Icy River

[Rumburak]

Done with Kevin F's icy water and Dune's River Preset.
With this render I gave PixelPlow a try. Unfortunately I got these square effects in the result. Can anyone give some hints how I have to configure my Terragen files to avoid these effects?

- Patrick

[luvsmuzik]

I did a search for checkerboard render and got a couple of interesting threads. One talks about the reflective shader softness setting and another the GI and acceleration. You would probably understand what relates to your file, if these settings still relate in TG4.

I suppose there is a setting for reflection in Kevin's clip. Sometimes these older clips need a tweak or two as well.

[DocCharly65]

The only idea, I have is to add a GI cache file and let it render with blend mode "one file"
This solved some of similar problems I had in the past. But I am not sure about it.

But anyway a very cool and great looking landscape. Very cold mood... brrrr! Authentic look 

[bobbystahr]

I'd ask for my money back but ....try it on your machine first or send me a gathered file and I'll run it for you.

[Dune]

They did have a problem with stills being rendered on a lot of machines and stitched together when I was still a tester, but I thought they had that covered now. Still, it looks like that has happened again.

[luvsmuzik]

Could this simply be two water shaders fighting each other? I assume, Dune, that your river preset has a water or some reflection for water built into it. When he adds the icy clip would there be a double reflection going on there? Confusing the renderer?

[Dune]

Only if there is a RT reflective shader set to smooth with insufficient samples in the snow, perhaps. But I guess it's something else.

[Rumburak]

Could this simply be two water shaders fighting each other? I assume, Dune, that your river preset has a water or some reflection for water built into it. When he adds the icy clip would there be a double reflection going on there? Confusing the renderer?

I removed Dune's water shader completely and replaced it with the icy water shader. I'm rendering it at home at the moment, but this render is really taking time...

[luvsmuzik]

I have had many renders go 8 or 9 hours with complex clouds and terrain. I can only set detail at 0.6 and AA at 4, so it may be many variables taking time. Hopefully it will be worth it, though frustrating to tie up your unit.

[Rumburak]

Due to some kind of power failure the render on my PC didn't finish, so I decided to take a closer look to my nodes and read some further FAQs of pixelplow. And I found the reason for the checkerboard issue. I used an old atmosphere/lighting clip with Ambient Occlusion. It is mentioned in the FAQ of pixelplow that this could cause problems with single frame orders and with a GI node everything is working fine. Keep this in mind if you plan to render on pixelplow. Fortunately pixelplow is really affordable, so making this experience did cost less than $2. 

Here is the result of the second render at pixelplow. C&C welcome.

[luvsmuzik]

Well....there ya go! Looks great now!

[DocCharly65]

Worth every cent and all the effort. An excellent render! I like it very much.

[bobbystahr]

Agree with Doc...well worth the effort and a great price. Always read the FAQs heh heh heh; first.

[Dune]

Very nice result, glad you solved the issue. I like the dirty snow, it's more often like this than crisp and clean (unfortunately  ).

[bobbystahr]

Very nice result, glad you solved the issue. I like the dirty snow, it's more often like this than crisp and clean (unfortunately  ).

Yeah that's a very unfortunate but real feature....we are such a dirty species....