OldFlak - Introduction

Started by OldFlak, June 09, 2017, 10:48:04 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

OldFlak

Not sure if this is the right place for this post, but I just wanted to say Hi.

So, well, Hi!

My name is Michael, I am 58, retired (part pensioner) from the building game, I live in Australia, and spend as much time as I can playing with 3D game art, models, and game design as a hobby - when the grand kids are not demanding my attention that is!

I have been playing around with the free version of TG4, and have to say although I have absolutely no idea what I am doing - really lol - I am however having fun exploring it.

My main reason for playing with this tool is for creating skyboxes for 3D games that I tinker with, another reason is that I have always been fascinated with clouds, and yet another is I just find art fun and relaxing, and 3D is just such a huge array of skills to learn.

I have used VUE a bit, but the forums is not really that helpful, and have not got any decent renders out of it at all - probably me of course. I have made a ton of skyboxes using Bryce, but to get any kind of volumetric clouds is likely to take a week to render one side of the cube!

Have been lurking around the forums here now and then looking for tips, but have to admit, I am yet to create a nice cumulus cloud type sky that has no noise in it. What I do know is it must be possible because I have seen a few of the movies in the show case, and they definitely had no noise - apart from explosions and such :)

Well I doubt that I will ever get that kind of quality - but hey, no harm in trying. 

Unfortunately I can't afford the paid version atm, so unable to put trees and grass etc in my scenes, but would easily buy it if I could - where's that subscription Oshyan? :)

Anyhow looking forward to bugging you good people for tips and tricks (probably be more like an annoying noob).

Regards to all
Michael
aka OldFlak
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

luvsmuzik

#1
Welcome Michael! Make your first trip to File Sharing and check out the cloud library. There are some very recent additions worth a good look! The forum search engine also gives you some great results. Or you can wade through the many pages of image shares :)

Free version gives great results but image size and other features are somewhat limited. Free version allows objects, but limits populations to three.....creative people do just great with that!

Matt

Hi Micheal, and welcome to the forum!

I've recently made some changes to how clouds are rendered, and this will show up in the next update. That's due out very soon. The changes should allow you to render clouds with less noise in a shorter time than before (although this may not always be true, depending on exactly what's causing the noise).

Generally speaking, your noise is controlled by the Anti-aliasing setting in the render node, and you can usually get clouds to be noise free by increasing this. The AA limit of 6 in the free version might not always be enough in Terragen 4.0, but should give better results in the upcoming 4.1.

The exact causes of noise vary from one scene to the next. Bear in mind that the noise might be in the atmosphere rather than the clouds. If so, this can be controlled with the quality settings on the Planet Atmosphere node.

Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Matt

Quote from: OldFlak on June 09, 2017, 10:48:04 AM
Unfortunately I can't afford the paid version atm, so unable to put trees and grass etc in my scenes, but would easily buy it if I could - where's that subscription Oshyan? :)

You can put trees and grass in the Free edition. You can add as many individual objects as you like. You can also add populations, but you're limited to 3 populations per scene.

Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

OldFlak

Hi all, thanks for the welcome, I feel at home already!

Quote from: Matt on June 09, 2017, 03:15:56 PM
You can put trees and grass in the Free edition. You can add as many individual objects as you like. You can also add populations, but you're limited to 3 populations per scene.
Matt

Ah OK, I was under the impression that you added grass and trees etc by going to shaders, then opening the library, but apart from any projects I have created, the library has nothing in it at all. So I will visit that again real soon :)

OldFlak
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

OldFlak

Quote from: Matt on June 09, 2017, 03:12:21 PM
Generally speaking, your noise is controlled by the Anti-aliasing setting in the render node, and you can usually get clouds to be noise free by increasing this. The AA limit of 6 in the free version might not always be enough in Terragen 4.0, but should give better results in the upcoming 4.1.

The exact causes of noise vary from one scene to the next. Bear in mind that the noise might be in the atmosphere rather than the clouds. If so, this can be controlled with the quality settings on the Planet Atmosphere node.

Matt

Alrighty, I had the Anti-aliasing setting on 2. I gather those changes will increase render times, so I left them alone for the most part, so I will play with that setting. Also the atmosphere rendered pretty nicely before I added the clouds, apart from some slight banding.

Another problem I have is getting the cube faces to match, I set the cube up using the clip you posted in the VR Challenge forum. Sometimes there is very noticeable variation in each side so that you can see where the faces join (especially top and bottom faces), I can hide it for the most part by using fog in the game engine for now till I work it out. Never had that problem in Bryce so not sure where to start to fix that just yet.

I did follow a thread that talked about that issue, although I was unable to resolve it just yet - but you know 'never give up, never surrender!'

OldFlak
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

cyphyr

www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Dune

I suggest also reading A LOT of older posts on subjects you want to learn about. Almost everything has been asked and answered before, and there's a wealth of information to be found. Takes time though, but it'll give you a head start. Also, do some tutorials, and you get the hang of internal workings and specifics of nodes of TG. It may be a bit overwhelming at first, but hang in there!

OldFlak

Thanks for the input everyone, much appreciated. :)

@Dune, yeah my system is not a super computer, so I tend to read older posts while something is rendering out, trouble is finding relevant stuff.

I may start a WIP thread and post progress shots to show what results I am getting, and see what tips I can get from others for improvement. Not sure which thread to put that in though.
Perhaps that would be best in the image share forum?

I think the hardest thing is just knowing what values to tweak, often times a longer render doesn't automagically end up in a better render result. This of course is all compounded when using a new tool :)

But no probs, I don't mind reading stuff, and usually refuse to give up trying.

I am real happy with results I have been able to achieve so far, but they can most definitely be a LOT better :)

OldFlak....
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

Dune

Image share indeed, and then you can build up and perfect, while asking....

Oshyan

The issue with cube faces not matching is almost certainly due to the GI (Global Illumination). It will be difficult to get them to match in the free version because you do not have the GI cache feature, nor do you have access to a Spherical Camera which renders 360 degrees in a single image (and thus avoids the GI differences that cause the issue you're seeing). But if you are planning on purchasing, both of those options (GI cache and spherical camera) can address the issue you're seeing.

- Oshyan

OldFlak

Thanks for the info Oshyan, much appreciated :)

Quote from: Oshyan on June 10, 2017, 05:09:05 PM
But if you are planning on purchasing, both of those options (GI cache and spherical camera) can address the issue you're seeing.
- Oshyan

Yeah would love to, but no much cash-flow these days, so eagerly awaiting the subscription model - You may remember our conversation via email a few weeks back (yes, me be that Michael) :)

OldFlak....
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

yossam

OldFlak.............good name for a 20 yr old bourbon. Welcome to the forum, BTW.  :)

bobbystahr

Welcome. I seem to recall Matt posted a clip  to render sphericals  from multiple views in the spherical contest thread for those without the ability to do so because of their version?

yup here it is:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21257.msg212927.html#msg212927

versions TG2 and 3  but will likely run in TG4Free
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

OldFlak

#14
Hey all,
thanks @bobbystahr - much appreciated, will take a look at it later after work, yep using that already, (thanks Matt :) )

Already getting some pretty good results, TG just amazing tool me thinks.

OldFlak....
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.