terrain generation
 

How do you make terrain using maya? Is there any way to make a terrain from a grayscale bitmap?

I don't think you can in Maya. Sorry.

Of course he can Darkware.

He could map a displacement texture to a polygon plane with lot´s of subdivisions. I don´t know how he could bake it though, but I´m sure others could have that answer.

There's several ways to go about it.

check these out:

SM Link 1

SM Link 2

SM Link 3

There are alot of ways to model terrain but one thing I just came across you might be interested in is a little plugin called DEM2TGA which converts 1:250,000 scale (DEM) data and creates a TGA (Targa Image) files from it. You can download USGS geographic data (in DEM format) via the web to base your geometry on actual terrain, convert to TGA and use that in a displacement map.

Other than that, you could use the sculpt surfaces tool to push and pull geometry into shape.....or just model the geometry by hand. This all I can think of off the top of my head.

Damn, I type slow....you guys beat me to the post (I forgot about that old mountain render in smhoward's 3rd link). ;)

Yes. There are a ton of terrain generator plugins for maya. Maybe not a ton, but a lot. Look at the plugin section of highend3d.com.

NitroLiq - That old mountain renderer is one of the greatest i've seen. I like it. :)

Oh, and sorry for stealing your thunder. :) LOL

See it can be done in Maya. Anything can be done in Maya. If you can imagine it it can be done. Somehow.

Check out Terragen....I looked around for some info on exporting to maya and the closest I got was something for 3d max...anyways check it out.


http://www.terrasource.net/#workwith

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Like was said in in smhoward's 3rd link, to "BAKE" the displacement, you would simply convert your displacement to polygons, and smooth:)

Or try just making a really large plane and then use the sculpt tool and pull the terrain up. works for me.