In this quick video tip for Blender 2.5 we take a look at using the ANT Landscape generator add-on that is bundled with Blender. This tutorial gives an overview of all the settings available from the script while generating a very cool terrain that otherwise would be quite difficult to create.
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Discussion
65 Responses to “Tip: Using the ANT Landscape Add-on”Leave a Comment
the video is weirdd every time you move something the screen goes out of focus for some reson can you sort it out please
Great tutorial but bad video quality recording.
actually if you just watch the tutorial in Hi-Def, there should be very little pixelation or blur. I am having absolutely no problem seeing what he’s doing, but I’m using firefox 4 beta 12, which could have something to do with it. Also check that all your plugins are updated.
overall great tutorial; very much better than the displace modifier method I’ve used!
I watched it in HD. Pretty good video with no problems.
Thanks for the tip, but the video is horrible. Blurry to the point of not being able to view most of the time.
sorry jonathan but that video is unwatchable for me very bad encoding
So sorry for the mixup every. I have re-encoded the video and uploaded again.
-Jonathan
Hi Jonathan – quick question – If for some reason you lose the landscape operator panel (by doing something else) – is there a way to get it back?
Hi Brenner,
If the operator panel changes to something else then there is no way to get the landscape settings back because you have activated a new tool. At this point you need to delete the mesh and readd it if you wish to change the settings.
-Jonathan
Actually you can, it’s just a little bit tricky. Just hit F3, and re-add the mesh from the “repeat history” menu, than you can continue editing from where you stopped….
Thanks guys
Paulo – I tried your suggestion. The problem is that any changes I make in the Operators panel only affects the new landscape – not the old original one, even when it is selected.
That’s right once you close the ANT menu in the operator panel yo can’t open it again, but you still can add another mesh from the history and delete the other later…
I noticed you were able to rotate your camera without exiting landscape mode.. is there a way to lock landscape mode in order to rotate the camera? Gets very annoying when i have to delete and start all over again.
never mind I believe it works now.
For animating the effect, you could just duplicate the settings for the custom terrain and then make an exact duplicate (same subdivision level) and then apply one as a shape key for the other. It would get slightly clutter y when you’d use multiple shape keys though.
That is so awesome. It’s like bryce and this time you can really fine tune the landscape
I was forcibly reminded of Bryce when I saw this tutorial. In fact, I reinstalled Bryce just the other day to see if I could figure out a workflow between the landscape editor in Bryce and mesh editing in Blender. This plugin makes that process unnecessary!
If I were to complain about ONE missing feature, it would be that the plugin doesn’t allow importing of height maps. I wonderhow hard that would be to code into the plugin…..
It’s not how the operators work in blender. All of the operators like this one work pretty much solely on user input and that input is active only until a new operator is called. It makes blender real fast to use in most situations but sometimes it would be nice to adjust the values later on indeed. This tool however could also be available as a modifier.
Bringing black and white height-maps in image format would be real easy though. This tool mostly just uses the options inside blender already anyhow… Just makes those easy. Anyhow, I’ll give you a hint. Displace modifier. Put a subsurf before it and you’ll have an adjustable resolution too.
Awesome tutorial. I can see this addon being very useful. How about a tutorial on texturing and rendering a landscape?
Agree with Daniel, please make tutorial for texturing and rendering the generated landscape.
http://orihimetaichou.deviantart.com/#/d3ap0zs
Some experimental stuff I did….
Rendered with 3delight
That is pretty sweet
I agree with Wes. I especially like the top image with the depth of field going on. Cool.
Thanks
You could probably make a duplicate and make one high resolution and one low resolution and then bake the high resolution to the low resolution, so you don’t have to use such a high subdivision level.
This wonderful add-on ought to have the feature of bakery. So it will be very useful and without additional clicks.
Also maybe this baking will be generating a surface by tiles to avoid problems with insufficient memory.
Strata – I think it’s supposed to indicate Clouds. When you up the numbers, it looks like rolling clouds in the mountains.
Nice stuff. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to put my M4 in this mountain scene . .. after the next part of course
Hi,Jonathan Williamson,
Thanks for another addon landscape tool quick tip tutorial.
I have several tutorial in hand now,I may follow later to create some mountains matching with real world scenery.
thanks, just what I needed right now.
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Beautiful tutorial , now its time to see ,what me and my machine can do
Seeing how far I could push the resolution on my machine
http://orihimetaichou.deviantart.com/#/d3ar4tv
Blender didn’t crash, I just didn’t, and probably won’t, try going any higher than this
Thats some cool plugin, if only i knew about it before, i would’ve saved me hours
Fantastic!
In my opinion, over time these add-ons should be moved to the modifier panel, mainly for convenience reasons.
Thanks Jonathan.
http://orihimetaichou.deviantart.com/art/High-Res-199603565
High-Res
Thanks for this wonderful tutorial, now I can add landscapes without any problem.
Thanks, Jonathan. I’ve played around with the landscape add-on before, but your tutorial really helped me better understand what was going on. I love these quick tip tutorials. I find them very useful and they are something I can do in one sitting without having to have multiple multi-hour sessions that may be days apart in order to finish one of the longer tuts. Don’t get me wrong, the longer tuts are extremely useful as well, but the shorter tuts fit my long workday schedule better.
I like how you took the time to research the parameters and have an understanding of what the algorithm was doing so that you could explain it to us without just saying “If you play around with the settings you might get lucky!”
Because that would be pointless.
i am going to import this to unity 3d is it worth it?
coolcool, quite a useful tool there…
I just downloaded blender a few days ago and I’m not sure exactly how it works, but, I keep trying to pull up the user preferences and all I get is a black screen. I tried using ctrl+alt+u and goint to file and clicking on user preferences and I still get the same result. Can someone help please?
Hi Josh, it sounds like you may need to update your video card driver.
-Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
I assume that landscape you show in the tutorial is based on a set of data that consist of x, y, C
where:
x – x axis value (horizontal plane)
y – y axis value (horizontal plane)
x, y values are given for a uniform mesh
C a value in the x,y location (looks like height in the example)
What I really like to do is to provide my own x,y,and C values, say an ASCII or binary file that has a table of x, y, C values separated by say space or what ever ANT can work with.
If that’s not possible with ANT, do you know of a way to import such data into blender and view it as a 3D object?
Thanks in advance.
Very cool tutorial! Wow, this is an amazing add-on! Now I just have to figure out how to texture/paint things like water, grass, etc. on the landscapes and I’ll be a happy camper =)
Hey Jonathan, for some reason, after I add my landscape mesh, if I try to move it at all or do anything to it, that panel on the left below “Landscape” disappears and I can’t figure out how to get it back! It’s driving me nuts. Any ideas?
Hi Jason, the settings panel is only available immediately after adding the mesh. Currently the only way to get it back is to delete your mesh and re add it. Hopefully this will be changed in thfuture.
nice tutorial i have been playing around with this for a few days now to see how i can make a realistic landscape to use for an image i have in my head.
im fairly new to blender and sometimes find it very confusing but you, jonathan help me allot with your tutorials.
is there an tutorial on how to texture this aswell? it would be awesome to be able to texture it aswell ^^
Hi i have blender 2.49b i was wondering if this add-on is avalible for this or if i have to download version 2.61 or a different version for this to work? thanks.
when i click to move it along the x,y or z axis the landscape box changes to translate (or something allong those lines) does anyone know how to get back to the landscape box
in the toolbar you mean? you cant (as explained in the video) you will have to start over.
aww manm
You can certainly see your skills in the paintings you write. The world hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to say how they believe. At all times follow your heart.
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