My second image

[Artistico]

Hello again. I still haven't made a final version of my first Terragen image, but the only way of learning the ropes of this fascinating piece of software is to use it.

I was just playing around with it, and my second picture emerged. I know that there still aren't that many levels of shaders and detail, but I don't think that's always necessary to make an interesting picture. I have a background in painting, and there one often ends up doing the exact opposite - simplifying something into its essence.

I think I like this one pretty much as it is, though making a full render is a bit of a daunting task for my computer as my "quick" render in merely 800x533 pixels took more than 30 minutes, caused, presumably, by my use of the water shader on the lower part of the landscape.

[Henry Blewer]

Nice. I like the atmosphere's look. The hills are good also.

Let's increase your render time. The clouds could use more samples in the quality tab. I would make the alto clouds have harder edges. Also, because these clouds render in front of the hill, checking the receive shadows option would look better.

You can also get better reflections on the water by reducing the wave scale and roughness. This will make things smoother and reflect the nice clouds well.

[Dune]

May I suggest you read a lot of the (earlier) posts? There's a wealth of information here. Use the search button to address specific questions. It'll help you understand TG2 better. I would also suggest to start with landscapes that won't take too much memory, so concentrate on land and keep the clouds and water simple. Small displacements + water takes a huge time to render for instance, due to the calculation of all reflective sides and transparencies. The fatter and higher the clouds, the longer it takes as well.

[Artistico]

Thanks for the ideas.

@Njeneb. I didn't realise I had forgotten to check receive shadows for the clouds in front of the hills - certainly makes them more natural looking with that on, but now I have to adjust the cloud density a bit again.

The quality of the clouds actually looks rather good in the full render - I always set them to quality 1 which is what I keep seeing recommended, and I did a test of a small corner through the night that looks fine in full size, so I'm not convinced I need to up the samples there. I'll do it and make another test to compare, though.

The image here is just the quick render that took 30 minutes, so it is not fully representative of the final image's quality.

Making the lake water smoother would reduce the render time quite a bit. I'll see about how it looks with a smoother water shader for the low terrain too.

@Dune Yes I know I should start with the basics and work on terrain to get a proper feel for that before working more on water and clouds, but it's just too much fun making a finished picture that once the terrain looks okay I just have to add some water and clouds, and so I only learn a little each time, I guess, but I enjoy it more that way.

I certainly will read through earlier posts and search for different subjects, as I already have started doing every time I wonder about something, and I pick up bits and pieces here and there.

[Henry Blewer]

If you are using Raytrace atmosphere, then 0.65 to 0.7 seems to be enough samples for clouds. This depends on how much displacement is used from the function tab input settings.

[Tangled-Universe]

Nice. I like the atmosphere's look. The hills are good also.

Let's increase your render time. The clouds could use more samples in the quality tab. I would make the alto clouds have harder edges. Also, because these clouds render in front of the hill, checking the receive shadows option would look better.

You can also get better reflections on the water by reducing the wave scale and roughness. This will make things smoother and reflect the nice clouds well.

This is great advice.


Don't want to act like a know-it-all, but there are a couple of things which aren't entirely correct and could skew general consensus:

... The fatter and higher the clouds, the longer it takes as well.

1) The quality of the clouds actually looks rather good in the full render - I always set them to quality 1 which is what I keep seeing recommended, and I did a test of a small corner through the night that looks fine in full size, so I'm not convinced I need to up the samples there. I'll do it and make another test to compare, though.
2) Making the lake water smoother would reduce the render time quite a bit. I'll see about how it looks with a smoother water shader for the low terrain too.

1) Very good. In some cases when you have bright lighting and quite some contrast in the clouds, which you seem to have in this case, it might be possible you need to go beyond quality = 1 for your clouds.
If you don't use raytraced atmosphere in the renderer then increase the quality to 1.5 or 2 and see if it makes a difference.
If you use raytraced atmosphere you could try increasing AA instead of samples. (for example, if you have grainy clouds with AA4 then you might get smooth clouds with AA6)

2) I'm not so sure if that's true? Interesting to check that out!
You might search the forum for Dandelo's rendertime saver for water. It prevents the renderer from rendering water which is below the terrain and not visible in the end. Very effective.

Cheers,
Martin

[Artistico]

Now that is both helpful and very concrete. I'll keep those things in mind while trying different settings. Actually, the only thing that REALLY worries me about the long render times is I won't be able to use Terragen properly for other things while rendering, so I don't really mind.

I'm making a 1200x800 now at slightly different settings than before. So far the clouds look relatively fine even though I did them in quality 0.7.

Next year my 4 year old computer is due for an upgrade. I'm looking forward to improved render times then. Faster processor, more cores, more RAM. If it hadn't been for Terragen, I would probably have gone for lower specs than I will now that I finally have something that really benefits from the improved performance.

Terragen might only be $299, but if you add the cost of hardware it makes you want to buy, it is a LOT more expensive. Oh well. 

[Artistico]

Oh, I just figured out how to open a second instance of Terragen on my Mac. Long render times will no longer intimidate me as I know I can play around with settings while the other instance is rendering on its own.

the way to do it is mentioned here http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008040521371015 in case anyone else has wondered about the same thing.

[Henry Blewer]

I often render using one thread. This allows me to play older games, watch movies, surf the web. I use two threads (max on my machine) when I am at work. I can usually do a render in about 20 to 30 hours at 1920 x 1080. I am using a P4 HT.

[Artistico]

The water shader on the rocky flood bed area is really making for a slow render. My computer is still working on the 1200x800. After about 30 hours there is still about 30 per cent left as I can eyeball it. looking forward to seeing it done tomorrow so I can work more on less processor-intensive stuff again. It's looking nice, though. I'll post when it's done.

Speaking of render times, I understand processor speed really helps, so going from a dual-core 2.7 to a quad 3.4 should in itself make it 2.5 times faster. Does faster RAM help too? When I upgrade next year, my RAM would probably be 33 per cent faster too. If that counts for just as much, it would be 3.35 times faster, and my picture should render in just 12 hours or so.

Since I stopped playing computer games at home many years ago, this is the first time I've really started craving for an upgrade.

[dandelO]

See this post that should help with your water. You should simply be able to paint over those puddles, connect 2 new shaders and then water will only render where it's needed, not under the entire terrain... http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8793.0

[Artistico]

Thanks. I actually found that post earlier today and bookmarked it for future reference. I'm definitely using that next time I'm working with time-consuming water as well as trying it out when I am rendering a bigger version of the present image. 1200x800 can't be used for much. I want to go up to at least 6000x4000 for my final render some day.