The Island - UPDATE

[crosseout]

I like it, black and white really fits this one. I would have tried to place the horizon accordingly to the golden rule though if I were you; and the very top part of the mountain shows that it is 3d, otherwise it looks very photorealistic; awesome work!

edit: actually, nevermind the thing about the horizon, I was wrong, its good the way it is, and the grain is nice(;

[Oshyan]

Miley's information about render sizes and DPI is unfortunately (or rather fortunately) incorrect. DPI is a completely meaningless term in rendering. It only takes on significance *when you print*. Terragen doesn't render at any DPI at all since this is a term that only has meaning for print - it's just that 72 is the default for most image formats when no DPI is specified by the application writing the file.

Changing DPI also doesn't inherently change the pixel resolution of an image, only how the existing pixels are translated to printed area. If you want to *resample* an image to match a particular DPI and print area, that will change the number of pixels, but this is not necessarily required as long as you render at the right size to begin with.

So it works like this: figure out how much area you want to cover and at what detail (DPI), 300DPI being "photo quality", then do some simple multiplication and you get the size you must render at. For example if I want to print at 8.5x11, a standard "letter" page size (in the US), you would take 8.5 inches, multiply by 300 *dots per inch* (DPI), and you get 2,550 as the number of pixels you need horizontally. Do the same for the vertical dimension of 11 inches and you get 3,300 pixels. So rendering an image at 2550x3300 (or vice-versa for "landscape orientation") would give you a very high quality 8.5x11 print, and such a render size is perfectly possible within TG2 right now and in a reasonable amount of time. Of course much larger print sizes take a lot longer, but that's true of any other renderer of this quality too.

Remember that DPI is only a "flag" inside an image format that supports it. So you can render an image in TG then change it to 300DPI for printing and as long as the image dimensions match your intended print size *at 300DPI*, you'll be fine.

- Oshyan

[zionner]

On a diffrent note from talking about DPI

I like the mood you set in this, the black and white makes the scene come alive to me.

also, Great work with the grain effects;)

[rcallicotte]

Thanks, Oshyan.

Not sure what I was thinking.  Basically, this all depends on the speed of the renderer, which will eventually change in our case.

Miley's information about render sizes and DPI is unfortunately (or rather fortunately) incorrect. DPI is a completely meaningless term in rendering. It only takes on significance *when you print*. Terragen doesn't render at any DPI at all since this is a term that only has meaning for print - it's just that 72 is the default for most image formats when no DPI is specified by the application writing the file.

Changing DPI also doesn't inherently change the pixel resolution of an image, only how the existing pixels are translated to printed area. If you want to *resample* an image to match a particular DPI and print area, that will change the number of pixels, but this is not necessarily required as long as you render at the right size to begin with.

So it works like this: figure out how much area you want to cover and at what detail (DPI), 300DPI being "photo quality", then do some simple multiplication and you get the size you must render at. For example if I want to print at 8.5x11, a standard "letter" page size (in the US), you would take 8.5 inches, multiply by 300 *dots per inch* (DPI), and you get 2,550 as the number of pixels you need horizontally. Do the same for the vertical dimension of 11 inches and you get 3,300 pixels. So rendering an image at 2550x3300 (or vice-versa for "landscape orientation") would give you a very high quality 8.5x11 print, and such a render size is perfectly possible within TG2 right now and in a reasonable amount of time. Of course much larger print sizes take a lot longer, but that's true of any other renderer of this quality too.

Remember that DPI is only a "flag" inside an image format that supports it. So you can render an image in TG then change it to 300DPI for printing and as long as the image dimensions match your intended print size *at 300DPI*, you'll be fine.

- Oshyan

[3DGuy]

< DPI story >

You have no idea how wrong you are. 100x100 pixels @ 72DPI is exactly the same as 100x100 pixels @ 300DPI. It'll give you the exact same 10000 pixels. Just multiply your inches by the DPI and that's all there is to it. If you really want your TGA/TIFF/JPG or whatever fileformat you use to say 300DPI after rendering it, just open it in photoshop, use the resize image option and untick the 'resample image' option, set the resolution to 300 DPI and resave. No pixels are changed (well with jpg there is ofcourse because of the lossy format), you'll have the exact same image. The only difference is that there is now a header in the file that says it's 300 and not 72 DPI.

edit: basically what Oshyan said (I need to read all post before replying )

[mr-miley]

3D Guy, "100x100 pixels @ 72DPI is exactly the same as 100x100 pixels @ 300DPI" Correct of course, BUT a 10" x 10" printed image @ 72 dpi will only be 720 x 720 dots whereas a 10" x 10" printed image @300 dpi will be 3000 x 3000 dots, quite a difference. I am talking about the printing of images off a printing press, not for screen display. As most peoples monitors will be running at 96 dpi, there is absolutely no point having display images over that resolution as it will make no difference to what you see other than the image on screen will be bigger. If you just tell a pc to resize a 720 x 720 pixel image  (see above) to be twice the resolution (144 dpi) then the software will have to take each pixel and add another one next to it by looking at the pixels neighbors and "Guessing" at what colour values to use for tese extra pixels. You will indeed get a 10" x 10" image now at 144 dpi, but half of those pixels will be made up.... not good. Far better to render the image at twice the size (1440 x 1440 pixels  20" x 20" @72 dpi) and then RESAMPLE the image to 10" x 10" @ 144dpi There is no guessing of colour values by the software and no jagged edges, it is using the same no. of pixels, just squeezing them into a smaller space giving a lot smoother image . The file sizes will stay exactly the same because you are using the same no. of pixels. Hence if you want an image at 288 dpi (quite OK for press work) abd you don't want to use quality, you need to render your image at 4 x the size. eg. if you want your 10" x 10" image at 288 dpi PRINTED you would need to render it at 72dpi X 40, 2880 X 2880. Thats 40" x 40" @72dpi BUT 10" x 10" @288dpi. I am fully aware that you can just change the dpi setting of an image, but that is a terrible way of prepping anything for press printing, you should always avoid getting the software to add and guess pixels if possible.

A fine example of this from a slightly different angle. you have a small original photo that is needed to be included in a book, BUT it is needed at twice the phots size (say the original photo is 2" x 2" and it is wanted 4" x 4") In preparing the artwork for press, you could just scan the photo @300 dpi and then resize it in photoshop to 4" x 4" @ 300dpi The image is twice the size and therefore twice the number of pixels (from 600px x 600px to 1200px x 1200px) BUT photoshop has had to GUESS the extra 600 x 600 px. NOT GOOD. Far better to scan the image at 600 dpi (far greater resolution than the press can print) ant to have the software resample the image to 4" x 4" @ 300dpi, thus keeping the same number of overall pixels, but doubling the size of the image. No guessing the extra pixels. You are then left with an image that is indistinguishable from the original but is twice the printed size.

Miles

[3DGuy]

In other words if you want your image to fill an A4 page (210 x 297mm) @300dpi, you would need to render your image 10159 x 14378 @72dpi (your printed image being 8.26 inches @300dpi x 11.69 inche@300dpi = 8.26 x 300 =2478 pixels by 11.69 x 300 = 3507 pixels (2478 x 3507 pixel image) but bear in mind that TG can only render @ 72dpi so you have to multiply previous pixel size by 300/72 =4.1 etc etc etc thus giving you 10159 x 14378)

I was referring to this part where you're making a fundamental mistake. TG doesn't render at a specific DPI, no rendering engine renders at a specific DPI, it just produces pixels. 72DPI is just a default flag for the file format. That was my point. All you need to do is figure out  how many pixels you need.. i.e. 8"x11" @ 300DPI = (8*300)x(11*300) = 2400x3300. Just because TG happens to save that with a flag saying it's 72DPI doesn't matter. Sure if you print @72 DPI it'll turn out an image of 33.3"x45.8", but print it at 300DPI and will be exactly 8"x11". There's absolutely no need to render it at the 10Kx14K pixels as you suggested. That is where you made the mistake. Printing an image of 10159 x 14378 @ 300DPI will give you a print of 33.8" x 47.9".

[rcallicotte]

3DGuy, I understand your logic to a point.  But, what I don't understand is that if I have an 800X600 image at the default 72dpi and convert this in Photoshop to 300dpi, it does change the size.  If I increase the size back up to 800X600, then the quality suffers.

[3DGuy]

That's because you have to untick the 'resample image' option. That way you can change the DPI setting to whatever you want without changing a single pixel. The only thing that will change is the projected print size.

[rcallicotte]

Thanks, 3DGuy.  Didn't even see that.  Appreciate your time to explain.

[Matt]

Mr Miley,

I can absolutely guarantee that you don't need to render all those pixels. If you need 8.26 inches at 300 dots per inch then you need 8.26 x 300 = 2478 dots. Therefore 2478 pixels are sufficient. If the file thinks that it is 72 DPI that just means it is telling the printer to scale those 2478 pixels over a larger physical area (2478 / 72 = 34.4 inches), and therefore all you need to do is tell the print software that you really want to print over 8.26 inches (or 300 DPI). The image itself does not need to change. No resampling of pixels should be done.

Decide how many inches you want to print to and multiply that by your desired DPI to decide how many pixels to render at. Terragen doesn't know anything about DPI because it doesn't need to, just as a digital camera doesn't need to know about DPI, only the printing software. A 2478 pixel image printed at 300 DPI has exactly the same number of pixels as a 2478 pixel image printed at 72 DPI. The only difference is the size of the print.

Matt

[sjefen]

Just thought I would share the one with colors.
I am working on one which will be bigger and have some trees in it, but the rendering will have to wait

[rcallicotte]

GEEZ!  Great!!

[dhavalmistry]

oh man....this is amazing!

[old_blaggard]

Great colors!  This reminds me of some of the old, beautiful TG 0.9 renders - the water especially.