One of my "official first" renders

[DocCharly65]

Hi 

more than a decade ago I started playing around with Terragen classics and purchased the V3 some months ago.

My ambitions are of course limited to the hobby (for now  ). Currently, I just test the possibilities of animation, but I hope that I will do the one or the other nice single picture.

The attachment (I hope it works) shows a single shot from my "project" Canyon. I found a *.ter file on the terradreams website with an impressive canyon and work on it since some months... I am not sure, if I will animate this scene, but I like the sight.

Best regards from Germany (thank you for the spell check in this forum)

[archonforest]

Welcome to the forum
I like this picture.

[Dune]

Good start and welcome!

[DocCharly65]

Thanks a lot, archonforest and dune. This first acknowledgment is very helpful.
Some weeks ago at the beginning I thought I will never understand the V3 software... and most of my node networks still look like neglected vegetable gardens  But the fun-factor and the ambition is growing every day.

[Dune]

You'll get the hang of it. I've said this before; do name your shaders/nodes cryptically (what they're doing), and try to get a neat organization. The more nodes you add, the more complicated it gets.

[Matt]

Ulco, don't you mean noncryptically?

[choronr]

A nice start by you. Been with this since the early Terragen classic years; and, are still learning. The possibilities are infinite. Stick with it; and, look forward to seeing your work.

[TheBadger]

Hi,
Nice going. Please keep on.

[Dune]

@Matt:  Noncryptically    I mean: abrupt; terse; short: a cryptic note.

[Matt]

  Cryptic also means mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous. Which is exactly the opposite of what you want your notes to be... don't you?

[DocCharly65]

Thanks to all :-)

In any case, I made the first experience with "nodes". With my previous habit from TG classic, to program all surfaces on "surface layer" and "child layer" from top to bottom, I couldn't continue in TG3 especially with the objects. Funny thing was, that I only found a (youtube-) tutorial for limiting areas of e.g. trees via nodes (pop obj > density shader). All my instinctive attempts to program it via the object panel had failed...  so I did my first step towards the node panel And now I do one step after the other, when I need new knowledge.

I hope that my currently running animation calculation is finished soon, so that I can continue my lessons.

I have started with this in TG Classic: frame0165_1.jpg
...and something similar to this should appear sometime in the future in HD: temp.0042.jpg

Here is just a "not listed" link to youtube to see, what's the plan: http://youtu.be/8JQqUKf3CUc
(The computationally complex parts rendered in 500x250 and all aggregated with magix to get a rough scene running.)

At the moment a 800x450 750 frames test calculation for the sunrise runs. After that I will see if I have learned my lesson in avoiding flickering of shadows and atmosphere  and I will start to give the balloons above the canyon some movement and rotation.... then some pebbles at the riverside... and and and...

So much to do. But I hope that there still remains time for one or the other nice scene image.

[Dune]

Sorry Doc, but yes, Matt, I saw that too when looking for translations. Strange actually, such a double meaning.

@Doc: looking forward to your future work, you're off with a good start!

[RogueNZ]

That's a fantastic start to an animation! I can't wait to see it re-rendered with additional surfacing features, stones and plants etc

[Kadri]

The animation looks sweet. Curious about the final version
By the way did you used the "Animation check" option in the Render node in that test animation?

[DocCharly65]

Thanks, Kadri. 
I always use "Animation check" if I don't forget. In my Canyon project all TG-files depend on each other so I had only once a message. I clicked too fast to see, what was corrected automatically.

For the test animation in youtube I additionally used the GICache. Rest set to lowest quality for highest render speed. Last night I tested the ray detail region padding to avoid shadows popping in the sunrise scene and "3 balloon's". Seems to work.

At the moment I am fighting the fakestones for the "flight through the canyon" ... 12km plants and fake stones at the riverside... I'm not satisfied with the canyon yet. And in HD the quality issues in detail will not be forgiven   But I will show new testrenders soon