Sunset with flecks of sunlight

Started by Eric Johannsen, February 17, 2018, 06:18:19 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Eric Johannsen

This is a frame of a sunset animation. I've enabled Receive Shadows from Surface on the atmosphere because otherwise, the sun happily shines right through the terrain. Why do I get specks of sunlight and how can I create a more natural look?

Note I"m using the final version of TG 2 Deep.

agent unawares

Turn up your antialiasing or your cloud and atmosphere samples.

bobbystahr

I'd follow  the preceding advice checking with full resolution crop renders till you get a look you like.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

N-drju

My call would also be to increase the amount of atmo samples considerably, even up to 90. Don't worry - it's not too render-heavy and it solves most of such issues.

You can also try separating your main light source into three or four sunlights. I find it very useful and discussed it in-depth here:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23919.msg241696.html#msg241696

This, unfortunately, will add to your render time, but is a great solution to eliminate graininess of light and sky.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Oshyan

You have a lot of noise in your atmosphere due to low detail (you can tell this because there is a "polygon"/low resolution look to the clouds). This is causing inaccurate results. You can try switching on Ray Trace Atmosphere to use a different rendering method that is higher quality, but then your quality depends on your antialiasing setting. Alternatively you can try increasing Detail, I would recommend 0.5 at a minimum, and then increase atmosphere samples until the noise goes away.

- Oshyan

N-drju

Oh right, I forgot about the ray-traced atmo option. Indeed, it is a huge helper to solving sky and cloud graininess problems. It makes renders longer but it is worth it.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

eapilot

where is the raytrace atmosphere option?

bobbystahr

Quote from: eapilot on February 19, 2018, 06:03:02 PM
where is the raytrace atmosphere option?

I think they mean the Defer atmo/cloud on the Quality tab of the Render dialogue
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Oshyan

It's only called Defer in later versions of Terragen. It used to be called "Ray Trace Atmosphere" and it's right there on the Quality tab of the Render node.

- Oshyan

Eric Johannsen

Thanks for all the feedback. I got a result I'm happy with.

bobbystahr

Quote from: Oshyan on February 20, 2018, 03:56:19 PM
It's only called Defer in later versions of Terragen. It used to be called "Ray Trace Atmosphere" and it's right there on the Quality tab of the Render node.

- Oshyan

my bad
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist