Static camera - Animated cloud : best Gi cache strategy ?

Started by paq, April 06, 2015, 12:47:54 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

paq

Hello guys,

Anyone has already tried to render an animated sky, with a static camera, and would be kind to share his render strategy ?
So far I have tried the default cache settings :

- Cache for every frame
- Read the cache / Blend mode Interpolate / 5 files

The result is not that good, I have lots of brightness variation during the sequence (gi settings was pretty low too, using 4/4 for GIcd/Gisq)

It's a very overcast kind of sky, with really slow cloud motion.

There are so many options to try (increase gi quality/detail, changing the blending mode, adding more frame to blend, ... ), I'll really appreciate any input from experienced user !

Thanks :)

Gameloft

TheBadger

"CloudAnim01.mp4 "

Very cool!

Cant help on the problem though. But I am waiting for an answer as well since I have lots of clouds in everything I want to animate, as well as static cameras in all of those scenes.
It has been eaten.

Oshyan

We strongly recommend a "sparse cache" strategy in *most* cases, whether your camera is moving or not. See documentation here:
http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Terragen_3_Global_Illumination#Rendering_with_GI_cache_files

I generally find it works well to render a cache on every 5th frame and then blend 3-5 frames.

- Oshyan

Clay

Howdy Howdy! Not sure thats the problem, but I'll throw a few thoughts in here. I'm assuming you are doing a planatery cloud not a localised animation correct or not lol? Cuz many things here, your animation I watched on a 2560x1440 dpi screen I observed a super amount of naughty! The haze and the volumetrics combining etc etc. on atmosphere drop the the jitter to almost zero and samples to upwards of 64. Oshyan you can explain this a helluva more than me for sure, I'm still learning this app as well. Take off the color correction functions as well, dunno why there's gamut corrections in every piece of software cuz every puter is set up different but thats life, I'm not sure about the whole cache thing, I think it can be done smoothly without some of the bells and whistles , but its just me and my thoughts, will do some animation tests now that I'm back hone.

paq

Hello,

Thanks for the help Oshyan, I'll give a sparse cache a try with your recommended settings !
Gameloft

Tangled-Universe

Wow that animation looks pretty awesome already!

If I may suggest a few things to try to make the clouds a bit more interesting animation-wise :)

For example, you can use 4D noise on them and set speed to ~0.05 (default 0.1 is pretty quick).
Takes a bit of trial and error what you like best.

Also warping the cloud with a warp input with a ridge flavored PF generally looks quite nice. Especially if you give the ridged PF 4D noise as well.

Either way, I'm looking forward to see the result :)

zaxxon


paq

 :-[ 8)

Thanks a lot, I very glad (and surprised) you like it already !

Thanks a lot for your feedback Mr Universe.

There was a very slow 4d animation (0.02) on the posted video, and I have a 0.05 test version cooking right now, with Oshyan settings suggestions.

For now I will not change the scene that much, I'm sure adding warping will make the image more interesting, but this cloud scape is a really tiny part of the whole animation, and I don't want to distract the 'audience' too much.

If everything turns well, I will bump the thread with the final animation ;)
Gameloft

paq

Hello,

We I finally give up about the cloud animation idea. We don't really get the render power to manage that. So I have enhance the cloud scape a little bit and add few point light here and there to simulate lightning.  Here's a little prev, doesn't look that bad  8) (need to work the timing a little bit)
Gameloft

Dune


Upon Infinity

Is that second one ALL Terragen clouds?  Nice work on the lightning, BTW.

bobbystahr

something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist