Welcome to the Canyon

[DocCharly65]

I have struggled for over a week with only the fake stones and the riverside. For a single shot I will have to go on for a long time but for my planned Animation this should be an adequate basis... Welcome to the Canyon:

Here I tested frame 250 of 1500 (somewhere deep in the Canyon   )

[attach=1]


This will be the starting point of the Animation:

[attach=2]


Here first time in my life I had some kind of success with fake stones:

[attachimg=3]

3 days later after hours of experiments I got an interesting effect of stones covered with dried mud or clay:
(Until now I've never managed to get decent pebbles - I will work on it some day   )

[attachimg=4]

Here more wetness (but rendertime with the reflective shader exploded to many hours so I decided for an animation it also must work without:
[attachimg=5]

Renderjob of the animation is running now. I decided to reduce quality from Full HD down to HD (1280x720). So I have Rendertimes from app. 10-20 Minutes per frame. Of course frames close to the water are the ones with the up to 20 minutes.
I hope the two stills are ok for you and you are enjoying my little adventure story with the "fake stones".

[Kadri]

Looks good.
I wanted some more detail and HD resolution for my animation too but had to make some sacrifices too like you.
So or so seeing the work as an animation is quite another sweet aspect

[DocCharly65]

You say it, Kadri 

I have tested different views - result is that the most plausible and most natural view is just above the water surface = high render times.
Additionally I have the monumental work that I must check app. 12 - 16km riverside to have a not perfect but acceptable look...

and this in my helicopter-speedboat-balloon-jetsky-car at 420mph...

Here I became a little sick and decided to stop revising the shore :

[attachimg=1]


But joking aside. I just scratch on the surface of TG3... and time is the biggest limitation. Especially with my fake stones I had to be very patient, when I wanted to see little improvements and differences in the next picture and had to wait 10-20 minutes. Will be much better some day when I really know what I am doing and not just try around.

Here you can see the complete path:

[attachimg=2]

[fleetwood]

Nice looking river bed.
You can uncheck the box for ray traced reflections in the reflective shader of the river rocks.
It is the mirror like ray traced reflections that consume a lot of render time. You probably don't need true mirror like reflection for rocks so the unraytraced type reflection will give highlights on the rocks.

[DocCharly65]

thank you, fleetwood

I will try your suggestion. It sounds plausible to me. I hoped to find a trick like this.


Some Minutes I saw your island-44s.jpg - looks great. I hope to have as good coastlines some day.

[Antoine]

This is going to be a very nice animation! I am looking forward to seeing the final result.

David.

[DocCharly65]

3 more days and... OK... I start to like my Canyon

Completely new fakestones, a smooth operator for the heightfield and somebody probably tried to build a boat dock. I guess I disturbed him

[attach=1]

The parts in the foreground unfortunately were one connected object after I imported to TG. I would have preferred less parts or for example an old tree stump or shore flushed logs, but for free, it's OK for me. I found it on TurboSquid.com.

[attach=2]


@ David: Thanks, I also saw your homepage. Great works (although I do not speak French)
Unfortunately after each progress I put the animation plans back on hold   
Each time suddenly improvements haunt in my head and I want to make more ...
But some day the film will come

[TheBadger]

Its going to be a great animation! I would not rush it.
If you see anything you don't like then fix it. 

[bobbystahr]

This looks like an awesome WIP. Can't wait to see the final...good stuff....

[choronr]

I like what you have done here. Would like to see some color variation in the trees.

[DocCharly65]

Thanks, TheBadger, bobbystahr & choronr 

@choronr: At the moment I just work with some free xfrog- and TG3-included plants. So far I have not been very intensive working with the shapes of objects. I own the TG 3 3 Creative + Animation just since the beginning of September.

But every Day there are some baby-steps 

Project is growing... as I calculate now, it may be finished in 2050
This is the state of the "boat dock" from weekend:

[attach=1]

after intensive studies in this marvelous forum I found out how to do this (not officially listed youtube link):

Most of the weekend I tested variations... in this short animation test e.g. the pine log is faster than the water, and some more mistakes... I am working on it.

I spent almost 1 day nonstop for creating animated slight haze and fog over water but for my actual state of knowledge and my old little brain that was really tooo much... 


And not to get crazy, I have interrupted these experiments yesterday in favor of a new scene. Same canyon, same river, same boat dock but different time   :

[attach=2]

I think this may be the start or ending scene of the complete movie project... at home my PC is rendring a test animation: Camera moving slowly towards the boat - I hope slower than the flow speed of the stream. ...I will see tonight...