Terragen 2 antialiasing needs sampling filters

[Insquall]

The Terragen 2 renderer's antialiasing needs sampling filters, for example, a gaussian filter. Most TG2 images I have seen suffer from aliasing even when the creator says they set the antialiasing value high.

I am assuming this has not been implemented, and am just saying that this would be useful. Please delete this thread if I am wrong.

Thanks.

[Oshyan]

We are currently looking at implementing one or more alternate filters. We will not necessarily provide these as options as we prefer to simply find the best all-around filter to avoid unnecessary complication in the render settings. However if there is significant advantage to providing different filters we may be able to do so in the future.

- Oshyan

[sjefen]

I like options

- Terje

[JimB]

I like options

- Terje

Me too! It's a pain being limited deliberately; More for a hobbyist's app, not pro use.

[Oshyan]

As I said, if there is significant advantage to providing filtering options it's something we may be able to provide in the future. At the moment there are no options and the filter is clearly not optimal, so any improvement will be useful, even if options are not yet available.

- Oshyan

[PorcupineFloyd]

I believe it's better to focus on optimising the engine in some parts (which are quite slow) than to add various new filters.

I'd love to see a real, physically correct depth of field simulation in TG2. Imagine those high altitude renders with focus set on a tree in the front with everything behind it slightly blurred.
Somehow a simple Z-buffer export into b&w layer would do the trick.

[Cyber-Angel]

I believe it's better to focus on optimising the engine in some parts (which are quite slow) than to add various new filters.

I'd love to see a real, physically correct depth of field simulation in TG2. Imagine those high altitude renders with focus set on a tree in the front with everything behind it slightly blurred.
Somehow a simple Z-buffer export into b&w layer would do the trick.

I'd be all in favor of this but only if the lens behaved in a manor consistent with its real world counter part and that means when you set the exposure and aperture F-Stop it not only controls Depth of Field but also controls the amount of light go in.

I think the lens system should be consistent with real world optics and respect the laws of optics one thing that comes to mind would be that of Bokeh  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh if TG2 is going to do Depth of Field then it needs this. Concurrent with this need then TG2 would need different shutter blade types and also an adjustment for shutter angel like that found on ENG Broadcast Cameras would be nice.   

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel       

[Matt]

In the next update you will be able to choose between 6 pixel filters:

0) Box. Spans 1 pixel. The old filter, widely regarded as being pretty crap.
1) Tent. Spans 2 pixels. Linear interpolation between nearest pixels.
2) Narrow Cubic. Spans 2 pixels. A cubic filter which spans only 2 pixels. Theoretically not the best use of a cubic filter but included because it is only slightly softer than the old box filter.
3) Cubic B-Spline. Spans 4 pixels. Gives fairly soft results.
4) Mitchell-Netravali (with parameters B=1/3, C=1/3). Spans 4 pixels. A popular filter in many renderers. A compromise between Cubic B-Spline and Catmull-Rom. Slightly enhances edges.
5) Catmull-Rom. Spans 4 pixels. Enhances edges more than the other filters.

I've also added an anti-aliasing bloom option, designed to avoid aliasing problems due to clipping of very bright pixels. This works nicely on the edge of the sun and on specular highlights.

We expect to release the Beta with these feature very soon. Some other really nice goodies in there too!

[EDIT: I got my pixel spans wrong!]

Matt

[dandelO]

WOW! 

Unexpected goodies revealed!

[buzzzzz1]

Great news about the coming release and especially the new AA choices.

Thanks for chiming in Matt.

[Ricowan]

WOOT!

[sjefen]

Fantastic.

- Terje

[Mohawk20]

I've also added an anti-aliasing bloom option, designed to avoid aliasing problems due to clipping of very bright pixels. This works nicely on the edge of the sun and on specular highlights.

Matt

This is THE best news I heard all week, finally a bloom option, so no more PhotoShop needed!
This raises one question though: Will this also work outside the atmo, in orbit shots? And will the bloom expand if the luminosity value is increased?

[PorcupineFloyd]

That's great news!

How about some in-GUI explanation to ease up things a bit (I mean - what's behind Cubic B-Spline or Mitchell-Netravali).

[matrix2003]

Good examples of filters here: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~narain/courses/comp870/a1-sampling/