Fake Stone Shaders; *V1 finished on page 3*

Started by Tangled-Universe, October 25, 2010, 12:06:56 PM

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Tangled-Universe

Ok made a cool bump-function and am rendering now.
It's quite a bit slower with this extra detail, so if one doesn't use these stones for close-up then disabling/deleting this part will increase renderspeed quite much. That will be documented of course :)

I'm open to suggestions from all of you on what kind of colour-setting you'd like to see in my next stones shader.
As I said I am planning to make 3-4 different shaders and pack these up. I have a couple of variations in mind, but I'd be happy to hear what you would like to see included. Maybe if things keep on developing as relatively easy as now I might be able to end up with more than 3-4 shaders, who knows :)

Cheers,
Martin

domdib

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on October 26, 2010, 02:50:25 PM
I'll see if I can make this shader work from a greater distance, but there's no guarantee. I'd need to make some adjustments and include that shaderset as a separate stone shader into the package.
The reason why the smaller stones tend to look less angular, although I disagree they really do, is because of the displacement-scale and amplitude. It's very likely that a small stone will have very low variation of displacement-scale and same goes for displacement amplitude. You'll have a very evenly displaced stone then.

Cheers,
Martin

I appreciate what you're saying about the difficulty of making things work at different distances - I'm currently doing some work on rock surfacing that bears this out. And I understand about the small stones.

On the subject of colour settings - how about a nice pale yellow granite, and a subtle pink sandstone?

Tangled-Universe

Thanks Dom,

Could you supply me with a link to what you have in mind, especially in regard to the yellow granite? When I google for examples I get quite some different looking results.

Martin

domdib

Well, maybe something like this (although it is perhaps more pinkish than yellow). But of course, making detailed colour prescriptions in TG is somewhat idle, as the lighting conditions and atmo colour have such an impact. Perhaps we need to create a TGD with reference lighting - I have a vague recollection that dandelO might have done something along those lines.

TheBlackHole

Quote from: domdib on October 27, 2010, 10:47:45 AM
Perhaps we need to create a TGD with reference lighting - I have a vague recollection that dandelO might have done something along those lines.
We already have one that comes with TG2. It's called the default scene. :D
They just issued a tornado warning and said to stay away from windows. Does that mean I can't use my computer?

Tangled-Universe

Exactly TBH :)
I've used the default scene to create it. So no adjustments to lighting and atmosphere.

domdib

Doh!

P.S. I've been working on a granite-like pattern recently - quite simple. I can send a .tgc if it's any help.

choronr

A fine project Martin. Color variation as relates to regions can produce a kaleidoscope of types. Near rivers sometimes the colors seem to be a mix - near the oceans, they generally are dark gray to a sand color. Here in the lower desert we have a mix of grays and browns; whereas in the high desert, we see a lot of reddish sandstone and pinkish granite. In the area of Quartzite, Arizona (a rock hound's paradise). The rubble seems to run the spectrum.

Looking forward to the final results of your project.   

Tangled-Universe

Thanks guys so far :)

So, here's a next iteration. I changed some seeds and scales of the smaller stones. I need to improve that a bit more.
The bump-texture looks nice now I think :) There's a couple of little things I want to improve as well, so I hope to finish this shader tomorrow.

You can view the full-size here by the way:
http://tangled-universe.deviantart.com/art/Stones-Shader-version-1-184221698

Stay tuned ;)

Martin

Henry Blewer

Martin, this looks much better. The stones have better separation. Did you use a merge shader?
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

dandelO

Looks cool. I think I prefer the first iteration, there's a very apparent voronoi pattern that appears to be in the specular areas that aren't in direct light, that's much more noticeable all over the second one because the larger displacements aren't as big there to disguise it. The tiny bump displacements look good and I love the little gold 'flecks'. Getting there, I'd say, nice. :)

Tangled-Universe

Thanks Henry :)

Quote from: dandelO on October 28, 2010, 12:59:16 PM
Looks cool. I think I prefer the first iteration, there's a very apparent voronoi pattern that appears to be in the specular areas that aren't in direct light, that's much more noticeable all over the second one because the larger displacements aren't as big there to disguise it. The tiny bump displacements look good and I love the little gold 'flecks'. Getting there, I'd say, nice. :)

Yes the voronoi texture (colour) is not good here. I'm thinking of deleting it entirely maybe. In general shading is very difficult in Terragen 2. Things tend to look fantastic when lit directly, but as soon as it is in shadow it look butt ugly.
Anyhow, I've finally managed to get the voronoi warped, so that should be a big improvement already.
The "gold flecks" are in a very early stage. They are meant to be litchens, but I didn't pay much attention to it yet, just made it to get an idea of how it would/could look.
Thanks for your input Martin :)

FrankB

I think the voronoi shading and displacement is a step in the right direction, as long as you a) make the voronoi lines narrower, and b) decrease the voroni displacement amount even further. If the voronoi patterns just show ever so slightly, then I reckon this will be great!

dandelO

QuoteAnyhow, I've finally managed to get the voronoi warped, so that should be a big improvement already.

It's pretty counter-intuitive, isn't it? You need to warp the space that the voronoi appears on, as opposed to warping the actual generated voronoi noise afterwards. Took me lots of trial and error working that one out, too.

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: dandelO on October 28, 2010, 04:00:17 PM
QuoteAnyhow, I've finally managed to get the voronoi warped, so that should be a big improvement already.

It's pretty counter-intuitive, isn't it? You need to warp the space that the voronoi appears on, as opposed to warping the actual generated voronoi noise afterwards. Took me lots of trial and error working that one out, too.

I warped the voronoi after the voronoi scalar itself...there's a work-around for this.