Mojotech (not only) for Bryce Users: Tutorial

Breaking
The Monotony

The little picture above shows the same World again, with just one change made to it. Adding a Fractal to modulate the Result Scale of one of the Terrain Textures has raised larger masses of Land above the Sea. To make it more interesting to explore, I still left small islands to appear all over the Oceans. This has also created an extremely rugged coast line with lots of bays and peninsulae, making it even more interesting.
It has also increased the time it takes to calculate scenes a lot. Adding more Fractals always inreases the time Mojoworld takes to do it's calculations.

Open the Texture Editor for the Terrain Height and look at he texture for the first Leaf. We are interested in the Result Scale Parameter. It is set to create a Terrain with more or less equally tall highest mountains all over the Planet. Oceans are big places where even the tops of the highest mountains are below the Sea Level, right?

Let us vary the Result Scale to be different in different places across the World.
To the left of the Result Scale Parameter, there's a little semi-circle icon. It opens a list where you can choose Widget, Texture or Function to create values for the Result Scale. It is currently set to "Widget". The Widget creates one value for all points on the World's Surface. Choose "Texture" instead, click on the "t" icon which now replaces the Widget and follow the procedure you already learned to create a new Texture Node and Leaf. Name the Node "Scale Texture Node" and call the Leaf "Terrain 1 Scale". Edit the Monofractal as shown in the screen picture below, and then I'll explain.

The Result Scale is now different for each point on the Planet according to the output of the Fractal in "Terrain 1 Scale". You can see why this takes much longer to calculate than before.
The Largest Feature is 800000. This tells MojoWorld to create small Continents and Seas up to 800km across. Small Continents usually look more interesting than large ones.
We also need to set the Result Scale for this Fractal - otherwise the Result Scale for the Terrain we are "modulating" would be nowhere greater than 1. It would all be submerged. 30000 seems rather large, compared to 5000 set by the Widget we started with. It surprised me a little that I needed to set it that high for an impressive Terrain, but thinking about it: there's also the Terrain 2 component to consider, which is still scaled by the Widget to about 5000 maximum, and the "beyond output" behaviours of various curves. Sometimes, Mojoworld's calculations get a little too complex for beginners to follow and difficult to explain for those trying to write tutorials... anyway, I found that this way I get some impressive huge hills between 10000 and 15000 meters tall, with most of the others being reasonably close to "Earth Scale".

Anywhere you see that little semi-circle icon attached to the Control Stack, you can choose a Texture or a Function to create values for that Parameter. Some very interesting effects are possible this way, but be prepared to pay with extra render time and everything taking a bit longer. And not everything is as predictable as what we just did.

There are still plenty of small Islands left, and I chose to leave it at that. The larger land masses are also quite torn and rugged. But I decided it looks cool and I like it. We could drive the Terrain 2 scale with a Fractal as well and use the Curve Editor to drown those islands, perhaps introduce more Terrain Texture blends, but our Planet would take ever longer to calculate and look less interesting for explorers. Let us leave it at this, and move on to Textures for our Materials, make clouds and improve on the atmosphere. You'll use the Pro UI to make waves for the water the way you can't in the Main Interface. To add more variation, we can use Local Parameter Helper Objects ("Parameter Bombs" - what a concept!!!) and also: Climate Zones using Latitude Blend. It's more stuff for side bars.

There are many other methods for blending land shapes and oceans. I'll show you the one I use most of the time in another side bar, when I'm ready. You'll be able to work with a Terrains, Oceans and Archipelagos Mix and Match Kit.