Peterson sessions

Working on Geo assignments of late, running Terragen renders in the background. The latest renders are taking upwards of 5 hours to coalesce as they invariably become more complex and include more and more variables. I have a system where I generate a low resolution render that takes 4-5mins, and if I'm happy with it I go on to generate a high resolution version.

I actually haven't done any Terragen research or reading for a while, I'm just trying to reach the limits of my current knowledge. This approach may soon have run its course and I am thinking its nearly time to add to my knowledge base. I'm a little hesitant about incorporating objects into my gens as I know they are going to be very processor intensive and significantly blow out render times, which are expanding anyway. At any rate, its the landscape and geological side of Terragening that most interests me. I find generating landscape analogies in this way insightful when thinking about real world geological and geographical systems. And some of the renders look cool too!

Some of the renders below use a green surface shader to imply "grass", I think that tends to work well for the most part anyway.

(Top 3) Mature sedimentary landscape with lake. Getting the strata and outcrop shader to look good has been a challenge. I've found that stacking a few of them adds some much needed randomness to the layering of sediments. As any landscape photographer will tell you, the best time of day to take photos is at sunrise or sunset. The contrast of light and shadow highlights the three dimensional qualities of any land form.
(Bottom 3) Glitching the settings to generate unusual landscapes, purely for aesthetic reasons.