Flickering starfield

Started by james adamson, February 08, 2020, 04:53:51 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

james adamson

Hi all.
I have created a starfield in Nuke. It is an 8k lat long image which I have placed into an image map shader with spherical projection and then through a default shader set luminosity to 5.
I have done a quick test render and the stars are being warped or blurred somehow but most importantly they are flickering in certain places. Anyone got any ideas how I prevent this?
Quick render uploaded. 
Thanks.
James.

WAS

Have a look at the comments I made here: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27420.msg272458.html#msg272458

In summary, you need to use Custom Sampling with 1/4 First Samples and 0.001-0.005 pixel noise threshold.

Additionally Cubic B-Spline for the AA method doesn't have edge correction/sharpening, so there will be less shape anomalies. You could probably sharpen in post.

james adamson


WAS

You're welcome. Also be sure Motion Blur is disabled unless that's an effect you want.

james adamson

Cheers. I always keep motion blur off. Renders take long enough as it is. Saw your milky way on that thread. Nice. How the hell did you do that in Terragen? And also is everyone making Milky way shots? Very weird, That has been on my shot list for a while. I thought about trying to use volumetrics in Modo but am not ready for that level of pain yet.
Cheers.
James.

WAS

Quote from: james adamson on February 08, 2020, 05:59:43 PMCheers. I always keep motion blur off. Renders take long enough as it is. Saw your milky way on that thread. Nice. How the hell did you do that in Terragen? And also is everyone making Milky way shots? Very weird, That has been on my shot list for a while. I thought about trying to use volumetrics in Modo but am not ready for that level of pain yet.
Cheers.
James.

Basically just Simple Shapes, some PFs and colouring of different layers. Every once in awhile people post image composites with milky way and it got me wanting to make my own version in Terragen. This is my second version. Even had some 3D attempts though they need lots of work.

james adamson

Right. Essentially the same process I used in Nuke. Lots of masks edge treatments and erosions through various fractals. And a load of grading and math ops.
You can get lost in that stuff.

WAS

Quote from: james adamson on February 08, 2020, 06:42:08 PMRight. Essentially the same process I used in Nuke. Lots of masks edge treatments and erosions through various fractals. And a load of grading and math ops.
You can get lost in that stuff.

Yeah, my original attempts node network was HUGE. Rendered slow too, this version much faster. I also made a variant of it for quick nebula generation. I posted that in image sharing: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27456.0.html

james adamson

Cool. Is that flat or is it displacements? And on the same subject but a bit of a tangent. I would prefer to generate any clouds in Terragen now rather than Modo, but I am going to need to generate particles from clouds at some point on the project I am on so my options are either do those clouds in Modo which take a lot longer to produce or get voxel data from Terragen into Modo and generate the particles from that. Do you know if that is possible? I have read that this can only be done in linux but wondered if there was a work around.

WAS

#9
Quote from: james adamson on February 09, 2020, 06:41:47 AMCool. Is that flat or is it displacements? And on the same subject but a bit of a tangent. I would prefer to generate any clouds in Terragen now rather than Modo, but I am going to need to generate particles from clouds at some point on the project I am on so my options are either do those clouds in Modo which take a lot longer to produce or get voxel data from Terragen into Modo and generate the particles from that. Do you know if that is possible? I have read that this can only be done in linux but wondered if there was a work around.

You would probably be best using VDBs from Terragen. No offense but all other cloud generators are garbage and use wrong motion physics to my eyes.

You should be able to install Linux Subsystem on Windows 10 and install Ubuntu from the Microsoft Store. You should than be able to export from windows in a Linux command window (terminal).

You'll need the render node however.

My windows 10 copy from CyperpowerPC ironically doesnt install anything from the store so I haven't been able to test (supposedly all genuine just some bug with their slipstream I'm assuming, they change boot loader image and other stuff like PC logo in system info) but it should work.

If you don't have the render node I or someone here can probably help you export the VDBs.

james adamson

Yeah the clouds were one of the major factors of me going with Terragen. That and that it was not a huge corporation producing it.
And obviously the beautiful renderer. I am on Mac so its something I will look at further down the line. But yeah I do not want to be making clouds anywhere else so if I can get stuff out of terragen to emit particles thats what I will do.
Cheers.
James.

WAS

You may get fair enough performance out of a virtualization and Ubuntu image (lots of prebuilt virtual harddrives for Linux). 

TG has no particle engine that I'm aware of but may be wrong though I think I asked about this in the past.