Thursday, 28 May 2026

Blender School: Terrain 5 Materials

 I need to up my game. Seriously, I have been doing rookie-level terrain materials since I started using True Terrain 5. I'd just apply a few materials separated by simple masks. If I used filters, it was just a cheap hack to adjust the material's uniform appearance, such as darkening it.

When True Terrain 5 offered some pre-made materials, it was a revelation. I suddenly realised what all those weird colour adjustment nodes were used for.


Oh wow, Big Sanctus update

You can't use Sanctus material on True Terrain 5 unless you ditch its brilliant material system. I was adding a material to the focus object in my test scene when I remembered there had been a Sanctus update.

Sanctus Library is the work of Blender artist Sanctus, who has become a legend in procedural materials. His library now contains 1000+ assets. Really, it's unlimited because it's so darn procedural, with so many parameters to drive. More on this update, later, when I've run through all the changes.


Some of the masks


Slope Mask set to very tight for contrasty cliffs, etc

Valley Mask for a gradient on slopes rather than a tight band.

This procedural mask is a severe limitation, in that at high contrast settings it produces banding, sometimes creating a moiré effect.

Actual Mask files are memory-expensive, but offer much more power.

Patch Mask, cheap and flexible, is a first step in adding noise patches.

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Blender School: Terrain 5 Materials

 I need to up my game. Seriously, I have been doing rookie-level terrain materials since I started using True Terrain 5. I'd just apply ...