Hello,
Every body is enjoying the new update,
But Can some one from Planetside tell us whether you guys going to write some new tutorials about new features we have in tg2.2 like
"New Cloud Control Inputs" on this page "http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/60/98/".
Thanks
Yes, more info is coming soon.
- Oshyan
Martin has said he's created a tutorial about the new features as well, so keep your eyes peeled.
Yes it's coming guys :)
Thanks i will be waiting for it
Quote from: miqtidar on November 28, 2010, 09:59:09 AM
Thanks i will be waiting for it
Depending on Oshyan it shoudn't be too long ;)
I'm 90% finished with the tutorial.
10 pages so far ;D
Ah, that's great, Martin. Looking forward to that, as I haven't really dived into these new features, but some ad hoc connections provided some interesting clouds, like in my hilltop village. 10 pages! Terrific.
Quote from: Dune on November 29, 2010, 03:15:34 AM
Ah, that's great, Martin. Looking forward to that, as I haven't really dived into these new features, but some ad hoc connections provided some interesting clouds, like in my hilltop village. 10 pages! Terrific.
13 by now :)
But lots of pictures as well of course ;)
It's 95% finished, just needs some polishing and one or two extra examples.
I will make those tonight after work.
Can't wait.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on November 29, 2010, 03:25:42 AM
Quote from: Dune on November 29, 2010, 03:15:34 AM
Ah, that's great, Martin. Looking forward to that, as I haven't really dived into these new features, but some ad hoc connections provided some interesting clouds, like in my hilltop village. 10 pages! Terrific.
13 by now :)
But lots of pictures as well of course ;)
It's 95% finished, just needs some polishing and one or two extra examples.
I will make those tonight after work.
tagging on, I liked the way TU explained the relation between aa and raytraced settings in a prior post.
Hi TU
Have I missrd something or is the tut not yet ready?
Mick
It's ready :)
We're waiting for Oshyan to put it online, so Oshyan... ;) ;D
Come on Oshyan, lets see what Martin has done for us ;D
Great
Thanks Martin
Thanks a lot TU!
Thanks for nothing so far :)
Oshyan received it yesterday and will post it soon.
He first needs to correct my crappy (technical) writing skills ;)
So bear with him!
And here we are, the first pass. I'll convert it into an HTML format on the website properly a bit later. For now you can all enjoy the PDF version with links to the YouTube vids and separate resource files download.
http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/61/99/
- Oshyan
Thankyou all
Yes, Thanks very much guys, this looks really good.
seem to be missing an image map - 1px_4px_blur_b.sgi
Awesome. Thanks for this. I was just wondering how to use this effectively.
One question... When you say, using the existing network for your altitude inputs are slow... how slow are we talking? Is it worth the tradeoff of man-hours to generate and match image maps?
And for example, what would one plug in to use the existing network?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I'm pretty sure that the process of generating an image from your terrain will be MUCH faster. It doesn't take man-hours, but minutes ;)
The reason that the cloud input functions should be as simple as possible is because these functions are called first while the cloud is still an unmodulated bounding volume.
Using a complex function straightly from your terrain would really slow things down.
That's how Matt explained it to us and it makes a lot of sense. (if it wouldn't I'd take it for granted anyway ;D lol).
Therefore I haven't pursued any ways to directly use the terrain functions as input.
I might give it a try though, some time and just to see if I can make it work, but I'm pretty sure I won't use it.
Martin
Thank you for this TU and Planetside! I can't wait to dig into this!
thanks a lot TU and PS!!!
very cool Martin, well explained, good job!!
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: FrankB on December 02, 2010, 03:33:48 PM
very cool Martin, well explained, good job!!
Cheers,
Frank
Thanks Frank :)
People should thank you for it as well, because your ideas on the alpha forums finally made me figure it out to this level!
Cheers,
Martin
Martin this is fantastic. You really have a skill for explaining the technical details of Terragen, not just in this pdf but also in your forum posts made here.
This must have taken quite a while to produce so thanks to you and Oshyan for taking the time to make it.
You're welcome Reck and thanks for the compliments :)
In this particular case it wasn't that much work specifically, because a lot of the materials I made during the period I was figuring it out myself.
So the animations and stuff weren't initially intended to teach you, but myself :)
I hope you don't mind me being honest about that ;D :D I think it took a whole day and a bit in total.
Good luck with it!
And for everyone reading/using it...show your tests/results in the image section!!!
Cheers,
Martin
Cool write-up there, cheers, TU.
When I use shaders that also enter the main network to drive the cloud functions, I've done it with only shaders right at the top of the chain, meaning that if I use a terrain heightfield for a cloud function, it hasn't even passed through any other nodes at all yet. The heightfield shader node allows you to colour any terrain from a black base to white at the highest points, there's a depth map right there. Colour adjusting to invert this gives you the reverse, obviously, which can be used to modulate clouds only between the peaks, that still mimic the terrain forms. I don't think it warrants the use of a separate image map of the terrain every time, unless you're passing the mask through many other nodes(probably most troublesome would be 'compute terrain' as it would triple calculation time of the functions entering the cloud shader) before it reaches the cloud.
I'd think using the black/white colour output of high up shaders in the network should be fine in most cases.
Wooowwwaa Thanks Planetside Team for this Tutorial.
Quote from: dandelO on December 02, 2010, 05:54:21 PM
Cool write-up there, cheers, TU.
When I use shaders that also enter the main network to drive the cloud functions, I've done it with only shaders right at the top of the chain, meaning that if I use a terrain heightfield for a cloud function, it hasn't even passed through any other nodes at all yet. The heightfield shader node allows you to colour any terrain from a black base to white at the highest points, there's a depth map right there. Colour adjusting to invert this gives you the reverse, obviously, which can be used to modulate clouds only between the peaks, that still mimic the terrain forms. I don't think it warrants the use of a separate image map of the terrain every time, unless you're passing the mask through many other nodes(probably most troublesome would be 'compute terrain' as it would triple calculation time of the functions entering the cloud shader) before it reaches the cloud.
I'd think using the black/white colour output of high up shaders in the network should be fine in most cases.
I see what you mean and I think you're mistaking by thinking that a heightfield-shader, it's displacement and derivement of colour is not so complex compared to an image map. It is.
Also, one would need to output an image map of the FINAL terrain.
In my example I kept things as simple as possible, so I made an image map of the terrain right after the compute terrain.
Logically, you can also make an image map of the terrain from the very last shader, preferably precedented by a compute terrain to make sure the output is correct.
The resulting mask perfectly describes the elevation of your final terrain. Perfectly, ok, that depends on the resolution you set in the heightfield generate node.
There's also no need to pass this mask through any other nodes, as it already is the map of the final terrain and you also make it for a single purpose.
Quote from: mhaze on December 02, 2010, 09:58:41 AM
seem to be missing an image map - 1px_4px_blur_b.sgi
I don't think this file was provided in the original package I got. Martin, is the SGI included intended to be used instead? It has a different name.
- Oshyan
Thanks a lot, Martin. This will be most helpful!
Quote from: Oshyan on December 02, 2010, 10:48:24 PM
Quote from: mhaze on December 02, 2010, 09:58:41 AM
seem to be missing an image map - 1px_4px_blur_b.sgi
I don't think this file was provided in the original package I got. Martin, is the SGI included intended to be used instead? It has a different name.
- Oshyan
Grrr...I double-checked the contents but still overlooked that :(
Here's the SGI file which creates the terrain, without it it's a pretty useless tutorial ;)
It needs to be put into the same folder as the tutorial resources.
Apologies for the inconvenience!
Cheers,
Martin
Oshyan, could you update the archive with this file please? Thanks :)
Looking forward to looking into this.
The download has been updated on the site.
- Oshyan
Thanks! ;D
Can the image masking techniques as described in the PDF be modified to work with Power-Fractals, or do they only work with Heighfeilds? Since the Majority of the work in TG2 is based on the Power-Fractal, that I have seen. Sorry if this isn't the right place for this question!
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
I think Martin describes how to make an image mask from your fractal landscape in the tutorial. You have to localise the effect.
Hi Cyber,
It's possible to use the functions, but if you scroll a few messages up you'll find some discussion which explains why it's better not to do so.
Martin
great tutorial !
most excellent way to understand the new features !
thanks dude ^^
Thanks Franck, you're welcome ^__^
What about our meet and greet in Paris? :)
Martin, quick question about the new Cloud Density input. What values does it expect? I assume 0 to 1. If so, how does this correlate with the clouds internal density which defaults to 0.01. At a guess it would multiply that smaller value by 0 to 1.
Quote from: Hetzen on December 04, 2010, 08:56:08 AM
Martin, quick question about the new Cloud Density input. What values does it expect? I assume 0 to 1. If so, how does this correlate with the clouds internal density which defaults to 0.01. At a guess it would multiply that smaller value by 0 to 1.
Looking at the release note which describes it "multiplies or reduces" the final density.
I consider this that when you have an input of >1 that the density will be modulated towards a density higher than set in the cloud node.
To see if this is true I will prepare an example, right now.
Here it is. Cloud density is set at 0.01 and I used a constant shader with a value of 1 as density shader input.
The localised cloud does not use falloff and has value at radius set to 1.
At a setting at 1 the density is unchanged (although the result looks slightly different, but that's because the lighting solution is different, hence top left and shadow on red sphere).
With a setting of 2 the density increases.
So as you can see the cloud density will be over-ruled by the final density modulator. The input of the final density modulator seems to be a multiplier. Therefore Matt mentioned it could also reduce density because that's what would happen if the input of the final density modulator is <1.
Excellent stuff Martin. This is actually very usefull then, as originally I thought it affected the overal Density of the cloud shape rather than it's transparency, which I realise go hand in hand, but this Final Density Shader is going to come in very handy.
I'm currently rendereing a 'new approach' to cloud forming, which atm with six buckets half way looks promising. Might have to reserect my Cloudbusting Thread. ;D
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 04, 2010, 04:48:24 AM
Thanks Franck, you're welcome ^__^
What about our meet and greet in Paris? :)
I'll buy you a beer during the week-end dude !!!
but you'll have to drink fast because Frank is an always thirsty man ;)
that sounds like party time in Paris :)
Very awesome...now if PS will only release the Free version into the wilds of cyber world I'll get to actually try some of this cool stuff out...great tute Martin...much appreciated.. ...
just a suggestion.....
maybe someone should make the tutorial link as a sticky in the forum....
and an off topic question for Martin
how did you get the numbers to become red and bold in the tgd?
Quote from: dhavalmistry on December 06, 2010, 02:24:04 PM
just a suggestion.....
maybe someone should make the tutorial link as a sticky in the forum....
and an off topic question for Martin
how did you get the numbers to become red and bold in the tgd?
Red and bold? How do you mean? Where?
I swear to god they are not photoshopped :D
ohhhh...ghehe, of course :)
This is how it looks when a parameter is being animated.
It gets all kind of colours, blue, green, red.
oh shoot....I feel like such a noob.....lol...
I have never animated in TG2....and never will until we get a dedicated animation module with keyframe editor and proper timeline and all.... :)
So, how is everyone going after this tutorial?
Has somebody already managed to apply it to a scene or has somebody made an experiment/case study of it?
Cheers,
Martin
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 10, 2010, 05:02:59 PM
So, how is everyone going after this tutorial?
Has somebody already managed to apply it to a scene or has somebody made an experiment/case study of it?
Cheers,
Martin
I have used the tutorial to come up with my render that I have posted in the file sharing forum "White Flame"
and I use it everytime I have a cloud layer...:)
Hi,
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 06, 2010, 03:09:27 PM
ohhhh...ghehe, of course :)
This is how it looks when a parameter is being animated.
It gets all kind of colours, blue, green, red.
Not so much all kinds of colours :-), but by default:
Black for non animated params
Green for a param which is animated and keyframed at the particular frame you're on
Blue for a param which is animated but not keyframed for the frame you're on
BTW, these colours can be changed in the Interface Colours preference panel.
Regards,
Jo
QuoteSo, how is everyone going after this tutorial?
Sorry, haven't looked at it yet. But I will!
I got a taste by buying FrankB's new cloud pack. Took my machine some time to get a good image. I found that power fractals will work, but it helps to modify the color output with functions that clean up the fractal noise.
I'm guessing (sorry if this is in the tutorial, I only skimmed it) that one advantage of an image over a PF is that the PF changes in 3D space whereas an image does not. Testing on my lil' ol' laptop now :)
Richard
Quote from: njeneb on December 11, 2010, 09:33:46 AM
I got a taste by buying FrankB's new cloud pack. Took my machine some time to get a good image. I found that power fractals will work, but it helps to modify the color output with functions that clean up the fractal noise.
Have you also read the readme? Most people won't, but I swear it will be very helpful in this case.
Cheers,
Frank
I did, but I had not really tried playing around with the set yet. Now that I have experimented, I need to read it again. Unfortunately, things sink into my head slowly.
Hmmm.... Maybe I should print things. If I put it under my head while I sleep, I might learn through osmosis. ;D
Martin, Thanx for the tutorial. Ive just started to follow it, but can't replicate the first scene (image 2:output of quick render),
I get the same image as displayed by dhavalmistry above.
The clouds already have the shape of the the terrain carved in them.
What gives?
I want to thank you for the hard work. Great job.
Quote from: Kevin F on December 23, 2010, 12:09:08 PM
Martin, Thanx for the tutorial. Ive just started to follow it, but can't replicate the first scene (image 2:output of quick render),
I get the same image as displayed by dhavalmistry above.
The clouds already have the shape of the the terrain carved in them.
What gives?
Can you show me what you mean?
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 23, 2010, 02:15:24 PM
Quote from: Kevin F on December 23, 2010, 12:09:08 PM
Martin, Thanx for the tutorial. Ive just started to follow it, but can't replicate the first scene (image 2:output of quick render),
I get the same image as displayed by dhavalmistry above.
The clouds already have the shape of the the terrain carved in them.
What gives?
Can you show me what you mean?
as in:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=11219.msg115802#msg115802
Ok, so you get a result similar to that image.
What settings did you use for altitude offset and "centre 0..1" inside the cloud node and what's the value of the constant as input of the depth modulator?
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 23, 2010, 03:47:15 PM
Ok, so you get a result similar to that image.
What settings did you use for altitude offset and "centre 0..1" inside the cloud node and what's the value of the constant as input of the depth modulator?
I haven't put any values in, I just followed the instructions i.e. "Open the file "Cloud functions explained.tgd" in Terragen v2.2 and render the quick render.
Your image should look similar to the following:
Image 2: output of quick render"
but It doesn't look anything like it!
Oh I see now when I open the .tgd accompanied by the tutorial.
I kind of accidentially saved the settings of the end stage of the tutorial.
To be more precise. I saved the tgd file at frame 240 of the animation.
Frame 1 produces the result I'm referring to in the tutorial.
Frame 240 produces what you and dhaval see.
Apparently non-animation versions of TG2 use the settings at the current keyframe it was saved when animated.
Change the constant colour to 0.1 and set the cloud altitude offset to 100 and centre 0..1 to 0.
This should give the exact same image.
After completing the tutorial you should be able to figure this out yourself :)
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 23, 2010, 04:15:46 PM
Frame 240 produces what you and dhaval see.
Apparently non-animation versions of TG2 use the settings at the current keyframe it was saved when animated.
I have the animation version!
Thanks anyway. I'll give it a go.
No joy.
That (frame 1) just produces this:
Ok...the image you're trying to replicate does not have any modulation for altitude or depth.
It's just a cloud layer.
The .tgd attached is from the end stage of the tutorial.
Anyway, like I said before, after completion of the tutorial you should be able to "reverse engineer" this yourself ;)
o.k. thanks
Many thanks and Merry X-mas TU!
Excellent tutorial that will help me, and I believe a lot of others, to understand even more of TG2.
Thanks to you Martin and all who have contributed here making this tutorial a treasure for future creativity.