00:01 Hi there. This is Dax from QuadSpinner.
00:04 And in this video I'm going to show you
the breakdown of this volcanic terrain.
00:09 So this volcano is kind of special,
for us.
00:12 because,
when we originally started QuadSpinner,
00:14 this was literally the location
where we came up with the idea.
00:18 It's a volcano
in, Central America called Arenal.
00:22 I'm going
to show you a few pictures of it.
00:24 So this is where QuadSpinner
kinda started.
00:27 And, you know what?
00:28 Volcano is a great place
to see erosion happen
00:32 in so many different forms in real time.
00:35 So, anyways,
00:38 I've long wanted to create a volcano
like this, and,
00:41 so this is a pretty
00:44 straight forward way of making a volcano,
even though,
00:48 it can be somewhat,
deceptively complicated.
00:53 So I'm going to show you the tricks
that I use for creating production.
00:57 Ready volcanoes.
00:59 So what we do is I'll actually start
with a rough RadialGradient.
01:05 So what I did was created
a RadialGradient,
01:09 reduced the Height to about half.
01:11 So you can see it's not too tall.
01:13 And then I added a Warp
Modifier down here.
01:16 So it just added this Warp.
01:18 Now, the Warp Size is very small.
01:22 And, the Strength is okay.
01:24 The Strength is halfway.
01:26 So what I wanted was a bumpy surface
with no specific
01:31 large scale, features.
01:34 So when we use any of the Gaea Primitives,
that's something you get by default.
01:40 So you don't have to worry
about creating those.
01:42 But since I wanted to show the process
from scratch,
01:45 I figured,
okay, let's add one like this.
01:48 So with this bumpy, RadialGradient
01:52 to get more detail into it,
that's slightly more geological.
01:57 I added a Sandstone node
01:60 and you can see the 
02:02 Sandstone node is, I'm using a Min modifier,
so only the protrusions
02:09 that are smaller than the original
like here, those remain.
02:14 And just by how, the modifier works.
02:19 Or sorry, just by how Sandstone works.
02:22 We get more at the top than at the bottom.
02:24 So, you can also just use Mask by Height
or whatever works for you.
02:29 The goal here is
we want to have a bit more character
02:34 from the middle of the terrain
all the way to the top, because that's
02:38 what's going to give us the
the iconic look of that volcano.
02:42 Now, while a conical volcano
is pretty much a cone,
02:47 it's crucial
to have a lot of detail in there.
02:50 That's not just simple erosion,
02:53 because a real volcano
will go through a lot of different stuff.
02:58 So let me go back to my pictures
to show you so.
03:02 And this is something I rarely do.
03:03 I don't like comparing reference terrains
while I'm working.
03:08 I would rather just absorb
what's going on in a picture
03:12 and then just like,
keep it in my mind, as I work on it.
03:15 But, there are some specific things
that are very important to get across.
03:20 So, for example,
you can see the top of the cone
03:23 is not really just like this, clean cut,
03:28 edge.
03:29 It's actually bumpy.
03:30 It's, you know, the crater keeps
03:33 ejecting so much stuff
that it undergoes, heavy,
03:38 heavy level of chaos
and things get broken and so forth.
03:42 There's also a lot of buildup up here
and so on.
03:46 And then halfway through when we go there.
03:49 So this is a slightly different side
of the volcano.
03:52 And so here you can see
there's a lot more character going on.
03:55 There are lots of different, rock shapes,
03:59 different build ups
So anyways we want to capture that.
04:02 And, of course, since we're making
a fictional volcano, we will kind of try
04:07 to take it to the next level
to make it a bit more cinematic.
04:11 So whether you're using it
in a game or film or whatever it it's,
04:15 it has like a dominating presence
on screen.
04:19 So anyways, so to get there,
the first thing that we have done
04:23 is just added Sandstone
with a very high Spacing
04:27 so that the layers between the sandstone,
04:30 is just like really thick.
04:34 And we have very high Convexity
04:36 so that they bulge outwards
04:39 and instead of just becoming sharper edges
for each plate,
04:44 we also have maximum curves
because we didn't want to have
04:48 like a systematic look to it.
04:52 So that's why we do get these layers.
04:54 But at the same time
we get a lot of chaos.
04:58 And then lastly, you'll see
there are four Passes.
05:01 I've lowered the Iteration to five,
but increase the number of Passes to four.
05:06 So in essence,
we are getting, a total of 20
05:09 different types of layering, 
happening with this.
05:14 You may want to experiment with the Seed,
because you want to have like, a cool
05:19 top, like here, you don't want
extra bulges on the side and so on.
05:24 So that's something to take care of.
05:27 Next I added Outcrops.
05:30 Now Outcrops are generally something
05:33 that can take over the shape
very intensely if you're not careful.
05:37 But because we're still in this beginning
phase of it,
05:41 I'm not too worried about it.
05:43 So what we do is here.
05:46 I left pretty much everything to defaults
except the Size, and Height.
05:52 So you can see, I'm using
a, somewhat lower height
05:56 so that the protrusions aren't too big.
05:59 And because Outcrops kind of feeds on
whatever terrain,
06:04 they're being, grown on, so to speak,
you'll see that the stratification
06:10 that we had from the previous Sandstone,
all of that included,
06:14 including this little bulge on the top,
all of that has survived.
06:18 But at the same time,
we get all this cool heavy rock, bulk.
06:23 Now, this is,
06:26 this we feel like we are going away
from the conical volcano.
06:29 Look.
06:30 But, like, with everything in terrains,
you have to create a big bulked up terrain
06:34 and then erode it heavily
to get to where you want to go,
06:37 because that is, in a way,
what happens in real life.
06:41 So speaking of that,
let's add our first Erosion here.
06:45 And you can see now it's starting
to get to a more conical look.
06:50 So first thing we notice here
is that we get these
06:53 beautiful big flow structures.
06:57 So this is where a lot of volcanic
06:60 ejecta will fall down and carve out channels.
07:03 And because,
07:06 especially this specific
volcano is in the tropical region
07:11 that experiences
rainfall as well, and that can have like,
07:15 sometimes both of these processes
can accelerate the erosion of each other,
07:20 like whether it's, erosion from rainfall
07:23 being accelerated by these rocks
that have fallen down and,
07:26 you know, displaced soil
and so forth, or the other way around.
07:30 You know, we'll get grooves from rainfall
that the,
07:34 volcanic ejecta will kind of sometimes
fall down from,
07:39 anyway, so we now have these nice
big flow structures everywhere.
07:44 And the more protruding aspects
of Outcrops are kind of going away.
07:49 So that's great. Now
07:52 I've added a Shaper
07:53 so that we could manually force
a more conical look.
07:58 So here you can see it's
a very delicate amount -0.16.
08:03 And it also ticked Maintain File Details.
08:06 that is kind of important here.
08:08 We don't want to lose
any of the detail that we have.
08:13 But there's also a little cheat
going on here.
08:16 You'll see at the bottom I have,
08:19 this, the Height, Modifier.
08:22 So we actually or Mask by Height.
08:25 So we are only shaping
like the top little 10% or well top 6%.
08:30 Really.
08:31 And we have high Falloff and Distortion.
08:33 So let me show you what's going on.
08:35 So here, like,
if we were to do the whole terrain,
08:39 we would lose a lot of bulk at the bottom
if we want to keep that.
08:42 So I'm going to go back.
08:43 And if we only do this much,
we use a lot of Falloff
08:47 because we want a smooth transition
and then a little bit of Distortion.
08:51 So that like the Mask is not clear.
08:54 It's like being distorted
along the lines here.
08:57 So that's our little shaping pass.
08:59 Now we add more erosion.
09:01 But this time
we want to create more sedimentation
09:04 as opposed to the primary shape.
09:07 So here what I've done is
you'll see there's a zero Downcutting
09:12 but a high Duration a lot
of Coarse Sediments but no Suspended Load.
09:17 So Suspended
Load is where it starts creating
09:21 all these grooves
as it erodes like the Downcutting.
09:26 But by disabling this and Downcutting,
you can see we have a lot
09:29 more of the sedimentation coming down
way up here and then going down.
09:35 But then I've also turned on Min mode.
09:37 So what's happening is it's
this is our new eroded surface,
09:42 but by using Min mode,
we retain all the crucial structure
09:46 from before where we have these crevices
and, collapses and so forth.
09:52 Now, this is
09:53 where our basic form is almost ready.
09:56 So it's time to add our crater.
09:59 So the Crater node lets you add a crater
10:02 and then move it
to wherever you want it to.
10:05 So I've moved it to this place, which is
10:09 almost the center.
10:10 Well, in some ways it is the center.
10:12 But you can see there's like a little side
bulk here.
10:15 And while it may be tempting
to put it straight to center, so it's
10:20 very even like something you might see
in a little sketch or cartoon, even,
10:26 real volcanoes tend to have,
10:28 slightly disformed, craters.
10:32 So you can look at them online
and see what works for you.
10:36 You know, there are many different forms,
but since I'm basing this on this one
10:40 particular volcano, and I wanted to have
that kind of a lopsided cone,
10:45 or crater, rather.
10:46 So this is what I did, left
this slightly to the side.
10:50 So there's a little bit of bulk up here.
10:53 Now,
10:55 let's go to the next node,
which is Sandstone,
10:58 and it is masked again to this top part.
11:02 So the reason is because we created
11:05 crater, this area is now very smooth.
11:08 Whereas in real life you can see there's
a lot of buildup up here.
11:12 So we want to kind of mimic
that like this.
11:16 Here you can see the slight lopsidedness.
11:19 If you're seeing it from another angle,
11:21 you know, it can be even more enhanced.
11:25 So anyways, to get like,
this kind of look, we have our lopsided,
11:30 crater and then Sandstone
to create this extra detail.
11:35 You can see the settings here.
11:36 It's just one Pass,
but lots of Iterations.
11:39 Medium amount of Spacing.
11:41 And then, it's a lot of dealt in chaos
so that, the striations,
11:48 the layering there, like, going this way,
11:52 instead of being too, even down here
11:56 that has started breaking up this cone
or the top part of the cone.
11:60 So then we add another pass of Erosion.
12:03 And this one we're using
Orographic Influence,
12:07 that we just introduced in Gaea 2.2.
12:10 And so we're restricting the precipitation
12:13 or whatever the source of this hydraulic
12:16 Erosion is to the top 8%.
12:19 So let's say here
this much, you know, like this much,
12:25 on the, on the, terrain.
12:28 So the idea being that
we only want this part to be eroded,
12:31 we don't want the rest of it
to be touched.
12:33 But if something flows down and affects
it, great.
12:36 We're not going to mind that.
12:37 So you can see here there's nothing.
12:40 And then when we add this, 
all that Downcutting starts happening.
12:44 There's this, there is furrow being created
goes all the way down and joins
12:48 this bigger structure.
12:49 Well, great.
12:49 That's just adding to the holding
and making it more realistic.
12:53 So let's keep that, for the settings,
you'll see that I have,
12:58 you know, very low amount for shapes
so we can preserve
13:01 most of what's going on up there.
13:03 Lots of discharge of all kinds
13:07 and, you know, slightly, strong,
13:10 Downcutting compared
to how small the Erosion Scale is.
13:14 We don't want too big
13:16 an Erosion Scale because then it starts
creating larger furrows.
13:20 We don't want those.
13:22 And so that's pretty much this
for our basic shaping.
13:26 Now, to add one more layer of Erosion.
13:30 And again, you know, it's always great.
13:32 We can layer Erosion on top of Erosion.
13:34 It always gives you more opportunities
to create things for your terrain.
13:39 What I wanted to do here was kind of like,
have, like, a single Pass
13:43 that unites the few different Passes
that we've done before.
13:46 And so I create a Flow Mask from this
maximum Length to maximum Volume,
13:52 and then use that as the precipitation
for one more Erosion pass.
13:57 And so it starts
creating a lot of sediment.
14:00 As you can see I have Bed Load
Coarse Sediments at maximum
14:04 no Downcutting and maximum Duration.
14:07 So you can see it's a lot of discharge
coming down from up here.
14:12 Then at the same time this is now both
14:15 Min and Height masks to be at the bottom.
14:19 So instead of it
being all the way up here, where 
14:23 you can see
the cone is pretty much destroyed.
14:25 We're keeping it down here somewhere.
14:29 I forgot what the
14:30 exact number was,
but I think this should be fine.
14:33 You can always just tweak this
to whatever you want it to be.
14:38 Now, one more Pass
14:40 for sedimentation
using just the Sediments node.
14:44 Which is a cheaper,
easier way of creating all the sediment.
14:48 So you can see
I have a tiny, tiny Scale of 0.01,
14:52 but eight Passes to create this finer
sediment.
14:55 The smaller the scale, the finer
the sediment you get, and then the
14:60 more number of Passes is, the more amount
of deposition that you get.
15:03 This also is masked by Height,
because at this point,
15:07 our cone is so cool that we don't want
anything messing with it and ruining it.
15:12 So this is where Mask by Height
comes in very handy.
15:15 And you can see, like
15:17 with the previous one, we have that
similar amount of masking going on.
15:21 So all the sedimentation happens here.
15:25 Now finally the cone is a bit too sharp.
15:29 So here you can see
it looks like it's gouged out.
15:31 But in real life these, larger cones, 
especially depending on the size.
15:36 And here you have a pretty wide cone
15:38 compared to the rest of the,
body of the volcano.
15:42 So this would not be this sharp.
15:45 The edge would not be so pinched.
15:47 And so one way to reduce
15:50 that kind of sharper detail
without affecting any of,
15:55 the surrounding detail
15:57 is to just use, Graphic Equalization.
16:01 So very, very low level thing,
but it's very useful.
16:04 So first we mask it out.
16:06 So created a Mask for this area.
16:08 Simple enough.
16:09 Feed it to the Mask for Graphic Equalizer.
16:12 And then Graphic Equalizer
I've removed band six.
16:16 I've reduced five and four half way
or little less than halfway.
16:21 And so that's what we are getting.
16:24 So let me show you what this would be
if it was normal.
16:27 It's like this. But then you remove this.
16:30 We're keeping band seven,
so all the finest details stay.
16:34 But the one below that that goes.
16:36 And so kind of again don't remember what
the exact numbers were, but I'll just
16:42 go by visual
16:44 and yeah that kind of works.
16:47 So this is more smoothed out.
16:51 And this is where the drawing is
pretty much done.
16:55 I've added a Chokepoint here,
which I always like to do at the end
16:59 because let's say
17:00 if I suddenly think of like,
oh, let's add a swirl to this whole thing,
17:04 but I don't have to reconnect
these few hundred, connections.
17:08 So I'll just go here.
17:09 Let's say add a Swirl.
17:11 It's like, oh, that's our volcano.
17:12 Okay, now all we have to do
is just connect it here and we're done.
17:16 If you forget to create a Chokepoint,
17:19 a very easy way is to just go
17:23 here, right
click, click insert Chokepoint.
17:26 Select which port.
17:28 Eh.
17:28 There's another Chokepoint for you.
17:30 So. Oh,
that started processing everything.
17:34 I will delete my old Chokepoint.
17:36 Leave the new one here.
17:38 And then let's take a look
at the next phase, which is texturing.
17:43 And well, this looks a bit, complicated.
17:46 It's really not.
17:47 It's just a bunch of layers of colors
that we're going to use.
17:51 So at this point
our volcano looks pretty cool,
17:55 but we need to have a texturing
that matches it.
17:59 And now with the power of ColorErosion,
we can actually create textures that show
18:05 you that ejecta is coming down
the slopes from the cone
18:10 so that, it gives you that,
18:13 you know, that that live feeling of this
volcano instead and that.
18:16 It's still active.
18:18 Now, first thing I do
is I create a TextureBase.
18:21 That's
what's going to run all these, textures.
18:25 So we have two of them.
18:26 So this is the first one
where I didn't want it to have like
18:29 too many specific shapes.
18:31 So I've reduced Flows completely,
but increased Patches and Chaos.
18:36 I also did a little bit of Peaks
so that the top gets highlighted.
18:40 Let's say if I were to remove that,
we would get something more like this.
18:43 But with Peaks
18:45 there, it's, it's
18:47 nice if we get a little more
highlighting up here, which will help us
18:51 as we want to draw more attention
towards the cone with certain colors.
18:56 So the first thing is
we'll create the base.
18:59 And for that you can see,
19:04 There's this.
19:08 It's nothing special.
19:09 Looks blotchy.
19:10 But what's happening is
we are getting this
19:13 and then we're feeding it this color.
19:16 I've equalized it
so that the colors are stretched
19:19 to both extents as much as possible.
19:23 But then to make sure that there's no,
shape definition left, like,
19:27 I didn't want, like the edges
to hug too closely to these features.
19:31 So I increased the roughness.
19:33 Like, without it,
you can see it's like this,
19:36 you can see where it's going down
into the deeper crevices.
19:40 But I didn't want it to be that precise,
so I made it Medium,
19:45 and then it kind of
blurs out the edges a little.
19:49 Then on
top of that, added a bit of Weathering.
19:52 This is where I wanted to highlight
the shapes, in two different ways.
19:56 One, Weathering.
19:58 Here you can see it's a tiny amount,
a little bit of high Creep.
20:02 But I've also turned on
Washed Out and Darker.
20:04 So the Darker, it's like, there it's,
if I turn it back on, you can see that
20:09 it's accentuating
some of the deeper places by adding
20:13 more shadows to the, ColorTexture,
which will make this look cooler,
20:18 and then Washed Out
20:21 instead of having everything be precise,
like with, you know, all the movement
20:26 going on, it appears a bit more washed
out, more part of the base color texture.
20:33 So then we have a second,
20:36 layer color layer,
which is the Dead Soil.
20:39 we will have, like, a lot of textural
changes just in the base.
20:44 Dark soil, whatever base layer
that's, on your terrain.
20:49 So this helps with that.
20:51 There's a slight bit of green in this too,
20:55 and that's intentional because vegetation
does grow on these slopes.
20:59 And so we'll come back on a second
pass for that.
21:02 But I wanted that to be there
like little hints
21:06 because this soil is really,
really fertile.
21:10 So that takes care of kind of our base
21:15 and then I created a second Texturebase,
21:18 which is very heavy on Flows and Soil
and not much so on everything else.
21:24 And that is used to create this Dull
Growth, this Dull Growth.
21:29 It's often like grass and little plants
that grows,
21:34 very much in ways where you can find
21:37 like water flowing and, so on.
21:41 So that's why I wanted to have, like, this
texture and not this texture.
21:46 And then for the more richer growth
like this,
21:49 we do go back to the original texture,
because that's where we want
21:52 to follow the form of the terrain
more than anything.
21:56 Finally, there's a Mixer node.
21:59 You can see it's been like
we have the terrain coming in the base,
22:02 which is this Weathering.
22:04 That's the main input.
22:05 And then the layers we have,
we have Dead Soil,
22:09 Dull Growth and Rich Growth.
22:11 And so each of these you can see
has been masked,
22:15 you know, using a little bit of Slope,
22:18 and like
22:21 I tend to do a lot with my layering, 
Color layering especially,
22:25 I have a lot of Warp, but a small Size
22:28 so that it's never even lined anywhere.
22:32 So anyways, let's start with the,
the Dead Soil.
22:35 Let me just hide the others
so we can just look at this. So
22:40 this is where the Dead Soil comes in.
22:43 It's kind of like stops somewhere here.
22:46 So it helps us differentiate the more
lower portions from the top height.
22:53 And, that's where we have more grayer,
darker browns coming in,
22:58 because that's what volcanic
ejecta will often end up looking like.
23:02 This is the more cooler gray.
23:04 So, we can very quickly differentiate
between the two.
23:08 Then we add, Dull Growth.
23:12 So that's where it's coming up
to the surface like this.
23:18 It's a bit imprecise,
but we're not too worried about that.
23:22 We can play with this
to get a level that you're happy with.
23:27 The reason I'm not too worried about
this is most of
23:29 this is going to be overtaken
by the Rich Growth.
23:32 So as we add that,
you can see there's a whole layer here.
23:36 Just so you can see,
23:40 the blue represents the Dull Growth
and the yellow represents the Rich Growth.
23:45 So while it doesn't overpower
it completely by area,
23:49 it will overpower it with ColorErosion,
which is going to be our next step.
23:54 So all of this is layered in that way.
23:57 where color will flow down
from the top to the bottom,
24:02 and that's
what we want to take advantage of.
24:04 So that's what we have here.
24:07 Like a little bit
of just constrained by height.
24:09 And that's it.
24:11 Going back to the Dull Growth.
24:14 Again, same thing
we want to have like lots of warping.
24:17 You can see I have that everywhere.
24:19 But in, the Rich Growth,
I added like a very large Size
24:23 so that we can see the Rich Growth
kind of suddenly leap up and come up here.
24:29 That's the kind of stuff
you will actually see on these volcanoes,
24:32 where there might be certain portions
where, lava flows, like here
24:36 you can see the flow goes down here
and may not necessarily go down here
24:41 because of this, preexisting structure
24:45 that is like a
almost like a gravity sink for this.
24:48 So everything flows down here.
24:50 And so this is where, 
vegetation has a chance to grow up
24:54 a little or grow
further upwards on the Slope.
24:58 Okay.
24:58 Now ColorErosion. Boom.
25:01 There we go.
25:02 That has created this beautiful texture.
25:05 We have all this brown element
or dark green brown element
25:10 from up top coming down.
25:12 We have the more Dead Soil with the cooler
lava stuff and minor
25:17 growth and everything intermingling
with the two different growth layers.
25:21 All this, lava flow
25:24 is supposed to erase
any vegetation down there.
25:27 So that's doing its job
and it's working perfectly.
25:30 So you can see most of the settings
are a bit on the high side except Blend,
25:35 because I didn't want the colors
to like take over too much.
25:39 So we have. Just, you know, normal Blend.
25:42 We have very high Flow Volume
and Color Hold because we want the color
25:47 to flow down
and we don't necessarily worry
25:50 too much about it, 
sticking to the existing flow structure.
25:55 So if it goes out, like, for example,
25:57 there, this
is what it would be like with lower Flow.
25:60 But then I wanted it
to be higher Flow here so that we have
26:03 these wide, lava flows coming down.
26:07 you can always just adjust this to however
you want it to be,
26:11 to create, different kinds
of, outputs now.
26:16 Okay.
26:16 Now, last part is where we grow
some trees,
26:19 and that's
where it gets a tiny bit, creative.
26:23 We're going to go away
from a standard view of doing this
26:26 with the existing nodes and like,
hack ourselves a custom method.
26:31 So instead of, like, consuming specific
masks, like, I can get the Mask
26:36 for the growth and so on, I'm
going to use a little trick.
26:40 basically we're using an RGB split
to take our Color
26:45 Erosion, convert it to grayscale,
26:48 and then just take the green channel.
26:51 So the green channel here,
you can see it's equalized.
26:55 We're also using Strong to pull up the,
26:57 the curve and then inverting it finally.
27:01 So without inversion.
27:02 So this is what the green looks like.
27:05 If I turn all this off, that's the green.
27:07 So we make it Strong and Equalize it,
but then also Invert it.
27:12 And so now what happens is all
the dark areas
27:16 are where trees can grow
27:20 and the brighter areas are where,
27:23 you know, lava and other ejecta are coming
down and preventing growth,
27:28 because
we don't want it to affect everything.
27:31 I've created a height Mask
and multiply this so we only have it
27:35 go down this much, and then we use
that as an inhibitor for trees.
27:42 So going all the way back to a Chokepoint
27:44 I created a Trees node.
27:48 volcanoes.
27:48 Like I said, they, often have the one of
the most fertile soils coming out.
27:54 So just beyond, the lava effect
27:58 and everything, 
you will find intense growth.
28:01 So, again,
I'll go back to the references that we had
28:05 and you can see, like there's growth
going up and down here, like,
28:09 there's just like a whole thick jungle.
28:12 So and this is the other side
where you can see
28:15 the jungle doesn't come up that much,
but the Dull Growth creeps up here.
28:19 So that's kind of like our, guide
for this specific volcano.
28:25 At least
28:27 now, what I've done is I've created
28:29 600,000 trees, relative to resolution.
28:33 number here is not that important.
28:35 But we have got a lot of trees
growing everywhere.
28:40 You can see
the Health of the ecosystem is high.
28:43 We have little bit of Patches, 
so that, you know,
28:47 these trees grow in patches
and not just, like, more, more randomly,
28:51 you know, a little bit of Spread
so they can spread outwards.
28:56 But the Slope and Height is very 
inhibited.
28:59 It's very limited here, as well
as, some Peak Inhibition
29:04 so that this top part basically
that's where we don't want stuff growing.
29:09 So, right
now, hard to go up with the Slope.
29:13 You can see it grows up.
29:14 We don't want too much of it.
29:16 The same for Altitude and Peaks.
29:19 We also have,
29:20 Dead Flow and a little bit of Chaos.
29:24 And finally,
the Custom Influence from the,
29:27 the green channel that we marked out.
29:31 So that's also preventing growth up here.
29:34 Now, let me turn on Visualize Data
29:37 so that we could see
how these things are affecting.
29:40 So the dead zone, which is set up here
that's in red and that's showing us
29:46 where lava can come down
and inhibit the growth of these trees.
29:51 And so this required a bit of fine tuning,
because Dead Flow is always
29:54 a very delicate, setting.
29:57 So usually we use it for snow,
30:00 where snow actually melts
regularly and comes down slopes
30:05 so that trees, or at least larger trees
don't grow in that area.
30:09 You'll see that
in a lot of northern mountains.
30:12 we're now using that to simulate
30:15 lava instead, which is just as valid.
30:19 So anyways,
with these slightly Consolidated Flows,
30:22 we still get flows everywhere
instead of 1 or 2 large ones.
30:26 Lots of Dead Flow.
30:28 And then, we're controlling how high
they're with the snow line.
30:32 Then, of course,
we have the Custom Influence.
30:34 So nothing else grows here.
30:36 So we don't have to worry about
having all of this
30:39 be covered in dead zone,
but have it also still go down,
30:42 because having both of those well, it's
kind of mutually exclusive.
30:46 So you can either have one or the other.
30:48 And so that's really what this custom
influence, option is for anyway.
30:52 So, turning Visualize Data off.
30:56 Lastly, I have, the Strict setting on
30:58 that means we don't want any stragglers
going outside of these assigned areas.
31:04 And so with that, you can see
31:07 it gives us all this beautiful vegetation
growing up.
31:10 Now, from up here, it may just look like,
oh, hey, mountain with a bald spot,
31:14 but no, from down here, you can see that
it's actually respecting the slopes
31:19 and, creating vegetation
just where lava can't touch it.
31:24 Or even the,
the ejecta, like, rocks and so forth.
31:28 And you can see in other places
it creeps up and starts to grow.
31:33 Where it will be, allowed, by the flows.
31:38 And so in the end,
we end up getting this beautiful,
31:41 complex ecosystem growing up around the,
the volcano.
31:46 Now, finally, I'm going to add,
31:48 GroundTexture node just to sharpen up
all the details and then take the trees
31:54 output and Equalize
it just so we have a hard Mask.
31:59 And then I'll create a Noise node,
32:02 attach it to a SatMap with this darker
green texture.
32:06 So you can see we are getting this dark
green.
32:10 Map for the
32:13 for the tree color
because we already have the other two
32:17 like we have the dull one
and then the rich one.
32:20 And so it just makes sense to have these
be slightly darker, which older trees to,
32:25 in this, environment tend to be like,
so we have this
32:30 and then finally
we just Blend the two together.
32:33 So the color
that we had from ColorErosion
32:37 and then the SatMap
that we just created for the dark trees,
32:42 and we use this as the Mask
to Blend the two together.
32:45 Finally,
we feed everything into the LightX node
32:49 so we can get a cool render and serve
with some of these lighting settings
32:53 already done, where it's basically just,
you know, high Sun Intensity
32:58 and, you know, a lot of Ozone,
and then slightly higher Angular Diameter.
33:03 So we get softer shadows.
33:06 We can now show
off our finished volcano. 
33:12 So yeah, I think that looks pretty cool.
33:14 This is ready for export.
33:18 Let's just switch this to 4K
33:21 to see what it looks like
in even more detail.
33:24 There took about a minute
to reprocess the whole draft.
33:28 Which is fair
33:28 given that we have, like,
a bunch of heavy simulations down there.
33:32 But our world is rebuilt at 4K.
33:35 Let's
check out some of the cooler details here.
33:38 Yeah, I do like that.
33:40 We have this, big collapse, from afar.
33:44 Let's say if we're dealing with a game
or something, or even just a big,
33:49 wide establishing shot like this
gives this mountain its character.
33:55 Same for all of these.
33:57 So it's easy to recognize
where you're on different sides.
34:01 Another crucial element
when you're designing games. So
34:06 with this, let's go take a look at the,
34:10 look at, the cone.
34:12 Yeah, I definitely like this.
34:14 There's all that rocky buildup, 
and then the collapse inside.
34:20 It's tempting to add lava here.
34:23 But we'll save that for a different video.
34:26 Let's, quickly
take a look at the vegetation.
34:29 So here you can see some of the vegetation
coming down.
34:32 The, in mainly in the texture.
34:36 And then that's accentuated
by the individual trees
34:39 that we're growing up here.
34:41 Oops.
34:42 I had the wrong underlay.
34:44 Let me I just yeah.
34:45 Forgot to set it here.
34:47 There we go. Now we have the trees.
34:49 So there.
34:53 Yeah, I like this.
34:54 So yeah. So you can tweak with this
however you like.
34:56 The file is included with Gaea.
34:58 So go ahead play with this.
35:01 we are very eager to see what
kind of cool stuff you create with this.
35:05 Thanks for joining us.