blending terrain graph

[north pollen]

i made a thread.

so in my shader graph, i get the position and the normal vector. i then remap the y-position to range from -1 to 1, and get the steepness of the normal vector by getting the dot product (with a (0,1,0) vector3)

using these values, and having parameters such as maxHeight, minHeight, maxSteepness, minSteepness, i assign the proper texture.

which looks like this:

i have a module like this one for each of the textures.

the 4 inputs coming in from the left are the steepness i calculated (top 2 blue lines) and the normalized y-value (bottom two blue lines)

then the next textures branch output goes into this branch's "false" input, and this branch output sets the baseColor.

this is with all textures

[dusky basin]

Yep, so, you have hard transitions between the textures.
If you want smooth transitions, you can't use branch nodes, branches are just "on or off".

You need to calculate a "weight" for each texture, based on the height and slope. This weight should be a mask values in the [0-1] range. You then use the Lerp nodes to blend with the previous texture.

[north pollen]

this is what it looks like on my terrain. i am quite pleased with how well it works (i know, i still need to optimize it as it is WAY more expensive than it needs to be), but you can see how clear and visible the edges are between the textures

[dusky basin]

Typically, for the height portion, you would do it like this :

[north pollen]

i understand what you mean, however the first time even touching shaderGraphs was three days ago and i have no clue how i could calculate the weight....

[dusky basin]

Basically, you do a height mask, and a slope mask for each layer.
You then combine them (multiply node for example), and use it to blend with the previous layer.

I would probably help to isolate the layering logic in a subgraph, so it will be easier to handle any further modifications.

[north pollen]

i would need a double smoothstep though, right? if the height (grass, for example) is set to 0.3-0.8, and the slopeRange 1 (facing up) - 0.5 (a 45° slope), it should blend in and then out again, right?

and is there a way to make it "bleed" instead? so that if it is between .3-.8 and 0°-45°, it is at 100%, then drops off as it is outside of these bounds? this would ensure that at height 1 for example snow doesn't fade out, making the tips semi-snow and semi-base object color (black)

[dusky basin]

You can "disable" the slope mask by setting (-1, -1), so the slope mask is always 100% (I think that's what you were asking ?)

[north pollen]

no, i meant that it is lerping from 0%-100% from bottom to top, so that means the top will have rought edges, right?

[dusky basin]

Hum ... no. Lerp in a mixing operations, between A & B, based on T.
If T = 0, result is A, if T= 0.25, result is 75%A+25%B, if T=0.5 its half A + half B, if T = 1, result is B.

And with this setup, each layer has a starting height transition, and an ending height transition. Then higher up is the starting height transition of the nest layer, and go on.

[north pollen]

oh dang my bad, it anyway would work how it is desired to... if it blends from 0-100, then the next layer will blend from 0-100 again so even though the previous layer ended at 100% opacity (i hope i am using opacity right...), the next layer only starts blending so it anyway makes each layer look like its blending on both ends...

[north pollen]

what would be the best way to "normaalize" the height and slope values?

i have 6 different textures, so trying to find a balance with all the values is really tricky.... it would be much easier if the height was in a range of 0-1, no matter the size of the object, and the same for the slope...

and i noticed that in the layerSubGraph, when changing the heightMinMax max value to something less than 1, it doesnt change anything....

[dusky basin]

You can use the "object" node that has the position and bouding box size, to calculate a relative Y position within the bounds, between 0 and 1.

[dusky basin]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. The slope takes priority ? Bad connections ?

[north pollen]

in the sub graph, when i try modifying the max value of the height range to something below 1, i would expect the top part of the preview to become black, but it doesnt...

[dusky basin]

The preview is displayed on a 3D sphere of radius 1, so the Y values range from -0.5 to 0.5

[north pollen]

if you change the the max height to 0.2, does it change anything?