Spherical Camera - output a final image for above horizon only?

[kent_m]

Hello all,

Is there a way to set the Spherical Camera to output an image of only from the horizon up? Currently it appears to only render/output the full 360 vertical image.

I know we can crop the images in the render so as to not calculate the lower half but this still leaves the un-rendered portion in the final image output. If there's a way for terragen to output a final image of only the upper half, this is what I'm asking after.

Not a big deal at all, just curious, thanks in advance.

[Kevin Kipper]

Not currently.  Enabling the crop region will still save the entire image width and height.

[kent_m]

Thanks for your reply

[pokoy]

It would be tremendously useful to actually have two modes for this:
- a region render mode (the current behavior of crop mode) where the entire frame is shown in the buffer but only the crop area is rendered
- a real crop mode (the current name is misleading) where *only* the cropped area will be rendered. This would allow to render at high resolutions without having to allocate memory for the entire frame and it would allow me to fit the region of interest on my screen.

The problem right now (somewhat related): let's say my render resolution is 10000 pixels wide but I only am interested in a certain area to preview what the final render will look. Right now, since any scaling is actually broken in the frame buffer, I *can not* preview my render at 100%. None of the zoom levels - not even 100% - displays the true pixels, resampling with downscaling doesn't work reliably and introduces block artifacts, and even viewing the image at 100% is not the true pixel output, it's blocky for some reason, too.
I've submitted a report on the forums here and the frame buffer is broken for who knows how many years now. Please, give us a way to view the true image pixels at 100%, it's mind-blowing this is still impossible.

Even if the frame buffer is fixed - dedicated modes for region and crop rendering would be very welcome.

[Dune]

Would indeed be handy. In the meantime I have a pretty fast workflow to check a crop at really 100% by saving, opening in PS, and saving subsequent crops under the same name and just click reopen recent. A few seconds it takes. Or use Irfanview. But I guess that's already in your workflows too.

[pokoy]

Yeah but I'm not asking for workarounds, I'm asking for some quality-of-life improvements. After all, it only makes the software better and more comfortable to use. And for a software that is supposed to produce nice pixels and be production ready I don't think I'm going too far. Thanks anyway.

[Matt]

There is a command line option -cropoutput which tells Terragen to only render images with the size of the crop, without the surrounding black pixels. It was originally meant to be used for rendering tiles on the command line, but it works in the GUI as well. You can create a Windows shortcut to run with this option. But it would be better if we could change this in the render settings.

@pokoy the Render View is long overdue for that 100% pixel mode, I completely agree.

[pokoy]

There is a command line option -cropoutput which tells Terragen to only render images with the size of the crop, without the surrounding black pixels. It was originally meant to be used for rendering tiles on the command line, but it works in the GUI as well. You can create a Windows shortcut to run with this option. But it would be better if we could change this in the render settings.

@pokoy the Render View is long overdue for that 100% pixel mode, I completely agree.

Thanks for confirming it, I've reported it a long time ago without any answer.
Please consider these requests as quality of life improvements:
- A checkbox for 'crop in frame buffer' to not render the area outside the crop region. (separate 'region' and 'crop' modes with each having their separate regions defined and stored would be ideal but just the option will do, too)
- being able to enable/disable the crop mode from the main window using a dedicated crop mode icon, without having to enter the renderer node. There's plenty of space next to the RTP/visibility icons on top of the render preview. It would save some time as opposed to now where you need to navigate the node view, look for the correct render node, change the tab, click the checkbox, close the node window again.

For the zoom modes, they're all broken - 200% is not a 200% zoom, 400% is not a true 400%. And they all introduce blocky artifacts, something is wrong with the resampling, see here:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,30254.msg295314.html#msg295314

Thanks!

[Dune]

The second point is a good one too. Often, when I'm working on some 'inside' (object or so), I need to uncheck crop (or alter it) for a check render, so need to go to render tab, but after that have to go inside again. Would be handy if I could remain inside.

[Kevin Kipper]

Just curious if you've seen the thread about the scripts we've created using the RPC features of Terragen 4.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,30551.0.html

There's a script called tg_crop_region_presets.py available for download.  One of its options is to enable/disable the crop region mode by checking or unchecking a check box.  

I've found using that the RPC feature is a good way to create those "quality of life improvements" that pokoy has mentioned.  For example, I have a shortcut on my desktop to a script from which I can launch any of the Python RPC scripts I've created to interact with Terragen.  This script just floats around on my desktop until I click on one of the buttons to work its magic in Terragen.

[Dune]

Thanks, Kevin. I know about the scripts, but to be honest I'd like to keep all handling within TG, so I've never bothered to install any (I may, though, out of curiosity). To handle the script I'd have to click away TG, click on the buttons and get the focus on TG back. Getting out and inside an object is only a few clicks more, and I didn't mean it that severe as it may have come across. I am very happy with most workings in TG