A little slice of paradise
Using topographical data from a NASA library I extracted a few of my favorite places in New Zealand and created some little map segments which I animated in Houdini.
Featuring Mount Taranaki, Golden Bay and Queenstown, then sliding over to reveal the Marlborough Sounds, Akaroa and a little bit of the West coast.
I used high resolution geometry for the displacement as the level of detail I wanted to achieve was quite high. I could have used a texture displacement as an alternative but I found I was getting a few artifacts particularly around the edges where the terrain changed in height drastically. By utilizing proxy files, even with the high res geometry it was very quick to render.
For Taranaki I took some artistic license and created a simple little pyro simulation just to highlight that it’s a volcano.
For Golden bay I produced some little clouds that are clipped above the map to give that section of the map a little bit of a dynamic feel and to cast some nice shadows.
I wanted the second set of maps to stand out from the other side a bit differently so I lit the scene with a night theme and to add to the effect I dangled some little stars over the top.
The stars are actually a vellum simulation on wires so I could get the bouncy effect I was after. Each star was then turned into a geometry light for some illumination.
As always, a tidy scene file, is a happy scene file!