The result is a more attractive, more understandable relief. Whereas the standard hillshade algorithm makes pixels lighter or darker based solely on which direction they’re facing, Blender looks at the scene’s context, and whether that pixel is in a mountain shadow or is in a position to catch scattered light. But the Blender relief makes its structure clear, thanks to the improved modeling of lighting. It’s hard to tell how wide it is, or that it’s a valley at all, when looking at the standard hillshade. Certain features of the landscape become more apparent - look at the valley below, running northeast-southwest. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two methods:īlender’s result not only looks more attractive and realistic, it’s also more intelligible, I think. In a standard hillshade, I think you lose the forest for the trees. Notice also how the structure of the terrain becomes more apparent. The peaks cast shadows, and then those shadowed areas are gently lit by light scattered off of nearby mountain faces. Here’s Blender’s version of the same area: It’s intended to simulate the complexities of how light really works: the way it scatters, the way it reflects from one mountain to the next, and the way its absence creates shadows. People use it for CGI, animations, and plenty more cool stuff.
Blender car modeling tutorial using references full#
This standard GIS hillshade looks OK, but it’s rather noisy and harsh.Īs Leland Brown has put it, this looks sort of like wrinkled tinfoil full of sharp edges.īlender, on the other hand, is designed specifically for 3D modeling. All of these programs use basically the same algorithm, and you get a pretty similar results, as seen below. Most of the cartographers I know do their shaded relief in ArcMap or another GIS program, or sometimes they use Photoshop or Natural Scene Designer.
![blender car modeling tutorial using references blender car modeling tutorial using references](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VGPvxIrobFE/maxresdefault.jpg)
Why Blender? In short: Blender makes better-looking relief. Version 1.0 (Nov 16, 2017) - Initial release of text version. Both of these tips are courtesy of Dunstan Orchard. Version 1.1 (Jan 29, 2018) - Changes to Chapter 6: Added section on denoising, and alterered render settings to suggest using Limited Global Illumination. Version 1.2 (May 14, 2018) - Added new section in Chapter 7, pointing readers toward the idea of rendering relief on a pre-colored plane. Thanks to Diane Fritz for her notes on changes, which helped me double-check my work. Removed some no-longer-needed material, such as UV unwrapping, are no longer needed. Many steps rewritten to reflect new interface elements and new names for tools/features/menu items. All screenshots replaced to reflect the new UI. Version 2.0 (Sep 29, 2019) - Major revision for Blender 2.80. Version 2.1 (Oct 30, 2019) - Added step in Chapter 6 to change the heightmap’s color space, to avoid lowlands being washed out. Denoising is now default, so I adjusted that section and removed a good chunk of it. Discussed render performance earlier (as it bogged down for me earlier in the process).