presents

Mountains & Terrains in

BLENDER

Both of the above meshes were completed in BLENDER in just 8 simple steps. Many people think Mountains and Terrains are complicated to model from scratch, but look at the two images below I created in 15 min. and tell me what you think !
STEP 1
Start out with a clean 3D screen and add a Surface >> Surface, then in side view enlarge the Surface (S Key) select the top vertecies with the border select (B Key) and Move them down (G Key).
STEP 2
Go to Top View and press 'W' and click Subdivide 2 times. Use Border Select to select 3 sets of vertices on both sides of the surface and Subdivide. The picture on the Left shows the sides already subdivided and the Top & Bottom selected in the same way ready to be subdivided. The picture on the left is out of edit mode after the process has been completed.
The reason for the extra subdivisions along the edges is to add an extra 'Anchor' to the Mountain. You will see why in the next few steps.
STEP 3
Select multiple vertices as in the image below (SHIFT+RM)
And go to Front or Camera view and give it a yank Upward (G Key).
STEP 4
Randomly select more vertices and repeat the previous step a few times...
...until you get something like this. Convert to a mesh with ALT+C.
STEP 5
Go back into Edit Mode and Border select all but the 'Anchor' points we talked about in step 2 (The Top Image). Press the 'W' key then click on 'Subdivide Fractal', enter 24 for the value. To finish off go to the Edit Buttons (F9) and click 'Noise' 4 times then 'Smooth' once (The Bottom Image). By the way, you need to have some sort of texture assigned to the mesh for the 'Noise' to be visible.
Here's what the wire frame looks like. Now you're ready for your favorite Texture (And for the Canyon part of the Tutorial ! )
STEP 6
Start from a clean slate, add a plane, enlarge it, and subdivide 6 times.
STEP 7
Press the 'B' key 2 times until a 'Circle Selector' appears. Press the Numpad Minus key to make the circle smaller and left click to select something like this, and in a front view move the selection up and back.
STEP 8
Now here's where I slapped myself and said, damn why didn't I think of this before ? Just repeat the process clicking the noise button after every 'Select and Move'
When your satisfied you have enough jagged edges, your done. See, I told you it was easy !