Well animation-WIP

Started by Kadri, August 06, 2014, 06:43:58 AM

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Kadri


I begun working on this animation project 4 or so months ago but then had no time to finish it.
I don't like posting WIP projects but i post this to get more pressure on myself to finally to get it done hopefully.

The main objective is making fluids and objects by using only what Terragen has to offer.
Some parts could be made more easily with help from other software or comping etc.
But what would be the fun of  it?

So what you will see here is all pure Terragen .
Curious how it will end :)

For now only still images.
This is the first one:


Kadri


The ground on the above image looked a little too clean.

archonforest

I like the wall of the well :D
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
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Dune

Ah, another interesting thread to follow. Good of you to post also the initial stages, Kadri! I am very curious what your intentions are and how you are going to solve the problems you no doubt encounter.

Kadri

#5

Thanks Ulco.
What i want to make is already in my mind.
But how it will end is another thing. I am curious too how it will look.
This is the biggest animation project i ever tried in Terragen.
One of my goals is to make the video at least 50 or 60 FPS and in HD quality.
I haven't seen any movie in that FPS so why not make this short animation to see how it will look.
I need to render it fast. I made this scene 3-4 times from scratch and
the last time was especially to get faster render times.
As i mentioned in another thread i used a plane instead of a planet node to get faster render times.
Don't know if it is always so fast but i got 2-3 times faster times in my setup.
Render time of one frame is 28 minutes (i7 2600 K ) for now.
Unfortunately the animation will be only 10-15 second long.

TheBadger

I was wondering if you would get back to this. 10-15 seconds long sounds great.
It has been eaten.

Kadri


Wish it could be longer Michael :)

I wasn't pleasant with the snow in the above images. I think i will settle with this look. 
The sun position and angle is a little different too.

Kadri


I changed some snow and ground parts a little.
Too much time wasted but i think it looks better.

Dune

The snow is really nice, I like the ridged effect in the steep part, like it's about to collapse. It is very clean, is that on purpose?
I do have a little trouble with the sandy (?) ground. I would make the colors more consistent with the stones (or vice versa) and add more small pebbles or course sand.
Will there be water in the well? A plane with a water shader will do that nicely.

Kadri

#10
Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...I like the ridged effect in the steep part, like it's about to collapse. It is very clean, is that on purpose?
...

Thanks Ulco. Yes that is a effect placed strategically on a strata shader and powerfractal with simple shape shaders as mask and altitude control.

Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...
I do have a little trouble with the sandy (?) ground.
I would make the colors more consistent with the stones (or vice versa) and add more small pebbles or course sand.
...

There is always room for improvement.
Like you said the sand could be different and on the far side there could be much bigger rocks
or small higher snow free ground for example.
I think i will change only the color of the stones as you said and see how it will look.

Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...Will there be water in the well? A plane with a water shader will do that nicely.

The focus is this mostly actually and i have kinda a working animated water already there but i will show that when all is finished Ulco.

Kadri

#11

I changed the ground and suddenly when render times where on the 1 hour 20 minute mark for 1 frame
i remembered why i didn't made the ground more dense 5 months ago!

I still wanted it a little different like Ulco said so i looked at other places where i could cut the render time.
I made the plane object much more smaller and used different sized masks
for every fake stone node and got it down to 39 minutes in the end.
If it was only for a still image i wouldn't even bother to try with those things.

I am quite bored to see the same picture since so long time
and i want to move along if there isn't anything you might say guys...?

Dune

Yes after a while you get bored with seeing the same thing over and over again, but your ground is way better now. I guess the water will be flowing down the sides of the well and across ground to the right? Then you may consider adding a reflective shader and some darkening to the well and ground, where the water will be.
Sometimes you don't need a compute terrain, if you don't use slope and height related shaders, you might (might, just test it) do without. That also saves render time.

Kadri

#13

Yes,there is one reflective darkening surface but it will be animated too and with the water together.
Hence there isn't one to see for now Ulco.

I striped all nodes to the bare minimum and there is only one compute terrain node already there.
The look changed more then i wanted without it. But it was a couple of days ago.
I changed many things after that. Maybe i can do now even without that one. I will have a look Ulco.


Kadri


I just tried it without the last compute terrain node Ulco.
It is 3 minutes faster, but unfortunately the fake stones don't look right.
But it does have a softer ground look compared to my last render .
I think i will have a last try to get that softer ground look :)