TerreSculptor Terrain Stack Update
This major Update should be publicly available in Q3/Q4 2022.
Q. What is the Terrain Stack in TerreSculptor?
A. The Terrain Stack is a highly interactive device operation layer system that allows for non-destructive workflow of terrain creation.
Each of the items on the Generate, Noisemap, Weightmap, Adjust, Modify, Transform, and Erosion menus are available as ‘Devices’ that can be added to the Terrain Stack, so that they can be edited and executed in any logical order, and re-edited and iterated.
This allows for a flexible terrain design system that can be edited over and over again, until the desired final terrain look is achieved.
An example Stack may include the following Items in descending order: Gradient Noisemap, Altitude, Altitude Center, Displace, Rain Erosion, Hydraulic Erosion, FloodLevel, Normalize, Datamap Save.
This Stack of Items can then be built and the device properties iterated over and over until the final desired terrain design is realized.
The Terrain Stack can be saved to a file, so that a library of common terrain design systems can be created.
The Terrain Stack can be thought of as similar to the Layer system in Photoshop, but more accurately to the Modifier Stack in Autodesk Max or Blender 3D.
Q. When is it available?
A. The initial Terrain Stack is already in beta testing with the Patreon subscribers.
There is still a lot of work to be completed on the Terrain Stack before it is ready for public access.
There will also be Feature Updates to the Terrain Stack over the next few years.
So while the Terrain Stack is currently functional, it won’t be released in a public build for a few months still.
Q. What is remaining to be completed?
A. Some of the current features that are pending on the Terrain Stack include: Variable Size Stack, Modifier Stack Pointers, and Unique Item GUIDs.
The Variable Size Stack allows for such Modifiers as Resample and Rotate Custom, where the dimensions of the Stack can be changed on a per-Device level.
The Modifier Stack Pointers will allow specific Modifiers such as Blend, Combine, and Shaper, to reference a Stack Item as a secondary Heightmap or Mask. For example, the Blend Modifier blends two heightmaps together, and the Modifier Stack Pointers will allow it to use a Stack Item reference instead of having to reference an external file on disk.
The Unique Item GUIDs will allow the Modifier Stack Pointers to track changes to the Stack Item order and “fix up” pointer references automatically.
Q. What advanced features will it include?
A. The Terrain Stack will eventually include a per-Item Mask, and it will eventually be used for the 2D Terrain Paint and Brush system, and the future 3D Spline Road River and FaultLine systems.
The Item Masks will allow for such things as complex biomes, by allowing for masking out regions that the Modifiers operate on. For example, Terraces can be applied to one region of the terrain, while FloodLevel is applied to another region.
The future Paint and Brush systems will allow for using paint tools to modify the terrain elevations, or terrain brushes to ‘stamp’ a terrain shape such as a mountain range onto the heightmap.
The future 3D spline modifiers will include a spline in the main viewport that can be manipulated to modify the heightmap.
Q. What else is coming soon?
A. Coding will also begin in Q3/Q4 on the ‘CLI’ Command Line Interface Update, the File Format Update, and the Project Update.
The CLI Update will allow for automation of TerreSculptor functions through the command prompt and through batch files. Initial CLI functionality will be such things as heightmap file format conversion.
The File Format Update will be bringing EXR image file format and FBX mesh file format to TerreSculptor, in addition to supporting libpng and libtif to improve the total supported PNG and TIF file formats.
The Project Update will be adding the newer Modifiers and the Terrain Stack to the TerreSculptor Project file format, so that these items can be saved and loaded with a Project file.