that terrain can be imported from heightmaps using an addon but isn't supported in Godot by default. A custom terrain shader might also be needed, unless the scope is small enough that the blender shaders can just baked into a texture. I've been asked about Godot and TerraNode a lot, so I think I'll look into it again and see if I can't write something to make exporting to Godot an easy process.

[@webinatic216]

@@looseEdges I don't mind doing most of the stuff myself to export to godot as long I can bake and save objects and so on. I see this more as a level editor that I can later export and do the necessary hard work myself. Even as a isometric render would be useful. Imo I think you should work on the add-on and not worry to much about the export to godot part.

[@looseEdges]

@@webinatic216 For sure, and I might decide it's not worth the time it would take to learn, but it doesn't hurt to look into it either. I also use Blender kinda like a level editor, and I've make several tools that transfer data from Blender to Unity, so it's sort of half done already if I can make a Godot importer for those same files.

[@sander-wit]

Beautiful work! Some light jazz would've been nice behind the last part of the video :)

[@looseEdges]

Thanks! Yeah, I thought about it, but was rushing to get it published yesterday evening... this way you can play whichever tunes you like best in the background :)

[@graphguy]

No!

[@nandaje]

hello is there any camera cull for scatter teranode ?

[@looseEdges]

No, there isn't. In all my tests the additional computation to cull outside of the camera view was more expensive than the performance gained during the render. I think blender is able to keep geometry loaded in a cache, or something along those lines, if the geometry is static. Culling (via geo nodes at least) makes the object dynamic and it has to be re calculated and loaded every frame. At least that's my guess explanation for it. Another reason to not cull simplistically is that objects beyond the main camera view are often needed to render shadows that are in view.

[@ax777-k2p]

sorry to bother you , i'm trying to make wind effect work on my asset, but it's not working even if i add the wind attribute, i tried on your asset and when i remove the attribute and try to set it up again it doesnt work anymore, i surely missed something but i can't figure it out

[@looseEdges]

Hi, for the wind to work you need to do several things, I'll list them here: Float Vertex attribute named 'wind' to control where the effect should be applied. (0=no effect, 1=full strength) In the material settings, set the displacement mode to 'Displacement and Bump' In the shader editor add the 'Wind Displacement' node group and connect it to the 'Displacement' socket on the material output node. On the Wind Displacement node, click on the '#frame' property and type in '#frame', to add a driver that will animate the effect. I think if you do all of those steps it should work. If not, let me know.

[@ax777-k2p]

@@looseEdges ok i painted where i wanted the effect with the vertex paint then convert the attribute to vertex / float value named wind and it's working now, thanks !

[@looseEdges]

@@ax777-k2p Great! Also, if you're using vertex paint to edit the strength, you should be able to just name the Vertex Color layer 'wind' and not have to convert it.

[@sametaylak2698]

can we use this addon to make a game terrain?

[@looseEdges]

Yes, it comes with an addon that can export the terrain as heightmap and attribute textures.