Noise
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## Noise

Relevant to Blender v2.31

The Noise function allows you to displace vertices in meshes based on the grey-values of a texture applied to it. That way you can generate great landscapes or carve text into meshes.

Figure 7.44. Subdivide tool

Add a plane and subdivide it at least five times with the special menu WKEY>>Subdivide (Figure 7.44, “Subdivide tool”). Now add a material and assign a Clouds texture to it. Adjust the `NoiseSize:` to 0.500. Choose white as the color for the material and black as the texture color, to give us good contrast for the noise operation.

Figure 7.45. Noise button in EditButtons

Ensure that you are in EditMode and that all vertices are selected, then switch to the Editing Context F9. Press the `Noise` button in the `Mesh Tools` Panel (Figure 7.45, “Noise button in EditButtons”) several times until the landscape looks nice. Figure 7.46, “Noise application process. From top left to bottom right: Plane with texture, sub-divided plane, "Noise" button hit 2, 4, 6 and 8 times.” shows the original - textured - plane as well as what happens as you press `Noise`. Remove the texture from the landscape now because it will disturb the look. Then add some lights, some water, set smooth and SubSurf the terrain, and so on. (Figure 7.47, “Noise generated landscape”).

Figure 7.46. Noise application process. From top left to bottom right: Plane with texture, sub-divided plane, "Noise" button hit 2, 4, 6 and 8 times.

Figure 7.47. Noise generated landscape

### Note

The noise displacement always occurs along the mesh's z coordinate, which is along the direction of the z axis of the Object local reference.

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