Step1: Using ShaderMakerPro for Our basis
Using ShaderMakerPro (SMP) can help us map out how we want our terrain to look, of course if you don't own SMP you can still create perform this tutorial. First we need to get an idea of how we want the terrain's surface to be shown as, we'll just create a somewhat short grassy sod with some 'torn-up' areas which will appear as dry mud.


Step2: Creating our Grassy Knoll
Create a blender node for the Diffuse Colour. For Input1 let's use a Spots Node. With Spots Node dialog open let's now create our grass, first set the BaseColour to UserDefined and create a RGB colour with the values ( .14, .17, .14 ). Next set the SpotColour to UserDefined and create an RGB colour with the values (.10, .26, .17 ). Next change our settings as follows:

SpotSize: (.03)
Softness: (.41)
Threshold: (.48)

Now back to our Blender Node, and create a Wood Node for Input2. Now set the LightWood and DarkWood to dark 'cruddy' brown colours, and set the rest as follows:

Scale: (.49)
Turbulence: (10)

Step3: Blending our Mud with Grass
After this, change the Blending input back on our Blender Node to an fBm Node. You can change the X,Y, and Z indexes to your liking. The white will show the Input2 or the Mud Node through on our grassy shader. Back at our Blender Node, set the Blending value to (.73) or whatever you prefer.

Step4: Creating our Slopes, Hills, Gullies, etc.
Its time to create our actually topography of our Landscape. Create a very large mesh and control each UV to show height, but an easier way would be to create a Gray Scale PICT file to show height and a small Mesh (you can combine both methods and create an even more realistic/flexible landscape). Draw your PICT using Photoshop or even Toby Miller's Landscaper to build our Height Map ( White is raising the displacement while Black is lowering the displacement ). After you have created your topography map create a ImageMap Node for the shader's Displacement and load the PICT image into TextureManager (TM) and apply it to your shader. Next we can set our Displacement Value to show more or less displacement from the PICT we just loaded.

Step5: Applying the Shader to the Mesh
Now open up PiXELS3D 3.7 and create a basic Mesh Object and apply the new shader to the Mesh. Select the mesh, open up ShaderMaker in PiXELS3D Next, select our newly created shader (load it if you used SMP).

Step6: Rendering our scene
Back to our mesh. Let's set up our Camera View and lighting and try to get the most out of our landscape. Use Fog in our Render setup because we want to apply that realistic grey-fuzziness that you see in pictures to our mesh in the background. Later, we can start adding objects to your foreground and create that quick and easy landscape.