Q: Making sunlight upon tree

[Sp34k]

Hallo guys

This is my 9th try on creating an image with Terragen 2, I found Terragen for about 2-3 weeks ago and I'm doing all I can to learn more about it..
But so far, I've made this image using some trees that other people have provided (didn't create them myself), but I have a little wish, and that is to bring some light on the tree in the middle..
What I'm looking for to do, is making some sunlight beaming softly on the tree so it's centered, like if you imagine the old cartoon movie "The Sword In The Stone" (image: http://media.photobucket.com/image/sword%20in%20the%20stone/amartin99/SwordInTheStone.jpg ) - is it possible to make that?




Best wishes,
Mike

[FrankB]

Hi Mike,

does your hero tree have enough room to get lit by a low sun elevation angle? If not, you need to increase the sun elevation. That would be my first attempt.
Secondly, yes you can have a sunbeam on the tree, but it will require a lot of rendertime. What you need to do is create a ultra thin density cloud layer with a tallness equalling the height of the trees. This cloud layer will need to have raytraced shadows switched on, and both the cloud layer and the atmosphere need to have a whole lot of samples to not make the final render noisy.

Regards,
Frank

[Sp34k]

Hallo FrankB

Woaw, like reading Spanish:D well uhm, I can't really answer your question about if I have enough room.. I wouldn't be able to make this picture again, pure luck my friend, pure luck..
But I'll try see if I can make the ultra thin density cloud layer as you spoke of, right now it seems a little hopeless for me but I'll do what I can!

Still, I'm on a very low stage when it comes to experience with Terragen, but its challenges like this that hopefully will make me stronger Thanks for your reply, I now have something to go after and tryout:) Thanks for your reply buddy.. I'll see what I can do:)

Cheers,
Mike

[jo]

Hi,

Another option might be to try lighting the tree with a light source. It could be very difficult to get the sun to shine just where you want with all those trees around, so you could be better just faking the effect you want.

Regards,

Jo

[cyphyr]

Try this, Place a single "hero tree" in the centre of your scene, now add anoher camera and move it to the trees position and turn it to face the sun. Now when you add your tree population you can see if theres likely to be trees in the way of the sunlight illuminating your tree. If they seem to be then use the painter shader (either in plan y or final 3d) to mask out an opening for the sun light to travel down.
Good luck
Richard

[Sp34k]

Hallo Cyphyr and thanks for the "tutorial"  Here what I've done:

1. Opened my tgd file
2. Making a new camera in the same position as my "hero tree".
3. Facing the camera to look up to the position of my "sunlight"
4. Selecting Paint Shader (tried with both plan y and 3D).

But what happens everytime I take my paint shader and just touch my rendering screen is that my TG just closes without an error or anything, simply it just close.. Uhm, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what may cause the problem.. But I think that I understand your idéa.. I haven't worked with the Paint Shader before, so what I guess it's used to is erasing? - You want my to fase a new camera to look up to the sun, then take my paint shader and "erase" some of the trees?

I might be totally wrong but I haven't used it before:)

Cheers,
Mike

[Oshyan]

Confirmed. There appears to be a bug that quickly causes an immediate crash/exit when using the Painted Shader with a different camera than the current/default. I will report it. As it's fairly serious hopefully we can resolve it quickly. In the meantime use the default camera to paint with, the results will be the same. The secondary camera is just to see if there is a need to paint a mask.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Hi
Well I wasn't expecting that result lol, glad it popped up so PS can fix it The painter shader should be pugged into the distribution node of the tree population. The second camera doesn't have to be in exactly the same place as the hero tree, near enough should do. Its only tere to give you some feedback on lighting and tree placement. (I wonder if the crash was caused by the camera being in EXACTLY the same place?)

You'll need to think carefully on how you want the tree illuminated (sun angle etc), how many trees are needed to complete your scene and how your population is positioned in relation to your camera. If the light is coming from behind the camera then you wont need to many trees behind the camera either.

Good luck

richard

[Sp34k]

Oh, unexpected to follow Cyphyr's suggestion and then find a bug..

But about my "population", then I have no idéa about that.. What I do when I placed those trees was just to make a population with the specific trees and then, make some random seeds, some random lenght and some random object spacing.. I don't know much about these settings to be hornest.. But uhm, I guess that I'll keep following your suggestion and see how things turns out, I surely have some waypoints now..

Tomorrow i'll try things out, thanks for the support cyphyr, I hope that I'll be able to make similar pictures like this one http://www.richardfraser.co.uk/photos/A%20walk%20in%20the%20woods.jpg

Cheers,
Mike

[Sp34k]

Hallo friends

I've now tried with all 3 cameras and TG closed each and everytime I use the paint shader..
Ehm if anyone is interested, then I uploaded the TGD file, it's the first file I ever uploaded for TG so please tell me if I need to upload more than just the tgd file.. But please remember, non of the trees or what so ever is made by me.. Everything found on uhm, terragen.org I think it was..

Anyways, if anyone have a suggestion or anything please tell me.. Just for new readers: This topic is about making some sunlight shining upon the tree in the middle, so it looks kinda 'magical', but I don't know how to do it and the great suggestions/idéas i've got resulted in a bug..

Cheers,
Mike

p.s. I hope the sun is shining as much as here in Denmark, it's really hot now:)

[Oshyan]

I think this may actually be related to painting on the sky, not to painting with secondary cameras. Can you try painting just on the ground with the secondary camera?

- Oshyan

[Sp34k]

Hallo Oshyan

Ofcourse I will, but right now im rendering and it will take about 6-7 hours more, I hornestly wouldn't risk that TG crashed and then ill have to render again, hope you understand  But I will give a sound when I tried it.

Cheers,
Mike