After almost four days of nothing but research, and its become clear that I can't build a detailed terrain using just height maps since the image files aren't precise enough for closeup work. (Or am I misinformed?) Please correct me if I'm wrong. So what's a brother to do? How can I take the displaced terrain maps to a much higher level? I'm trying to do some Judean Desert scenes and I got nothing so far except some really smooth looking mountains and terrain. I'm new to Blender so I'm not that familiar with how to get it done. I've sworn off Lightwave cause I want to do it in Blender but I'm getting anywhere fast. Can anyone point me in the right direction? thanks
Hi Jimi,
You are correct, if the Image files aren't detailed enough, they can't provide what you need (no matter whether you use Lightwave or Blender or...)
A solution would be to use Procedural Textures for the Displacement, as in: https://cgcookie.com/courses/creating-procedural-sand-dunes-with-blender-2-8
There are some small changes in the Shader Nodes (new: Vector > Displacement), but the principles are still the same.
Thanks Martin. I'll definitely check that out, since I thought it didn't relate to my issues. Funny, I mentioned procedurals to my tech guy last night while I was working on this project. I also thought about using Rockify to create a "textured surface" that I could then instance on a really low poly mountain. I'm not all that good with texture nodes in LWave, they just gave me a headache (and I never get headaches), but amazingly, Blender's node system makes sense to me. I'm just getting started with it, but I've made more progress than I ever could have in LWave. Mountains can really get expensive, especially if they look real. I welcome any feedback or ideas you might have on how to do different terrains and mountains. I'm also looking at Gaea, it looks really interesting.
The CG Boost guys have a whole course on landscapes. Here's a short video on tips, and I'm sure they'll promote their full course on it:
Omar!! U da man!! thanks dude. BTW, I had looked at Martin's stuff earlier. I'm not sure that I'm familiar enough with Blender yet. I hope so anyway.