Field of Flowers

This tutorial shows how to create multicolored fields of flowers using surface maps. Note that v0.7 of Terragen was used and that heights are in Terragen units, not meters.

Download a zip file containing the terrain and world files.

1) Start out by creating a terrain with fairly flat areas between hills or mountains. While you can use more complex landscapes, flat ones are easier to demonstrate. Set the camera and target close to the ground. Here, the camera points toward the center.
2) Bound Vertical from 0 so as to make working with the surface map altitudes easier. The upper value depends on how high you want to make your overall landscape. If need be, set the cloud layer so that it is above the highest point.
3) Create your rock surface maps for the mountains.
4) In our example, the valley areas are below 5, so make the rock surface maps have a minimum altitude of 5. Set the Sharp/Fuzzy slider to full Sharp so that it doesn't go below 5. Adjust the Coverage and Fractal Noise appropriately to get the effects you desire.
5) Now, add several maps for grass and flowers.
6) The main grass field should have a maximum altitude just over the minimum of the rock since in this terrain, the mountains rise sharply from the valley floor. Grass rarely grows on a vertical surface. Set the Coverage to full.
8) Now add layers for flowers. They must be under the grass maps so that they appear only on top of the grass. Each flower map is a different color. Add as many colors as you wish. Wildflowers generally are found in patches. To simulate this, you need to adjust all the available controls on the different flower maps until the areas containing each color of flower seems reasonable for the effect you want. This can be a vary tedious process of setting something, rendering, then trying again. Sometimes, you may get one color flower dispersed nicely, only to find it threw off the one above or below it in the list. I got the yellow flowers right by putting them in a narrow band with Coverage set fairly low while the others were in wider bands.
9) If your terrain is more hilly, you may wish to set the min and max slope values as well. Keep playing until you get the effect you want. Set the Depth control from off (full left) to the center so as to give it a more surface look since flowers are above the ground, not part of it. Bumpiness should probably be high to simulate the individual flowers.
10) Add an appropriate sky. Here, I've added a haze layer to make the distant mountain look farther away. The half-height is set above the general foreground altitude so as to not affect it. I've also added some water to provide a stream just off to the bottom left.