Urgent need of TG2 help - will pay $

[jknow]

Hi. Sorry for the desperate title, but I'm in urgent need of someone to produce some settings to help me render some realistic looking terrains. I have been using TG2 to render 32bit exr depth maps from DEM data. I've then been doing edge detection routines on those depth maps to draw outlines of mountains. I'm experimenting with different styles of outline maps, and to do that experimentation I need to produce realistic views of the terrain to display alongside the silhouette maps.

I could go out and take photographs of the real world, but the weather and light is always changing, and this biases my comparisons. So I want to find a 'generic' mountain style and stick with it. I notice that some lighting/haze situations make scenes look more realistic than others. I guess the most realistic is dead of night when you can't see anything! Equally, having a high sun and clear atmosphere places high demands on the modelling. But a low sun with a bit of haze can make a poor scene look a bit more realistic for a little effort.

I have all the DEM data converted to .ter, and I know enough TG2 to position camera and set render settings etc.

I know absolutely nothing about shaders, grass, rocks. This is where I need help.

Atmosphere is not too important. It might be best to go for white high clouds to reduce strong shadows, otherwise the default blue sky looks fine. No water features / lakes either.

I have attached two examples. One shows my model, and shows how little I know about shaders. Ie there are none. The other is a typical photograph of the area. I'm not looking to model reality, I just want to improve the look of the grass, rocks, vegetation. Please ignore the houses trees and roads. I don't care about them.

I'm really looking for some shader settings to make my renders look like a believeable outdoor scene. I hope that makes sense.

I need to get these scenes rendered in the next few days. I would love to learn how to do it myself, and in due course I will do because Terragen has huge potential for creating experimental stimuli of landscapes. But right now I have a deadline and I need help. I'm hoping to find someone than can work out a few settings for $50 to $100. I'm not out to rip off someone else's models, this is all for academic work and it will not be published. I do not want to rip off people's IP.

I have an academic TG2 license and will be rendering at 2560x1600. I have a fast core i7 with 9gb ram. I will happily render overnight to get the scenes I need.

Can anyone help? I guess I'd need to send you a TGD file along with the TER file, let you come up with some nice shaders for the ground surface. Then I guess you could send a jpg of the results, and then to get the settings we could use Paypal (I use ebay all the time) to transfer payment. Does that sound fair?

I hope I haven't offended the community with this request. Unfortunately I just don't feel I have the time at the moment to learn TG2 realistic rocks and grass, so I feel someone experience could do in an hour or two what would take me months. If anyone can help over the next few days I'd be really grateful.

Thanks, Jknow

[gregsandor]

Check your PM's.

[jbest]

Hi there,

It looks like you have grass there already. If you would like to improve grass I'd say a few things. First, to make a scene that would look like a picture, I'd suggest to move the grass to the bottom of the mountain. The grass nearest to the camera, for some reason, doesn't seem to quite fit the picture. It depends on how big the grass is, but at the size scaling here, the grass would seem a little too big, unless you want some sort of bushes  . For trees maybe a little more variation. (To do this is simple; go to the objects and click on the tree object that has three cubes. In the distrubution tab there is a area of it which says "Spacing variation in a,b." You can adjust the variation there.)

I like the layout of the picture, if I can put it that way. The thick clouds go well with this farmland scene. I don't see any rocks, but if you want rocks, it depends on how big and eroded you want them.

There are useful shaders in the Shaders tab you might want to use. (Surface Layers are in the shaders tab as well, hope you know what they are.) Of course, the fake stones shader is in the displacement shaders tab. To make some realistic stones (grayish) which will fit your scene, you'll want to make a Power Fractal and attach it the Surface Shader of the Fake Stones Shader, using the Node Network. In that PF make two colors that fit your choice (probably some grayish colors). Make your lead-in scale 100. Go to the fake stones shader and make your density around 0.5. Make the stones however big you want. You can fool around with the stones too. (If you want to create a full gray color go to color in the fake stones shader and make your color gray.)

Lastly, your quality and Anti-Aliasing. I don't know what you did it at, but for scenes such as this detail around .8 - .9 is good. To figure out a little more about detail and AA good for your pictures you can go to this thread: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10579.0

I didn't finish this, I was in a hurry when I wrote it. It is simple stuff most TG2 users will know, but it is just my advice for you, as I am a new TG2 user as well and learn more about this program every day.

Still, I think your picture has a great look.

Best of luck,
Jahnu

[dandelO]

Fottergraff!

I think he wants help creating a scene like it. But, I love the 'little more variation' part!

[jbest]

Fottergraff!

I think he wants help creating a scene like it.

like it? What do you mean "like it?" What differences do you want in this picture and the final pic, jknow?

[gregsandor]

jbest,
Excellent suggestions for increasing the realism of a real environment.  You really ought to address them to the Creator.    That is a photograph.  (You aren't the first and won't be the last to make that mistake, just laugh.)

Hi there,

It looks like you have grass there already. If you would like to improve grass I'd say a few things. First, to make a scene that would look like a picture, I'd suggest to move the grass to the bottom of the mountain. The grass nearest to the camera, for some reason, doesn't seem to quite fit the picture. It depends on how big the grass is, but at the size scaling here, the grass would seem a little too big, unless you want some sort of bushes  . For trees maybe a little more variation. (To do this is simple; go to the objects and click on the tree object that has three cubes. In the distrubution tab there is a area of it which says "Spacing variation in a,b." You can adjust the variation there.)

I like the layout of the picture, if I can put it that way. The thick clouds go well with this farmland scene. I don't see any rocks, but if you want rocks, it depends on how big and eroded you want them.

There are useful shaders in the Shaders tab you might want to use. (Surface Layers are in the shaders tab as well, hope you know what they are.) Of course, the fake stones shader is in the displacement shaders tab. To make some realistic stones (grayish) which will fit your scene, you'll want to make a Power Fractal and attach it the Surface Shader of the Fake Stones Shader, using the Node Network. In that PF make two colors that fit your choice (probably some grayish colors). Make your lead-in scale 100. Go to the fake stones shader and make your density around 0.5. Make the stones however big you want. You can fool around with the stones too. (If you want to create a full gray color go to color in the fake stones shader and make your color gray.)

Lastly, your quality and Anti-Aliasing. I don't know what you did it at, but for scenes such as this detail around .8 - .9 is good. To figure out a little more about detail and AA good for your pictures you can go to this thread: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10579.0

I didn't finish this, I was in a hurry when I wrote it. It is simple stuff most TG2 users will know, but it is just my advice for you, as I am a new TG2 user as well and learn more about this program every day.

Still, I think your picture has a great look.

Best of luck,
Jahnu

[dandelO]

I'm just kidding around, Jbest.

[jbest]

jbest,
Excellent suggestions for increasing the realism of a real environment.  You really ought to address them to the Creator.    That is a photograph.  (You aren't the first and won't be the last to make that mistake, just laugh.)

I'm laughing.
Jknow did want a picture which had a realistic picture likeness..   Teragen 2 does fool me sometimes ... but pretending a real pic is a terragen 2 pic is good for making realistic pics ... you just won't get the exact picture  

[jbest]

Well, I'll fix my mistake here

The ground below could use some grass or trees ... you can get both at http://www.terragen.org/. You might want to stop the trees at the base of your mountain.

I think Altocumulus clouds would look good here. You want them high ... so you can go ahead and make them as high as you want.

As for rocks, I said that before. The grass should cover the entire bottom of the ground, then some trees (with a nice amount of variation as not to completely cover the grass) could be placed on the ground too.

Personally I think the ground could be a different color, either a little lighter or darker. The simplest way is to create a surface layer and change the color to whatever you want. Another way is to simply change the color in the Power Fractal. (There doesn't seem to be a way to change the color inside an Alpine Fractal.)

See that little valley you have in the picture, a little left to the center of the picture? I think just trees would look nice there.

That's all I can think of now ...

good luck,
Jahnu

[Tangled-Universe]

Nice challenge you have here in reproducing that image.
How large are your DEM-files and other resources you have already gathered?
If you could provide me the DEM-fiiles and .tgd's with the camera-positions you would like to use, then I could make a quick draft?

[jbest]

Do you mind attaching the .tgd file so people can try working with it?

--Jahnu

[jknow]

Big thanks to gregsandor who has greatly helped me to get terrain, aerial photography and vegetation working together nicely into a package which I can manipulate.

The aerial photography plays a big role here, but one day when I understand this whole thing better I'd like to build something procedural from the ground up, as it were.

My only problem now is doing the rendering. Everything will be at 2560 x 1440. IT won't take too long, but I wonder if there's a way to store up a bunch of scene render jobs and then run them as a batch overnight? That way I don't have to keep stopping and starting, does that make sense?

[RArcher]

In the Docs folder where Terragen 2 is installed there should be a file called win_command_line.txt.  It should give you all the information you need to build a batch file to do what you want.  I believe this only works with the full licensed version.