planet render, need help

[wackymidget]

Hi,

I'm creating an animation with planet earth. I was checking my render and saw some strange things.

The cloud layer looks to be cut off. This is a cloud map I downloaded. It is mapped spherically 1 - 0.5
Also there is a red band, I presume it is the red from the scattering of sunlight from a certain angle simulating sunset/sunrise, but the darkness doesn't start directly after the red band, which makes it look odd.

The atmosphere also looks jaggy.

Also I'm not really understanding the background parameters. I added a star map, but it seems it doesn't completely fill the background. Also in the quickrender animation the stars just jump around like crazy.

Please help...

[Oshyan]

Are you using 2D or 3D clouds? Use 3D if you're using 2D. If you're using Coverage Adjust, do it in the Density Shader, not the Cloud Layer. If you're using fill lights, that would explain your lighting problem with the terminator, if not your GI settings may need adjustment. Jaggy atmosphere can be fixed by higher detail. Your star background needs to be applied with spherical projection to the Background object - it sounds like you're applying it Through Camera, so the star field is moving with the camera. Alternatively the "jumping around" may just be due to low detail in the Quick Render. For small, bright objects, higher detail is required (and possibly Bloom) to get smooth motion.

- Oshyan

[wackymidget]

Hi,

I tried spherical mapping for the stars, but now the stars don't show up.

I don't think I'm using fill lights, I'm using the standard settings. I have an enviro light and a sunlight. Turned off the enviro light. Half the sphere is dark now, but the terminator still doesn't line up with the dark part.

I used the sliders for the GI settings in the render, set the GI relative detail and sample quality to 1, 2 and 3 but not really seeing any difference...

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[Oshyan]

For the stars, are you applying them to the Background Object, or something else? Where did your star map come from?

What about 2D vs. 3D clouds and use of Coverage Adjust?

Turning off the Enviro Light will essentially turn off GI, so the other GI settings won't really make a difference in that case. The dark side of the planet should remain essentially dark even with GI under normal circumstances, unless there is another source of light.

Posting your TGD might help further diagnose the problem(s).

- Oshyan

[TheBlackHole]

You might want to use procedural starfields. There's a neat one here:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4766.0

[wackymidget]

Hi,

I'm applying the stars to the background object. Not sure where the starmap came from actually, I downloaded it over a year ago, when I started this project, but had to give other things priority now. I think I downloaded it from some tutorial site. I'll try the procedural stars, see how they work out.

The clouds were already 3D, since I wanted to do an animation where I zoom in to the earth, fly over and through the clouds and over the landscape, starting from space. I'm also not using coverage adjust.

I included the tgd. I didn't include the maps, because they are too big to upload.

Thanks

[icarus51]

Hello,

Firts of all, Happy New Year to all,
My question is: is it possible to render the Moon in TG2, with his natural features, or there is a file to download in order to render the real Moon in TG2?
Thanks in advance.

Claudio

[TheBlackHole]

@icarus51
You have to download a couple of maps for the real moon. One is a bump map, which defines the higher and lower areas of the moon. The other is a color map, which is optional and defines the color of the lunar terrain. You can color the moon within TG2 with power fractals and surface layers.

[icarus51]

Thanks, but where are these maps?

[TheBlackHole]

There's some good ones here:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/spaceart/cylmaps.html