Pacific Island 2024

[Stormlord]

My first rendering which I created in TG Classic 0.91 was that of a simple Tropical Island scene.
It took nearly 3 weeks to end up with this rendering in March 2009 after starting to work with TG.
The transparent water was very hard to achieve in TG Classic, but at the end it was very cool


Tropical Island with TG Classic made in 2009

But I never made a cool new version of a Tropical Island in TG 4.0.
I will develop a nice Island scenery, we will see if it will become more tropical or pacific styled...


GAEA based terrain for my next island scenery

So here actually my next journey begins!
First I designed a fresh terrain ground shader and made a basic ocean water.


Pacific Island 2024 (Starter Scene)

So this is my scenery base file so far...
Now I have to develop a nice vegetation setup for my island

STORMLORD

[Dune]

That's a great island. I like the inlet! Mangroves! With trees and so on, it will also get dimension. I would guess it's a few K wide.
Looking forward to where this leads to.

[schmeerlap]

One possibility here is to drop the water level a wee bit for an atoll with an enclosing reef, and it might give you more expansive beaches (for me to stretch out on). Drop in a few palm trees, and with a cheap flight thrown in I'll give it a visit. 

[Stormlord]

The Terrain was exported from GAEA with a resolution of 8192 and exported as 32-Bit TIF, then re-imported into TG 4.7.15 as a 5000x5000 wide Area.
So there's plenty of space! The island itself was created in a way, that I have a horseshoe shape, with a flattened area inside the horseshoe.
My idea is to have a Bay Area for planting some sail ships here. The other way round was to lower the water depth to get a nice atoll. So John is so right!


Screenshot from inside GAEA of my island


Pacific Island 2024

Now I have planted some vegetation on the island and rendered it again with another cloud layer to bring in shadows on the island.
I also rendered such a shadow version, but the shadows produce some nasty looking watercolors in the ocean at the end.... hmm...
So this image here is a mixed version, with the new sky and island vegetation, but the older ocean without the nasty looking shadows.
Unfortunately, I do not have any mangroves in my plant collection. So sad... but ok, I always work with what I got and this is my result.

Some minor changes have been made in the shader network. Slightly lighter sand at the coastline, etc...
All in all, it looks good so far, but as always, there is room for more improvement.

Beside of being able of doing this, I rendered some masks to do the masking of heaven, ocean and island (with and without vegetation).
But before I can go further now, I have to convert some older max sail ship models into tgo's which will take some time...

STORMLORD

[Dune]

It's starting to look very good.

[schmeerlap]

Yep, I like the tree pops, maybe drop the max altitude to get them off that top shelf on the mountain (just a personal preference, that). At this scale I wouldn't be too bothered about particular tree species as they'll all blend in to one another if tightly packed. The one thing I would do is to increase the haze density, and maybe play with its height control, as the whole scene looks a little too stark from near to far horizon.
When I do islands I like the horizon to disappear in the mist.
But, yes, it's certainly coming along nicely.

[Stormlord]

Haze density is really one thing, that I had never in mind.
A very good idea, John! So I have to try this...

At the moment, I am working on bringing in more color variations into my populations.
Recently I have made a nice autumn color rendering (Indian Summer Valley), where I used a tileable image map in the color slot as an overlay for nice color variations in my trees.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,30637.0.html

In this Pacific Island scene, I embed instead of an image overlay a color mixer to the color slot in the Parts Shader to bring in more subtle variations into my trees and plants.
For the colors I used a prominent leaf of the population, applied a blur to it and took the brightest and the darkest green tone for the PF color 1. Then I copied the same colors to
PF color 2 and pushed the slider a little bit further apart. The result was a very natural color tone appearance in the population, but with a wider range of color tones.

A little bit complicated to explain, so please allow me to show you, what I mean and how I did it in this case...


Color Tinting Populations


Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass)

By a direct side by side comparison, it is obvious, that this shading solution leads to more color variations in my vegetation.
So this will be the way I go with...


Side by side comparison


Pacific Island 2024

And now it is time to start converting some ship models into tgo's...

STORMLORD

[Stormlord]

Small Update...

I made some very nice changes in my pacific island scene, but intend to import some beautiful sail ship in the bay before presenting the new update.
Until the last post, I converted some ship and during the whole process I have to produce some other stuff before I can convert them into tgo's.

For example, last year I got a nice Texture Generator (Filter Forge) and started to build up an impressive high resolution texture base with it.
But I never made some good looking wood textures. Now I added over 100 new textures to my lib. Wood, wood planks and fabrics for flags etc.
They come in an excellent quality in 4K and they are seamless tileable!


Filter Forge Textures

After that, I started to convert my sail ships and use these nice wood planks, and wood textures.
So please allow me to present here four different ships which has been overhauled, converted into a tgo and ready for use in my pacific island scene.

1. Le Soleil (1668)
2. Le Sirene (1778)
3. Le Glorieux (1756)
4. HMS Victory (1737)


Four different sail ships


Le Soleil (1668)


Converted version for Terragen

Some flags here have been made in a medieval style, (not realistic, but beautiful!)

So I'm nearly done, but my last ship Le Superbe (1785) has no flag!
So I decided to create a "flag in the wind" animation in 3DsMax to get a realistic flag which I can export for my last ship (and for further use other variations as well).


Screenshot from my flag animation
Made in 3D Studiomax to achieve realistic flag models for export and conversion

However... when the last ship, Le Superbe (1785) has been overhauled, then I convert it also into a tgo and import my ships into my pacific island scene.
Then the next major update will follow closely... so stay tuned!

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Beautiful ships! I didn't know these flags were as big as these, but I looked it up and yes. Huge. I would, however, darken the rigging quite a bit.

[Stormlord]

I was also astonished that they used in the medieval such huge flags!
But they look quite nice...

Many years ago I have build a flag generator with casual medieval symbols to create fantasy flags.
Together with the new "flag in the wind" animation tool in 3DsMax I have fantastic capabilities, great!


Fantasy Flag Templates

Regarding the ropes... some minor changes are not a problem at all if you got a clean model first!
But you're right, the rope shader isn't realistic (I have to darken them). So thank you for your sample.

Now I have finished the last ship with the missing flag :-)


Le Superbe (1785)
(Added flag from my animator tool)

Time to convert the last ship to tgo...

STORMLORD

[Dune]

Maybe you should also make and add some flags that hang down, when no wind blows. I have sometimes added other parts to a ship (hanging flags, rolled, or limp sails), differently named, so in TG you can choose and make one invisible by opacity, according to the situation.

[Stormlord]

Ulco, you are full of professional tips. A very clever idea...
Also to search in old paintings for reference images, I had that never in mind.
I have learned so much from you, thank you very much for all your valuable input!

STORMLORD

[schmeerlap]

Yes, it all seems to be coming along very nicely: great tips about dirtying the rigging, and limp flags, and all. But I won't be a happy bunny if I see a fleet of galleons moored in that bay that are so squeaky clean they belong in glass showcases. Those timbers and paintjobs seriously need textures that portray signs of weathering. And seeing I'm in such a beastly mood, you're not seriously thinking of mooring HMS Victory among those Frenchy warships. What's the story there?

Harrumphing over my "porridge a la Maroc"

John

[Stormlord]

You may have noticed, that I plan a big war John!
French and English dude's, but who win's the battle...

In the meantime, I try to make you a happy Bunny with the next version of my HMS Victory?
Here I updated nearly all materials and imported new flags because in the old ones, some UVW coordinates weren't really correct.

After running into some minor problems, the first sail ship is done so far... please allow me to show you a first clay render.
I haven't seen it first, but later I saw that two of my flags (top left mast and keel post) collided with the ropes. Ups...


Flags collided with ropes
(AO Render)

I created with my flag animator several banners, flags and Gedöns, then I removed the old ones to get a new and exciting fresh look!
Flags can now be done in a very short time in perfect quality. My cloth simulation works excellent, and it's fun to simulate new banners.


Some new created flags and banners


Flag paint job

After designing all flags and painting some masks for shredding also, I imported them in my base mesh.
Here it is important to look carefully if there is any collision in the scene?

So here are no more collisions and beside of that, also commercials can be done easily!
So... write me for such a job if you're interested.


HMS Victory (1737) with a fresh and modern look
(Flag test successful... check...)

Then I exported the ship from 3DsMax as OBJ, edited the .mtl file and re-imported the mesh into Terragen.
Here I started to manipulate the shaders to develop an older and used looking vessel.
As a starter, it's not so bad!


HMS Victory (1737)

So I really hope, that you're satisfied with that version because it was a lot of work to do!
But I also had much fun doing it...

The other ships will have to follow now...

STORMLORD

[schmeerlap]

I've just been listening to some Techno albums this evening, so am in a much better mood now. hull colours are looking suitably besmirched.
You're doing a grand job, Dirk. Maybe one of the French ships will have a broken mast from a direct hit from one of Victory's guns. Here's hoping.