New challenge

Started by Dune, November 09, 2018, 06:35:12 AM

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sboerner

QuoteThe construction is a medieval drainage 'pipe', which was somehow used to dry the polder behind it (though I would have expected some kind of windmill at the other end). At front is the sea. But here the embankment is being opened to flood the polder (against some enemy in some war, I have the details somewhere). So citizens are being forced by the army to do the digging. Army still to be made....

Will you be adding any human(s) to your scene, btw? It would really lively it up.

Thanks for the explanation! Citizens always end up doing the dirty work . . .

I'm planning to add some human figures to my scene and probably will be coming to you for advice/suggestions. My goal (hope) is to use all original models, but I may have to compromise when it comes to people. We'll see.

QuoteI often have problems when using small scale displacements, due to the 256 variation limit (I guess) they tend to make lines (left area). I still have to look for a way to overcome that.

Can you use 32-bit image maps for displacements? 32-bit OpenEXR files are often as small (or smaller) than corresponding 8-bit tiffs and load very quickly.

(Sorry for the delayed response. Real work and other distractions have been keeping me off-line lately.)


Dune

The lines are not in image map displacement masks, but in procedural PF's. As soon as you use values like 0.1-0.5-0.005 for dirtlike displacements, every small distance the pattern is repeated, as there seem to be only 256 different seeds. At least I explain it that way. When using values like 0.1-100-0.005 it is not so (for the close up views anyway), but some displacements are then too big for what I need. I may have to experiment a bit to see what can be done.

And then there's another iteration of the dike breaking. Yellow stripes are supposed to be soldiers (still making them), and there are some errors and ugly stuff. Water is faked, but I may resort to a real water surface again.

Comments very welcome!

luvsmuzik

That is so cool! Beach gunk awesome. Great weathering on boats, maybe split/create a bottom shader for a waterline effect?

Jo Kariboo

Very nice set up. I like this light and the shadows in the back in the grass. Agree with you, the fake water made is a little strange.

zaxxon

Wonderful illustrations. The character poses convey a sense of real interaction and indicate a deeper story. The evolution of your use of TG is recreate these montages is truly notable. These early 'sketches' are remarkable, the final images should be even more amazing!

DocCharly65

#35
This will be great when finished! I agree with the water surface in the foreground - especially the reflections are missing there.
If I hadn't read your text bevor I would have thought you want to add some shrubbery there - but adding Soldiers is as good - perhaps one bush? :)

Dune

Thanks. I didn't spend that much time on these guys, and they're not perfect, but they will do on a distance. I don't know about the Full Metal Jackets; maybe they need better shading too....

Maybe a bush, but I guess they don't even want the flowers  >:( Still have to see whether they like this setup. I like to convey the onrush of wild water, so the water definitely needs work.

I thought of a waterline effect, but I can't do it by altitude (what I normally do), so it has to be some kind of extra mask, which is a bit more cumbersome.

luvsmuzik

Quote from: Dune on December 16, 2018, 12:10:00 PM

I thought of a waterline effect, but I can't do it by altitude (what I normally do), so it has to be some kind of extra mask, which is a bit more cumbersome.

Oh, I was just thinking select the lower faces of your boat in your modeler and create new shader. TG seems to update and reload pretty nicely lately. :)

sboerner

QuoteThe lines are not in image map displacement masks, but in procedural PF's. As soon as you use values like 0.1-0.5-0.005 for dirtlike displacements, every small distance the pattern is repeated, as there seem to be only 256 different seeds. At least I explain it that way. When using values like 0.1-100-0.005 it is not so (for the close up views anyway), but some displacements are then too big for what I need. I may have to experiment a bit to see what can be done.

Oh, I see. Thanks for explaining. I guess if you try to break it up with another PF then you'd get an interference pattern that also repeats? Curious to see your solution (if there is one).

Scene's looking terrific. Will this be one of your large murals?

Dune

#39
No luckily not, or I would have to pay much more attention to details  ;) But still; it'll be delivered at A3 300dpi.

Regarding a waterline; some textures are out of their box, so to speak, with tilable textures, so it's not that easy to grab another mask. But a simple solution would be to use some distance shaders and cameras at the same angles as the boats (and same locations) and darken the shader set. I'll see if that's nicer.

Btw, Steve; I would suggest you try DAZ. Whatever people say about it, you can get quite decent people out of it, especially if you can adjust them (or clothe them) in another modeling app. For larger distance they're more than fine. And DAZ is free.

Dune

Update with the new soldiers, 'real' water, some fish, etc. But to my annoyance, a lot of shaders broke their links (presumably after inserting some sort of clip with same names). I only found out later, and repaired, but seem to have forgotten some (helmets mainly). I know the _1_1_1_1_1 wasn't the best, but this is frustrating too.
Anyway, still work to do, as I'd like deeper shadows under the boats. I guess path tracing would do that a lot better. 

DocCharly65

#41
a.) I like the new water in the front! Much better! :)

b.) Seems that I know this error too! I had it in my safari-tgc's and in others when getting into high recource usage (many fakestones-layers or many big populations) In my case I had especially this kind of error in lost links between populations and the relating object makers. Result were black populations :(   It looks a bit like a recource (RAM) dependent problem in my case. After reconnecting manually I didn't have the error... so far ...

Dune

I don't know if it has to do with RAM (but your case may be extreme). I think it's just a naming problem; as soon as a node is introduced that has a similar name somewhere, links are broken. Sometimes internal links are even replaced by a link to the new (external, or somewhere else internal) node. I guess the only way to deal with this is to rename every new node used... EVERY ONE!
But the strange thing is that I do have nodes with similar names, but they are in different levels. So how in heavensname does a new external node change internal links somewhere?

sboerner

Water looks much better but you're right that the boats need contact shadows – they seem a little detached from the ground.

I agree with Doc – I think the broken links are a memory or file-processing issue. I experienced the same thing (for the first time) when I was having painted shader troubles with my big project. The file also includes many populations. Too much data or something – seems that Terragen sometimes loses its place when inserting new objects. The broken links all occurred inside internal networks.

Naming nodes is good practice, yes, but there should be no need to give every node a unique name. The application itself duplicates internal node names when you insert new render nodes and so forth.

bobbystahr

I've also had a problem with TG forgetting camera setting and mixing shaders on me as well....maybe this is a TG thing as we're on 3 very different computers
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist