SSS river

[j meyer]

..." and a PS painted river mask with 'tributaries' ".
Did you paint that mask free or did you have an ortho or heightmap on
an other layer so that you could line up your river?

[Dune]

No, I just did some freehand lines and shoved the mask around until it was kind of right, but working from a heightmap would of course yield much more accurate results.

[TheBadger]

The Last image on page 4 is the one I like best in terms of concept. Its really nice! If asking does anything I would really like to see that one pushed as far as it can go! Also photo realism would be nice (if its possible?)

Ulco, once I finely get back to the waterfall project we talked about, I will animate water for you to use in one of these images if you like. It will be good practice, and I would like to see what it looks like with proper running water.

Also, do you recall the image you made this winter, or last fall, where you had some large ice pushing up through the ground? Can you post a link to that thread please. I was thinking about that image and the one I mentioned at the top of this post. Don't you think they would go good together?

[Dune]

This thread: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=13357.msg131864#msg131864 is about pingo's. And indeed, they would go well together. I'll keep it in mind, and maybe pursue the voronoi creeks/estuary a bit further.

Running water would be very nice! I think the water in these mountain scenes can be animated in TG to give it a quite realistic feel. Maybe just a slight change in warp and foam distribution might do the trick.

[TheBadger]

I would like to see what TG2 can do. If you can get the creeks and rivers running I want to see it. But I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that render times will be high, and the process will be complex.

[Dune]

If you look closely at running water, you can't actually see it running as it's transparent. Unless there's dirt coming with it. Or foam. The foam can be moved along the warped river, and by changing the displacement and maybe warp over time I can surely imagine it seeming to flow.

Another version, but not perfect either (too much voronoi). There's also a glitch near the source, which I have to straighten out.

[Dune]

The 3D-diff valley turned out quite nice though. Just some overall color enhancement to make the shadows deeper.

[Henry Blewer]

The 3D-diff looks great.

[Kadri]

Did you not like the surface in "3Ddiff-rivertest-28-04-12-v1.jpg" Ulco ?

[Dune]

I did, Kadri, this one just turned out differently, as I did have the feeling that the surface features where a bit 'grand', not fine enough for the animals and trees, so I lowered the heightened parts. With all the masks it's getting more tricky to get the landscape just right. Before you know there's a glitch somewhere. I got a new setup rendering right now with two snaking rivers, it's good practice setting it all up from scratch every time.

[Kadri]

[Dune]

New setup, so it's still ugly. But I found a new glitch. I have a mask which shows nicely purple in the riverbed fading out at the sides, but as soon as I add a surface layer (as a container) as a child with three stones in them, they only stick to the sides and leave the river bottom empty. HUH? No smoothing or any slope height restrictions in the nodes I use to texture the stones, nothing there to cause it. HUH? Two merge shaders (highest raise), but that's normal.
So.... work to do.

[Dune]

And this is the land of turtles or 'egg spraying dino's'.

[choronr]

1. An attempt at the smooth voronoi rocks and a PS painted river mask with 'tributaries'. It works, but the problem remains to get the mask over the ramp perpendicularly. For a river with no ramps and just soft rapids it's fine.
2. An experiment using a stretched and warped 3D diff scaler as the basis for an estuary system. Plus some procedurally colored Dutch cattle.

'2' is the best of all I think.

[Dune]

Thanks, Bob. These are all learning experiences, I probably never finish any one properly, just try out all kinds of methods. But I have the 3D-diff with the 4 mammoths as my desktop as the best of the lot indeed. For the time being.