terrain banding issue

[dr_ron69]

Hi
as name suggest , I'm getting banding when adding 2 "terrain noises" on top of each other. 
It's a very simple scene
1st "noise" gives overall shape, 2nd "noise" , "pushes" terrain up and around scene objects.
I have  tried various blurs etc, still doesn't seem to eradicate the issue.

1st pic shows the banding, second pic shows when I switch off my 2nd noise 
not sure if I'm doing anything wrong  

btw i am using the meshMask from "object to terrain" to mask out 2nd noise

any help appreciated

cheers

Harv

[tyFlow]

Hmm that's odd...can't you post the file?

[dr_ron69]

Hmm that's odd...can't you post the file?

here you go 

[tyFlow]

Ah interesting...

So basically what's happening is this:

Terrain colors in tyFlow are all stored as 3 1-byte integers (R/G/B)...this gives a channel precision of 0-255 for each channel, which is pretty standard for colors in various image formats.

However, for something like this that requires more precision - a precise falloff value - that level of precision isn't enough, and the original float values (4-bytes) are being clamped to fit inside the color channel (1-byte G channel)...so that's where the banding is coming from.

What's the solution? Well currently there isn't one...although I could see maybe adding a blur/smoothing parameter in the future, in that interpolation rollout, so that when you use color values for interpolation you can smooth out the stepping that isn't perceptible when the value is used for color information but is perceptible when used as height information.

[tyFlow]

Just a super quick update here...I did some testing, and by sampling a radius of values in the interpolation algorithm I can basically get rid of all banding, without any noticeable detail loss, so I'll incorporate that (optional setting) into the next build.

[dr_ron69]

Just a super quick update here...I did some testing, and by sampling a radius of values in the interpolation algorithm I can basically get rid of all banding, without any noticeable detail loss, so I'll incorporate that (optional setting) into the next build.

fantastic Tyson

thanks man!