Ring World

[Dune]

Yuck indeed, about as bad as mine  

I've tried a whole new approach, and it looks great so far. Coming up! And no atmo and light issues anymore, doesn't that sound promising? But I still have to render...

[cyphyr]

Yuck version 2
Really just to test this was going to work with populations, it does, which is a step in the right direction.
Richard

[chris_x422]

Hope you guys keep this going, great thread with very nice shared ideas.
Sorry I've nothing to contribute 

[cyphyr]

I've run into an issue.
The image below shows a line across the ring. Its not meant to be there.
We are at the south pole of the planet, we're on the inside of the sphere. (not a planet, they won't cast shadows when transparent)
The line is caused by a cloud layer with NO input to its density shader.
The line is NOT a shadow.
The cloud layer is 4000m thick so it extends both 2000m above and below its centre point (roughly where the river is).
If I make my cloud layer 6000m or more thick the line moves up to just outside the field of view, but I loose the reason for the cloud layer, to simulate an enclosed atmosphere.
If I attach the cloud layer to the "inside out Planet" it disappears altogether (not surprising)

So is this a bug, a "feature" or am I pushing Terragen into places it was never designed to go?
Like driving a Lada across the Gobi. It might make it (it probably wont) but there's no warranty, guarantee or service for 1000km!!!



Richard

[dandelO]

Why not add another invisible planet, with a visible atmosphere. Use its height controls to limit its extents around the invisible planet. I've also been playing with this a bit, I'll post something later on, maybe I'm misunderstanding the atmosphere issues you're having but I think it's because your default atmosphere is inverted so it contracts instead of expanding, is this right? I don't know.
I have been using a hidden surface planet with a normally assigned atmosphere, seems to be working ok.

[Mahnmut]

You are surely driving a lada through the gobi,
but that only means when it falls apart, you will have to strap it together with tape and good hope.
Another question:
This white framework, is that an objekt or part of your shadowthrowing sphere?
Anyway, I like that latest version of it.

[cyphyr]

The white framework is a stand-in object till I make something more interesting.
I wanted to find a way of getting better lighting as the completely enclosed versions were either totally over lit by AO/GI solutions or just had to have too many light sources which ended up with a very boring uniform light.
I think I'm going to simple ignore the blinking red light on the Lada dashboard for now, "it will be fine" ... .. .

cheers

Richard

thinks * where can I get a banged up Lada model from, TurboSquid, here I come *

[choronr]

Great project here Goms, Richard, Mahnmut, Ulco and others; I'm working on how to flatten the tunnel; and, add some terrain features within it. May take me awhile but hope to get there hopefully contributing something here.

[choronr]

I reversed the whole lot, but encountered problems to be solved. I'm now on the South Pole, and experienced what Richard wrote earlier; the atmosphere works 'upside down'. This morning I woke up with some ideas about how to make a road (leveled area), but have to see if that really works. Also the landscape is not good enough to my taste yet, and I'm already thinking of another 'dry' ring world, which I'd very much like to make.

This is so inspiring; looking forward to your future iterations.

[Gannaingh]

Awesome work here, by everybody! This is really going to turn into something special!

[Dune]

default atmosphere is inverted so it contracts instead of expanding, is this right?

Right, and therefore the whole lot darkens strangely, and mysteriously, like working in a black hole. The idea of a sphere instead of a planet is interesting, but I've completely changed and am on the North Pole again. No more atmo issues. I did, by the way, try to make another huge planet with atmo and hang it under the two planets (of which one was inverted), but that didn't work properly either. It could perhaps if using a sphere instead of a planet for the inverted one....

What I've done here is make a huge crater, and displaced that into a tunnel. The roof is a displaced plane (the sides are two more planes). Because the displacements on planet and plane give a different result (why?), it was hard to fit them together. Redirect didn't work as nicely as in the SouthPole-inverted-planet idea, so these are just PF displacements. Hence the side planes. Eventually I want to have one roof, maybe indeed an inverted sphere. Or make a series of living quarters into the side walls, with shiny windows and laundry hanging to dry  
I also had a nice idea to project a glass window onto the side wall, which works, but didn't fit here. I might make a glass roof though, like Richard's, hopefully procedural.
One other thing: the lights were puzzling me: I had them inside the lanterns, but no matter how large I made the source, they wouldn't shine. So the light is still emitted from a point I figured, and the light bulb inside the lantern (and maybe the glass) kept the light inside, as I had shadows ticked. I wanted shadows from the trees, so I had to. I finally put the light source a bit above the object, which of course also shines were it's not supposed to shine (on top of the lantern), but I don't know a solution to that (yet).

I don't know what this 'riverlike' thing is that is crawling away, probably something forgotten. And I made the towers in a rush, so the number plates are not textured right.

And another thing on light. The light sources soft shadows are not to be controlled, so it seems. They are very soft, so I kept them hard.

[Henry Blewer]

I think the new lamps will work better for lighting. The other look cool, maybe some kind of control towers?

[cyphyr]

Great lamps. As far as I know the only way to get lights to shine through glass materials is to not have them there in the first place. In my image with the pylons covering the roof I first made them with massive glass sheets between them. No matter how bright I made the lights or how transparent the "water Shader" the light would not penetrate properly. It works if I turn of shadow casting but then what's the point? I like your new tube construction, it has a very "hewn from the living rock" feel to it. Its still very dark but I guess that's the look your after

The Atmosphere
Well its kind of inverted. Its very difficult to properly tell. My biggest issue is with the cloud layers. I have now confirmed that there is a cut off point at which the clouds are no longer rendered. This is not a problem on "normal" planets. The effects of clouds cant be seen through the planetary body obviously but on an inverted planet (or even a planet the right way round with surfaces disabled) with the camera within the planet circumference then this "optimisation" actually don't help.
Oh well Lada in the Gobi time again ...  

Anyway here's last nights render which helpfully dose not show any of the feature I'm on about (that's what comes of starting a render at 4am!)



Richard

[j meyer]

Could the light problems possibly be due to the reflectiveness of
the glass material?
Anyway,this is getting better and better,keep it going guys!

[Zairyn Arsyn]

exciting stuff!!
Richard, those last two renders look awesome, though the first is my favorite, reminds of a painting of a ring world i once saw somewhere

their not perfect, but its another improvement in this series.