Create Gorgeous Landscapes With Ease

World Builder takes your design skills to new highs by generating amazingly clear landscape features such as mountains, rivers, coastlines, snowfall, etc in a few simple steps

Sunday, February 01, 2009

WorldBuilder is a 3D program for terrain creation. It has floating toolbars that can be edited and redesigned. The new 'Materials Editor' shows previews of your terrain in different rendering options. You can make a dense forest from a single tree or a lawn from a single blade of grass. After creating the terrain, you can add textures and other physical objects such as trees, lakes, clouds etc. You can animate any attribute like position of a light, texture of a mountain, motion of clouds, etc. WorldBuilder can import or export a wide variety of 3D formats like 3DS, Vue, Obj, AWB animation etc. There are two editions available: WorldBuilder 4 Genesis for novices and Pro to support animation and includes Rosetta Communicator plug in. This plug in allows the integration between WorldBuilder Pro and other 3D packages that include LightWave 3D and 3ds Max.

The opening window shows four different views. Go to the 'Scene' tree and expand CompoundSky. Hide the AltostratusClouds2 and SunDiskWithHalo1 for speedier rendering.

Enlarge 'Perspective' camera view window. For this, double click on the word 'Perspective'. Select the 'Zoom' tool and zoom the object.

Go to the 'Library' menu. Press 'Volcano03' from the 'Skeleton' group and drag it into the 'Scene' tree list. Press 'Render' to see the 'Landscape.'

Go to 'Scene' tree and press 'Landscape0'. Select 'Settings' from properties and change 'points' to 1024. Enable 'Cast Shadow' and 'Shielded Polygon culling.'

Select the 'Skin' property, change 'Evolution' to 80 and 'Roughness' to 89'. Right click on 'Skin' and add 'Landscape Erosion Type II'. This shall introduce the 'Mudflow Effect.'

Select 'Sand02' from the 'Library' material group. Click and Drag the 'Sand02' object into the 'Area 1 (full)' below the 'Landscape0' tree. Render again to see the difference.

For depicting grassaround the volcano, change to 'wireframe' and select 'Landscape0' scene. Create a new area around the base of the volcano using the 'Create Area' tool.

Click on new area 'Area 2' and select 'GrandFir 1' from 'Library' trees group. Drag the 'GrandFir 1' into 'Properties' tree. Select the type as 'Scattered Vegetation'.

Go to 'Properties' and select 'Placing Conditions'. Set 'Altitude Range' as 50 and -30, and 'Slope Exposure' as 30. Select 'Shadows&Reflections' and enable all options.

Select 'Grass20' from 'Library' materials group and drag into the 'Area 1 (full) scene. In Properties, select 'Grass20' and change 'Placing Conditions' values as shown.

Select 'Snow02' from the 'Library' materials group and drag it into the 'Area 1 (full)' scene. In Properties, select 'Snow02' and change the 'Placing Conditions' values shown.

Click on 'Cumulonimbus' cloud and drag it to within the 'Crater'. Select 'Cloud Shape' property and change the values as shown. Set 'Height above Surface' as 40.

Click on 'Cumulonimbus' cloud again and place it on top of the first cloud. Select the new cloud and change values as shown. Set 'Height above Surface' as 80.

Repeat the previous step a few more times. Select each cloud and set the values bigger each time. Also place the new cloud on top of the previous cloud. Click on the Render icon.

For fine tuning, select 'Cloud Shape' and change each cloud's Voxel Number, Random Seed and Spheres Number. Do some variations with the 'Cloud Profile' as well.

Real volcanoes contain gases, steam, mud and ash when they erupt. Change cloud color to R180, G180, B180 and Ambient color to R255, G235, B170 for all clouds. Start rendering now.

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