Heightfield Shader - Fractal Detail Tab

Heightfield Shader - Fractal Detail Tab

Description:
The settings in the Fractal Detail tab allow you add extra detail to the heightfield. The shader adds extra small scale fractal detail which helps to make up for the limited resolution of the underlying heightfield. Of course the extra detail is "fake" but in most cases this doesn't matter. Here's an example of a heightfield with and without added fractal detail:

Heightfield with (left) and without (right) added fractal detail

You can see the extra detail makes quite a difference. It hasn't changed the overall shape of the heightfield but it has made it look a lot more detailed. The addition of extra detail is not limited to small scale features. You can easily create large procedural features on heightfields as well.

Settings:

• Add fractal detail: Check this to add extra fractal detail to the heightfield.
• Fractal amount: This controls how much fractal detail is added to the heightfield.
• Fractal scale adjust: TBC
• Fractal variation: TBC
• Fractal roughness: TBC
• Fractal flow factor: TBC

Back to: Heightfield Shader

A heightmap or heightfield is an array of height values, usually in a grid which describe the height at specific points in a defined area. Heightfields are used to represent real-world and virtual terrain in a specific, easily converted format. Most heightfields can be represented as simple image data in grayscale, with black being minimum height and white being maximum height.

A shader is a program or set of instructions used in 3D computer graphics to determine the final surface properties of an object or image. This can include arbitrarily complex descriptions of light absorption and diffusion, texture mapping, reflection and refraction, shadowing, surface displacement and post-processing effects. In Terragen 2 shaders are used to construct and modify almost every element of a scene.

In general a “procedure” is a series of steps that should result in a specific and reproducible outcome. In Terragen 2 a “procedural” is a mathematical function describing output which may be visualized and sampled to create anything from terrain to clouds.