voxels

Started by bobbystahr, December 15, 2015, 06:45:27 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

bobbystahr

just saw this in clouds, must be a paid version thing...what do they do? I haven't got a noticeable result from them as I'm likely doing it wrong.
A hint will suffice, just to get me on track.....old dogs and all that....
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

bobbystahr

And before anyone recommends it, the WIKI is uninformative to put it politely. One very small vague movie that shows me nothing.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Oshyan

The Voxel Buffer is a rendering acceleration method that works *for localized clouds only*. If you're using Localized Clouds you can get faster rendering using Voxel Buffer, though it can have a minor effect on the look of your clouds, especially at the edges. What you mainly should notice is faster rendering, but again only with Localized Clouds enabled.

- Oshyan

Kadri

Quote from: Oshyan on December 15, 2015, 10:26:09 PM
...What you mainly should notice is faster rendering, but again only with Localized Clouds enabled.
...

Oshyan i made a very basic test and saw very small difference.Is there anything special to know about the settings?
What about the 2D shadow map feature? Saw the same there too.

bobbystahr

#4
Quote from: Oshyan on December 15, 2015, 10:26:09 PM
The Voxel Buffer is a rendering acceleration method that works *for localized clouds only*. If you're using Localized Clouds you can get faster rendering using Voxel Buffer, though it can have a minor effect on the look of your clouds, especially at the edges. What you mainly should notice is faster rendering, but again only with Localized Clouds enabled.

- Oshyan

Thanks, makes sense as I'd not tried it with Localize Clouds. Will play till it shows me something
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

paq

Would be awesome that once voxelized, we could export them as .openvdb volume item :O)
Gameloft

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: paq on December 16, 2015, 10:35:34 PM
Would be awesome that once voxelized, we could export them as .openvdb volume item :O)

The other way around, I'd say.

Why would you want to export from TG to any app which is inferior to TG in cloud rendering? ;)

Importing a model or voxel-data into TG, now that would be nice, because there is a lot of software out there which is better at modeling shapes etc. than TG but not better at rendering them :)

Kadri

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 17, 2015, 07:05:01 AM
...
Importing a model or voxel-data into TG, now that would be nice, because there is a lot of software out there which is better at modeling shapes etc. than TG but not better at rendering them :)

That would be great really.

paq

#8
Hi TU,

Mantra (Houdini), Arnold, Clarisse are capable to render volumetric clouds/fx, with gi, scattering and all the whistles.
The result quality is good enough for my taste, for localized formation. But tools for creating those volumetric assets are not as easy to use than Terragen ... or at least I'm not really familiarized with them.

I also do thing those render engines are more versatile than Terragen, especially when lighting precision is important (small scale scene / hdr studio lighting), or when advanced raytracing effect are needed (sss, refraction, multiple gi bounces, hair rendering, etc).

And there is no disrespect from me, I appreciate Terragen for what it can do.

Anyway there is no reason we can't get both right (import/export) ?

Some 3d package are (badly ?) starting to play in Terragen/Vue field. And imho it's very important that Terragen start
to play better with others. Especially since format like .abc, or .vdb are in the game, helping to exchange all kind of data.
Gameloft

Kadri

Quote from: paq on December 17, 2015, 10:59:07 AM
...
I also do thing those render engines are more versatile than Terragen, especially when lighting precision is important (small scale scene / hdr studio lighting), or when advanced raytracing effect are needed (sss, refraction, multiple gi bounces, hair rendering, etc).
...


Yes.There are some nice Terragen renders with nice surfacing around but texturing,shading imported object in Terragen is still hard for me.


Quote from: paq on December 17, 2015, 10:59:07 AM
...
Anyway there is no reason we can't get both right (import/export) ?
Some 3d package are (badly ?) starting to play in Terragen/Vue field. And imho it's very important that Terragen start
to play better with others. Especially since format like .abc, or .vdb are in the game, helping to exchange all kind of data.

More import/export options are always good.
The new version of Lightwave will have a new render engine for example.
Some early cloud images and how you can make them videos do look encouraging.
Matt works in the VFX industry itself (as we all know) so he knows those kind of needs most definitely.

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: paq on December 17, 2015, 10:59:07 AM
Hi TU,

Mantra (Houdini), Arnold, Clarisse are capable to render volumetric clouds/fx, with gi, scattering and all the whistles.
The result quality is good enough for my taste, for localized formation. But tools for creating those volumetric assets are not as easy to use than Terragen ... or at least I'm not really familiarized with them.

With TG it's extremely easy to create massive amounts of clouds, but as soon as a client asks for something very specifically shaped then the nightmare starts with TG.

From rendering aspects Mantra, Arnold and Clarisse can do it, but among those 3 with variable results and capabilities.
Some can handle the procedurals but render less nice results and some can handle it but it doesn't look as nice as (TG).

Quote
Anyway there is no reason we can't get both right (import/export) ?

Of course, who will argue with that?
My comment was purely meant to illustrate that if a choice was needed to be made then TG should first be able to import them rather export them.
See my arguments above on why.


Quote
I also do thing those render engines are more versatile than Terragen, especially when lighting precision is important (small scale scene / hdr studio lighting), or when advanced raytracing effect are needed (sss, refraction, multiple gi bounces, hair rendering, etc).

And there is no disrespect from me, I appreciate Terragen for what it can do.
Quote
Some 3d package are (badly ?) starting to play in Terragen/Vue field. And imho it's very important that Terragen start
to play better with others. Especially since format like .abc, or .vdb are in the game, helping to exchange all kind of data.

The versatility is exactly why other renderers are less capable of rendering clouds compared to TG.
Other renderers are designed to handle a lot of different situations well, while TG is designed for this type of rendering work (landscape/clouds) quite specifically and not to handle it well but rather very well.
It's more specialized than other renderers out there, which makes it strong and weak at the same time.


WAS

Is there any comparison of voxels in actions verses base?

Oshyan

Martin made a good comparison that we used in our TG3 release info:
http://planetside.co.uk/images/terragen3/Localized_Clouds_Performance.jpg

- Oshyan

WAS

Quote from: Oshyan on December 17, 2015, 10:31:06 PM
Martin made a good comparison that we used in our TG3 release info:
http://planetside.co.uk/images/terragen3/Localized_Clouds_Performance.jpg

- Oshyan

Huh, and the voxel version doesn't look too bad at all. In fact the cloud edges look cleaner. Could be undesirable in certain circumstances.