ZBrushCentral

2.5 D tools for Terrain creation

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; } I just wanted to share a short video about the ZScript I am currently working on.

I few months ago I was doing some ZbrushCentral archaeology and I found a couple of threads about a ZScript that Pixolator made for creating terrains in ZBrush. Or that’s what I thought it was because I could never find the file and play with it.
Anyway, that mysterious zscript gave me the idea of using the unique ZBrush 2.5D tools to generate terrains.

Some of the tools I made are essentially strokes guided by the canvas normals. So the strokes can go uphill or downhill or in any other angle relative to the slope, this way with a simple smudge brush I could simulate some kind of erosion , make terraces, fill valleys, etc. The next step was adding a Dll with a couple of height-map filters I made in c++.

This isn’t a professional app by any means but as a toy is really fun to play and I am happy with the results!
I still need to polish some things and work a little on the messy UI but i might release it soon.

2 Likes

Looks nice man
can’t wait to test it

Awesome job!:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

A like terraces … they look pretty cool!
Instead of the classic terrace filters that only quantize the height values, these are brush strokes perpendicular to the slope giving a more realistic and organic results.
ZBrush ScreenGrab03.jpg
ZBrush ScreenGrab02.jpg
ZBrush ScreenGrab01.jpg

Attachments

ZBrush ScreenGrab03.jpg

ZBrush ScreenGrab02.jpg

ZBrush ScreenGrab01.jpg

Hope you do chose to release it, looks great. Appreciate your time!

Cool tool!

I wanted to test if my Hydraulic Erosion algorithms would catch sediments in a Dam and I think they do a pretty decent Job. I made a little BPR to illustrate it.

dam.jpg

Greatness!

Fractal control and erosion adjustment! OMG!

My goodness my dream of playing with advanced SimCity god mode style terrain making is being made possible by a nature-loving genius!

Thank you for going in this direction! So exciting!!! :lol:

Just being a brat: can we paint material / colors in the same stroke? And when? I can’t wait!

Right now I am not considering colors… But my plan is to use a combination of Slope, Water flow, height and maybe distance to the coast to produce a color map. But that will have to wait until the next version…
Also I am including what I call “Under Cursor Strokes”, they will follow the slope downhill for example, and you can use any brush you want with them… so yes, you could use the one I use for rivers and apply color at the same time… not sure how good that would look.
It’s almost ready for the 1st release but it’s only for windows 64 bits ( that’s for the buttons that use Dlls) other buttons only use ZScript so they should work to anybody.
Terr1.jpg
Terr2.jpg

Attachments

Terr2.jpg

it looks amazing already Dargelos.
im working on a toolset composed of 4 zplugins , soon Zbrush we get numerous of new plugins, feel excited :slight_smile:

Hi,dargelos
Very cool plugin!
Your plugin makes me realize that ZBrush has such potential.

Your work is really a masterpiece.:+1:

I can only repeat what all the others said… WOW.

Thank you in advance for this fantastic tool.

CU.

Is ready this plugin? Where we can buy it?

Thanks to everyone for the nice words :).
The plugin is not 100% ready yet but it’s almost finished. All I need to do is write at least a couple of pages of documentation. My biggest fear is that the plugin becomes a cryptic nightmare, so impossible to understand for anybody.
It will be windows 64 only for the first release (I don’t have a mac) but I am confident it won’t be too difficult to make the mac version.
The plugin should be ready this weekend but I can’t really promise anything since it hasn’t been tested in many systems and bugs might be everywhere.

Faceless, I can’t wait to see your plugins combo. You have great ideas and programming skills. I am ready to see what you have done.

ill take it even cryptic. This is a really cool piece of work.

It’s going to be cryptic and weird no matter what… lol
I made different Heightmap filters with different approaches and complexity…
The last one I just finished is pretty crazy. Playing with the sliders can produce all kinds of results. Here is a quick example.

		 				 	[<b>dargelos</b>](http://www.zbrushcentral.com/member.php?84905-dargelos):

I like what your doing!
The results of your efforts have convincing earthly features.
:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

Lookin good.:+1:

definitely this is awsome.