Thrift store painting

[plugsnpixels]

I've been a TG user since 0.9 but never really tried to get beyond the very basics. Lately, inspired by the release of TG4, I'm trying to learn more about shaders, noise tweaking, placing objects, etc.

Here's a simple scene I did today, based on the default startup scene with various edits and additions. I like my photos artistic and my artwork photo-realistic, so this is some odd combo of the two: a TG render with Levels adjusted in Photoshop, along with a reduction of the wide-screen effect using Content Aware scaling, finished off with art effects from Topaz Impression.

The result reminds me of a thrift store painting so if anyone wants it for a dollar, let me know... ;-)

[Dune]

Interesting result. Nice to see you here, btw.

[bobbystahr]

Nice first attempt. I find using the presets invaluable to learning terragen as they're constructed by folks who know what they're doing.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks! I've been working on this so long it's getting dark out...

[bobbystahr]

Nice, water's a bit noisy  and could be higher res but nice.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks, this is intentionally small (quickie render before bed). I'll run the 2-hour version later today ;-).

[bobbystahr]

Thanks, this is intentionally small (quickie render before bed). I'll run the 2-hour version later today ;-).

Will be nice and worth the time...

[plugsnpixels]

Higher res render (1343x806) in progress. 1 hour 45 minutes in, water still looks noisy (though I see the shaders are still being applied). Suggestions?

Also, it seems that the main control for render quality is image size (not ppi resolution) and perhaps Quality settings, yes?

[yossam]

I would adjust the roughness setting in your water shader to about .05 and go from there. The detail setting should be somewhere in the .6 to .8 range and the AA should be high enough to get rid of the noise in the clouds. Adjust from there. 

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks yossam!

Questions:

•Where is the water shader roughness setting? Under the Water tab the only relevant setting I see is Surface Shaders, but nothing there about roughness.

•When you say "Detail setting", I assume you referring to Micropoly detail under the Render tab?

•AA setting location seems obvious, though what would you consider a good beginning setting?

The current render is at 3 hours with a ways to go yet (i7 MacBook Air; I have a Hackintosh in the office with an i7 twice as fast I could try next week). When finished, I will adjust the settings and do a smaller version, as I only intend it for my PDF ezine @ 72ppi.

[yossam]

The water shader has 4 tabs. The roughness setting is in the waves tab (first one). I meant to put .005.............default is .02.


Yes about the detail setting. The AA has an effect on the clouds now as to how noisy they are. Always make sure defer/atmo is checked under the render settings and adjust the AA until the noise goes away. I usually use at least 8, but that depends on the scene. Your render time should go way down from what you have now after you adjust the detail and water settings.

[plugsnpixels]

I see, I had to open the Lake object and select its shader to access those settings.

I'll make note of your setting suggestions; this thing took 5 hours to finish and really isn't that exciting anyway... I'll try one more render with some tweaks and see what happens.

[bobbystahr]

I see, I had to open the Lake object and select its shader to access those settings.

I'll make note of your setting suggestions; this thing took 5 hours to finish and really isn't that exciting anyway... I'll try one more render with some tweaks and see what happens.

also you can cut down on the areas of wave noise with the Wind patch effect and size...all sizes are meters so adjust accordingly

[Dune]

My (positively meant) advice would be to spend a few days reading all sorts of (older) posts and threads by searching for keywords that would interest you, scanning the wiki for information about what specific nodes are and do, and doing one or two step-by-step tutorials. To get a grip on the basics and find some smart helpful ideas.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks Dune, earlier today I was searching threads about placing .obj files and all the weird stuff that can happen (black renders, etc.).

As for this present scene, after my 5-hour render I was making adjustments and TG hung, so I had to force-quit it. Since then, I lost the lake and rye grass and cannot seem to replace them (even with other plants). It's getting late so will give up for tonight.

EDIT: I see the water in the preview now, but not the grass population.

BTW, I was getting TG crashes ("unresponsive") under Windows 10 on the Hackintosh too, i7 2600 @ 3.4GHz, 16 gigs RAM.