outputting matte passes and FBX support?

coremelt · February 16, 2012, 09:36:45 PM

Hi, I'm currently evaluating the free version of Terragen 2 for use in generating some fairly basic landscapes for a series of TV commercials. We'd be taking renders into Nuke or Flame in order to give them additional polish and also mate them with live elements from our shoot. We would buy the pack with XFrog plants for the project if I can figure everything out.

I need to be able to render out the z-depth pass in order to do depth of field and additional color grading in post. Ideally I'd also like to be able to render material ID passes. Eg if I create a shader called "grass" I want to be able to render out a matte pass that is white where grass is and black everywhere else, and so on for all the other shaders I create.

I also can't seem to get a good answer on if the current release supports FBX? Googling this finds statements that it's in progress, is it available yet?

many thanks

coremelt · February 16, 2012, 10:00:55 PM

one more question, I would also like to be able to disable motion blur output a motion vector pass so we can apply motion blur in Nuke using ReelSmart Motion Blur. It seems like Terragens built in motion blur is not very high quality.

Cyber-Angel · February 16, 2012, 11:11:08 PM

The long and short answer about .FBX support is no it is not in the current version, but as stated else where it is planed for a future release though one of the developers would have to comment on this. The thing is if it isn't in the file menu then it is not supported, there are no hidden file formats in TG2 so that as they say is that!

There are many things that would be nice in TG2 support for industry standard import and export of multi layered Photoshop .PSD files for pass rendering in addition to .FBX would be welcome along with such niceties such as camera mapping tools for matte and scene work, been able to save quicktime format animations and the like would all be welcome: but sadly they are not on anyone's horizon yet!

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel

coremelt · February 16, 2012, 11:17:12 PM

Is there an API available so that third parties could add in things like additional output modules? Seems to be quite an interest in Terragen from large VFX houses. if Planetside gave an API for others to write some new nodes, some of the larger VFX houses would write custom output modules for their pipelines.

I thought FBX might have been in the animation module and as mentioned I'm still evaluating the free version.

Cyber-Angel · February 16, 2012, 11:33:17 PM

Quote from: coremelt on February 16, 2012, 11:17:12 PM
Is there an API available so that third parties could add in things like additional output modules? Seems to be quite an interest in Terragen from large VFX houses. if Planetside gave an API for others to write some new nodes, some of the larger VFX houses would write custom output modules for their pipelines.

I thought FBX might have been in the animation module and as mentioned I'm still evaluating the free version.

There is an SDK in development, and has been for an number of years ETA I don't know. As to an ATI I don't think one is in development at this time one of the developers could tell you: look down near the bottom of the home page and you will find a forum about the SDK: that for the moment is all you can do, not ideal by any means what with clients, deadlines and budget limitations and all, but that as they say is life!

Regard to you.

Cyber-Angel

coremelt · February 17, 2012, 01:19:58 AM

yeah I found the thread about the SDK? Most posts are from 2007 !!!! Any updates on that from Planetside?

Matt · February 17, 2012, 02:24:05 AM

We're already working on Render Layers and Render Elements for release in v2.5 later this year (not the upcoming v2.4 which is imminent). Depth buffer and 2d motion vectors will both be included. Material ID elements might be possible, but we don't have a specific plan for that yet. You can use Constant Shaders with primary colours attached to objects to achieve this in current builds, or the luminosity channel in many shaders, but of course you're limited to how many IDs you can encode.

FBX is not currently supported. Actually we're considering Collada instead, as I've heard from other developers that FBX support through the libraries isn't ideal, Autodesk possibly having better implementations/knowledge than those that are publicly available. I don't know how true this is.

Matt

Matt · February 17, 2012, 02:25:39 AM

We don't have any current plans to release an SDK, but it's still a possibility in future.

coremelt · February 17, 2012, 05:54:42 AM

Quote from: Matt on February 17, 2012, 02:24:05 AM

FBX is not currently supported. Actually we're considering Collada instead, as I've heard from other developers that FBX support through the libraries isn't ideal, Autodesk possibly having better implementations/knowledge than those that are publicly available.

As far as I can see FBX and rendering out matte and material ID passes are the two things that would get you into the pipelines of major VFX companies with large orders for many seats. FBX is supported by Maya / Nuke / 3DS/ Flame / Smoke, while Collada is not directly supported by any of those.

penboack · February 17, 2012, 09:02:16 PM

There is a video tutorial showing how to get terrain geometry from Terragen 2 to Maya here: http://vimeo.com/13943941
You can use .chan export from Maya to get the camera animation into Terragen 2.

There is also a solution for Houdini. The following link shows you the round trip, geometry export to Houdini, camera animation in Houdini, camera animation export to Terragen for rendering out the animation: http://vimeo.com/831399

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on February 16, 2012, 11:11:08 PM
There are many things that would be nice in TG2 support for industry standard import and export of multi layered Photoshop .PSD files for pass rendering
Cyber-Angel

Surely OpenEXR, which is already supported, is a much better choice for rendering than Photoshop?
Photoshop files are very inefficient in terms of disk space. Try rendering passes from a major 3D application to Photoshop and OpenEXR and compare the file sizes...

Quote from: coremelt on February 17, 2012, 05:54:42 AM
FBX is supported by Maya / Nuke / 3DS/ Flame / Smoke

Add CINEMA 4D, Houdini and modo to the list of applications supporting FBX.

coremelt · February 17, 2012, 10:02:06 PM

Thanks for the info. I'm mostly a compositor, I'll be doing Nuke and Flame on the job in question, but learning to make my own landscapes would be really handy on many occasions, especially making partial landscapes to fill gaps when doing cleanups, removing unwanted objects from scenes etc.

It should be possible for me to export terragen geometry to Nuke. Even though Nuke is a compositing app it has a full 3D workspace and support for importing geometry. Then I can animate the camera in Nuke and then send that back to Terragen for rendering, I'll give that a go. I can use Nuke chan files for sending the camera data back and forth right?

Oshyan · February 17, 2012, 10:15:21 PM

You can *import* CHAN files into TG2 but not export them *from* TG2 at this time.

- Oshyan

coremelt · February 17, 2012, 10:17:38 PM

yeah ok, but thats ok, I can send Geometry to Nuke, then animate camera then send the camera back as chan files ?

Matt · February 17, 2012, 11:02:31 PM

Quote from: coremelt on February 17, 2012, 10:17:38 PM
yeah ok, but thats ok, I can send Geometry to Nuke, then animate camera then send the camera back as chan files ?

Yes.