Mountains

Mountains is a patch of mountain land you place in a scene like any other object: a small range of ridged, eroded peaks with bare rock on the steep faces and snow on the tops, easing down to its base at the edges so it sits on whatever is beneath it. The object's scale is the footprint, so the same patch works as a tabletop diorama or a range on the horizon.

How it works

The patch uses the same landscape model as the scene's endless terrain, cut to a footprint you control. Its shape is built from layers of ever finer detail, bent into branching ridges like those real drainage carves, with erosion flattening the valley floors. The surface is painted by height and by slope: meadow and scree low down, rock wherever the ground is too steep to hold anything, and snow above the peak line that slides off the sheerest faces.

Settings

• Shape and Ground: pick a landform such as Alpine range, Dolomite towers, Volcanic or Eroded highlands, and a ground such as Alpine meadow, Snowfields or Volcanic.
• Size, Height, Ruggedness and Rock & snow: the quick sliders.
• Edge fade: how far in from the border the land eases down; 0 ends in a cliff.
• Landform and Textures tabs: every number, including Ridge Sharpness, Erosion and Terraces, and a real photographed texture for each ground layer.

Use it for

Alpine backdrops, maps and product dioramas. Related: Hills and Canyon.