Moddeling: Creating a Mountain (from a molehill of skill)

[pixelmonk]

Hi,
I'm working on a really cool project, to make a title sequence for an expedition trip up Mount Everest. As a budding 3D learner I saw the 3D potential and jumped at the chance to work on it, but since have come up to quite a stumbling block - how do I not only make Everest but even a simple mountain in Maya?

As a relative newcomer to Maya I've thoroughly searched for the past couple of days to find a simple step-by-step tutorials, but to no luck. I have tried using displacement maps (of the Himalayan range) but just can't seem to get it to work. I noticed that Maya has a Mountain shader, but I have had no luck in getting this to work either. I don't think I have got the hang of Hypershader at all.

Can anyone help me in fairly step-by-step tutorials, or know of any URL's that may be of use?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks


www.learning-maya.com (http://www.learning-maya.com) has one or two on how to do it (I think).

how to texture one:
http://www.pixero.com/tutorials_terrain.html

[kungfuelmosan]

how to texture one:
http://www.pixero.com/tutorials_terrain.html

^ completely agree with pixolmonk for the texturing and for the modelling youll want to use selection deformers (i think thats what theyre called for a memory) selection deformers allow you to click and adjust the surrounding verts with falloff.

to get it looking like everest youd then need to pull the verts like crazy to make it look jaggered and sharp or I highly reccomend ZBrush if you have access.

another way to do it is just create a jaggered closed curve (create poly tool) for the base and extrude it up (extrude poly face) scaling every time then move random verts and smooth it with keep hard edges selection on and sculpt polys - smooth tool in random places

[katisss]

maybe you can get a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) Terrain Displacement for modelling

http://www.dezfx.com/HTML_pages/TutorialPages/DEM_tutorial/DEMTutorial_1.html

[Lozgriff]

Thanks guys - katisss, that tutorial looks just the ticket!

I'll see how I get on

Thanks

[BigSky]

Depending on the shot, you could very possibly get away with projection mapping a photograph. This gives you a lot for a little. I can't think of any tutorials right now, but a quick seach for image mapping, camera mapping, projection mapping, 21/2-D should show a load of reference. Good luck.

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