testing bumps

[Dune]

I made this yesterday with RTO (detail0.65 AA8), and another version is now rendering with RTO off (detail 0.8 and AA4), just to see what happens to the buildings and foliage....

[Dune]

That was quick; 27 mins render. no RTO (detail 0.8, AA4). Oh, and I took out the DOF blur. See what you think. Now I'm going to up the rougher displacements...

[mhaze]

IMHO number two is much crisper and richer in texture.  The edges also seem less sharp and smooth, more realistic.

[masonspappy]

Echo mhaze.  #2 looks great1

[TheBadger]

Dune,

This is an interesting test I wish I had seen before I started my current render. Can you say for sure, or what is your best guess, will RTO effect the bump on my image mapped surface, like in your example? I would love to get that extra bump back.

RTO off is much better looking in your examples, IMO. There does seam to be some extra noise though, can you explain it?

[choronr]

Either one wins a prize - I like them both.

[Dune]

The grain is probably due to the lower AA. If I'd up both I'd be safe, but some render would take forever maybe. But this surely a thing to remember when doing close up shots I think; sometimes no RTO will give better results. Only I didn't decrease the bump on the tree's bark. In fact, I should make a special (negative) bump map, where the black is displaced and the white stays quite flat.
And if you use procedural displacement, some objects may be torn apart if you're too enthusiastic.  

@ Badger; I thought your walls were procedural, not objects. Procedurally, you could just increase displacement.

[Cyber-Angel]

Vary image images, but a few niggles. My understanding of the construction of roundhouses from listening to Dr.Francis Prior Et Al, is that roundhouse roofs where inclosed and that the smoke from the central hearth peculated out through the thatch of the roof. The opening in the roof, as shown here, would in fact (From my understanding) be a fire safety risk to the inhabitants of this roundhouse, as it [The roof opening] would create a chimney effect on the central hearth which could [and likely would] cause flame contact with the thatch in side the roundhouse burning to the ground.

The second thing is that this roundhouse has no drip-gully at the line of intersection between the leading edge of the bottom of the thatch and the ground (Visualize a straight line [in your head] running straight down from the leading edge of the thatch [edge of thatch furthest away from the wall] to the ground) where rain water would runoff.

Apart form these issues [artistic license and all that) I like what you've done. 

Regards to you

Cyber-Angel

                 

[Tangled-Universe]

Vary image images, but a few niggles. My understanding of the construction of roundhouses from listening to Dr.Francis Prior Et Al, is that roundhouse roofs where inclosed and that the smoke from the central hearth peculated out through the thatch of the roof. The opening in the roof, as shown here, would in fact (From my understanding) be a fire safety risk to the inhabitants of this roundhouse, as it [The roof opening] would create a chimney effect on the central hearth which could [and likely would] cause flame contact with the thatch in side the roundhouse burning to the ground.

The second thing is that this roundhouse has no drip-gully at the line of intersection between the leading edge of the bottom of the thatch and the ground (Visualize a straight line [in your head] running straight down from the leading edge of the thatch [edge of thatch furthest away from the wall] to the ground) where rain water would runoff.

Apart form these issues [artistic license and all that) I like what you've done. 

Regards to you

Cyber-Angel
                 

You mean you have heared/seen some about it on BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory

[freelancah]

Very nice lighting ! And obviously the rest too

[Cyber-Angel]

No, I've been interested in archeology and history for many years and prefer science based knowledge over speculation, that been said the further back in time you go the less certainty you have. Certainly there are excavations, where no evidence of drip gullies have been found, for what ever reason; deep draw plowing, unfavorable soil conditions for preservation et al.  End of Line.



Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel         

[TheBadger]

 @ Badger; I thought your walls were procedural, not objects. Procedurally, you could just increase displacement.

Image mapped. adding displacement does not work like it does in your image.

[jo]

Hi,

There is no doubt that ray tracing objects greatly increases the visual quality of certain types of scenes. I did quite a lot of testing with it during development and it really makes a difference to plants or similar objects with finer detail. You can get a similar visual quality without raytracing by really increasing the AA but that slows things down a lot. I also think that the raytraced objects can look more "integrated" with the scene, in terms of the lighting seeming to match better. This is more noticeable with longer vistas.

However the tradeoff with all this is that when raytracing objects you don't get true displacement and that can make a difference with foreground and non-vegetative objects. I think in your case the hut looks a bit better with proper displacement and the other elements still look good (a little hard to tell because of the DOF) so in this case having RTO off is probably the right decision.

RTO is on by default because in what we might think of as typical scenes it gives higher quality more quickly. It's not right for everything though.

I think it would be great if you could turn raytracing on or off on a per-object basis, but I've never actually heard a reason why that might or might not be practical.

Regards,

Jo

[Dune]

RT per object would indeed be the ultimate solution, so if you could get that working I at least would be very happy. The scenes with a refined and close-up foreground combined with a wide vista are the most difficult anyway (IMO), so that would certainly help.
I usually absentmindedly leave RTO on, but I will pay more attention to the kind of scene from now on.

@Badger: You can still add displacement, even if procedural displacements are image mapped. Just add some no-color fractal.

@Cyber-Angel: They're not the British roundhouses, but the Dutch (and Swedish) types, based on research I did in Ekehagen, Sweden. But you're very right about dripping gullies. They would have been there, no doubt.