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General => Contests => NWDA 2013 Theme Challenge - Roadside => Topic started by: Gannaingh on March 05, 2013, 01:57:49 AM

Title: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: Gannaingh on March 05, 2013, 01:57:49 AM
Here is my second go at a road. My first version was going to be a dirt road going through the desert, but that was boring so I've decided to do a paved road in the middle of a thick forest. More work to come.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: TheBadger on March 06, 2013, 02:11:15 AM
Ha HA. Your still further than I am.
But I'm about to catch up!

Happy rendering Darth
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: cyphyr on March 06, 2013, 05:03:45 AM
It's a start :) I like the sweep of the road. Looking forward to seeing it forested.
Richard
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: FrankB on March 06, 2013, 08:03:11 AM
Looking forward to it, too!
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 06, 2013, 01:12:43 PM
Here is some work that I've done with the road. The cracks are intentionally deeper than in real life since they tend to be lost in the dappled shadow/sunlight that I plan to have covering the road. The next step should be some forest building.

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 10, 2013, 02:56:43 PM
He is my first go with a forest surrounding the road. I want to get some god rays so I might have to mess with the tree distribution and sun elevation/heading. Plus the atmosphere is flatter than I like. More to come.

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: TheBadger on March 10, 2013, 03:03:36 PM
dude  ???

Thats a big jump!
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: FrankB on March 10, 2013, 04:08:08 PM
This shapes up nicely! But take care of the colours. They seem somewhat off here. Best compare meticulously with a good reference photo.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: masonspappy on March 10, 2013, 09:26:02 PM
EVen with the colors slightly off, it's a decent image.  :)
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Jo Kariboo on March 10, 2013, 10:49:09 PM
Very nice light and vegetation. Beautiful depth. Not certain for the colors.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: otakar on March 11, 2013, 12:31:17 AM
Another great WIP. This competition is scary. I like this, but there is even more potential in here with the lighting as planned.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 11, 2013, 02:31:00 AM
Thanks for the insight everyone. Just when I thought I had the camera position finalized, I've now created a new one to get better rays. The coloring of the vegetation is vital to get the realism I want/need to stand a chance in this competition haha. Once I have the sun heading and model placement good to go I'll probably fine tune every texture on every plant in the image to try and get it as perfect as possible. There's lots of work ahead, fortunately it's fun work.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: cyphyr on March 11, 2013, 04:34:13 AM
This is looking great, I don't have a problem with the greenish/bluish hue, I find it quite pleasing but it could be easily fixed in PS with a slight curves tweak.
I think there is still work to be done on the road edge, looks too sharp to me. The clean road/sharp markings don't sit well with the grasses growing through the road. Go for either a new or old road.
Keep em commin'
Cheers
Richard
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 13, 2013, 11:41:54 AM
Here is the next version. I solved the blue lighting problem and it looks much better without me having to touch any of the textures. Getting the shadows lit up correctly is going to take some work and might be impossible to get it 100 percent accurate without insane render time...this is a competition so I probably should just suck it up to get it right haha. The car is just for a sense of scale at the moment and isn't going to be in any final-ish versions. More work ahead.

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 13, 2013, 11:52:24 AM
Very nice!

Yes I agree with your remark about rendering it for the competition :P

You may find some useful information about lighting shadows in this very recent thread:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15800.0.html
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: FrankB on March 13, 2013, 11:58:04 AM
That's great, almost photo real already. An underexposed photo, but getting there ;)
What happens if you just up the exposure 3 clicks and render at detail 0.8 and GI 3/3 ?

Try a crop, of course.

Cheers
Frank
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: cyphyr on March 13, 2013, 01:18:26 PM
Looking very good :)
Richard
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Oshyan on March 13, 2013, 09:00:20 PM
Wow, that looks excellent. Did you render it out to EXR? I wonder how much you can brighten the shadows, and if it looks realistic or just flat...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 14, 2013, 01:10:58 AM
Thanks for the suggestions and comments everybody. I'll make some crop renders at GI: 3/3 to see how it looks.

@ Oshyan: I haven't renderd it in the EXR format yet, just the BMP. I plan on doing some EXR testing in the near future to see if I can do anything with the shadows...although I kinda like them being dark and mysterious-ish.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Jo Kariboo on March 14, 2013, 10:30:59 AM
I very like this one and the precedent to! This one are maybee like a photo but the veggie1 have a excellent depht and light !!!  :)
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: TheBadger on March 14, 2013, 03:40:31 PM
Good going Darth. Looking forward to the next iteration.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 15, 2013, 02:12:13 AM
Because I'm crazy...and not going to be using my computer for a good amount of time, I'm forgoing making some crop renders for you guys and going with a full render w/ high settings: .8 detail, AA 6, GI 3/3 to get an idea of what the whole thing will look like. Should be ready in about 12-14 hours.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: FrankB on March 15, 2013, 04:50:56 AM
:-)
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 15, 2013, 10:30:32 PM
Boom! 15 hour render. The high GI settings really make the road look nice. I think I went a little overboard with the dead grass and leaves along the sides of the road. I plan on adding some dirt/dust to the road surface as well as maybe a skid mark or two to git it a sense of being worn and used.

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Oshyan on March 15, 2013, 10:32:43 PM
I think one word may suffice: wow! The yellow center line is perhaps a bit too dull/patchy though? Also, this may be specific to the US or California even, but white lines on the edge of the road? Would help highlight the stuff at the edges of the road if there were worn white lines being partly covered up.

Regardless, it's looking quite excellent.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Jo Kariboo on March 15, 2013, 10:40:34 PM
Beautiful !!!  :)
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 15, 2013, 11:13:51 PM
Thanks! Oshyan, I do have white lines along the side of the road, the grass is just too thick to the point where the lines are almost totally obscured. I think it's weird that the center lines are looking patchy since there is nothing on top of them, I'll have to look into it.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Oshyan on March 15, 2013, 11:19:50 PM
Ah, interesting about the white lines. Then I guess I agree with you that the stuff on the edges of the road is a bit too thick. ;) As for the center line, it looks like the road surface might just be rough enough to be breaking up the center line color a lot. I rather like the way the road looks as-is, so I wouldn't necessarily suggest adjusting its roughness too much, but you could try a bit perhaps...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: FrankB on March 16, 2013, 05:46:48 AM
That's beautiful!

Personally, I would still increase the exposure, at least as an experiment. That would make the rays less effective, but at least we could see some more of the environment.

Frank
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 16, 2013, 09:58:41 PM
I'll give it a try, Frank. The exposure is already at 2.5 so I don't think turning it up some more will be that detrimental to the visibility of the rays.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Oshyan on March 17, 2013, 12:53:31 AM
Or you could try A: increasing Strength on Surfaces for enviro light or B: tone mapping. Personally I'd prefer to see the rays still as they're one of my favorite parts of this. :)

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: TheBadger on March 17, 2013, 03:56:44 AM
I really like the atmo and light of the forest just a little in off the road. The lighting there really supports the other areas of the image. Over all I like the image.
Hope you can tweak it to get what your after.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Hannes on March 17, 2013, 01:24:02 PM
Wow, really looking great! I agree with Oshyan, but otherwise a fantastic image!
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 26, 2013, 12:04:22 AM
Progress is slow at this point. I'm still trying to get the details in the shadows to look good, without looking flat. Right now I'm being crazy  and doing some crop renders with GI at 5/5 :o . At least based on what I can see from the GI pre-pass, the shadows are certainly lighter, but i won't know how they look until it's finished. Once its done I'll post the comparison with the GI 3/3 renders I've been doing.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 26, 2013, 02:44:43 AM
Alas, my testing was in vain. As you can see, there is not a significant difference between GI being set at 3/3 (left) and when it is set at 5/5 (right). It might be something to do with the ambient level in the atmosphere. I increased the ambiance recently and it might be contributing to the "density" and darkness of the atmosphere. I think I'm going to try Oshyan's fill light setup since I've seen some good results from it floating around the forums. Better tone mapping should help also, but I want to coax as much out of Terragen as I can before resorting to fiddling with other software. Thanks for staying tuned.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 26, 2013, 04:11:14 AM
GI relative detail @ >3 is seldomly necessary, as you indeed found out.
Also, you're correct about the atmosphere's role in shadow brightness.
With GI @ 1, even without GI, you can get brigter shadows.
Key to this is the atmosphere haze and density settings.


Take a look at my WIP for instance:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15737.msg154260.html#msg154260


Atmosphere haze density is 1 and blue sky density is 1.75. Fake dark power is 1 and sharpness is 1.
Glow settings are default.
GI strength on surfaces is 0.7 in the enviro light. Yet, still there's some detail in the shadows.


Now, if I would increase blue sky and haze density to 2 or 3 and increase haze colour to 0.6 then you'll notice that cast shadows are brighter and that there will be more detail in the shadows. Up to a level that you may even consider them flat.
Here's an extreme example of this technique:
http://www.cgscenery.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Overcast_Weather__V2_by_Tangled_Universe.jpg


So what are your atmosphere settings now?


Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on March 26, 2013, 03:21:03 PM
Atmosphere
atmosphere haze density: 1.5
blue sky density: 2
glow amount: 1
glow power: 1.25
ambient: 0
fake dark power: 0
fake dark sharpness: 0


Haze / rays cloud
both colors: .45
glow amount: .8
glow power: 1
ambient: 0
fake dark power: 0
fake dark sharpness: 10 (why so high I wonder?)


Martin, I want to simulate something in between what I have now and what you show in your second link (which is one of my favorites btw). I like the brightness in the shadows, right now mine seems a tad bit depressing and gloomy. 

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: ajcgi on March 27, 2013, 02:05:34 PM
This is a pretty one. Nicely understated.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: inkydigit on March 27, 2013, 03:52:17 PM
I love this, great quiet mood and light, lovely detailing too!
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: mhaze on March 29, 2013, 12:14:50 PM
Great mood and lighting, interesting POV and nicely detailed road surface.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 29, 2013, 12:31:26 PM

Sorry for the late response, got carried away with some other things :)


Your setup doesn't look so much "off" from the default.
In a way I'm a bit surprised why your render is still so dark'ish, but no worries, there are some things we can try!


For starters, you may try increasing haze exponential height and it's colour for the atmosphere.
Default colour is 0.35, so try something like 0.5-0.6 with an exp height of 6000-8000 (try some variations).
Keep everything else at default, also the ambient and fake darkness settings.


I'd disable the haze cloud layer for the moment and focus on whether your atmosphere gives you the type of shadows and hue you're looking for.
Then later you can add in your cloud haze, if necessary, and then you'd only need to tweak it's density and colour.


I'll dig in my folders to see if I can find the tgd of that example.

Fake dark sharpness smooths out the fake dark power effect.
To demonstrate set fake dark power @ 1 and compare fake dark sharpness @ 1 and @ 10
You can see that for high sharpness values you need more fake darkness power to get a darker sky.

Quote from: darthvader1 on March 26, 2013, 03:21:03 PM
Atmosphere
atmosphere haze density: 1.5
blue sky density: 2
glow amount: 1
glow power: 1.25
ambient: 0
fake dark power: 0
fake dark sharpness: 0


Haze / rays cloud
both colors: .45
glow amount: .8
glow power: 1
ambient: 0
fake dark power: 0
fake dark sharpness: 10 (why so high I wonder?)


Martin, I want to simulate something in between what I have now and what you show in your second link (which is one of my favorites btw). I like the brightness in the shadows, right now mine seems a tad bit depressing and gloomy.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry
Post by: Gannaingh on April 03, 2013, 10:52:19 AM
Thanks for the reply TU, I'll give your suggestions a go on top of the improvements I've made already. Most of them were working with the shaders on the models, instead of the atmosphere itself. I forgot to add some blending shaders to the traffic lines, so they look absolutely pristine at the moment. I'm in love with the right side of the image so I'm going to try to emphasize that part a little more.



Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: cyphyr on April 03, 2013, 10:56:09 AM
Oh that dose look good
:)
Richard
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: Gannaingh on April 03, 2013, 11:06:43 AM
Thank you  :)
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: TheBadger on April 03, 2013, 12:11:49 PM
amazing
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: zaxxon on April 03, 2013, 12:29:25 PM
Wonderful light.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: Dune on April 04, 2013, 04:41:20 AM
Nice light, indeed. But may I be a pain and comment? I would smooth the road more, get rid of the tyre marks (they go strange ways), and most of all, use a different bark texture for the birches or get the repetition out of it. Make it procedural instead, not hard at all.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: TheBadger on April 04, 2013, 12:27:41 PM
Agree with Dune, except about smoothing the road. Looks like back roads through the woods where I live, to me. Looks real this way.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: otakar on April 04, 2013, 01:53:37 PM
Very nice! I'd prefer the road a bit smoother as well, it looks to be really in bad shape as is, but I guess that depends on the look you're going for.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: Gannaingh on April 04, 2013, 02:31:03 PM
Thank you for the suggestions. I've been meaning to work on the road surface more, but I wanted to get the lighting to look satisfactory first.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Update
Post by: inkydigit on April 10, 2013, 04:21:29 PM
this looks truly stunning!... Any further tweaks you do here, will only edge this closer to perfection!
:)
cheers
Jason
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: Gannaingh on April 13, 2013, 11:05:38 AM
Here is the final version for now. I was originally rendering it at 1920x1080, but i forgot to enable some of the ground cover, which made it look rather naked, so I had to make a smaller version to submit it on time. It's not perfect, but I won't go around poking holes in my efforts to win ;)

I've rather enjoyed creating this one, thank you for all of you suggestions and kind words along the way.

Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: j meyer on April 13, 2013, 12:00:18 PM
Very nice!
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: zaxxon on April 13, 2013, 12:05:34 PM
The lighting on the foliage, the misty rays of light, the rough road surface, lot's of 'Wows!' in this image. Truly well envisioned and and brought to life.
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: DannyG on April 27, 2013, 01:11:25 PM
Damn thats good
Title: Re: Darth's Road Entry - Final
Post by: McNistor on February 07, 2015, 03:00:01 AM
Looking great indeed, but if I were to keep improving, I would make the foliage a darker, less saturated and more towards blue green.