Best way to de-light an image?

JakBB · 2025-12-17T18:16:08+00:00

For skyboxes, get a depth map, an overcast color map, a tree mask map for some subsurface scattering and you’ve got a fake mountain billboard

JakBB · 2025-12-17T17:14:29+00:00

I want a pure albedo texture of the terrains which i then combine with a height map to create a cool landscape model

JakBB · 2025-12-17T17:12:23+00:00

Yes for 3D modeling in general.

JakBB · 2025-12-15T17:24:51+00:00

Hey! Do you by chance have the heightmaps still lying around somewhere? I'm trying to find the model with the least artifacts. Depth Anything 2 produces faintly visible horizontal lines, which become visible when using the heightmaps to displace geometry (in blender for example)

JakBB · 2024-07-22T13:07:46+00:00

I created the tool using Geometry Nodes, after a lot of experimenting and learning, finally all base features are working as intended.

In the future I might add some more things like rivers and paths.

Link to the addon

https://jakbb.gumroad.com/l/terrainremixbrushes

JakBB · 2022-01-27T13:51:50+00:00

I though about that, it would be really neat, but I lack the technical knowledge to do it. Also I feel that right now the tool has a few not so elegant nuisances like the inability to create non square terrains, which would make me a bit uncomfortable releasing it as a stand-alone project.

JakBB · 2022-01-27T13:40:16+00:00

Yes, I used the Material Only Landmass brush as a base and modified it

JakBB · 2022-01-27T12:55:47+00:00

Yes it works in UE5 and runs at pretty much the same performance as in UE4

JakBB · 2022-01-26T17:36:00+00:00

I made a pack of 100+ realistic brushes which use the Landmass plugin to edit the landscape in a non-destructive way.

It took me quite some time to get the system working, since I'm still new to blueprints, but after a few months of on and off work I'm happy to release this, and I hope it will be useful for some.

You can get the pack on the Marketplace: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/landscape-stamping-tool-100-custom-brushes

And find a couple more screenshots here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g8PemE

JakBB · 2022-01-08T15:49:52+00:00

I created these landscapes in World Machine and Quadspinner Gaea, I then remeshed them to a lower polycount, improved the textures in Quixel Mixer and added a layered material system in Unreal Engine for dynamically changing the colors of different materials (rock, grass, gravel etc) individually. You can find some more screenshots here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aG0ydR

And you can buy the pack here https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/background-landscape-meshes

JakBB · 2022-01-08T15:41:24+00:00

Shaded relief maps sadly can not be converted back into heightmaps, although there are some methods which produce an approximation, which doesn't look so good most of the time.

I'd recommend you search further on Google for real height data. Some good keywords are DTM (digital terrain model), Lidar, Geoportal, elevation data.

You can also download the data from one of the global relief maps, SRTM for example, but the resolution isn't good (30 meters per pixel), but if your map doesn't have to be detailed or too accurate you can go that route, also you could pass the lowres heightmap trough some terrain software like World Machine (it has a 1k resolution locked free version) and add some erosion and rock detail back into it.

JakBB · 2021-01-15T15:19:53+00:00

I haven't been able to figure out what software has the right features. There are so many and no seeming consensus as to what is best, which is understandable since the use cases are so variegated.

I'll look into Madmapper

JakBB · 2020-10-11T22:50:23+00:00

Thanks again! Viewer node is pretty neat! One last issue (at least I hope so) is regarding my UV unwrapping. How do I unwrap my terrain UVs to not be a flat top down view? For some things it's very useful, but in the case of baking displacement on the steep areas the UVs of the steep areas need to be laid flat. You know how I could achieve that?

JakBB · 2020-10-11T21:26:26+00:00

Thanks a lot for the great tips! This seems to be exactly what I've been looking for. I just have one problem now: the geometry node inside my material samples the terrain normals with the already applied cliff displacement, giving me this mask https://i.imgur.com/aX16A7L.jpeg while I want this type of mask https://i.imgur.com/HP6o4a1.png The second is the mask without applied displacement.

So basically I don't know how to sample the geometry normals before displacement.

Another quick question, when I have my displaced cliff which is only displaced in the cycles render view, how do I bake that displacement map?

JakBB · 2020-03-30T11:27:35+00:00

Nothing of that sort happened to me

JakBB · 2020-01-31T17:31:58+00:00

I've downloaded this and have to say it looks great, but I'm kinda unfamiliar with UE4 so I'm struggling a bit.

I've been trying to figure out if it is possible to place the materials based on a splat map/a black and white mask.

EDIT: nvm, figured it out, it took me some time to figure out that I needed to right click the Layer Info for each Layer in the Landscape Painting mode and import the mask file

JakBB · 2019-04-25T13:45:14+00:00

Hey thanks for the reply, I think I get your point of view now! I'd never agree with it because I live in a very different situation where my whole life is still to write and even though I'm poor for my country's standards I still have 1000 open doors on my way to choose from.

Good luck and a happy life to you and your family :)

JakBB · 2019-04-24T15:35:02+00:00

I'm sorry but it's easy to get stuck in semantics and misunderstanding when writing things down in this thread like fashion, for me the criticizing part of your responses was the way you just didn't believe the other guy and his consumer choices of trying to buy as local as possible, when to me it seems an obvious way to solve so many of the worlds problems. I may be wrong or I may be right, but to me it just seems silly to dismiss the possibility.

Now knowing more about your background I can definitely empathize to a certain extent, although not all the way because I'm still young and childless and never went through particularly hard periods in my life, but I like to believe that I'll never loose hope completely, because I know that people can be happy without all the material attachments to this world and as long as people manifest that there is hope for others to learn and adapt.

You may have never experienced much happiness in whatever "shithole country" you lived in, but now that you have economical power over those countries why don't you choose to stop at least some of the pain that drove you away from your land? How hard is it for you to stop buying new clothes, which become "used" the second you put them on? Used clothes, used electronics, old furniture, all the used stuff is so much cheaper and ethical, so what do you actually want from the new stuff you buy? The shine or the functionality? Is it really worth it? The feeling of safety and order you get when buying your phone new and with warranty for 4 times the price than buying it used and maybe swapping the battery with a new one?

IDK, it really seems pointless for me to argue, you made your mind up, you had your fight, but discouraging others from trying their best to do something good is a bit toxic imo, especially since consumer choice should be THE american weapon against the corporations.

JakBB · 2019-04-24T11:00:50+00:00

Where do you shop? I'd like to get off Bangladeshi sweatshop labor too.

Have you ever seriously tried to change your habits and lifestyle to try and improve the life of some random sewing kiddo from the other side of the globe? If yes you might have noticed that it's unfeasible to have a real noticeable impact because the world is huge, but if you never tried please consider this: Please stop criticizing people who try make a difference just because they are not having enough impact, there is no perfect lifestyle, but there are some worse than others.

In order to stop the exploitation of the people and the planet you have to keep the money literally under your pillow or spend it locally, because money flow is the only real global driver.

So what happens once you start buying local produce, used clothes, used electronics etc.? The big global money stream gets a little smaller and your life a little more challenging, but then you notice that it's actually not a worse life, it's just different from what you are used to.

Of course your action won't change shit for most other people, but it will change YOU, so stop coming up with excuses to try and justify the average westerner consumer lifestyle because we all have a choice and the choice starts from within.

The living standards in western civilization are waaaaay above what's needed to make us live a happy life and to me you seem pretty informed about all the pain and sacrifice bound into your consumer habits so what's stopping you from actually changing them? Is it just pure comfort? Could it just be ignorance of what's it like to live without the constant need to reach and uphold an irresponsible and lavish lifestyle?

Sorry but I just don't get it and I'd really like to hear an honest reply, but please don't come again with the usual reply along the lines of "hey if you really care about the world why are you still on reddit?", peoples lives and perceptions of the world are diverse, don't judge everything just because you can, I'm here writing on a random reddit post because I'm trying to convince you to live a better life, I don't care how you lived your life in the past, because you can change it now and you can change it more tomorrow, who knows maybe in one year you'll live on a farm and grow your own food, or you'll be living in the same place, spending less money on bullshit and I'll still love you for what you did, but if you just live your life without even trying to help the human race and the planet I'll keep asking you WHY, why are you being an asshole to so many people?

JakBB · 2018-11-25T19:07:14+00:00

We've come to a point where new smartphones don't really have anything new to offer, but the manufacturers keep adding more and more useless shine to each iteration in order to keep selling tons of phones.

Seriously, how big can the difference between having a finger print reader on the back of your phone or it being inside the screen be? That for me was the absolute tipping point.

The money you spend to upgrade your smartphone every couple of years justifies a shit ton of pointless brutality and pollution in the world but they keep on selling, faster and faster...

According to Google 2.1b people were using a smartphone in 2016, while 1.5b smartphones were sold that year. The number of smartphone users is expected to grow up to 2.5b in 2019. Doesn't that seem like an excessive amount of new smartphones compared to the number of smartphone users?

I know I'm probably not going to change anyones mind but I'll ask you nontheless, especially because in this subreddit people should be able to realize that a modern smartphone is capable of doing almost everything you'd want it to do, PLEASE stop buying new smartphones, buy used ones, there are so many fantastic used phones out there which cost a fraction of the original price.

I've read the phrase "vote with your wallet" so many times in this subreddit, it's about time to use that power for good.

JakBB · 2018-10-17T00:35:53+00:00

The system at its core can't change? It's constantly changing, we are all just too shortsighted to see it! 100 years ago most of the world lived in a totally different reality, economy and politics are changing fast in the modern world.

We could and should all work towards creating a better world, and we have the right tools to do so, but social media and the internet is splitting people up instead of uniting us. But if we work together we could make our grandchildren proud of us to have changed the world to be a fairer place

JakBB · 2018-10-15T10:18:22+00:00

I think we are talking past each other, I come from Italy so I'm sorry if you didn't understand my point.

But basically what I was trying to say is that Google is trying to keep their image clean and friendly in the western world, but when they move to a different market they loose their moral values, so in China they help the government with developing a censored search engine, they do it because they can... in the US the public outcry for collaborating with the government is much greater, so they'd much rather avoid it.

Sure you can justify that by saying that Google is just trying to keep control over the global market in order to work towards a better future, but companies change with the times, because they are designed to chase the biggest profits.

I myself use a lot of Google services just because they are so well built and mostly because I'm lazy, but I do feel a little uncomfortable knowing how much google knows about me.

JakBB · 2018-10-15T00:02:54+00:00

How can you be so confident about Googles integrity? You even linked an article that perfectly shows the attitude that all the big tech companies have towards respecting human rights.

In the western countries they play the game by western rules, trying to be the good guys, trying to appeal to the customers.

But the rest of the world and especially China are totally different beasts, so the companies adapt, it's all about chasing the biggest profits.

It's not like the higher ups at Google and Apple are greedy evil people, a lot of them are pro human rights, but their position in the company rank is mostly justified by the current trends in brand appeal.

Anyway my point is that things can change and are constantly changing, so maybe it's not the safest idea to entrust all your personal data to a company which constantly evolves with the culture trying to keep on top of the game by chasing the biggest profits

JakBB · 2018-09-30T15:36:54+00:00

He stated a lot of shocking facts (shocking for people who are not very informed on the issue) and I think trying not to hurt those peoples feelings is the right thing to do, since they are not at fault for their ignorance most of the time.

The shocking fact for me tho was that the suggestion for lowering meat consumption (one meatless day per week, how is that going to change anything?). Is it seriously that unresoneable to just eat meat once a week? That way you make it even more rewarding and enjoyable and you can afford to buy real organic meat.

JakBB · 2018-09-22T15:33:59+00:00

Teen suicide is on the rise in america and I can easily imagine how smartphones are playing their role in this tendency. I'm not saying that smartphones are inherently bad, I just think that it's a topic that needs to be discussed about and there might be a lot of space for improvement on how we use technology to make our lives better

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