Hi guys,

recently I switched from World Machine to Houdini for my landscape stuff and I am pretty overwhelmed. The control you get with this piece of software is enormous! … but I have pretty big problems with the erode node and I hope you can help me.

It's about getting big shapes to refine them later.

In World Machine I have three basic sliders - Duration,Rock Hardness and Sediment Carry Amount.
When I want to get really big break ups and shapes, I crush the duration to the top, set the hardness pretty low and crank up the sediment carry amount. This way I get big erosion ‘valleys’.

That is what I want to achieve in Houdini and I know it is possible, but I can't get find the right parameters.
I think a lot of you knows this example here:



As you can see in the second picture, it's possible to get these big shapes, but the only thing I can achieve is what you can see in the last picture. These fine lines are everyhwere. Obviously I start with a low resolution, so these flow lines are pretty rough, but they have almost no effect on the general shape

What are the main parameters to get the most control over it?

I hope you can help me.
Thanks and have a great day.

Greetings

I guess you could try the “removal rate” parm in the advanced tab of the erode filter

Thats what I thought, because it kind of sounds like this would work, but I don't get these major shapes.

The fine erosion lines are now a bit deeper and a bit longer, but they are still small and not big

hey for sure there are more proper ways to do that, but you can consider to art direct yourself the big erosion lines.

Have a look at this rough concept

This works pretty well actually! This is a really good solution when you want to have full control - didn't thought of that.
I think I have to learn, that with Houdini is a lot more possible - Thanks!

Anyway - I am still interestend in doing this the ‘natural’ way.

nice! please update the thread if you find any “natural” way to do that, I'm curious too!

cheers

Hi!
Happy new year everyone!
Have you find a solution guys?
It seams that the erode node dont work the same way since H17. The erosion (details / size) are not linked to the Heightfield résolution anymore. So you always get small details.

Have a great day guys!

Hi EnDrX,

Happy new year, too… and sadly, I didn't found a solution to this problem.
In the past month I really pushed my Houdini terrain skills forward, but the erosion is the one main thing that let me think, that this package isn't really production ready.

Really - I can't find the right settings and there are so much of them, that it`s really hard for me to finde the right solution.

Again. When somebody find a solution, I would be happy to give it a try

Hey!
I found the solution!

Since H17 and the Erode 2.0 , erode dont work the same as before!
So the only way to achieve the same result is to use the ‘old’ node for your first blocking pass!
To do that. You just need to show the old nodes in the UI. And then you will see two Erode Node!!


Hope thats help! ^^



Corentin

Ahhhh, that's sound great!
Thanks - but it still feels totally off, because using an old node for this kind of erosion seems not correct.

Erode in houdini feels actually like a beta or alpha. The results are nothing compared to the world machine erosion

That said I decided to make a small Houdini/WorldMachine bridge. The main shape (including the first rough erosion pass) is done in Houdini. The heightfield is plugged into a utility node and with a single click the heightfield is imported into World Machine and send back after setting up the erosion in world machine.