Make a morphing terrain?

[Aelin]

Almost all the question is in the title: how creates a morphing terrain?

I have the object format.
I make the supposition we need to magnetize. But if it's the good answer, even with the Poser documentation I can't find what I want. Magnets are for characters in the example.
I tried to put the magnet in a place, it was useless.

I hope too the morph will be able to work in Poser and Daz Studio.

 

[Neimrok]

I know mortemVetus made TerraDome, which is a morphing terrain and environment.
At first, it was a poser version and then they made a DS version.
Maybe they have some useful documentation about the way to morph a terrain in obj format.

[Aelin]

It's to learn to do myself in fact. I had the possibility to take TerraDome for free in Christmas or for Mad March, but I prefered something of more useful (at least for me). And not free, TerraDome stays where it is in sale for the moment

I have maybe a solution for DS, after several minutes of videoon a charater  we arrive on a plane.
I'm not sure it will work in Poser, but I will try it.

[Aelin]

OK, I tried the D-morph in Daz Studio 3, on an object format.
I created a pp2 format the terrain, once I ended my test morphs.
I loaded the pp2 in Poser.

It work in Poser! Of course, I have forgotten to put morphs on the 0 deformation to start. But for once, something I "made" in Daz work in Poser.  :crazysmile:

[Aelin]

Except for easy thinks like a wall with bricks, I'm not really good on displacement for the moment. I know it's a question of black/grey/white, but more complex than just change in "grey scales" in Photoshop.
So alas for now, because of this, the morph is my best solution.
 

[Aelin]

No I'm not a Blender girl But at least, I left Hexagon, what is a good step for the moment.
In more, laptop will be not happy to add again a toy of this size 

In Daz Studio for what I see regularly it's black = negative (at least with a big size) and white = positive

 

[Chiron]

My 2¢ of dumbness in a nutshell:

- DAZ D-forms act on vertices: the more vertices available, the smoother and more natural the resulting terrain will look.
- Once the D-forms work fine you may "spawn" each D-form separately or all together depending on your requirements.
- Each spawn creates a new dial with its own name chosen by you.
- Since spawning turns each D-form into a dial (with just one degree of freedom), if you'd rather retain all deformation possibilities of a D-former you may want to keep it as it is rather than spawning it.

- Still in DAZ, on the displacement map a black area (0%) causes the max depth (away from the normal), a 50% grey causes no displacement, and a white area (100%) causes the max height (towards the normal).
- Somewhere I read that Poser works differently: black -> no change, white -> max positive change, negative changes not implemented. The day I buy Poser I'll know more :smile: .
- The main drawback of using displacement maps is that you don't see the outcomes until you render, whereas the effects of a D-form are visible at once.
- An 8-bit greyscale displacement map is good or even excellent for small displacements but when hills or mountains are involved even a 1-bit step becomes clearly visible. Some day I shall experiment with 16-bit greyscale displacement maps - but first I'll need a good software to generate them reliably from an .obj or .3ds. Any hint?

Good luck Aelin !

[parkdalegardener]

Simple morphing terrain that can be used in Poser or DS:

Load a bunch of rocks and things from the default Poser library. Take the hi-res cloth plane and drop it over the landscape. Run a sim colliding with the ground and the junk. The resulting deformed cloth is saved as a morph target.

Re arrange your junk on the floor and do it again. Spawn another morph target.

Do it as often as you like. Every result is a morph target.

Open a new scene. Add a cloth plane. Add your morph targets to the cloth plane. Save your new morphing terrain prop to the library.

Simple and the resulting terrain is uvmapped. Use your own hi-res square though if you want to distribute the finished terrain.

If you want differing terrain textures ground to sky. ie green grass in the vale to snow on the peak, texture with the P node.

[Jherrith]

Exquisite and ever so simple to create.

[McGrandpa]

and, in case some haven't discovered this yet, Poser 11 now has a thing called "The Construct".  It loads by default.  It is the GROUND prop.  Select that, then look over in the Settings tab.  There are the Transform dials, and right under those are three Morph dials.  Terrain, Geometric and Ledge.  Give them a spin, be surprised!  :o)