Terrain generation in Blender

I just created my first terrain mesh in Blender and it was a piece of cake! I created a 32x32 "grid" and used the new "mesh sculpt" tools to push, pull and smooth the mesh to the desired relief. I could have also used the new texture feature, but didn't want that effect for this terrain. Last step was to set the UV's and I was done. I used a stock "dirt" texture I had that included a grayscale bumpmap, imported that with conversion and voila, done. Whole process took maybe 2 minutes. It was so easy I can't wait to try something more complex.

I'd include a screen shot, but since it's a deep, underwater terrain you don't really see much. but when it's lit by a light it looks -perfect-.

 

I'm intrigued... but I can't find the sculpt tool for mac, only for windows/linux.

 

I think this is the latest build for OSX:
http://graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=176
Just copy this binary to your Blender folder and launch it instead of the normal Blender 2.42a binary. FYI, the lead developer for this project went on vacation so no new developments are expected for at least a couple of weeks.

Here's the forum thread:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=71671

 

I tried downloading that one, but even when I put it in my blender folder, I get one bounce and then it exits. It is an intel build only?

 

Mine works fine. The sculpt tools seem a bit unrefined. They completely mess up when working with a cube, but Planes work a little bit. Good enough to do some random, bumpy landscapes, or sharp jagged ones.

 

No...you need Python 2.4. It doesn't work with Python 2.3.

--Eric

 

Huh? How refined your sculpt is may be because your mesh isn't dense enough. Have you tried subdividing a couple times before sculpting?

 

Yeah, I subdivided a lot. Unrefined as in, I can't get it to do exactly what I want, or sometimes it won't even do anything at all, but It's mostly working. Also in the sculpt version of blender, the X, Y, and Z arrows don't show up for moving your model.

 

Works fine here, with cubes or anything else. And, the arrows show up if you turn the 3D transform manipulator on. I never use that though; the keyboard commands are faster for everything.

--Eric

 

i'm going to be testing different 3d terrain apps for pc with crossovermac...www.codeweavers.com
i'm enlisting in their advocate program to get the apps supported by codeweaver. anyone else is welcome to try also. i figure if i can get good apps designed for 3d game terrain running on my intel-mac then that will compliment the art pipeline even more. the beta download is free for 60 days and installs easily so feel free to give it a try. i think this will be big for the mac game dev community. imagine tools like genetica within our grasp...oooooh