Gorge *v2 on page 2*

Started by Tangled-Universe, June 29, 2011, 11:42:14 AM

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Oshyan

Agreed, I do see the specular settings are low, but what ultimately matters is what is perceived in the final image, and there seems to be broad consensus that it's "too shiny" for what is expected in this kind of scene. I agree in particular with Frank, *any* specularity doesn't really make sense to my mind in this environment. But as he and Dune said, if you do want a more wet impression, perhaps after a fresh rain, then maybe more vegetation, or go even further toward the shiny (really wet look). Something like Luc Bianco's shiny canyon (which I probably couldn't find now since he took down all his stuff).

- Oshyan

Tangled-Universe

I didn't disagree with what they saw, only with what they think causes it...it's just bright surfaces.
Nonetheless I will disable it entirely as I do agree it might fit the scene better without.

Bob (choronr) was pretty sure the bushes are in place (maybe except for the saturated colours) so I definitely won't change it into a completely arid scene ;)

I hope to find time today to work on it!

choronr

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on July 01, 2011, 02:48:13 AM
I didn't disagree with what they saw, only with what they think causes it...it's just bright surfaces.
Nonetheless I will disable it entirely as I do agree it might fit the scene better without.

Bob (choronr) was pretty sure the bushes are in place (maybe except for the saturated colours) so I definitely won't change it into a completely arid scene ;)

I hope to find time today to work on it!
Regarding the bushes as they relate to the terrain and it's color, I would bet that if they were an olive green - like the ones we see around the canyons and gorges around Sedona, Arizona. I like Frank's idea of the bluish/gray/green such as we see with the Sage brush common most everywhere in the southwest. A few of these mixed in with your current population would look good (but smaller). Also, those short dried grasses clumped sparsely in and around the area would look great.

As I look at your terrain, I'm wondering if you used the same canyon setup you made some time ago?

Seth

that is a very good render again Martin.
I do like the vegetation, because it adds some life into the shot and put some nice green part in this brown orange overall look.
I would go for a less saturated colour though.
I guess it is still a wip and i am waiting for the next iteration ^^

Tangled-Universe

Next iteration...

Oshyan

Excellent. The vegetation really blends in much better now. Some very bright rocks, even in bright light I would be surprised to see them get that white, but they do look less shiny. Is this now with all specular removed?

The rock shapes and texturing are overall quite good. I especially like the buildup of smaller rocks on the canyon floor.

- Oshyan

Kadri


Nice image , Martin!
The lighting looks a little too harsh too me.  I like the cracks :)

j meyer

As for the bright rocks: have you ever tried to use a colored fill-light?

Tangled-Universe

#23
Quote from: Oshyan on July 02, 2011, 04:25:01 AM
Excellent. The vegetation really blends in much better now. Some very bright rocks, even in bright light I would be surprised to see them get that white, but they do look less shiny. Is this now with all specular removed?

The rock shapes and texturing are overall quite good. I especially like the buildup of smaller rocks on the canyon floor.

- Oshyan

Thanks Oshyan.
I'm not very happy with the vegetation yet. I think it looks dropped in, rather than part of the scene. Already made some improvements on that.

I found out what caused the bright rocks. It wasn't specularity as that was removed entirely.
I think it's a "bug" in the fake stone shader. Some stones weren't "formed" and remained as flat patches on the surfaces. The ones which are formed incorporate the displacements and shading as they are supposed to do via the shader input port.
Those flat patches will have the same colour defined in your fake stone shader itself, despite you have exchanged it for displacement/texturing via the shader port.
Within those patches fake stones were created from other fake stones shaders and they in turn incorporated the white flat patch created by the other fake stone shader.
The merge shader which blends the fake stone layers together needs to work in "highest" mode to avoid stones on stones, but since the patches are flat it can't discern between this anymore.

I "fixed" this by choosing a fake stone colour as close as possible to the main canyon surface.

I'm not sure to call it a bug, because the consequences are logical, but I'm not sure why the flat patches will get the colour from the fake stone shader itself instead of the shader input. Also, on what conditions decides TG2 to really create/form a stone and when not to?

Difficult stuff, anyway, I've kind of fixed it.

Quote from: Kadri on July 02, 2011, 08:20:37 AM

Nice image , Martin!
The lighting looks a little too harsh too me.  I like the cracks :)

Thanks Kadri. The harsh lighting is improved. It's actually a bit of a consequence of the cracks which I reduced over distance and also made slightly less strong.
Generally I've noticed that the more cracks and other fancy stuff you do in TG2 the harder it is for the renderer to create balanced lighting. It seems.
For instance, the unnatural fast dropoff of shadow lightness and surface brightness is the first thing one notices.

Henry Blewer

I think the rocks look great Martin. The white can be blamed on salt leeching out, or quartz deposits.
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

Kadri


Martin ,it is interesting what you say about the lighting with more complicated settings.
Would love to hear something about this from Planetside.

Fake stones are sometimes tricky and behave as if the are broken (!). But i like them so much :D

Oshyan

Martin, if you can reproduce the issue with the fake stones, let's talk about it in the alpha forum. Maybe Matt can explain, or maybe it's a bug, in which case file it in the tracker.

- Oshyan

Tangled-Universe

Update on it's way @ 2400x1800 :)

Quote from: Oshyan on July 02, 2011, 01:56:30 PM
Martin, if you can reproduce the issue with the fake stones, let's talk about it in the alpha forum. Maybe Matt can explain, or maybe it's a bug, in which case file it in the tracker.

- Oshyan

Yes I will post a .tgd and additional information on the alpha forum tonight. I'm not sure yet if this issue is scene-specific or not. Nonetheless I find it strange and especially unwanted behaviour.

Tangled-Universe

Ok, version 2 in full resolution here:
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/186/b/8/gorge_v2_by_tangled_universe-d3l2nk6.jpg

Rendersettings were:
Detail 0.85 AA8 (MN filter), GI 2/6/2 with SS-prepass and 8 atmosphere samples with RTA enabled.
Tons of grasses as well and it made the renderer use 15GB of RAM during rendering :)
Still took 17 hours on my new machine...oops!

Cheers,
Martin

choronr

Oh my, this is a reach out and touch scene. Super work by you here Martin!