Ready to unlock the true power of terrain shaping? The modify nodes in Gaia are your secret weapon. And today we're diving deep. And finally, by building a landscape with the new nodes, we'll do a practice exercise together. The adjust node. The adjust node is a lightweight and flexible tool used to quickly fine-tune the shape and volume of your terrain. It allows you to subtly reduce or enhance the overall bulk of a terrain without altering its foundational structure. This is especially useful during the early stages of landscape design when you need quick corrections without redoing your entire node setup. For example, if we add the adjust node to the mountain node, we can control the amount of elevation and give it some interesting variations. [Music] The auto level node. The auto level node automatically remaps the height values of your terrain to use the full zero to one elevation range. This enhances contrast, detail, visibility, and helps normalize terrains after combining or distorting them. For example, let's add a mountain range and then apply the autole node to it. As you can see, it makes all the details extremely sharp. Of course, in the settings, you can control this by adjusting the influence value. The clamp node. The clamp node limits the height values of your terrain within a specific minimum and maximum range. It essentially clips the elevation to prevent unwanted spikes or deep pits. The clip node. The clip node removes all height data below or above a specific threshold, essentially cutting off parts of the terrain. Unlike clamp which limits values, clip completely deletes everything outside the chosen range. The way this node works is that by lowering the max value, it cuts down the higher elevations and by raising the min value, it clips the lower areas. For example, you can combine it with a lake node to achieve this kind of result. The denoise node. The den noiseise node smooths out unwanted noise and highfrequency artifact from your terrain, making the surface cleaner and more natural. It's like a terrain softener without losing too much detail. Let's say you've created a scene with noise and now you want to smooth or soften that noise. This node allows you to achieve exactly that. The next node is equalize. The equalize node redistributes elevation values across your terrain to create a more balanced, even spread of heights. It's useful for enhancing midtones and making terrains look more uniform without flattening. As you can see, you can either reduce or amplify the existing details, giving you solid control over the scene. The extend node. The extend node increases the terrain size by duplicating and blending its edges outward. It's useful for filling gaps, extending borders, or preparing terrains for tiling. Overall, it's a strange node. It randomly adds height while also flattening the surface at the same time. The flip node. The flip node mirrors your terrain along the X or Y-axis. It's a quick way to reverse layouts or create symmetrical designs without manually rebuilding terrain shapes. Let's say you've created a mountain range with a mountain node and now you want to invert it. With the flip node, you can easily flip it along the x-axis, y-axis, or even both. You can also combine two nodes to have them mirrored in different directions at the same time. The match node aligns the elevation range of one terrain to match another. It's perfect when blending multiple terrains and you want their heights to be consistent. For example, let's create two mountains with different heights and shapes, one on the left and one on the right. Now, if we want both to match in height, we can simply add a match node. Connect the first mountain to the main input and the second mountain to the reference input. And now they're aligned at the same height. To better visualize the result, we can combine them. [Music] The sharpen node. The sharpen node enhances the edges and fine details of your terrain, making features like ridges, cliffs, and slopes appear more defined and dramatic. The next node is transpose, which also works by combining two nodes. For example, if we feed it two different mountain types, then adjust the amount, it tries to blend the shapes of the second mountain into the first one. To make this effect clearer, we can also add a crater node, which really shows the difference. [Music] Now let's move on to the blur subgroup. The first node is blur. Overall, it smooths out the terrain and essentially removes some of the finer details. The median node. The median node smooths your terrain by replacing each point's height with a median value of its neighbors. Overall, it's a heavy node, and it might even cause your system to crash. The slope blur. The slope blur node blurs your terrain along the slope direction rather than uniformly. It adds a natural eroded look by pushing the blur based on terrain angles. Perfect for stylized erosion effects. [Music] The variable blur. The variable blur node applies a blur with varying intensity across the terrain based on a mask or secondary input. This gives you localized control. Some areas stay sharp, others get blurred. For example, let's mix it with pllin to see it more clearly. We press F to lock the viewport onto it. As you can see, in some areas, the blur takes effect, while in others, the pearl and noise is layered on top. Now, let's move on to the effects subgroup. The first node is origami. It gives us an origami- like effect and is mostly useful for stylized or more unique projects. The next node is pixelate. This node transforms the entire terrain into a pixelated or blocky form, reminding us of Minecraft. You can increase or decrease the size of the pixels. And by using anti-alias, you can break up the uniformity of the blocks. The next node is swirl. It adds a twisting effect to the terrain and by adjusting the scale or shifting it around, you can achieve some really interesting results. The world node. The whirl node creates swirling spiral-like distortions in your terrain, similar to a vortex effect. It's ideal for fantasy style landscapes, alien worlds, or adding dramatic twists to otherwise natural terrains. The next node is curve, which you'll also find in most other programs. Here we can use control points along the axis to decrease or increase height or even add more points along the line to give the terrain different shapes. [Music] The filter node. The filter node is a flexible post-processing tool that allows you to apply a variety of effects like smoothing, sharpening, or contrast adjustment to your terrain using a single node. The fold node bends and compresses terrain features to simulate geological folding like layered rock formations or compacted mountains. It gives a natural organic deformation to the terrain. As you can see, it turns a mountain into a layered formation and it gives us three different modes to choose from. The graphic EQ node. The graphic EQ node applies frequency based adjustments to the terrain's height data. Acting much like an audio equalizer, but for elevation. It allows you to amplify or attenuate specific elevation frequencies such as small bumps, rolling hills, or broad mountain forms by adjusting them via a graphical equalizer interface. The next node is recurve. As you can see, it affects the details along the edges, allowing you to make them sharper, stretched, or even wider by lowering its strength. You can also achieve some interesting results. The sharper node. The sharper node increases the definition and contrast of your terrain by boosting mid to high frequency details. As you can see, this node either intensifies or softens the details. You can also use local area to sharpen the terrain overall. And with detail size, you can control the scale of the details. The next node is soft clip. Imagine you want to carve a flat cut into the side of a mountain, but still keep the details. So you could design a village on top of it. This node works perfectly for that. You can even use the below mode to reduce the slope as well. [Music] The thermal sharpen node enhances terrain details specifically in areas affected by thermal erosion. As you can see with its useful features, this node can really help in creating eroded surfaces. The Meshify node. The Meshify node converts your terrain height map into a 3D mesh within GIA. This is useful for exporting terrains as geometry for use in external 3D applications or game engines. As you can see, with its useful features, this node can really help in creating eroded surfaces. Now let's move on to the transform subgroup. The next node is aperture which comes with five modes. The first one is disk where adjusting the size gives us different results. The second is polygon which transforms the surface into a polygonal shape. You can control it by changing the vertex count and direction. The third is stricks which by default divides the surface into four corners though you can increase that number. If you've enjoyed the video so far and found it useful, don't forget to support us with a like and a comment. It really helps the channel grow. The fourth mode is line which stretches the surface in a linear way and the fifth turns the surface into corners where you can control the angle and even rotate it. At first glance, these modes might not seem very practical, but if you combine them with nodes like adjust, you can achieve some really interesting results. The dilate node. The dilate node expands or grows features in your terrain by spreading out high areas into lower ones. It's often used to enlarge masks, flatten narrow gaps, or merge disconnected features. As you can see, it offers features similar to the previous node. The distance node. The distance node calculates the distance of each point in your terrain from a specific feature, like a mask or shape, and outputs a grayscale gradient based on that distance. It's commonly used for fall-offs, blending, or terrain effects based on proximity. For example, it can be very useful when working with masks. The next node is transform. It allows us to move the terrain along the X, Y, and Z axis, rotate it, or even scale it. The next node is heel. Imagine you've created an effect with a node like whirl, but along the edges or raised surfaces, the details don't look right, and in some spots, you're even getting artifacts. To fix those issues, you can use the heel node. Now, let's move on to the warp subgroup, the directional warp. The directional warp node distorts your terrain in a specific direction using another input as a guide. It creates stretched, twisted or wind eroded effects based on directional flow. For example, if we run it once with a gradient, we get stretching and shifting as we adjust the values. Now, if we feed it a pearl instead, we'll get a completely different type of displacement. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] The slope warp. The slope warp node distorts terrain based on its slope angle. Warping features more strongly in steeper areas. It adds natural weathered irregularities to cliffs, ridges, and slopes. For example, if we add a voronoi to it, we'll get these fractured rock formations. And we can control their intensity as well. Next, we'll also test the noise node. The last node is warp. As you can see, it distorts the surfaces, shifting or warping them into wavy patterns. With its options, you can generate all kinds of detail variations across your terrain. Now, let's build a simple landscape using the nodes we've learned so far. First, we'll create a mountain and then use the adjust node to increase its intensity. Now, we can use either the transform or transform 3D node to move it over to the corner. [Music] Now using the flip node, we can duplicate the same mountain and place it on The opposite corner. Now I'll add a canyon node and using a transform combine into our scene. As you can see, the transform node is extremely useful. Now I want to add a shorter mountain with a soft cut. So I'll use the soft clip node and place in the corner. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] As you can see, our river path is blocked. To preserve the original flow, we'll create a heightened mask from the canyon and subtract it from the new mountain. [Music] [Music] Now to make the edges look more natural, we'll use the slope blur node. Then by adding Voronoi and applying wizard 2, which we'll cover more detail in future tutorials, we can give the edges a much better effect. [Music] Finally, by adding a lake, we'll wrap up this example. [Music] Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video and found it helpful, please support the channel by liking, commenting, and subscribing. Your support really keeps me motivated to make more tutorials like this.