Atmospheric and optical effects in TG2.

[icarus51]

Hello,
Some questions about Terragen 2: is it possible in next builds to have atmospheric effects like these: parhelion - sun dog/moon dog - corona, rainbow, iridescence, sun pillar, halo, circumpolar/zenithal arc, green ray in the sun and defomations of the sun at horizon? In addition also effects like lightning bolts, meteors trails and funnel clouds and virga clouds? These effects would be optional in the rendering box and atmosphere/clouds box or sunlighting box. Perhaps also like additional plug-in.
Thanks in advance. 

Greetings and Merry Christmas to all.

[PeterParker]

Dont mix up Terragen with a full 3D Programm. Its a LANDSCAPE Creator.
If you have the skills to use 3D Max, Cinema 4D or Maya then you should do it with these programms
and combine them in Photoshop.

Regards

Peter

[Henry Blewer]

Actually I think many of these can be done. I have seen lightning effects, coronas, and rainbows. Some of the terms I am not familiar with. The sun deformation would need to be a backdrop atmosphere with post work for the deformation, I think.

The program is incredibly versatal. It's a matter of learning how. I think using functions you could do just about anything.

[Njen]

Most of the effects you have listed are caused by chromatic dispersion, that is to say when light is  dispersed into it's different visible wavelengths when passing through air and moisture. If I am not mistaken, Terragen's unbiased renderer does something like this already when calculating the light that passes through the atmosphere already, right?

[reck]

Dont mix up Terragen with a full 3D Programm. Its a LANDSCAPE Creator.
Regards

Peter

I think he's asking a fair question. Terragen is excellent at Landscapes but is also one of the best applications for creating atmospheres as well. So in that regard Terragens atmosphere rendering is probably better suited than using 3D modelling software.

[Henry Blewer]

I believe it does. I think that the optical light effects are possible using functions and perhaps imported objects, and/or modified cloud types.

[domdib]

Virga (trailing rain from cloud base) has already been demonstrated by more than one person - it requires careful manipulation of clouds.

[PeterParker]

Dont mix up Terragen with a full 3D Programm. Its a LANDSCAPE Creator.
Regards

Peter

I think he's asking a fair question. Terragen is excellent at Landscapes but is also one of the best applications for creating atmospheres as well. So in that regard Terragens atmosphere rendering is probably better suited than using 3D modelling software.

Sure he´s asking a fair qestion, but meteortrails and lightning cant made with terragen 2.2
This should be done with a 3D Programm or am i wrong?

[freelancah]

Sure he´s asking a fair qestion, but meteortrails and lightning cant made with terragen 2.2
This should be done with a 3D Programm or am i wrong?

I believe both of those have already been done.

[icarus51]

Thanks for replies, but i ask this for Terragen not for Maya or other rendering programs. I would like this issue was replied by Terragen staff. Currently i don't see any way to do these effects with Terragen 2, from this matter my questions.

[cyphyr]

I think there may be two issues here. Firstly the modelling of atmospheric phenomena and secondly the light modifications caused by such phenomena. The modelling is a challenge but not too hard especially as there as so many good clip files now available. How these phenomena change lighting is a MUCH harder challenge and to be honest its not really the sort of thing Terragen would excel at. All atmospheric effects are effectively EXTREME partial effects, the result of billions upon billions of partials of dust, ice, water vapour etc. For example something like a rainbow has been effectively made by a few artists on this forum but they have achieved their result by blatant "cheats". A real rainbow is made up of billions of water particles each refracting light at a slightly differing angle (dependant on the relative position of the viewer) and I don't know of any software that can do this without "cheating" in some way (take a look at Maxwell Renderer however), but the point is that "cheating" is not a bad thing, There's no reason not to use an image of a rainbow (for example) projected into your scene if the final result is what you looking for.
Terragen was never designed to be used in isolation, it is most effectively used as part of a work flow.

Richard
ps not terragen staff but long time user
pps Lightening can easily be made with a model of a lightening bolt, make your own or there are several in the file sharing section (search "bolt") just make the bolts luminosity massive (scene dependant but I'd say in the 100,000's)

[Tangled-Universe]

Richard is hitting the nail here for me, so I agree.

Trails and rainbows have been made with functions by Goms/Mogn (trails) and BigBen (rainbow).
For things like meteors I'd use an image map projected on the background sphere.

You can do a lot of things with functions, but don't ask how.

I would never expect from TG2 or any other render to effectively simulate these phenomena.
TG2 simulates nothing basically, because everything is based on approximations by formulas.
To be clear, by simulations I mean that TG2 would calculate light behaviour in the atmosphere as if it would really pass through trillions of molecules in the atmosphere.
No, TG2 only approximates these effects by simplifications (haze exponential height/red sky decay/glow/etc. etc.).

So can TG2 do these from perspective of the renderers nature? No.
Can you create it by using tricks/cheats, like Richard said. Yes.

Martin

[Njen]

I don't know of any software that can do this without "cheating" in some way (take a look at Maxwell Renderer however)

Actually a lot of modern renderers can simulate this effect already: Vray, yafray, Octane Render and Kerkythea to name a few.

Plus I am pretty sure that Terragen does some kind of simulation of the dispersion of light through the atmosphere already. This is evident by simply lowering the elevation of the sunlight and experiencing a colour change based on how much of the atmosphere light must pass through.

[Tangled-Universe]

It's not simulation if I apply my way of thinking
It's all approximation by heavy simplification, otherwise it would be way too slow I think.

Actually a lot of modern renderers can simulate this effect already: Vray, yafray and Kerkythea to name a few.

Yes, but only on a scale of "a wine glass on a table"
I don't think it would be able to do this on a planetary atmosphere scale with the same algorithms.

[cyphyr]

...
Plus I am pretty sure that Terragen does some kind of simulation of the dispersion of light through the atmosphere already. This is evident by simply lowering the elevation of the sunlight and experiencing a colour change based on how much of the atmosphere light must pass through.

Indeed but it dose not change the shape of the sun for example ...

Richard