The Rock Essentials

Started by Kadri, August 05, 2016, 11:06:10 PM

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masonspappy

Quote from: TheBadger on August 09, 2016, 03:09:07 AM
Hey guys, pretty interested in this too.
Cam, would u mind trying a photo real quality render of one of the exports? Would like to hear about how you are able or not to use them in TG at a high level.
See below

Quote from: TheBadger on August 09, 2016, 03:09:07 AM
Also thinking about giving in and doing a blender course this fall.
If you only knew the power of the dark side....    ;D ;D

PabloMack

Did he say "Real rocs are organic"? That's not what I learned in chemistry and geology.

TheBadger

Bump or dis, cam? looks like bump. I guess the only way to edit them is in blender? The plugin looked optimized for exactly these rocks so, thats interesting. But TG still has no material editor like in most complete packages... Guess that would make sense given TGs focus, but I still feel like that can't last too long.

The render of the rock in the blender images looks immensely better than the rock in TG, is my point. I guess I am questioning if it will ever be possible to make an imported object look good in TG as they do in the apps that created them. But to be clear, stuff we make in TG with TG render just fine in TG, just that we really need to open that up a bit more yet.

Im thinking the only reason to get this rocks is if I get good with blender first and for using them in blender or a full 3d package only.

What do you think? Since you can see the whole picture?


QuoteIf you only knew the power of the dark side....   

What do they say, "the way of pain" or something, can't recall. But you seam to be saying Im in for a world of hurt. I believe U.
It has been eaten.

Kadri

#18

Michael i think the surfacing of imported objects in Terragen is week-or hard too.
But there are users who use imported models of any kind quite good.
So yeah there is room for improving but you should be able to use any object in the way you want.
It just might take some work depending on the object.

But rocks are not the kind of objects i think would be so hard.


AP

#19
If you do go through that Blender course, please let us know how that turns out.

masonspappy

Michael, these are bump maps.  Not sure if they were created in Blender or another package.   I usually create objects in Blender, mapping  surfaces to image files where needed, but then I use that image file to create SPEC and BUMP maps in Crazybump. Crazybump can also clean up the original photo image a bit if necessary.   Even though the the image file is mapped to the object surface in Blender, I do not apply the SPEC and BUMP files until the object is imported into Terragen.  Once I'm satisfied with how it looks in Terragen I usually save as a TGO.

AFA getting good with Blender, you don't have to be a Blender expert just to use the functions necessary for working with these rocks.  Blender's learning curve is probably steeper than Terragen (unless you're working with blue nodes in which case being drunk, crazy or registered democrat  probably helps) but there are many, many functions you won't be using. Kinda like using Microsoft Excel, where most people only ever use about 2% of the functions that are actually available).

What struck me about these demo rocks was that I don't think they meet the standards of 'Hero' objects.   Think that's more a problem with the smaller sizes of the JPEG files. I'm going to reach out to Andrew Price and see if higher-resolution images are available. If so, I'll re-render and post here.

TheBadger

Thanks. Ill watch for it. It would be nice to have assets like that if they can be moved though a pipeline very easily.

In the demo he called them secondary objects, which may be true, but coming from TG, secondary must mean super deathmo important. ;D
It has been eaten.

Dune

Has anyone ever tried making hero rocks from the cube or sphere? Perhaps just as easy as having them made in an external app and imported, and more flexible. Add some strata, some warp, vector displacement, use PF colors to drive dents and such (and you have the dark areas inside the dents at the same time), and place wherever needed.

AP

Yes, I have made over fifty different types of rock using mostly spheres.

Dune

That's what I mean; you don't really need external rocks, as they will become recognizable in due time... 'hey, there's that rock again'  ;)

AP

#25
A decent amount of those rocks will be hard to reproduce but not to say entirely impossible. It takes some serious fractal know how and good enough realism, no doubt. The challenge to do this procedurally is there has to be a very good understanding of the nature of rocks, the patterns, the varying layers of eroded, fractured, warped and compressed parts. Also, it would be very helpful to be able to internally populate Terragen objects so we are not limited to placing hero-only rocks. Fake stones are good but more limiting in many cases. I want to experiment more in this area soon. For now, this will have to be a hero rock only task.

Dune

I agree it's not easy. 3D'd real rocks will undoubtedly be more realistic.

AP

True, the only two real issues is not all rocks types will be cataloged as that is impossible and the obvious clone copies say imported rocks are made into populations.

masonspappy

Quote from: AP on August 13, 2016, 03:24:24 AM
Yes, I have made over fifty different types of rock using mostly spheres.

If it's not too much trouble, would you mind posting images of a few of these rocks? Very curious to see what they're like.

AP

No, I do not mind. Later today or the next day.