I'm trying to create lunar terrain for a personal project.
I have been learning the Houdini Terrain Tools, but I'm not quite getting the look I'm after.
Please find attached an annotated photo of Tycho Crater's Central Peak on the Moon.
How would you:

• Generate the "tundra" in the mid and background?
  
• Create rocky strata on the central peak revealed by slumping of the finer material?
  
• Create brighter material revealed by the slumping of darker material?
  
• Create bright and dark streaks in the slumping material?
  

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Hi,

since I do not know the Houdini terrain tools heres a more generic proposal.

Methods:

A) Artistic. Use the reference photo and manually sculpt and paint something similar with a sculpting app. You could paint color for brighter and darker areas. Then import the model with a displacement map. Set up lighting, a shader, end render.

B) Semi-automatically. Find more data for the scene. If possible use photogrammetry or height maps. Maybe do some cleanup using some organic sculpting app.

C) If you do not really have to match the scene closely you could experiment with shading patterns that drive displacement. Then figure out how to integrate various patterns.

I’d probably investigate option C. (Recently I experimented with Karma and attribute painting. So this I would develop further, to mix proceduralism and artistc control)

Apps for oeganic sculpting: ZBrush/Sculptris/Blender.

Hi SWest, thanks for your suggestions.
I'm about 90% there with Houdini Terrain tools.
I was hoping someone on this forum could provide me clues as to how to get the rest of the way using procedural methods.
If I'm not able to do that, my fallback is your suggestions of more artistic methods.
i.e. get it as far as I can using the Houdini terrain tools, exporting to polygonal geometry, then sculpting and texturing in other tools.

Thanks

Then one suggestion is to maybe show the difference between your case and the goal, just to make things more specific.

To do = goal - present (i.e the change is the gap)

I think the key here is to take a multi-layered / masked approach. Build the big shapes first, then add additional, masked and layered heightfield noises to to develop the details.

For the 'tundra' you might want to consider some base layers of hf noise - perhaps clipped - along with a scattered selection of geometry rocks on top for the larger elements.

As always the first thing to consider is simply what you'll see if the final shots - how close will you get, how much 'land area' will you see etc.