00:00 So, in this tutorial, I will show you
00:02 

00:02 how you can use an image file to either
00:05 

00:05 texture your landscape or just as a
00:07 

00:07 guide to help sculpt and create your
00:10 

00:10 landscape or possibly both. So, so
00:13 

00:13 this is just an image that I downloaded.
00:15 

00:15 I think it was from Pixels. It's just an
00:17 

00:17 aerial top-down view. And we've got some
00:20 

00:20 fields. And we've got a dirt road here
00:22 

00:22 as well. There isn't much height in the
00:24 

00:24 actual image, but I'll add in a bit more
00:26 

00:26 detail so you can see how it's done.
00:27 

00:27 I'll just minimize that for a second. To
00:29 

00:29 start with, I just want a couple of
00:31 

00:31 simple layers for the landscape. So, one
00:33 

00:33 is going to be for the road. For that,
00:35 

00:35 I'll use a pear in. So, I'm going to
00:37 

00:37 right click [snorts] in the graph and
00:38 

00:38 search for pin. I'll add a pearl in.
00:41 

00:41 Just rotate the angle a bit. I'm going
00:42 

00:42 to increase the scale. And I just want
00:44 

00:44 something that's flat. Doesn't have to
00:46 

00:46 be completely flat, of course, but just
00:48 

00:48 flat for the road with a bit of detail
00:51 

00:51 like this. As it is a mud a mud road,
00:54 

00:54 it's good to have this bit of detail.
00:55 

00:55 Select that pearl and press Ctrl + D to
00:57 

00:57 double it up. I'm going to change the
00:59 

00:59 seed. This way I can have a bit of
01:01 

01:01 variation and also I can actually mask
01:04 

01:04 out from one ping node to another which
01:07 

01:07 I will show you very shortly. So now
01:10 

01:10 I've done this. I'm going to drag off
01:11 

01:11 for the first pin and just plug it into
01:13 

01:13 the socket the out socket of the second
01:15 

01:15 pin. In the combine I'll just keep them
01:18 

01:18 blended together uh at 0.5. I might
01:21 

01:21 tweak that or change it later on but for
01:23 

01:23 now that's fine. Now what I'm going to
01:25 

01:25 do now is actually sculpt in the road.
01:27 

01:27 And I need the actual image to do that.
01:30 

01:30 So I'm going to select this combine
01:31 

01:31 here. First of all, I'm going to press
01:33 

01:33 F2 and I'm going to call it combine road
01:36 

01:36 just so it identifies that specific
01:37 

01:37 combine which will be useful later. I'm
01:39 

01:39 going to press P. With it still selected
01:41 

01:41 and I'm going to convert that to a
01:42 

01:42 portal. I'm going to right click, search
01:44 

01:44 for texture, select a texture base. I'm
01:47 

01:47 going to press P in the in socket. I'm
01:50 

01:50 going to select the combine road which I
01:52 

01:52 just created. Now I'm going to drag from
01:54 

01:54 out and search for file. So a file node
01:57 

01:57 is where you can bring in your textures
01:59 

01:59 or your image files and you can just
02:01 

02:01 select that and then you can click on
02:04 

02:04 the um in this details you can click on
02:06 

02:06 the little folder browser there or a
02:08 

02:08 quicker way which I tend to use. I just
02:10 

02:10 drag the image from the Windows browser
02:13 

02:13 folder into the graph and there you go.
02:15 

02:15 You can see it immediately. I'm just
02:16 

02:16 going to delete that other file node
02:18 

02:18 there. That was just to show you. One
02:20 

02:20 thing that's important is that make sure
02:22 

02:22 it's set to is RGB as this is a color
02:25 

02:25 file. It's not a grayscale. It's color.
02:27 

02:27 So, make sure that's ticked. Everything
02:28 

02:28 else for this we can leave off or on its
02:32 

02:32 default settings. Now, I'm just going to
02:33 

02:33 drag out from the texture base and plug
02:35 

02:35 to the in of the color file. And there
02:38 

02:38 you go. So, just a couple of points to
02:40 

02:40 this. I downloaded this image um from
02:44 

02:44 online. it didn't come as a square, so I
02:47 

02:47 cropped it to a perfect square. And the
02:50 

02:50 reason simply is so when I bring this
02:53 

02:53 image onto the landscape, there's no
02:55 

02:55 stretching or skewing. Um, so it's as
02:58 

02:58 these landscapes in Gaia are always
02:60 

03:00 square. It just matches up with the
03:02 

03:02 square shape. Now, it's a little bit
03:03 

03:03 dark, but I can fix that later on or you
03:06 

03:06 know, I may in fix it in Unreal Engine
03:08 

03:08 or Blender or May or whatever is your
03:11 

03:11 final um output. For now, that's fine. I
03:13 

03:13 can see it good enough. I am seeing
03:16 

03:16 detail from the pearin. That's this kind
03:17 

03:17 of shapes here. If I just click on
03:19 

03:19 texture base, you can see all the detail
03:21 

03:21 from the pearllin. That's why we're
03:22 

03:22 getting this more bumpy land. For now,
03:25 

03:25 that's fine. Now, with file, select it.
03:27 

03:27 Press F to force it. So, by forcing it,
03:30 

03:30 I'll always be able to see that color
03:32 

03:32 file, that image file. And now, back in
03:35 

03:35 the combine, I'm going to drag off,
03:37 

03:37 search for draw, add a draw node. So the
03:39 

03:39 draw node when you're using it in this
03:40 

03:40 way, plugging it into the mask of a
03:42 

03:42 combine, it'll mask out the node that's
03:45 

03:45 plugged into the second socket. So in
03:47 

03:47 this case, this pin node here is being
03:49 

03:49 masked out. All I need to do now, select
03:51 

03:51 draw. So with draw selected, I'm just
03:53 

03:53 going to make sure first before I do
03:55 

03:55 anything else in the top right hand
03:56 

03:56 side, click on the little drop down
03:58 

03:58 button and make sure it's set to mask.
04:00 

04:00 Now we can click on open painter. And
04:02 

04:02 because we forced the image file, we can
04:06 

04:06 see the actual landscape image uh in
04:09 

04:09 painter. I just need to reduce the size
04:11 

04:11 of the brush. Something like that. I'll
04:13 

04:13 do it so it's a bit bigger than the
04:15 

04:15 road. That should be fine. Height I'm
04:17 

04:17 going to bring I'm going to adjust it up
04:19 

04:19 more into the lighter or white area
04:21 

04:21 which reveals. Then black height and
04:24 

04:24 hardness I can keep as it is. The
04:26 

04:26 strength of this will will control in
04:27 

04:27 another way. And now simply let's just
04:29 

04:29 draw over the road. And as you can see
04:32 

04:32 immediately we can see the effect there
04:34 

04:34 on our landscape. So I'm just going to
04:35 

04:35 draw
04:40 

04:40 the road. Oops, that was weird. I'm just
04:43 

04:43 going to undo that.
04:45 

04:45 It stayed in draw mode for some reason.
04:47 

04:47 I think that's a bit of a bug in draw,
04:49 

04:49 but not a problem. I'll just do that
04:51 

04:51 again. And this that looks fine. And
04:55 

04:55 that's done. So that's great.
04:57 

04:57 >> [snorts]
04:58 

04:58 >> So what you can see is at some point we
05:01 

05:01 have got or at some points we have got
05:02 

05:02 the road which is higher and in some
05:05 

05:05 areas it's actually lower. We just
05:06 

05:06 position it. Now I want this all to be
05:09 

05:09 lower. You may want it to be higher. Um
05:11 

05:11 it's completely like your choice what
05:13 

05:13 effect you're looking for. I want this
05:14 

05:14 to all be
05:16 

05:16 uh pressed downwards or indented
05:19 

05:19 downwards. Now, the reason that it's
05:20 

05:20 higher in some places and lower in other
05:22 

05:22 places, it's just where the two pearling
05:24 

05:24 nodes are crossing over each other. And
05:27 

05:27 what we can do is just to get it get it
05:29 

05:29 so it's always going down. We can select
05:31 

05:31 this pin node here. This is the one
05:33 

05:33 that's marked. So, it's a second pin
05:35 

05:35 node. And in its modifier stack, there's
05:38 

05:38 a drop. So, if you click the drop like
05:39 

05:39 so, you can see it's really dropped it a
05:42 

05:42 lot. Maybe more than we wanted, but
05:45 

05:45 that's actually dropped the height of
05:46 

05:46 the pear in. Okay. So, that's great.
05:48 

05:48 That's working. But we don't want our
05:50 

05:50 row to be this like ridiculously dug
05:53 

05:53 into the landscape. So what we can do is
05:56 

05:56 in the modifier stack, click on the
05:58 

05:58 little plus button first in the row and
06:00 

06:00 go to clamp. Now in this case, we
06:03 

06:03 actually don't want to bring it down the
06:05 

06:05 clamp. We actually want to go from the
06:07 

06:07 zero value and actually increase it,
06:09 

06:09 which should in a moment. There you go.
06:12 

06:12 It pushes up the road and
06:16 

06:16 then you you could have the whole road
06:18 

06:18 elevated above the fields like this. I
06:22 

06:22 want it pushed down a bit. I think that
06:24 

06:24 matches the photo better. So, I'm going
06:25 

06:25 to have it something like that. And this
06:27 

06:27 gives us really nice control over the
06:29 

06:29 height of our road.
06:32 

06:32 This still though is looking a little
06:33 

06:33 bit unnatural. It's quite a sharp edge
06:36 

06:36 we've got there. So finally what I'm
06:37 

06:37 going to do is from the draw node I'm
06:39 

06:39 going to drag off. Search for blur. Add
06:42 

06:42 a blur. Drag off from the blur. Plug
06:44 

06:44 that into combine.
06:46 

06:46 And that's the mass socket of combined.
06:48 

06:48 And then I'm just going to drag down the
06:50 

06:50 radius of the blur cuz it's really
06:52 

06:52 strong. That's looking a bit better. And
06:54 

06:54 I think yeah that looks good. So you can
06:58 

06:58 play around with these values as you
06:60 

06:60 wish. But that gives you the principles
07:03 

07:03 on how to add a road or one way that you
07:05 

07:05 can add a road using [snorts]
07:07 

07:07 um an image as a guide. So this is
07:10 

07:10 pretty much done. Now let's just say you
07:12 

07:12 wanted to add some more detail in it.
07:14 

07:14 Say you wanted to add some higher
07:16 

07:16 ground. What we could do is above the
07:20 

07:20 pling node, right click, search for
07:22 

07:22 mountain. We can add a mountain range.
07:24 

07:24 Let's just stop the file from falling.
07:26 

07:26 We've got our mountain range here. Bring
07:28 

07:28 up the height like so. Let's change the
07:32 

07:32 seed. What I'm looking for is just
07:34 

07:34 mountains that cover the landscape. I
07:36 

07:36 could blend two mountain ranges
07:38 

07:38 together, but for the sake of time and
07:41 

07:41 just to show you the principles, I'll
07:42 

07:42 stick with this one. That should be
07:44 

07:44 fine. Let me just I'm just going to have
07:45 

07:45 a look at the file. Let me actually
07:48 

07:48 Yeah, this is better. Let's stick with
07:49 

07:49 this one. That looks good. Now, I'm
07:51 

07:51 going to drag off of the mountain range.
07:53 

07:53 Actually, I want the mountain range to
07:54 

07:54 be masked out first. So let's drag off
07:56 

07:56 from the combine that's combining the
07:58 

07:58 two pins and let's plug that into the
08:00 

08:00 mountain range. So what that means is
08:02 

08:02 that the mountain range is actually
08:03 

08:03 going to be bottom which is what I want.
08:05 

08:05 Let's move that drag that down there. So
08:07 

08:07 it sits beneath those other nodes. And
08:09 

08:09 now you can actually see straight away
08:11 

08:11 the road is there. The blend is just set
08:13 

08:13 to blend in five. I'm going to add
08:16 

08:16 another draw node. So I'm going to drag
08:17 

08:17 off the mask socket. Search for draw and
08:21 

08:21 then it masks out everything. And you
08:22 

08:22 can see all we've got is the pear in and
08:24 

08:24 the road. I'm going to select file,
08:26 

08:26 press F to force it, select draw, make
08:28 

08:28 sure it's set to mask, open painter,
08:31 

08:31 increase the size, and now let's say
08:34 

08:34 over here, this looks like it could be a
08:35 

08:35 bit more bumpy. Let's just paint in the
08:37 

08:37 mountain. Now, the reason we're not
08:40 

08:40 actually seeing any effect is cuz I
08:41 

08:41 forgot to do um this combine road is
08:46 

08:46 coming from the first combine. Let's
08:48 

08:48 just in our second combine, let's just
08:50 

08:50 call that F2 and combine final. Sure, I
08:52 

08:52 spell that correctly. Press P. Add a
08:54 

08:54 portal to the out in the texture base.
08:56 

08:56 Select it. Press P. And then in the in
08:59 

08:59 socket, press combine final. And now
09:01 

09:01 we've got the We can actually see the
09:02 

09:02 effect it's having. Like so. Now,
09:04 

09:04 obviously, we don't want it dropping
09:05 

09:05 down like that. I mean, I suppose it's
09:07 

09:07 possible you might want that, but in
09:08 

09:08 this case, I want it to go up and not
09:10 

09:10 down. So, what I'm going to do is select
09:12 

09:12 the combine. I'm going to change it to
09:14 

09:14 add. And now it's lifting the landscape
09:16 

09:16 up. I can change the actual blending
09:18 

09:18 value. So, maybe drop it down a bit. And
09:21 

09:21 again to give a more natural blend, drag
09:24 

09:24 off from the draw node, search for blur,
09:26 

09:26 and then plug that into the socket, the
09:28 

09:28 mask socket. And there you go. It gives
09:29 

09:29 us that blur. To be honest, that value
09:31 

09:31 there that it's come with 0.1 looks
09:34 

09:34 matches pretty good. Maybe I could drop
09:36 

09:36 it a little bit. There you go. But
09:38 

09:38 that's it. That pretty much covers it.
09:40 

09:40 So, I mean, yeah, this just shows you
09:42 

09:42 the principles. You could spend a lot
09:44 

09:44 more time sculpting in detail. You could
09:45 

09:45 blend other layers in. Just keep using
09:48 

09:48 combine and draw and you can com blend
09:51 

09:51 them in and then you've got your
09:53 

09:53 landscape. If you did one final point,
09:55 

09:55 if you did want to change the lighting
09:58 

09:58 in Gaia, what you can do is drag off
10:01 

10:01 from the file. Search for something
10:02 

10:02 called it's called light X and then we
10:06 

10:06 want the drag off from the file again.
10:08 

10:08 We want that to go into the texture. But
10:10 

10:10 then the in socket, we actually want to
10:12 

10:12 use the final node from our landscape,
10:16 

10:16 our terrain nodes, which in this case is
10:18 

10:18 the combine final. That's the last node
10:20 

10:20 in the sequence of nodes. Press P and
10:22 

10:22 where it says in, select in, and then
10:25 

10:25 select combine final. It just needs
10:27 

10:27 information about the landscape as well.
10:29 

10:29 Now, press F to force it. Actually, we
10:31 

10:31 don't need to. We can get rid of the
10:32 

10:32 force completely. So, we don't need to
10:33 

10:33 force any nodes. Just make sure the file
10:35 

10:35 is not forced. So, press F on it to
10:37 

10:37 unforce it. and it's a stick light X.
10:40 

10:40 You can increase the exposure like so.
10:42 

10:42 And there you go. You can see it's much
10:44 

10:44 lighter. So, this pretty much covers it.
10:47 

10:47 I might sculpt this a little bit more to
10:49 

10:49 bring out the details a bit more, but
10:50 

10:50 I'll do that in a time lapse to speed
10:52 

10:52 things up for this sake of this
10:54 

10:54 tutorial. And if you've got any
10:56 

10:56 questions or comments, please do um
10:58 

10:58 leave them in the comment section. And
10:60 

11:00 thanks for watching.
11:09 

11:09 >> [music]
11:16 

11:16 [music]
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11:21 [music]
11:30 

11:30 [music]
11:36 

11:36 [music]
11:43 

11:43 [music]
11:46 

11:46 >> Hey.
11:52 

11:52 [music]
11:56 

11:56 Hey. Hey.
12:09 

12:09 >> [music]
12:17 

12:17 [music]
12:23 

12:23 >> What?
12:27 

12:27 >> [music]
12:31 

12:31 [music]
12:38 

12:38 [music]
12:41 

12:41 >> Hey.
12:46 

12:46 [music]
12:51 

12:51 Hey. Hey.
12:57 

12:57 >> [music]
13:01 

13:01 [music]