I have a question/discussion I wanted to pose to the community.
Aside from simple/straightforward material-layers like rock, grass, dirt, etc, what kinds of things do you like to paint-into or have as a landscape layer?
I know one can use things like a No-Grass layer to paint out grass, a Puddles or Surface Water layer, or the like. Blending with RVT and the like I already have, but wanted to know what else I might try to incorporate in my projects.
What do you like to add as a ‘non-standard’ feature (vs ‘just-rock’)?
I guess I am asking functionally, as a feature, what would you LIKE to have.
I’m doing well enough with landscapes for my purposes, have a decently performant solution and was looking for more to add. Rocks bend and morph to the terrain but still jut up like you like them too. Dirt fills nooks and crannies, grass grows on top of and helps wear down rocks; I do a lot with height-ops. I have a paintable Path layer vs using a landscape-spline, I can paint a path into the singular material that runs the landscape/heightmesh. It also includes surface water (running water soon!) as well as Sand, Snow, etc.
So the nature of my question I guess is if you could cram something feature-wise, functional-wise into a landscape and/or heightmesh, what would you like to see?
Another example is that I use the 0.0 → 0.5 range of the layer alpha as input before the heightblend so painting the layer can respect the procedural aspects between layers, but after, I can take the outputted alpha and LERP it with the back half of the layer-weight (0.5+ → 1.0) to fill in all the resultant crannies so it’s ‘completely’ filled in:
Thiiiiiiiiiiis is what I am talking about. I know I can look into those things.
‘Natural distribution’ for lack of a better term? eg: I would take a lat/long or something to position the landscape on the planet so i can calc the path of the sun across the sky and thus the shadowy parts of the mountains where snow would tend to gather-more/melt-less.
Procedural options is exactly where I am headed in my mind; that instant-campsite type of effect where you might just be able drop in a heightmap, pick some biomes, elevations, etc and have it all work out for you.
My most desired feature is physics and post-processing being able to use custom volume shapes out of the box. Rivers are always a nightmare to make swimmable and diveable, and the new river system doesn’t work with world composition landscapes. What a pain in the butt.
Otherwise, I like using a large splat map across my entire landscape so I can tint areas uniquely and give more variation.
