Panorama - How to get rid of the haze?

Started by zepeu, May 20, 2017, 05:41:28 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

zepeu

Hello world !

As I said on another post, I'm working on a new image, and I would like to make a large view from the top of a pillar with a depth of view very large (to see the horizon in fact) and having details from near.
But there is the haze, I let you check the image linked...

On the first image, I would like to see the texture on the mountains right in front of the camera
the second image show the textures, quite basic yet...

It is just the basic atmosphere of the planet, but even with the settings of the different hazes low, it's still impossible to even see the shaders of the mountains right in front of the camera, apparently due to the haze?

I tried to change all the setting one by one, then combined, light, atmosphere, but without success...

Is there a magic trick to make that all appear?

Thank's by advance

zepeu

I have to admit that the place is quite large, but anyway...
zepeu

;-)

Dune

First of all, it's important to work in real world scales, so the haze is as natural as possible. It's all balanced for that. If you can't get the haze down to your required level then, you could work on a smaller scale.
There's a thread somewhere that has a lot of samples of what different atmo settings do. I don't know where, but if you can find that, it's very informative.
Then the dark mountain; if you increase Global Illumination you get more light in the shadowy parts.

zepeu

#2
This must be what you're speaking of, I've already seen, didn't help :(

http://www.motionmagnetic.com/a_terragen2/atmosphere_examples/atmosphere_examples.html

I just checked, the pillars are like 5Km away... Should be ok...

It's borring, what's or ever, I got this kind of veil in front of the camera...
zepeu

;-)

archonforest

Perhaps put the sun behind the camera so there is enough light on the mountain.
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

zepeu

It helps a bit, but it's still not that... here is an image with the sun at the top

some other idea maybe?
zepeu

;-)

archonforest

I do not get this. If the sun is behind the camera then it cannot be that the mountain is still black especially at the top?
Perhaps upload your tgd so we can take a look.
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

zepeu

Well, the thing is that there is absolutely nothing spécial...
Anyway, here it is, with the terrain file :)

Thank you ;)
zepeu

;-)

Oshyan

The sun is coming from the forward direction, shining toward the camera. You are looking at the shadowed side of the mountains. Atmospheric scattering is the only thing that actually illuminates shadowed areas, otherwise they would be totally black (this is true in the real world as well). On top of that all your non-grass surfaces are incredibly dark, very, very close to black. So I'm not surprised that you're getting this result. If you reduce the atmospheric hazes to zero you still get a very, very dark result just because of the shadow angle and darkness of the surface shading.

I'm honestly not sure what you were aiming for or expected given how you've set it up, but if you want more detail I would suggest lightening the surfaces (nothing in nature is actually that close to black) and changing the sun angle, for a start. If you want to reduce the haze just make the numbers for Haze Density and Bluesky Density smaller. It's fine to use e.g. 0.2 or 0.1, etc. if it gives you the look you want, your current values are well above that. It will of course affect the look of the rest of the atmosphere (above the terrain), but that's realistic.

I hope that helps.

- Oshyan

Dune

I had a little go at your file, 10min 'spielerei', nothing spectacular. Changed the suns and how they are used to eliminate the haze a bit, and added some new shaders. Hope you get some insight from this.

zepeu

#9
Quote from: Dune on May 22, 2017, 03:02:36 AM
I had a little go at your file, 10min 'spielerei', nothing spectacular. Changed the suns and how they are used to eliminate the haze a bit, and added some new shaders. Hope you get some insight from this.

Woow, I still got stuff to learn...

So, you made 2 suns, one for the atmospheres, one for the surfaces and the one you called "sunlight bounce" witch I don't understand yet...

Concerning the shaders... Shame on me XD

Give me a few days to analyse that all...

Do you know where I can learn more about the fractals (and shaders) and how they work? I mean, more the "how is it calculated" stuff and that all...
On the webpage of terragen, I found this :
http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Power_Fractal_Shader_v3
But it says what the different parameters do, but not how they work :p

And thank you a lot :)
zepeu

;-)

luvsmuzik

#10
A fractal in Terragen is world noise. Size of feature and displacement, along with seed are a few things that vary your terrain. You can see a preview of this in the node setup in preview or by accessing the small blue square on the fractal control window.
Shaders do many things, many are defined in the wiki link or beginner tutorials.

Added terrain operators to your terrain: resized (because of your tightly woven terrain map) and vertical adjust
Split up your layers (surface layers) trying to separate grass and ground by altitude slope assignment.
Added fake stones rather than stone layers
Sunlight at 5 with soft shadows
Sunlight with reduced corona (0.2)
Ambient occlusion for panoramic view

Dune

#11
A nice thing to experiment with and learn about the power fractal (PF) is to attach one to a surface shader's color input or mask input. Delete the breakup, and give the base color node a plain color (set both colors as the same). Then hover your camera over the ground and see the patterns the fractal makes. Then start playing with all the values inside, and see what they change to that pattern. If you've learned enough, you could try 1; feeding the output to the displacement input of that surface shader, and see what the different variables of the fractal do to that 1m displacement. Or use the displacement from the PF itself; in that case hook off the displacement input and feed into the child input. Then start playing with values of the PF again and see what happens. Colors won't do a thing now (at least not influence the displacement), but the displacement values do. Best in fact to disable both colors to better see the displacements variation when the PF is set as child.
The PF is one of the basic LEGO stones of TG, so this is very informative.

zepeu

Quote from: Dune on May 23, 2017, 01:35:42 AM
A nice thing to experiment with and learn about the power fractal (PF) is to attach one to a surface shader's color input or mask input. Delete the breakup, and give the base color node a plain color (set both colors as the same). Then hover your camera over the ground and see the patterns the fractal makes. Then start playing with all the values inside, and see what they change to that pattern. If you've learned enough, you could try 1; feeding the output to the displacement input of that surface shader, and see what the different variables of the fractal do to that 1m displacement. Or use the displacement from the PF itself; in that case hook off the displacement input and feed into the child input. Then start playing with values of the PF again and see what happens. Colors won't do a thing now (at least not influence the displacement), but the displacement values do. Best in fact to disable both colors to better see the displacements variation when the PF is set as child.
The PF is one of the basic LEGO stones of TG, so this is very informative.

Well, I saw the effectiveness of power fractales on Dune's version of my landscape... I'm trying that these days, it's... powerfull :p
I'll not be at home for the weekend, but I'll check what you said as soon as possible :D

Thanks !
zepeu

;-)