Borealis Moon

Started by Markal, March 09, 2011, 11:05:17 PM

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Markal

Collab with Bob (choronr) second version. I used quality of .7, aa at 7....tried reducing the cloud samples a bit and rendered at 1024 x 1205. Bobs render took 90+ hours this one took 89+ hours. We asked for help and most of the suggestions have already been tried and did not work. I think a borealis file to use over and over would be a good addition to Planetside forums...its just that it takes too long to render....someone please help! The original "Borealis - North Light" TGD is available in the file sharing section.
Thanks
Mark (Markal)

Markal

Wow...thanks for all the responses!!! You guys are great! At least thats what Bob (choronr) tells me....I dunno??? I can't decide....who is trying to out-do one another?
Sorry, I'm just frustrated....I don't post here often...only because I know most of you are way ahead of me and I may not have much to add. I don't have all the answers nor am I an ARTIST EXTRODINARE....but, I try...some of my work is O.K.. When someone asks how I did something or to share a file....I send an e-mail trying to help. I try to respond to their works with honesty....without being too critical. Does the Borealis image really suck and no one seems to care? Tell me the truth and I'll give it up...but, I see potiential here....Bob and I worked long and hard (with patience for long render times) to make this available to everyone....for FREE.....FOR FREEEEE. We are asking for someone to step up and make this a better usable and re-usable file.

WHEW.....I got that off my chest and I apoligize for my rant....but, if things don't change around here....expect many more rants in the future. :)
Make me your friend and you'll never be rid of me...LOL
Mark (Markal)
markedwards@cableone.net

Oshyan

Hey now, personally I *love* these images! The aurora effect is, to my inexperienced and untrained eye, very realistic and beautiful. I am in fact working right now on the file to improve render times and things look very promising already. So don't get discouraged! Your last aurora post had lots of response, and this one was probably just posted at an awkward time, when people in the US were maybe done posting for the evening. Patience :)

- Oshyan

Seth

1st message 5:05AM, 2nd 8:00AM ! (France time)
This is not messenger but a forum board.
thanks for sharing, even if i won't download it. that's kind for people.

Volker Harun

The colour offset gives the sky a stunning depth. It definitly improved.
It is now more than 3 years ago that I let my machine render longer than 24 hours to complete an image. And I really respect your effort and patience here.

You might want to work a bit on the foreground a bit, as it misses some depth. I know that at northern nights there is almost no haze nor fog. But artisitcally, a very low and thin fog-layer could enhance this image to become a masterpiece.

Nonetheless ... it must render faster!

Dune

I still think (replied to the other thread before) that the clouds are too high, and that's what causing the long render time. If you hang them at 4000 meters and make them 1000 it might be better and just as convincing.

freelancah

I think its a good depiction of the event. Ive seen quite a few auroras here in Finland and from those that I have seen they seem a bit softer than this but I suppose this is possible too.. I think you did good and obviously very patient with rendering :P
Also Volker is right about the fog/haze being non-existant on nights like this, but I can imagine it adding to the scene.

Markal

Thanks for the inputs. I guess I wore my patience out on a 90 hour render. I'll try to regain my patience and see what some of you come up with...thanks!

Redwolf

try a flatter base to it, and perhaps mask it with a painted shader, starting from the horizon, swirl it up to the top middle

Redwolf

something like this perhaps?

dandelO

I like this one even better than the last, and I loved that one!

And yes, since you posted at 4am and 7am, not much chance for me to respond at that time.

Like I said before, I think you guys should use the 'localise' parameter of the borealis cloud layer, this would stop it from extending to the horizon and significantly reduce render time.
Also, as Dune said, make the depth much shallower so that as many samples are not required and that would also reduce render time a little bit.

Most prominent to me from your shared .tgd(that I also mentioned to you before) was the atmosphere samples, they really do not need to be so high at all(nearly 400 samples for a very thin atmo is completely unrequired). It's the clouds that contain the noise you want to rid, not the atmosphere and this will really increase render time. I would say 32 samples at most would suffice for this scene, you have really not got a thick atmo that you need to bump-up so high.

Finally, FrankB said it all by saying that you should use 'ray-trace atmosphere' in your render node for this scene.

Considering all the input you actually have had already, it was maybe a little unwarranted to start shouting about how people here are just trying to out-do one another and how 'great' the members are in general.
I always aim to post the best advice I can think of at the time I post, unfortunately, if that time is between 4 and 7am then I probably won't be around, as will many of us European time-zone folks who visit here.

Hope you have some luck tuning the file, it really is lovely but 90 hours is a bit much to wait on it, hopefully, with some of the advice you've received, you'll get there in the end. :)

Oshyan

dandelO is spot on with his comments on atmosphere samples. I suspect you just cranked up all sample parameters in an effort to reduce noise when it still remained even after putting the cloud samples so high. But the reality is the atmosphere contributes very little noise in this case, but very significantly to render time. Reducing that to 16 or at most 32 samples is fine. In my version that I posted in another related thread, atmosphere samples was 12!

Raytrace Atmosphere is really the key to this though, especially considering how high you need the cloud samples to reduce noise. I'll post some more details of my setting tweaks once I can verify render time on the actual scene (the one posted in File Sharing doesn't seem to be the same as these).

- Oshyan

choronr

Boy did I miss this one; sorry Mark. I have too many things going sometime to look up and smell the roses. Your version and format is really good. At this time, the render time has been reduced to 6 hours and some minutes. I'd like to see others grab the ,tgd in sharing and run with it. I'll post the latest (6 hour render) .tgd in sharing.

Bob

Henry Blewer

I have been, distracted lately. Normally I read all posts here.

Anyway. I have been looking at the progress on this aurora exploration. The render is one of the best I have ever seen. Quite photo realistic.
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

inkydigit

ingenious concept Mark...very realsitic effect...
http://www.space.com/images/i/8161/i02/aurora-eklund-2-110215-02.jpg
:)
I will hopefully get a chance to dissect this at some point!