Gannaingh's Cliff WIP

Started by Gannaingh, January 19, 2018, 09:37:47 PM

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KlausK

I never tried that. But I will the next time.
When I use a second sun I use very small values. Thought it worked most of the time.
The two pics I posted (you said - ice-like structures) have a second sunlight in them.
But thanks for pointing that out.
CHeers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

Gannaingh

Thanks, all.

For the time being I'm trying to develop a robust surfacing for the vertical cliff surfaces than can be used as a base to build a more complex scene in lighting, coloring, objects etc. For these next two I did some fine tuning of the vertical surfacing, and hit the random seed buttons a few times, and played a bit with the scene lighting to give a bit more light in the shadows. So far the surfacing seems reasonably adaptable although, occasionally, the displacement from the main redirect shader gives extreme overhangs such as the one in the upper left in WIP - 8.

bobbystahr

Quote from: Hannes on February 01, 2018, 08:17:12 PM
I bet that increasing the environment light's strength looks way better than using a second sun.
Sorry, Klaus, I had to write this, since this has been discussed quite often.
Maybe it's a matter of taste, but using a second sun might be good for a scene with... well, two suns. To me the lighting looks quite flat, when a second sun is used to lighten up the scene.
So why not using the (more or less!!!!) real thing?


also upping the exposure really really helped my last image. You have to remember that the final image is virtually being shot by a camera and camera settings can really help an image along.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Gannaingh

I haven't had too much time to work on this project the last week. I've worked a bit on adding more variety to the cliff displacement and I've also made some progress with the lighting to improve the detail in the shadows. I like the detail and depth that the pock-mark texture provides in the shaded areas, but more variety is necessary. I also should add variety with the large voronoi cracks, break them up and perhaps merge in a different seed so they're not all connected.


Gannaingh

To give a better sense of scale for the cliff wall I added a basic beach. I hit random seed on the cliff shape to change up the scene and to test how the rock surfacing looks on differently shaped terrain. I kind of like the sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs so I might look at going towards a Twelve Apostles (Australia) style cliff.


Gannaingh

#21
For this next iteration I tried a little bit of a completely different perspective with the camera sitting at the shoreline looking down the beach/cliff instead of directly at it. I like this perspective more than the head on version, although I'll have to go ham on the random seed button to find a cliff setup I'm satisfied with. Currently, the beach is actually a separate planet so I'll have to do some masking or population editing once I have the cliff finalized to avoid trees sitting where they shouldn't. I also think I need to add a sea-stack or two since they are just cool.

DannyG

New World Digital Art
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mhaze



luvsmuzik

Love everything about this one so far! Very nice beach!

bobbystahr

Each render is better than the previous so you're heading in the right direction; Keep On Tweaking
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Gannaingh

Thanks, everyone!

For this next on I tweaked pretty much everything. I'm not sold on the 5:2 aspect ratio for this one, which was done to give some room in the scene for an eventual seastack, and might revert back to 2:1. I really like how having even a basic water surface enhances the tropical feel vs the old blue default shader. 

Unfortunately, one of the tree poulations I'm working with doesn't have a very detailed trunk, it is low poly with a noticably repeating pattern for the image shader. The palm fronds on the model look so good, but I might have to relegate the population to the background.


luvsmuzik

A spiffy powerfractal shader might help that trunk, bypass default and make one?  Nice work!