Playing with Mr. Lambert

Started by sonshine777, March 17, 2007, 02:16:11 PM

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sonshine777

Here is an image that took on a life of is own while working on an example
for the Lambert Shader for mrwho's question about the shader.
It looked bare with a default terrain an oak tree and ivy (thanks "helentr" for the tip).
So I added a population of grass and one of rocks and some fake stones to make it look
better.

Hope you enjoy, comments welcome

[attachthumb=#]

rcallicotte

Wow.  I really like this.  The rocks on the ground with the grass look storybook.  I'm going to be picky, though I'm probably not qualified since I haven't even done what you're doing.  From a clueless observer's point of view, I think that light saturation doesn't look quite natural at certain points.  Two places would be the big blade of grass on the right and the other would be a couple of leaves in the tree.  They just don't look natural, but I wonder if this is because transparency isn't working correctly yet...a question no one has answered in the discussion forums.

Anyway...I like this image a lot and it has inspired me to learn about the lambert shader.  Thanks.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

dhavalmistry

I like your ground cover....good job...
"His blood-terragen level is 99.99%...he is definitely drunk on Terragen!"

sonshine777

Quote from: calico on March 17, 2007, 03:58:09 PM
Wow.  I really like this.  The rocks on the ground with the grass look storybook.  I'm going to be picky, though I'm probably not qualified since I haven't even done what you're doing.  From a clueless observer's point of view, I think that light saturation doesn't look quite natural at certain points.  Two places would be the big blade of grass on the right and the other would be a couple of leaves in the tree.  They just don't look natural, but I wonder if this is because transparency isn't working correctly yet...a question no one has answered in the discussion forums.

Anyway...I like this image a lot and it has inspired me to learn about the lambert shader.  Thanks.


The blades of grass are there because of the random population, I didn't knpw that it was going to show up like it did until the render was complete. I am going to try to change things a little to get rid of them. The tranlucent settings of the lambert shader can be elusive so I am still playing around with them.

Will

did you use that ive generator thing by chance?

Regards,

Will
The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

sonshine777

Quote from: Will on March 17, 2007, 07:08:06 PM
did you use that ive generator thing by chance?

Regards,

Will

Yes, I did, it's not perfect, but you can get some nice results I think.

Here are a few quirks that you have to deal with.
1. The tree I brought into the Ivy Generator came in sideways (different vertical axis)
The ivy grew in the right direction though.
2. The images are .png which at least from my experience don't work that great in TGTP.  I changed them to .tiff's and re-associated them after bringing the ivy into TGTP, seemed to work ok.
3. The model is 4 times larger in scale compared to the tree model I grew it on and it is rotated on the x-axis and the z-axis.
I had to scale the ivy to x=.25, y=.25, z=.25.  And rotate it x=-90, y=0 and z=90.

It is worth the extra effort I think especially after you get the hang of it. I think I will explore the possibilities further (after all, it is free!)

tl33


Dark Fire

That image is very good. I would say that it is flawless, but there is one small problem: all of the leaves on the tree look exactly the same. That's probably not your fault, sonshine777, but it does spoil an otherwise perfect image...

nvseal

Very nice image. The ground surfacing is superb.  8)

child@play

wow, great render


i really like the grass and how you included that ivy-tree. sure, maybe the it's not 'perfect' when it comes to leaves and such, but it's very impressive what results can be achieved with a 'tech-preview' and not optimated objects :)


oh, and the stones...superb ;)


perfection is not when there's nothing more to add, it's reached when nothing more can be left out


rcallicotte

I agree with you about the PNGs - TG2TP doesn't like them.  I've done like you did and used TIFs instead with some success.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

sonshine777

Quote from: Dark Fire on March 17, 2007, 09:25:21 PM
That image is very good. I would say that it is flawless, but there is one small problem: all of the leaves on the tree look exactly the same. That's probably not your fault, sonshine777, but it does spoil an otherwise perfect image...


Thanks for the comments and compliments all, I am amazed every day with the things that can be created with TGTP and we are just learning how to use it.
About the leaves, the model I used from xfrog was one of the old ones found on their public site and it is an older version and there was only one type of leaf for that tree. When I save up the money I am going to get the full version of Xfrog most of the models I have I created or converted using the 30 day Trial version.

Oshyan

Translucency is a bit of a kludge currently and will be improved in the future. You're also no doubt noticing the lack of soft shadowing in this case, which makes the edges of lit and dark areas sharper than they should be. This too will be improved in the renderer in the future.

- Oshyan

sonshine777

Thanks for the heads up Oshyan, shadows have been something that has been hard to work with, even on a brightly lit scene the shadows seem black. Good to know that it is on the fix list. :)