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General => Terragen Animation => Topic started by: Hannes on September 01, 2017, 11:06:20 AM

Title: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 01, 2017, 11:06:20 AM
As I mentioned here:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23544.msg238375.html#msg238375
I accidentally found some sort of Moses-parting-the sea-solution. Here is my first low quality (!!!) try. In the meantime I'm trying to improve it (less prominent strata, showing the ground etc...).
Actually the animation lasts for 1600 frames. Maybe the last 1000 aren't too necessary...
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 01, 2017, 11:21:02 AM
Cool!
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 01, 2017, 11:24:06 AM

Looks very promising really. Curious for the high resolution.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 03, 2017, 08:24:53 AM

How is it going Hannes?
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 03, 2017, 10:21:11 AM
In the meantime I was testing a few things. I rendered another version, but it wasn't worth of sharing here, since it wasn't very different to the previous one.
More or less accidentally I found an interesting way for the white water. I was trying some blue nodes (ME!!!! BLUE NODES!!!!!) and found the "get normal" node. Plugged into the Breakup slot I got a multicolor weird LSD like coloration, but when I did a test animtion I found, that some of the colors behave the way I wanted them to. So I used some other nodes, i. e. the blue to scalar and the green to scalar nodes and played with some color adjust shaders and fed the breakup slot and the mask slot of a white shader with it. I had to adjust the settings for a while, but in the end I liked the result.

For testing purposes I switched off the cloud shader that represents the mist and cropped the render. I only rendered frames 100 to 425, because this is the time where the most is happening.
Still some work to do, and it's far away from perfect, but given the fact, that TG has no fluid simulation, I'm quite happy with it so far.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 03, 2017, 10:25:56 AM

Nice :)
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: luvsmuzik on September 03, 2017, 05:37:30 PM
Well that is awesome!
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: DannyG on September 03, 2017, 07:08:59 PM
That is awesome
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 04, 2017, 01:36:17 AM
It is awesome.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: masonspappy on September 04, 2017, 07:09:42 AM
That is Biblical!!!
And very well done!  :)
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 07, 2017, 08:13:18 AM
Next iteration.
I know, this is not Moses! I used my usual backpack guy as a stand in, until I find a decent 3D Moses.
I added some terrain (second planet, since the sea is a terrain as well), added some more localised clouds to get some sort of splashes (this is really tough, I can tell you!!) and created some fake shallow greenish water.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 07, 2017, 08:36:33 AM

Looks cool :)

Have you high-res stills Hannes? Really curious how it looks.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 07, 2017, 09:55:32 AM
Not yet, Kadri, because I'm quite busy testing things, but as soon as I have some, I'll post them. I'm really hoping, that this isn't something that look crappy in hi res.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 07, 2017, 09:59:48 AM

I hope so too. It feels sometimes like a gamble to me :)
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Oshyan on September 08, 2017, 01:03:44 AM
It looks surprisingly good in the lower resolution animation at least. :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 08, 2017, 07:37:02 AM
Thanks!! Here is a higher resolution image. Detail/AA 0.8/9. The render took half an hour. Not too bad. But 600 frames may take a while. I'll probably try 1280 by 720 px, when everything is set.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 08, 2017, 11:37:53 AM

Looks good.
Just a thought Hannes, you could use an animated smoothing node too maybe.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 08, 2017, 12:34:43 PM
Could you explain this a little more?
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 08, 2017, 12:41:27 PM

It is subjective probably but the sides of the water look more like rock walls.
We are prejudiced of course maybe people who are not into 3D-Terragen might see it different.
With a smooth node on the walls it could work more like water maybe.
Depending on the look you want you could smooth it more in the beginning or end for example.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 09, 2017, 02:12:37 AM
Yes, that was my initial thought; smoothing works on strata. I used it to try some waterfalls.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 09, 2017, 02:42:21 AM
Ah, I see. Going to do some tests.
Actually it's quite weird to display a phenomenon, that doesn't really occur in nature (at least in the last few thousand years!! ;))
How does it look, when someone parts the sea? Is there a smooth water wall? Is the water wall irregular, keeping it's position by some mysterious force?
Anyway, it's fun...
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 09, 2017, 02:45:48 AM
That's the fun part indeed, you can do whatever you want, it's unrealistic anyway  ;)
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 09, 2017, 08:43:24 AM
In the meantime I created some very shallow water on the ground that slowly gets dragged with the water walls. Looks quite nice when animated.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 09, 2017, 10:15:50 AM
I masked the strata a bit more. It's a bit wavy and the warper is animated as well.
I think I won't smooth out the surface more, because a few days ago I accidentally had done exactly that, and it looked boring. Actually I like the notion that the water is parted by some force, but in a way that there is still some irregular motion inside.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: dorianvan on September 11, 2017, 11:54:06 AM
Just saw this. Very cool. As the water is pushing aside you might add a swell or swells of water going each direction away from the part.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 11, 2017, 03:20:15 PM
Yes, I thought about that, but creating these things in TG is quite tricky.
I'm rendering another version atm.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 12, 2017, 03:59:49 AM
If you use a warped SSS, you can use a wider SSS for the waves, subtract from eachother. Curious to see what you make of it, Hannes.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 12, 2017, 07:16:05 AM
Quote from: Dune on September 12, 2017, 03:59:49 AM
If you use a warped SSS, you can use a wider SSS for the waves, subtract from eachother. Curious to see what you make of it, Hannes.

Yes, that's basically, what I've done to create the shallow water and its foam on the ground.

Since this whole parting-water-thing is absolutely unnatural, nobody knows how this would really look like. When I did the foam on the ground, I found that accidentally the water drags the foam behind the water, and not the other way round, which was initially intended. But I thought, it looks "more natural" this way, because with the foam behind the water's edge, like we're used to see, the whole thing would just look like a simple backwards animation.

And that's why I really don't know, if a swell would look good...  Maybe I'll give it a try.
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 12, 2017, 10:57:22 AM
If the water is pushed out from the center by a 'Mysterious Power', it is most likely that a swell occurs at the outer ends, maybe even surf over the stagnant water if it's pushed up/out fast enough....
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 12, 2017, 11:00:20 AM
Indeed. Stopped rendering the previous animation (again ;)) and doing some tests right now. This seems to be a never ending story! ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 12, 2017, 12:04:02 PM
Well, Moses Miracle IS a never ending story, isn't it  ;)
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 12, 2017, 12:16:21 PM
Good point!!!  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 14, 2017, 08:32:10 AM
In the meantime I managed to finish the animation in a slightly higher resolution. Did some tests with some kind of swell, but none of it was convincing to me. I'll see...

Here's the link (the file is too large for the forum, and I didn't want to compress it to death):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3gzabxef5rnrwkn/Moses23Edit.mp4?dl=0
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 14, 2017, 09:12:56 AM

Nice.
Could be done in many different ways. Have you tried one with straight walls in the end of the animation Hannes?
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Dune on September 14, 2017, 09:13:03 AM
Terrific!
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Hannes on September 14, 2017, 09:20:21 AM
Quote from: Kadri on September 14, 2017, 09:12:56 AM
Have you tried one with straight walls in the end of the animation Hannes?

Yes, accidentally. Looked boring. :)

Quote from: Dune on September 14, 2017, 09:13:03 AM
Terrific!

Thanks!!!!
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: Kadri on September 14, 2017, 09:31:49 AM
Quote from: Hannes on September 14, 2017, 09:20:21 AM
Quote from: Kadri on September 14, 2017, 09:12:56 AM
Have you tried one with straight walls in the end of the animation Hannes?

Yes, accidentally. Looked boring. :)
...

:D
Title: Re: Moses
Post by: otakar on September 14, 2017, 01:16:07 PM
Just watched 'Deep Impact' yesterday, finding this today is quite fitting. Nice animation! The left hand side in particular looks good, a bit like a waterfall, actually. The right hand side still features a bunch of overhangs, wouldn't expect that with water. The backpack guy is really non-plussed about what he's seeing :)