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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: WAS on June 25, 2018, 03:29:19 PM

Title: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 25, 2018, 03:29:19 PM
Working on the idea of putting the flame shaders on a card but I'm having a few issues.


Unsure what to do. If it could be made to look natural, it'd be a great alternative to clouds as it's super fast. Could be used to embers/sparks in the air too with different settings as I found out messing with the density fractal.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: SILENCER on June 25, 2018, 06:55:45 PM
Ambitious, I admire the moxie this takes, but honestly, this is why we have fluid sims and compositors.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 25, 2018, 08:17:13 PM
Quote from: SILENCER on June 25, 2018, 06:55:45 PM
Ambitious, I admire the moxie this takes, but honestly, this is why we have fluid sims and compositors.
Lots of added effort for something very simple, pretty redundant in fact for something as simple as flame licks in a still. That sort of outlook makes Terragen as a whole shelved for other software which can do the same things, in a fraction of the time, but that's not really what it's about from an artistic stand-point. Commercial maybe.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: Dune on June 26, 2018, 01:57:53 AM
It's just nice to experiment, and get to know the capabilities of TG. And not everybody has access to all software, so if one gets something working within TG it may be handy for some users.

I added some nodes, but the black is still there. Just forget about this, I'd say. And also, I have wondered about (and mentioned) world scale opacity in pops one or two times in the last few years, but don't think it works as expected/needed (but haven't tried for a long time). It would be handy to make forest edges (on flat country) to have grazing edges (lowest branches eaten off), for instance.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 26, 2018, 02:27:47 AM
Quote from: Dune on June 26, 2018, 01:57:53 AM
It's just nice to experiment, and get to know the capabilities of TG. And not everybody has access to all software, so if one gets something working within TG it may be handy for some users.

I added some nodes, but the black is still there. Just forget about this, I'd say. And also, I have wondered about (and mentioned) world scale opacity in pops one or two times in the last few years, but don't think it works as expected/needed (but haven't tried for a long time). It would be handy to make forest edges (on flat country) to have grazing edges (lowest branches eaten off), for instance.

I wonder if the black issue is created by the breakup/altitude falloff, where the black produced is "below" black, and not picked up by the opacity at all?

And yeah, though doesn't colour work for populations? Like varying colour of a forest with a PF? This seems to fall in line with that, which is odd. Maybe without the added "parts" shader it's not possible.

Thanks for the edits, going to take a peak.

Edit: I notice how just that generic surface layer and glass layer without being named causes the warpers to both disconnect?
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 29, 2018, 01:44:21 AM
Oshyan or Matt, do you have any input on the opacity issue? Is this because of the surface layers falloffs being below black or something?
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: Dune on June 29, 2018, 02:59:05 AM
You can try by adding a clamp color 0 1 function
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 29, 2018, 03:38:22 AM
Quote from: Dune on June 29, 2018, 02:59:05 AM
You can try by adding a clamp color 0 1 function

That sounded so hopeful. Hmm. Really wondering what it is.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: jaf on June 29, 2018, 04:23:25 AM
Maybe this is closer.... fed Base colors into the Flame Card Density and used an edge profile of Stroke.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 29, 2018, 03:38:38 PM
Seems the problem has nothing to do with the shader, but in fact the card object. Scaling it breaks opacity for some reason (should be able to scale a card to correct proportions for your scenes) it seems. I setup your card pop with my original scales for flame licks for small scale, and boom, back to black waves.

Edit: Actually, your base file (no edits) has the same black marks, see second image o.O Now I"m just confused.

I do feel a surface layer and glass shader after the default shader where opacity is happening would only serve to cause more issues, but it doesn't seem to make any difference (on my end).
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: Matt on June 29, 2018, 04:08:52 PM
Partial opacity does not work properly yet. You'll need to create transparency using a Glass Shader and then merge it with (or follow it by) your shader. Some ideas here: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,24648.0.html
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 29, 2018, 05:56:28 PM
Quote from: Matt on June 29, 2018, 04:08:52 PM
Partial opacity does not work properly yet. You'll need to create transparency using a Glass Shader and then merge it with (or follow it by) your shader. Some ideas here: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,24648.0.html

This doesn't even need to be gradual transparency as luminosity does the rest, and flames don't have gradual transparency at their boundaries usually. The flames, such as in the first image work rather well besides being sliced off. The issue seems to be creating their max height with surface layers and the colour provided by them working with opacity. Though there are some weird black issues in the flames but that seemed to be remedied when adjust the colour for the flames in other tests.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: jaf on June 29, 2018, 08:54:01 PM
Are you sure you get the black marks when rendering 2D Flame Card Pop-try3.tgd without editing it?  I just tried it again and didn't get the black marking.

I know the shape of the flames is not that great on my file, but was thinking it could be combined with yours to get you closer to what you're looking for.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 30, 2018, 12:27:47 PM
Yeah I tried simply opened the file from forums, no downloading (open as option) to TG folder where my edited version was, and hit render. So it was exact file you had setup opening from my temp files from Firefox.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 30, 2018, 01:44:49 PM
Here's a video straight from thread. So if there is differences between systems, sounds like a bug with TG.

Edit: Going to have to upload elsewhere... It's only 4,800~kb but the forum thinks it's over 5,000kb.  Lol

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xvr5N-8odFouCe7i2aB1WGRasPSub0ib
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: jaf on June 30, 2018, 03:04:45 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on June 30, 2018, 12:27:47 PM
Yeah I tried simply opened the file from forums, no downloading (open as option) to TG folder where my edited version was, and hit render. So it was exact file you had setup opening from my temp files from Firefox.

You mean you can open a file on the forum and execute it without downloading it?  Didn't know you could do that.
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 30, 2018, 03:40:20 PM
Quote from: jaf on June 30, 2018, 03:04:45 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on June 30, 2018, 12:27:47 PM
Yeah I tried simply opened the file from forums, no downloading (open as option) to TG folder where my edited version was, and hit render. So it was exact file you had setup opening from my temp files from Firefox.

You mean you can open a file on the forum and execute it without downloading it?  Didn't know you could do that.

It still downloads, but to your browsers temporary files, which get cleared. My cache clears when I close the browser. You can see how I did it in the video I shared here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xvr5N-8odFouCe7i2aB1WGRasPSub0ib/view
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: jaf on June 30, 2018, 04:56:16 PM
Thanks, I see now.  It's strange and a bit troubling we get different renders.

How many cores/threads do you use?
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on June 30, 2018, 05:33:37 PM
Quote from: jaf on June 30, 2018, 04:56:16 PM
Thanks, I see now.  It's strange and a bit troubling we get different renders.

How many cores/threads do you use?

4 Cores/Threads. Recording slows things down quite a bit as bandicam is holding high quality frames in RAM and compressing in real(ish) time. Which
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: Dune on July 01, 2018, 01:52:17 AM
I had another look and changed some stuff. There wasn't a warper input (maybe because I opened in my - only option - 32-bit online 3.7 version), so I added a pf, which may or may not work (didn't pay attention to it).
But it's still not as nice as a soft edged flame, due to the hard opacity. There must be a better way yet....
Title: Re: 2D Flame Project
Post by: WAS on July 01, 2018, 02:56:38 AM
Quote from: Dune on July 01, 2018, 01:52:17 AM
I had another look and changed some stuff. There wasn't a warper input (maybe because I opened in my - only option - 32-bit online 3.7 version), so I added a pf, which may or may not work (didn't pay attention to it).
But it's still not as nice as a soft edged flame, due to the hard opacity. There must be a better way yet....

As I mentioned, and you can see in the original, colour and luminosity (maybe tad too bright for day) takes care of that with the original setup. Even rough spots don't look bad. Just the random non-opacity areas.

Let's see if I can get that sort of intensity out of that TGD.

A lot of this isn't explaining the issue and keep getting very different shape results. Is it the warper?