Ambi Encoder Surface Terrain

s3g Ambi Encoder Surface Terrain is a 64-in, first-through-seventh-order ACN/SN3D ambisonic encoder. Each input lane becomes a point in AED and follows a predefined trace across one displaced procedural terrain shell.

Wave-terrain mapping normally scans a surface to produce sound; here the sampled height bends each source's azimuth, elevation, and distance instead. The field view draws the shell, traces, and source positions together. For terrain used as the sound source itself, choose Ambi Encoder Wave Terrain.

Ambi Encoder Surface Terrain GUI showing nested terrain geometry, source-lane positions, traversal controls, and camera — Ambi Encoder Surface Terrain with nested terrain geometry, source-lane positions, traversal controls, and camera.

Workflow

Insert s3g Ambi Encoder Surface Terrain on a 64-channel source track or bus, set INPUTS for the active source lanes, and select the output ORDER.
Follow it with an ambisonic decoder.
Choose a TRACE, then construct the shell with the FORM, SKIN, WARP, and READ pages.
Set RATE, RATE SP, and RATE DEV for shared, distributed, or independently varied source motion.

Terrain Model

The navigator evaluates four procedural layers on spherical coordinates and combines them into one continuous terrain shell. Every source samples this same fixed surface, while its trace and motion phase determine where it travels. The blended terrain value drives three coordinate warps:

AZIMUTH WARP bends horizontal placement.
ELEVATION WARP bends vertical placement.
DISTANCE WARP turns terrain height into radial hills and valleys.

FOLD folds the sampled surface back on itself for sharper ridges and more VOT-like discontinuity. SMOOTH damps each final AED point. RATE spans 0.000001 to 2 Hz logarithmically; at the slowest setting, one traversal takes about 11.6 days. RATE SP distributes rates across the active inputs and RATE DEV adds a stable deterministic deviation to each source.

Terrain Geometry

PATH, FORM, SKIN, WARP, and READ share the upper control panel. The four terrain pages follow Ambi Encoder Wave Terrain, and the 3D field redraws the same interpreted shell used to calculate every source position.

Control	Effect
FORM	Selects Sphere, Tetrahedron, Cube, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, or Icosahedron radial geometry.
FACET / BEVEL	Morphs the procedural terrain toward the selected polyhedron and rounds its face intersections.
ORIENT	Rotates the polyhedral support geometry before it deforms the shell.
SKIN / DEPTH	Selects the procedural terrain family and its contribution to the shell.
ROUGH / FOLD / RELIEF	Changes layer frequency, folds the resulting height, and scales its final AED displacement.
TERRACE / STEPS	Quantizes terrain height into a selectable number of radial levels.
RIDGE / ERODE	Folds height into crests and compresses extreme elevations.
DOMAIN / TWIST	Warps the spherical sampling coordinates before the terrain layers are evaluated.
READ / MIX	Interprets the terrain as Height, Edge, Curve, Blend, Gradient, Ridge, Valley, Normal, Cross, or Vector before spatial projection.
AZ / EL / DIST WARP	Maps the interpreted terrain value into azimuth, elevation, and radial displacement.

Palettes

Palette	Character
HARMONIC	Sine and diagonal products, stable and orbit-like.
FBM	Layered sinusoidal terrain, closer to soft procedural noise.
CELL	Rounded cell peaks and basins, with more stepped spatial pulls.
VOT	Fused FBM and cellular terrain with saturation for stronger ridges.
RIDGES	Absolute folded bands with narrow crests and broad valleys.
DUNES	Long warped bands that read as rolling terrain.
CRATERS	Depressed cells surrounded by raised rims.
TECTONIC	Intersecting diagonal plates with harder elevation breaks.

Orbits

Orbit	Movement
DRIFT	Slow longitude drift with a shallow elevation wander.
LISSAJOUS	Cross-coupled AED motion for broad looping paths.
SPIRAL	Continuous azimuth travel with pole-to-pole breathing.
FOLD	Mirrored elevation arcs that emphasize terrain ridges.

Order and Routing

The input bus and output bus are both 64 channels wide. INPUTS decides how many input lanes are read. The selected order activates the corresponding ACN output channels and clears the remainder, so a 64-channel REAPER track is the most flexible host setup.

Order	Active channels
1OA	4
2OA	9
3OA	16
4OA	25
5OA	36
6OA	49
7OA	64