16 Bit

[Sethren]

Terragen 2 will not import 16 bit color images? or am i doing something wrong here. I am trying to import a 16 bit tiff color image and it says convert down to SGI.     

[dhavalmistry]

I am sure TG2 imports 24 bit bitmaps....not sure about 16 bit tiffs......

[Sethren]

Well, these are 16 bits per channel. Sorry, i meant to mention these are 16 bits per channel. What i have is 48 bits total for the tiff.

[dhavalmistry]

then you definitely need to bump it down to 8 bit color or 24 bit color

[David Burnett]

For 16 bit Greyscale TG2 only accepts SGI format, SGI in theory supports 16 bit per channel RGB too so I'd try converting to that format.

EDIT: - I decided to try it myself and it appears to work.

[attachthumb=1]

This is this 16bit greyscale image converted into a 16 bit per channel RGB SGI using cinepaint and used in TG2 to displace and colour a sphere.
That just leaves the question as to whether TG2 keeps it 16 bit internally.

[Sethren]

Since Photoshop does not have a way of saving SGI by default i found this plugin.   

http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/info/sgiformat.html


8bit color would be worthless and 24bit is good as long as it's 16bits per channel.

[rcallicotte]

Thanks, Sethern.  I'm trying it.

[Sethren]

Great.     16 bit per color channel SGI import.

[dhavalmistry]

would you care to explain how you did this?....this is amazing....

[rcallicotte]

Yes, would you mind taking a little time to explain?  I was just wondering (while mowing the lawn) what the advantages / disadvantages might be for SGI as opposed to BMP or JPG or even EXR.  It would help to understand what you've done, if you have some time.

[Sethren]

I figured sense SGI can be read as a 16 bit color image i thought it would be best to use in order to overlay the color map to the imported terrain. Now 16 bit is not needed all of the time, it depends on to how smooth the gradient color is to the terrain. If it is really smooth (Heavy fluvial erosion smooth) then you will see a lot of color banding because there is less color data per channel in a 24 bit 8 bit per channel image say a BMP for example or a JPG. So in your photo editor just create a color gradient over an imported grayscale heightfield but make sure you are in 16 bit editing more while mapping the gradient over the grayscale terrain. Use the SGI plugin and export the color map. I know photoshop has this option but as far as other photo editors, i think Gimp should have something similar or even Paint Shop Pro but again you can use 8 bit and see if you notice color banding, usually the more rigid the terrain is the less likely you will see banding because the terrain noises hides it fairly well. As far as EXR goes i do not think Terragen 2 can import a color EXR into the image map shader. I may be wrong there.

Anyways, my apologies for not getting to this sooner. Life gets in the way.     

[bigben]

LEADTOOLS Command Line File Converter is a free windows utility that will convert to/from SGI format.

I used it for my global bathymetry image (before I found out about the PS plugin)

[Will]

quick question: why are there two Sethrens?

Anywho great work here, been playing around with this my self while doing studies in Zbrush 3.1

[Sethren]

quick question: why are there two Sethrens?

Huh, wierd!   

[Will]

you exist as a guest and a member... who are you?