realism

Tangled-Universe · December 27, 2015, 02:08:50 PM

If you don't displace the leaves then they should look fine I'd tend to say. Strange.

The bump/displacement of the bark is a bit too much to my taste. It's a CG give-away so to say.

It seems you indeed need more soft shadow samples. Given that 14 isn't enough, then I guess around 25 should give you acceptable results.
You may try turning off jittering with 15 samples and see if the banding (as a result of not jittering the shadow samples anymore) is something you can live with.

archonforest · December 27, 2015, 02:52:03 PM

I like the dof and the added flower

The trunk looks weird on the left side of the tree...

bobbystahr · December 27, 2015, 10:16:32 PM

I do believe that Forced Displacement turns off Ray Tracing on the whole object whether displaced or not, not too bad on populations where you can select Ultra quality (Slowest) in the Render quality drop down. Just what I understood...

AP · December 28, 2015, 01:15:23 AM

Some information about Forced Displacement that Matt had laid out.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=20358.0

Tangled-Universe · December 28, 2015, 05:28:17 AM

Ah yes I forgot about that.

In this case, when you render the objects with the micropoly-renderer you need to increase render detail to something like 0.8-1.0.
Depends a bit on how fine the detail in the textures is and whether they should be visible if you consider the size of the texture to your rendered frame (screenspace size).
I wouldn't render this with AA smaller than 8 anyway, btw.

Cocateho · December 29, 2015, 05:57:22 PM

Upped the detail to .9 from .6, also toned down the displacement a bit, and upped soft shadow samples a little as well. Looks better, although I'm not sure I like the force displacement effect, in this case at least.

From what I understand of that post force displacement actually reduces quality?

Dune · December 30, 2015, 03:21:45 AM

Force displacement takes the RayTracing out, as Bobby wrote, so detail is not as 'fine'. What did you use for displacement, a PF or the bark texture displacement/bump map? Maybe the latter is too refined, and needs some smoothing. I can make a bump map for you with PixPlant if you wish. The white areas are really smooth so should raise smoothly and quite sharply off the darker parts, and the darker areas are rougher.

bobbystahr · December 30, 2015, 06:18:58 PM

Quote from: Dune on December 30, 2015, 03:21:45 AM
Force displacement takes the RayTracing out, as Bobby wrote, so detail is not as 'fine'. What did you use for displacement, a PF or the bark texture displacement/bump map? Maybe the latter is too refined, and needs some smoothing. I can make a bump map for you with PixPlant if you wish. The white areas are really smooth so should raise smoothly and quite sharply off the darker parts, and the darker areas are rougher.

Ooooh my wish list just got longer...as a freelancer PixPlant is affordable....have to try out the demo....thanks for the hint....

Dune · December 31, 2015, 03:57:40 AM

Actually, I don't really know what apps like Pixplant do to a texture, is it merely converting to greyscale and adjusting sharpness of certain levels? You can do a lot in Photoshop itself by converting to greyscale and smoothing out certain areas or grey-ranges, or even everything. Increasing lightness by hand for certain areas. As a real life person better sees what should be raised and what not.
Some textures have light falling on areas that shouldn't really be more displaced, but of course it depends on the quality of the texture.

bobbystahr · December 31, 2015, 05:10:43 PM

Quote from: Dune on December 31, 2015, 03:57:40 AM
Actually, I don't really know what apps like Pixplant do to a texture, is it merely converting to greyscale and adjusting sharpness of certain levels? You can do a lot in Photoshop itself by converting to greyscale and smoothing out certain areas or grey-ranges, or even everything. Increasing lightness by hand for certain areas. As a real life person better sees what should be raised and what not.
Some textures have light falling on areas that shouldn't really be more displaced, but of course it depends on the quality of the texture.

I hear you and already make rudimentary bump, dispersal, lightening layers, etc. in PS...was wondering about where it gets the 'normals' info when it makes them or if it just colours a greyscale bump map.

masonspappy · December 31, 2015, 05:21:20 PM

Think only maps Terragen can use are Color, Specular and displacement (bump) .

bobbystahr · December 31, 2015, 06:15:45 PM

Quote from: masonspappy on December 31, 2015, 05:21:20 PM
Think only maps Terragen can use are Color, Specular and displacement (bump) .

I find a greyscale can be used in any map input to to control the particular item...works for me....

Dune · January 01, 2016, 03:20:49 AM

I think these softwares only interpret the colors, as there are no normals in a texture image. Goes well often, but not well, just as often

Cocateho · January 03, 2016, 12:02:35 AM

I actually just used to texture image for displacement. Its fairly well suited just because it the white&dark patches but I'm working on tweaking a greyscale map now that will hopefully work a bit better

Cocateho · January 03, 2016, 09:58:28 AM

I changed out the main tree... same bark texture with the new bump map. Leaves are custom as well, the tree model is actually the european chestnut from xfrog. Certain things I like, The main issue is forced displacement seems to have "exploded" the nearest branch, although others seem fine. The leaves I think actually turned out really well but I'm not sure about how they fit on the tree, and the bark actually looks more "oaky" than maple. On the trunk though I think the bark turned out well.