How to create complex structures / objects in the sand / beach ?

AndyS

Hi,

I want to let my kids play in the sand at the beach. They want to dig up big holes / trenches in the sand to find buried treasures, bury treasure chests or even bury each other in the sand.
Now we need to create dug out holes, sandpiles, etc. How to create this with DAZ 3D and Genesis Essentials?

I know, there's an addon in the shop called "Waves on the Beach". But is it possible to create the objects named above?
On my first attempt I tried to create a scene using the "primitives" and jpg's as textures.

But the real problem is the transitions between the walls of a hole (dark moist sand) and the sandpiles (not that moist) and the dry sand of the untouched beach. And of cause smooth curves from one to the other object.

Any suggestions, how that can be created in a realistic way?

Andrew

pwiecek

Off the top of my head, military prop sets often have trenches, foxholes, berms etc. SOme of them are free.

Scott Livingston

I think you're on the right track: applying a sand texture to a 3D object. But instead of using primitives, you can achieve better results by making your own terrain in a modeling program (ZBrush, Blender, Hexagon, etc.). Or, if you want to try doing it all in DAZ Studio, try using d-formers.

There's also this product, which could come in handy: http://www.daz3d.com/rolling-plains-morphing-terrain

Dream Cutter

The new version of MessiahStudio 3D DOES THIS! Its new engine supports particle based Terrain so you can make snow into mounds and drifts or dig in a beach dune. http://www.projectmessiah.com/x6/index.html
MessiahStudio is a powerful but affordable 3d animation package used by professional movie studios and hobbiests that will import Daze figures fine. However do not expect too much developer suppport as its a very small team that publishes MessiahStudio.

AndyS

Hi,

I followed the hints with the rolling planes and the d-formers.
Thank you so far.

As I found, the grid of the rolling planes is way too coarse. Perhaps round 1 point per meter. For my purpose I need a grid with around 1 point per centimeter. Never the less I gave it a try. The result is visible in the deviant art gallery.
--> http://andysanderson.deviantart.com/gallery/
User login is necessary.
On the first lok it looks a nice story, but not really satisfying.

Alternatively I try to attach the pics. They're in 3D red/green technique.

Andrew

ben98120000

You can convert your terrain to subdivision (select the terrain, go to edit - object - geometry - convert to subD). Than you can set terrain to high resolution, subdivision 1 or 2 with various types of subdivision algorithm in parameters tab - mesh resolution. Than you can export terrain as an wavefront object .obj and import it again (file export / import). This will give d-formers more points to work with. Make sure that terrain is only thing in scene or that rest of the things is invisible (clicking on eye icon in scene tab) with "ignore invisible nodes" checked (active) in export menu. You can do this more than once, like convert to subd, export, import, convert to subd again, export, import etc. It will also make more polygons for your hardware to deal with. So if you had like 10K polygons terrain, export import with high resolution, subdivision 1 will increase polygon number by x4 (40K) or hi res sub 2 by x16 (x4x4) (160K).

You can also apply smoothing & collision modifier to the terrain (select the terrain, go to edit - object - geometry - apply smoothing modifier) which will give you option to set you character figure as collision item for the terrain in its (terrain) parameters tab - mesh smoothing. That will make various effects on terrain, depending on your character position. If character is close to terrain it will make slight indentations in terrain as if trying to avoid it or if you push / put you character deeper it will try to cover it up (tinker with various settings in parameters/smoothing menu) giving more realistic looking interaction between character and terrain than just straight cutoff lines. Subdivision also comes in handy with smoothing, giving smoother looking effects.

Also you can put sand jpg texture map image into displacement (and / or bump) strength channel in the surface tab of the terrain (click on little square like icon with down pointing triangle - browse). Than you can set displacement strength to 100%, minimum displacement to something like -0.50, max to 0.50 and render the picture to see how it looks like (effect wont show up until you render it). After, you can lower and increase values to what you think is ok. This will make a more textured looking (more depth) terrain instead of image on more flat looking terrain. Displacement / bump is based on lightness / darkness of the color. Brighter / whiter going up (maximum value) and darker / blacker going (minimum value) down, so it usually uses black & white or grayscale image maps. But if you dont have displacement image map, it will somewhat work with colored images too. On some images you posted the sand looks like brighter areas are down and darker are up, so you might want to reverse the displacement effect by putting positive value in minimum and negative value in maximum, making displacement to go more hand in hand with the sand image.

AndyS

Hi Ben,

thank you. That sounds very interesting. I'm going to try it some time.
The last days I succeeded to create a little trench like hole in an own little plane with beach texture. But if you have very steep rims then you run into some realism problems with the surface texture.
Perhaps your latest hints will help. .-?

Andrew

AndyS

Hello all,

at first thank you for your help. And especially the tutorials on youtube are really helpfull.

First I succeeded more in creating the hole. The only problem now is to get realistic textures for these large structures.

Then I tried the hint with the collision modifiers. And yes, it workes. In the example I first let the character make his imprints in the sand surface. Next I let his feet penetrate through the surface and it looked as if he was sinking in mud. :)

I attach the two examples.
The Sandplay again is in 3D. Here you see the sandpile, the hole and little sand allready filled in.

Yours
Andrew

ManStan

Dream Cutter said:

The new version of MessiahStudio 3D DOES THIS! Its new engine supports particle based Terrain so you can make snow into mounds and drifts or dig in a beach dune. http://www.projectmessiah.com/x6/index.html
MessiahStudio is a powerful but affordable 3d animation package used by professional movie studios and hobbiests that will import Daze figures fine. However do not expect too much developer suppport as its a very small team that publishes MessiahStudio.

http://www.daz3d.com/software/carrara ;-)

Jaderail

Dream Cutter, please stop posting links to Off site PRGS. Your are very close to the TOS violation of posting an add for a program. I'm not reporting it as a violation but please read the TOS again. I know you are trying to help, and that is why the post are allowed. A better way would be to use the PM for such things.