SceneTerrain 1.0 release notes

April 7, 2017

Continuing on the solid foundation laid by SceneTerrain 0.9, this first version in the 1.x development cyle improves the distribution of the populations, especially useful for a lot more natural-looking forests. Several other minor features have also been added.

Being at 1.0 also means SceneTerrain is now considered stable, with the most important features in place. The coming 1.x versions will consolidate these features, to make them always more user-friendly. Getting terrains that are as realistic as possible is the second priority, so expect better looking results with each new version.

Changelog

• new: populations layers can be added, edited, removed. They are used to control how the populations are distributed on the terrains.
• new: 2 new tree species, with 3 variations for each. The included library is therefore made of 7 species for 21 tree models.
• change: the textures for the terrain material are 'point-mapped', and no longer 'texture-mapped'. This lets you enter directly how many time you want a texture (flat, mountains etc) reapeated on the terrain.
• change: the default seed for the terrain is no longer zero, that means the terrain will not be different each time you generate one, by default. Zero can still be entered manually though.
• change: the detail texture overlays for the terrain flat area, mountains and beach biomes are deactivated by default, because they make it difficult to control the color variations of the texture, and often make them too dark.
• change: the trees from the library have been renamed to include only their common name. Their full name were trimmed by Blender, in addition to being difficult to read. So if you have broken links in your blend files to SceneTerrain's trees, simply re-import them.
• improvement: the seed for the terrain can be randomized with a button, if you just want some random terrain/seed
• improvement: each tree's leaf material is randomized for a slight variation of color. The randomization can be augmented manually for stronger and more varied effects
• improvement: GUI re-organization, the custom terrain shape is accessible from the now-unique shape tab, as an option, and a new export tab is now present for RAW exports, and the coming formats.
• improvement: each population now has a default number of instances, useful to avoid re-entering it in the particle system's settings each time when re-populating the terrain.
• Several other minor improvements.

Population layers

Populations were added in 0.9 but you had only the 'trees' vertex group created by default, with random weights. So it was necessary to manually weight-paint the vertices of the terrain to create clusters of trees. Population layers fix this, with the added benefit of having as many vertex groups as needed, each with their own procedurally generated density distribution, and several control options.

(A link to the documentation will come here, it is being written...)

Then when you want to populate the terrain with an object, choose which layer to use when you enable the object.

More trees included

The included tree library has 2 new tree species, with 3 variations each: Pecan and Grey Birch. So it's 6 new tree models for you to populate your terrains with, or to use anyway you like.

Trees default color randomization

Each tree's leaf material is randomized for a slight variation of color. The randomization can be augmented manually for stronger and more varied effects.

Happy blending :)

Finally a few renders of the same terrain shape with the same trees, but with different textures, color schemes (by adjusting Hue/Saturation/Value nodes in the terrain and trees materials), and different times of the day with SceneSkies. The atmospheric haze has been added with a mix color compositing node. Except for the rendering, these only took a few minutes to create, and no external models/textures have been used (though you're free to use your own too). Enjoy!