bog pathway

Started by Dune, September 06, 2019, 01:31:29 AM

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Dune

This will be for the same book, hence the black line. I don't know what to think of it, so I'd like some comments. Iron Age travellers, carrying new planks to repair the pathway that leads from dry ground through/over an enormous blanket bog. These bogs filled dips in the terrain with growing peat moss, dying off in the acidic depths, and growing several to tenths of meters high, like enormous sponges. Treacherous going. Several of these pathways have been unearthed in Holland and Germany.
I'm not sure if I like the cloud, e.g, making it too 'busy'. What do you think is missing or too much?
Two color versions too, between which it is hard for me to choose.

N-drju

Not bad at all I would say. But you know it yourself!

What struck me at first glance were the tree tops, which look, kind of, as they were repeating themselves. Not sure if this is model's or populator's fault, but you could consider reseeding:

treetops.png

And you might be right about the cloud in the background. My call - delete it, and exchange it for a wall of fog for... mystery. 8)
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

Thanks man. Yes, I know it is nice, but it can be better ;)  Good ideas. The first iterations I did didn't have any cloud and where very clean, which I liked. I also considered a very brooding dark sky, and some rays of sun poking through hitting the frontal area only.

N-drju

Hmm... Kind of hard to tell outright, but somehow I don't see this render having an ominous sky. The amount of light is just about right.

By the way, where's the sun in terms of heading / angle?
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

René

The clouds don't bother me at all. All in all, I think it's a good illustration. As far as the colour variation is concerned: the readers will not be able to see the two versions anyway, but if I had to choose I would go for the more bluish version; it looks fresher.
If I had to comment on anything at all, it would be that I find the foreground very dark, but that could of course be due to my screen. I don't know how good the quality of the printing and paper is, but sometimes dark areas can get clogged up or show less variation in hues in print.

mhaze

I too find it dark.  I like the clouds but would like to see a moody version. Otherwise great work as ever.

Dune

Another iteration running, with dense fog and no clouds. So far it looks nicer. Increased sun strength to 10 (sun at just 50º east of north - which is where you look at - and 7º high). Increased fog glow to 2 and light propagation to 3, mix at 1.
I know about dark areas clogging up in print, so I'm very careful about that. Too dark, maybe increasing exposure will help. More GI just flattened shadows.

Tangled-Universe

I'm with René, I like the blue'ish version better too.
I think the clouds are actually pretty good. The cloud layer perhaps has a bit too much presence, hence you like your version with haze only better already.
Perhaps you could push back that cloud layer and have it fade into the haze slightly, so that it looks more like it's at the horizon due to it's distance?
I do like the shapes, I wouldn't let go of it easily.
The cloud itself could use better render settings though.

I envy you're so prolific with TG, it's insane :)

Dune

Thanks Martin. Well, it's my dayjob, so I spend a lot of time in TG.
Here's a few more. I tend to go for the foggy one, as the whole is busy enough as it is. And I like the lightness of the sky. Pushing back clouds into mist, however, is something I like. Ryan Archer had a render ages ago where that was really beautiful, still have it in my head.
I need to get rid of the grain in these. I used defer all, AA6, first sample 1/256, robust. I'm still not very good at these technical settings, but I guess the original 1/16 would have been better. I don't want huge render times, as it will be rendered at 6600x3300 and reduced in size in book, so I must find a good compromise.
Further comments are always welcome!

KlausK

#9
Hi Ulco, beautyful scenery you set up here!
I liked the clouds I must admit, but the foggy versions are very nice too.

My favourite version here is "HG_vng_test-10.jpg".
Mainly because I can see farther into the mist in the background.
The puddles and treestumps which are faintly to be seen back there make it a vaster deeper landscape.
And the colours almost feel like the dutch brown paintings of the great masters back then.

The groundcoverage in the foreground has less contrast which I think is good.

The yellowish tone overall pulls the elements of the scene together in a nice way.

The reflections in the puddle at front left were very sharp and dark in test-11. They are gone now which I think is better.

The highlighted farmer close to the cattle is a well placed eyecatcher in my view. A nice way of leading the viewers vision along the track.

I could imagine one or two persons or another cattle left of the first (left most) woman.
Or maybe a child at her hand.

The 3-5 trees (or what is left of them) makes this part of the scenery quite busy.
Maybe try with one or two of them gone for good?

The treestump ensemble on the right page in the middle left is quite busy too and the overlaps are not ideal I think.
And I wonder if they all would stand so straight up in the bog still. Composition wise it is fitting very well, though.
That`s it for now, I think. In any case wonderful work!

CHeers, Klaus

ps: attached are a few pictures of Storemossen in South Sweden.
I was there a few times hiking and it is actually the kind of landscape you are depicting here.
If vegetation there fits the timescope and the area of your illustration I could not say, of course.

The thing you first notice are the strong winds you encounter once you leave the woods and come onto the open plains.
That is why the trees do not grow very high, more like tall bushes. And the farther you are away from the edge of the trees
the more they are crouching and winding trying to grow in height.

Perhaps there is something in there which gives you an idea or two.
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

N-drju

That's a really good development. By adding more fog you also increased the amount of propagated light, automatically brightening the image up!
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Ariel DK

Hi Ulco
In my opinion, the "autotoned" version is more nice to my eyes, especially because you get a good vanishing point in the image, that conduce the view through all the scene. you lost that sense of deep in the foggy version, but you gained more shine in the foreground, which is nice, especially in "test_11". my final advice if you don't want to add anything more to the scene: find an equilibrium between "Hg_vnwg_test-8_autotoned" and "Hg_vnwg_test-11", that would be perfect...
Cheers
Hmmm, what version of Terragen does God use?

dorianvan

Of the last three, I think the first (smaller) is best because the fog is not too dense and it is overall warmer image. Well done, but take a look at this image and it may help tweak yours to something even better.
-Dorian

Oshyan

I definitely like the misty version!

For render optimization, try reverting to the defaults for your given AA level, 1/256 is better with higher AA (e.g. 8 and above). So basically just uncheck "Customize". Then if there is noise in your clouds, specifically, if they are v3 clouds then try increasing Voxel Scatter Quality in the GI settings first, to 200 for example. Or if they are v2 clouds, increase Quality, but ideally not above 1. If that doesn't address the noise, try reducing the Pixel Noise threshold.

- Oshyan

Dune

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback. Here's another version. No color adjustments (yet), but I think finally I will do that to bring out more of the blues, but not too much. I also need some more ground cover in the front, especially at 6600x3300px. Small plants. And some of the grasses grow through the pathway, which I have to address. Less stumps was a good idea.
I rendered with MPD5 and AA6 in defer all mode, and robust sampling, but I'll uncheck customize and check out what happens. I found that defer all is sometimes very fast. Even for me  :P it's sometimes hard to find good equilibrium between speed and quality.
The low mist sample is great, but I'd like to keep the view over the ground. Maybe locally.