River WIP

Started by bigben, September 12, 2008, 07:33:52 AM

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bigben

Here's the render from my river model tests.
Detail 1, AA 6, GI 2, 4   Render time: 93h 45m  (had to let it keep going to see what it looked like)
fov 90°

The terrain has only very basic surfacing and the wave size needed some tweakng, but I love the wind patch effect in TG2. The only area of water that's of a little concern to me is the shallow water on the bottom right, but then I haven't done any shore effects which will change this a bit.  A little post sharpening in Photoshop.

Renegade26

I think the shorline - right by the water - looks very realistic indeed!

rcallicotte

Very nice, Ben.  Are you going to let us see your progress?  This has loads of potential and the stream of water looks brilliantly realistic.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

bigben

Most of this is pretty much the same as my multiple masks from a single image (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2519.0). The main practical difference is that there is displacement involved as well as changing the coverage of surfaces.  The displacement makes it a little more difficult to accurately set values for the colour adjust nodes of subsequent masks so the next thing I'll be doing is making a masked surface that will procide contours matching the greyscale values of the image mask in 0.1 increments. This should make life a lot easier instead of having to ait for water/reflective surfaces to render.

For example, the water surface is deliberately masked to be wider than the displaced river bed. The greyscale value of the image map at the point where the water intersects the terrain will vary depending on the amount of displacement and the values of the colour adjust nodes used for the riverbed mask. Setting the position of a new mask relative to the intersection of the water surface  with the terrain was a case of trial and error and is a very frustrating process.

Smaller test render in progress.


bigben

#5
Two minor additions in this test.
1: Some rushes added to the river banks along the water's edge
2: Surface above (and slightly below) the water surface has been darkened and a reflective shader added (the reflectivity is not that obvious in this image)

For simplicity I used the same mask for each. I normally would have extended the rushes a little further from the water.  I'll probably leave this one for now as I have some other things I want to get sorted out.  The mask contour map is definitely next on the drawing board though as it should make planning masks simpler and more precise.

PS Having the blending shader now on the normal surface shader is *much* nicer than using fractal breakup.  Just appreciating some of the simpler changes to TG2  :)

choronr

This is a very inspiration scene/project. Thank you for sharing.