Forest Valley

[moodflow]

This GI technique, it involves making the background-sphere object luminous and using ambient occlusion lighting, is this right?

DandelO,

Yes, but not with ambient occlusion.  Additionally, its meant to be used for days where the lighting is diffuse across the sky, which is probably 80% of the time for most places in the world - which is why I like it.  The default TG2 setup is for a bright, sunny, clear day. 

[FrankB]

Most excellent! Nothing at all to improve, I'd say, very nice. I'd like to point out how I like the surface on the right foreground, brilliant.

I'm wondering if it would have been possible to reduce the rendertime by some 50%, though. I think a few settings might have been exagerated for the benefits they bring (such as GI 10)?

cheers,
Frank

[efflux]

More cool work. Trees are great but I especially love your rock surface.

[moodflow]

Most excellent! Nothing at all to improve, I'd say, very nice. I'd like to point out how I like the surface on the right foreground, brilliant.

I'm wondering if it would have been possible to reduce the rendertime by some 50%, though. I think a few settings might have been exagerated for the benefits they bring (such as GI 10)?

cheers,
Frank

Frank, the GI of 10 was a misprint on my behalf.  I've since corrected the original post as that would seriously kill the render times  .  I had meant to say AA: 10, and GI: 2/2.  Alot of the reason it took so long, is I had to render the image in sections with about 12% overlap, meaning at least 24% of the image was rendered twice.  This is of course, inefficient.

[Tangled-Universe]

I think the "12% overlap rule" figured out quite some time ago is a bit out-dated. I remember rendering my last big image only needed about 5% overlap because the GI is more consistens these days.
Maybe you should test this again?

[moodflow]

I think the "12% overlap rule" figured out quite some time ago is a bit out-dated. I remember rendering my last big image only needed about 5% overlap because the GI is more consistens these days.
Maybe you should test this again?

TU, yes, I 've also noticed its likely improved.  Since the image is illuminated mostly by GI, the inconsistency effect "could" be amplified.  I did notice some inconsistencies on another image I created a month or so ago, so I took the "better safe than sorry route" on this one. 

[cyphyr]

Beautiful image, one of your best
Richard

[mr-miley]

Moodflow, Outstanding work!  Definately one of the best TG2 images I've seen. The lighting is superb as is the rock textures/colours. The trees are really nice. I know OnyxTree isn't as customisable as Xfrog, but if you are prepared to do a bit of fiddling both in making the tree and in TG2 after importing I think it gives just as good results. Is the mist atmosphere or cloud?

Miles

[moodflow]

Is the mist atmosphere or cloud?

Miles

The mist is actually atmosphere and is another reason I like that GI method - it will light up the atmosphere and can create nice results.

[zhotfire]

Truely amazing image... the realism just keeps getting better. Awesome job! 

[matrix2003]

This GI technique, it involves making the background-sphere object luminous and using ambient occlusion lighting, is this right?

Are there any discussions on how to implement this technique, with atmo and lighting? 

[dandelO]

Bill, just go inside the background node and replace the background shader(constant shader) with a default shader.
Then use increments of 0.1(or that's how I do it) to add some luminosity to the background sphere. Full luminance value 1 is very bright indeed and can overpower the atmosphere too much. 0.25 is a decent level to go for. You can also use coloured luminosity for nice effects but keep the main shader colour black, otherwise you could find discrepencies in the way the sky is drawn(like big lines or geometric shapes running through it etc).

[matrix2003]

Thank you ! 

Cheers to you and yours BTW.
- Bill .

[dandelO]

Moodflow's the man to thank, Bill.
I've only ever placed clouds or stars as the luminosity function of a shader in the BG node before, see my 'Even's Walk' image( http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3636.msg38042#msg38042 ) for a luminous background-cloud shot and, in general, any render I've done with stars has used this method, too.

I never thought to leave the function blank to just use it solely for its light though. Top class, Moodflow!

[matrix2003]

      OK -  my bad!  Props to moodflow. 
Been playing with this all day, definitely punches things up!