Potholes WIP

Started by WAS, June 02, 2018, 05:53:55 PM

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bobbystahr

That's a 5 star pothole my friend, well done!
*****
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Agura Nata

"Live and Learn!"

WAS

#17
Quote from: Oshyan on June 03, 2018, 04:54:35 PM
Agreed, very nice work indeed!

Not sure what issue you're having with the lighting (newer images look better), but it seems like your sun angle is a bit low, and if you don't have a bright atmosphere, or objects around to bounce light into there, then it will tend to be a bit dark.

- Oshyan

It's actually at 35, rather high. In this update I choose different potholes to look at, and lowered the sun to 15 degrees. The issue is the darkness of the colour and how light interacts with it. IRL everything has specular and reflectivity so dark stone is rather lit in the light. Here we just have a ambient reflection map, and a wet reflection map, you pick either, should not have both enabled, but in general the reflection isn't perfect or correct under all scenarios. For example while it looks like wet asphalt up close, the decay over a plane doesn't match a reflective surface IRL, like a wet road into the distance. Basically specular and roughness seems to have "one" condition, and doesn't interact correctly at distance. Without dark objects, like a forest, or city, a wet road, or reflective surface would get rather white in the distance from sky refraction, instead we get the blue sky refractions to a distance and they decay off. I'm sure roughness maps/distance camera could help make gradient better. That's another unrealistic part of Terragen, the sun's intensity (on surfaces) as it hits the horizon is also incorrect. At this point, the sun is a bit dimmer, sure, but it's richer in warming hues, and the sky is still rather bright causing ambient light, and 15 degrees is still pretty high, not even a sunset/sunrise technically yet.

bobbystahr

I think you image in post#10 is a winner myself, has the 'ring of real' to my eyes.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

WAS

Quote from: bobbystahr on June 04, 2018, 01:23:11 PM
I think you image in post#10 is a winner myself, has the 'ring of real' to my eyes.

Do you mean Post #7? If so, those are my favorites as well, though I imagined I just ironically picked a photogenic pothole, which is why I changed to another pothole last night. Seems I was correct.

Matt

WAS, about the sun when it's near the horizon. I'm not sure if you're saying the hues are too rich in Terragen (because 15 degrees is quite high) or not rich enough, but isn't this something you can adjust in atmosphere settings? Particularly blue sky density and haze density.

Well done with the multi scale Voronoi cracks and overall texturing.

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

WAS

#21
Quote from: Matt on June 04, 2018, 05:05:24 PM
WAS, about the sun when it's near the horizon. I'm not sure if you're saying the hues are too rich in Terragen (because 15 degrees is quite high) or not rich enough, but isn't this something you can adjust in atmosphere settings? Particularly blue sky density and haze density.

Well done with the multi scale Voronoi cracks and overall texturing.

Matt

I notice, like on a day like today after a rain, that asphalt further away reflects a "White" ambience from the sky, not a strong blue exacting reflection. And yes, at 15 degrees the light is very dim for some reason on surfaces, and yes it can be adjusted surely, but I'm designing a shader for others to use, with that in mind I am doing it against default TG settings to save from drawn out explanation of how to use it under the right conditions. As it is, while I feel it is pretty straight forward, I anticipate it is complicated for most. I feel it should work under all conditions the user can throw at it (within the scope of a realistic scene), otherwise there are bugs in how things interact imo.

I could fix the intensity and falloff of reflection with a distance shader and surface layer, but that's more setup work just to use the shader, and also may not appropriately work in different lighting, being based on a static distance. Strong glassy colour reflection I can't fix though.

Matt

Usually as the sun sets you need to increase exposure in a real camera. It's no different in Terragen, except you can choose to increase sunlight intensity rather than camera exposure - the effect on sunlight in the image is the same.

Distant rough surfaces are tricky to simulate properly because they are the sum of many reflection directions. TG's displacement engine will only give one direction for each micropolygon, so the only way to really do this right now is with micropoly detail much greater than 1. Not very practical. However, on ray traced objects where displacements are rendered using bump mapping, you can get better results at high AA.

The path tracing render mode that I'm developing will simulate rough reflections much better.

Matt

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

bobbystahr

Quote from: WASasquatch on June 04, 2018, 01:28:54 PM
Quote from: bobbystahr on June 04, 2018, 01:23:11 PM
I think you image in post#10 is a winner myself, has the 'ring of real' to my eyes.

Do you mean Post #7? If so, those are my favorites as well, though I imagined I just ironically picked a photogenic pothole, which is why I changed to another pothole last night. Seems I was correct.

if it's this one yes,
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=24564.0;attach=82330;image
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

WAS

Quote from: Matt on June 04, 2018, 06:05:10 PM
However, on ray traced objects where displacements are rendered using bump mapping, you can get better results at high AA

This sounds like why those super detailed experimental reels I've been following over the decades take sometimes in rare occasions, a day a frame.

Quote from: bobbystahr on June 04, 2018, 06:25:50 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on June 04, 2018, 01:28:54 PM
Quote from: bobbystahr on June 04, 2018, 01:23:11 PM
I think you image in post#10 is a winner myself, has the 'ring of real' to my eyes.

Do you mean Post #7? If so, those are my favorites as well, though I imagined I just ironically picked a photogenic pothole, which is why I changed to another pothole last night. Seems I was correct.

if it's this one yes,
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=24564.0;attach=82330;image

Oh I see yeah, I really like that water setup.