UK Spring

Started by efflux, March 29, 2008, 12:13:12 PM

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efflux

It's meant to be Spring here in the UK but it is still cold. I took a load of photos a few days ago. This is Carlisle. In the distance is the Lake District. Matt lives behind that mountain.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_165/file_1646366.jpg

Maybe these can provide some TG2 inspiration. I have quite a few that I will post at Renderosity. I wish I had a better camera. My lenses are OK but the camera is a Canon 300D. Otherwise I'd have got better colour and detail clarity and bigger resolution in case of printing. I plan on buying an A3 printer for graphics and photography printing. These shots could have been so much much better with a better camera and A4 printable. I'll never get those same cloud formations and snow again. It was perfect photography conditions for several days :( A new camera is on my shopping list. However Lightzone can do wonders in post editing.



rcallicotte

Great.  Thanks for sharing.  Check out the new Clouds Library in the file section.  It's got possibilities.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

I like to use more misty clouds not cumulus in TG. I have some good TG2 clouds like this. I think, for example, the clouds in that photo would be difficult to achieve in TG2. That type of cloud always ends up looking solid in TG2 to my eyes. I can't say I've ever really explored it though. I can't do so at the moment. TG2 is too time consuming. I'll get back to it later. Photography is quicker. You can learn from taking photos but also from the post processing. I've redone post processing on some of my previous TG2 renders and the difference is very noticeable. For example I post processed some from the final full res render, imagining I might print a few. I had applied sharpening for example but when it came to posting the renders on the net I simply downsized. This is a no no. You need to apply correct sharpening to the end resolution image of every size.

I rave about that Lightzone app a lot but has anyone tried it? It's great for editing graphics renders.

efflux

#3
It's interesting when you analyze your work. Why does something work? I never do this at the time of creation. It just feels right. Now I look at that photo and I see what works. For example the dark line of trees which is reflected in shape by the light line of clouds.

You can create amazing worlds in apps like TG2 and Mojoworld but you are also like a photographer. Especially with Mojoworld this was very obvious because people shared planets. Often the planet builders made amazing planets but the best renders were done by someone else who had a better eye for a picture.

efflux

To give you an example. Look at this blurry washed out disaster:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_151/file_1504890.jpg

I just spent a couple of minutes reprocessing this. The result:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/6186/copper60fixgl1.jpg

This isn't even exactly a favorite image. I really damaged some of my later stuff on the net post versions. Also, Gimp on the Mac has some highly dodgy tiff conversion. OK in Linux though for some reason.

efflux


Harvey Birdman

Those are really pretty, E! I need to start experimenting with post-processing my digital snaps. Maybe that's the missing element. Like I've said, I used to accomplish some pretty nice stuff with my 35mm film cameras, but I've just never gotten the hang of my digital camera (a little Olympus). I have a custom convolution filter program I've written that works really well, but I just haven't gotten into the habit of running digital snaps through it.

You guys are much more professional at this than I am.   ;)

efflux

You can work miracles these days with the post on seemingly useless photos. I haven't concentrated enough on it with the graphics either. Now that I've started doing a lot with the photos I realize how poorly I treated some of my graphics renders. You have more room to maneuver with raw photo images but still, even with graphics renders you can do a whole lot.

Cyber-Angel

Quote from: Harvey Birdman on March 30, 2008, 02:47:56 AM
Those are really pretty, E! I need to start experimenting with post-processing my digital snaps. Maybe that's the missing element. Like I've said, I used to accomplish some pretty nice stuff with my 35mm film cameras, but I've just never gotten the hang of my digital camera (a little Olympus). I have a custom convolution filter program I've written that works really well, but I just haven't gotten into the habit of running digital snaps through it.

You guys are much more professional at this than I am.   ;)

All I can say is that is always the case with every thing in life there are people who have a little more knowledge...a little more experience then us we can learn much form them. We try and some times fail but we try again along the way despondency can be a close companion, which left unchecked can be the better of us.

All we can ever do is try for lest we be children and not men and ask our children's children to forgive us for that which we did not do this day nor the next; why the kin of our kin asks "Where you not there that day, did you not care enough to try?).
_______________________________________________

All we can do is what we must, before age and time turn-
Hands and minds to dust.
Our kin looks to us in all things to try or care enough to say
"This task I have tried my best but am not worthy of this task, that be best done by better men then I".

Do not be consumed by overwhelming pride for pride comes before a fall, a fall from grace-
Look to mighty Rome or Greece lofty bastions of Civilizations creation; But see them now
how far they fell, wolves bayed at their doors but they slumbered on, until there walls fell,
Ruins now, only dusty pages recall them now, they did not try so now their dust.

Do you who ever you maybe care enough about your legacy, a footnote or a library or simply be one of
The countless many who's name time and history don't recall, content
Just to slip into to the timeless, ageless dark called oblivion? 

So now, before I go though while brief a time I have been with you all and say lest for now
Audre care enough in all things to try, come what may the best you can
Do not boast nor brag nor fight weather with kin or folk abroad so you may say "I did what I could and a job well done"-
Should we per chance meet in the By and By you may fell free to say "I am now at peace and in life at least I tried".

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Just what I think on that subject. Peace to all.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel  ;D

rcallicotte

#9
@efflux - Thanks for sharing these.  Very nice and strangely almost look like TG2 in the cloud forms.  Hence, why I noted the File Sharing for clouds.  It is fun thinking about sharing these.  I have a couple of photos I've taken of clouds.  Natures clouds always look so much better than in Terragen, but there are so many different avenues for things to go - changes in the wind and updrafts and downdrafts and moisture changes and pressure systems...not sure complete imitation is even possible.

We can try, though, eh?

As for Lightzone, I've tried it awhile ago and do not remember it.   :-[
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

Maybe once TG2 goes multi core we'll all be getting more into clouds. Otherwise it's a bit slow. I don't think any app does a great job at cumulus style clouds. I imagine that it's very difficult to replicate due to the way the lighting interacts with those clouds but for more wispy clouds I think TG2 can be very realistic.

The camera I use has some limits. It has less colour and detail than newer cameras. For clouds this does tend to make them a little more TG2 looking. In fact this camera's lack of total sharpness ends up providing a more painterly look, especially after a bit of post processing but when I look at crisp clear shots taken on better cameras it makes me wish I had one.

Another important point. To take good cloud shots I'd say it's vital to have a polarizing filter. Then you see more of the cloud forms with no light blow out. In fact I have a polarizing filter on my camera most of the time.

efflux

#11
Another thing you'll notice with landscape photography is that our eyes adjust to light in a way that a camera can't. Hence the polarizing filter to help with this. When we look at a landscape we see the ground and the clouds easily but actually the sky is hugely brighter than the ground. With a camera, it's best to make sure the sky is right but the ground is too dark then you can post the ground back or you can take multiple exposures and post them together. It makes you wonder what we are doing in TG2? Making dim lit worlds maybe.

This has got me thinking because for example in my favorite planet, one called Red, I did turn the sun up to an extent that if I removed the cloud cover then the sky would be totally blown out in renders. When the sun does poke through on that planet it creates very nice realistic looking lighting. I also know for fact that in some of the most beautiful Mojoworlds the sun is turned up.

efflux

This is the planet I am on about and a fixed downsize jpg not the blurry crap over at Renderosity. Maybe I'm oversharpening but better than the extreme blur. I should repost those at Renderosity:

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5844/redfixbg6.jpg

This planet has lighting which approximates what you start to understand from taking photos. The sun is turned up slightly and without those clouds it would be too bright but I think that's how things actually are. In reality, even when a clear sky and ground lit with full sun, the sky will turn out very bright in a photo. This is my favorite planet and favorite render. Maybe all to do with the lighting. I'm going to experiment further but not now. Too little time.

rcallicotte

efflux, your work is sensational.  I'm aghast you don't spend the time on it, compared to photography.  But, what do I know?  Really, you could be a genius at one or the other, but your work in TG2 is always so cool.  I love this.  What I really can't wait to see is what you do with the next version.  Transparency included.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

Thanks Calico. I'm glad you like it. I have a time problem. I have this work that's been dragging on for several years now. A house that has been renovated and is near completion but hopefully soon I will get back into artwork.

About the sun. I think you need to have it's strength set to a minimum of 4. Small changes have a big effect and that change will make the sky very bright if it's clear but it's actually more natural. The problem comes in that we can't control the light by polarizing in the way nearly all landscape photographers do but we do have contrast and gamma and I've been experimenting with the openEXR output. I actually saved most renders in this format but never used it. Cinepaint can handle it and you get big headroom for changing exposure and gamma. Just out of interest, because my renders are much bigger than the ones I post on the net, here is a render I posted at Renderosity:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_156/file_1551512.jpg

Then a detail post processed slightly differently:

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/826/pig40postdq7.jpg

Another one at Renderosity:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_156/file_1556551.jpg

and a detail after Open EXR exposure and colour adjustments:

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/3182/pig240posteh6.jpg

The problems are at the TG2 end now. I'll need to get better renders.

This is a good filter in Gimp. Gimp is the best for your final sharpening. The results are better than any other app I've tried:

http://docs.gimp.org/en/plug-in-nlfilt.html