Trying out some warped stratified rock (WIP). Now with dust devil deluxe!
Seen 21 times already, well, here's some more to watch ;)
I love the ground the last three pictures, I find them excellent.
I'm not a fan of his strata despite all the work to create shapes and original colors.
warped strata_31-07-16-v2B-3 catches my interest the most. The other images do have interesting variations to the overall theme as well.
Wow, these are some seriously amazing rocks! I am immensely intrigued! How do you get them looking like that?
Took me years to get to know TG, and it's quite complicated anyway. Not something I am willing to share at this moment.
Btw, doesn't take long to render: 25 mins, with detail 0.6, AA 6 and soft shadows @0.5 and 5 samples. No compute terrain, just a tex from XYZ and compute normal shader to allow for lateral displacements.
Looks great, Ulco. A kind of jurassic world in my eyes. :)
Thanks Nils.
Strata are now separated in two masked 'kinds', each with its own warping. Vortex shader also gives interesting results, but only usable locally.
I have a little problem with the dark/light distinction in this version. It transverses the otherwise warped and slanting strata. Turns out it's the fuzzy zone for a surface shader that takes care of 'bulging' the (warped SSS) rock above a certain final altitude. Apparently the colors are not exactly calculated with the fuzzy zone I used (height 10m, fuzzy zone 50). So a fuzzy zone that high even makes a hard line, which makes me wonder what the fuzzy zone/height variable consists of; is it a beveled edge or a smooth stepped edge, or .....? I raised it to 150 now, and it's getting way less, but it's not gone!
Any other way of setting a soft height restriction after just a compute normal? I was thinking of a distance shader and camera, so I have to check that. But I remember that's also not a very soft transition....
Anyway, more work to do.
EDIT: fuzzy zone of 150, and more lateral displacement. Helps a bit.
I think you remember this but maybe worth a look ones more Ulco?
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,18266.0.html
I remember that thread, but it was good reading it again. Thanks Kadri.
One more then.
And some tests with the minimum height. There's quite a difference between using the altitude and straight fuzzy zone and taking it through a smooth step.
smooth step rocks
Nice experiments here.
Quote from: Dune on August 03, 2016, 02:08:06 AM
There's quite a difference between using the altitude and straight fuzzy zone and taking it through a smooth step.
Smooth Step uses a Gain curve to push out the mid point of a gradient. Have a look at the wiki for Gain scaler http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Gain_Scalar
Bias is another good toy to play with to pinch gradients towards 1 or 0. http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Bias_Scalar
Your Straight Fuzzy setting is creating a straight ramp through its fall off.
Thanks Jon. I knew about and often use the bias scalar (also with a fractal for variable bias), but didn't realize how the gain scalar worked (never read me in). Good to be pointed at it. I am now working on another beach setup (based on X to scalar) scene with overlapping surf, but get tremendous render times, with just a reflective shader, and not more than 25 nodes. No compute terrain, compute normal or XYZ, so maybe I need one of those to speed it up, this time. Or the warping is too complicated >:( Always something to find out....
Though I don't understand at all, what you specialists are talking about, I am again impressed by the shore ;)
I got your beach some months ago from NWDA but had no time so far to play with it.
Also I do not come forward with your ocean waves on my beach - just too much in the pipeline at the same time. Sorry :-\
But here and now I promise: In my 2020 film there will be at least one animation with almost ONLY BLUE NODES ... 8) :o ;D
Quote from: DocCharly65 on August 05, 2016, 03:58:14 AM
But here and now I promise: In my 2020 film there will be at least one animation with almost ONLY BLUE NODES ... 8) :o ;D
:o :o :o :o
He has gone to the dark side!!
Found the culprit; seems that my gradient wasn't exactly zero on shore, so a lot of quite invisible reflectuions had to be calculated on rough ground. Added a color adjust where I raised the black a bit, and hopsa, a faster render.
In another work on waves there seems to be a hard line in the hollow bit, but it's to do with the reflective shader.
And for those of you wanting to try the blue nodes... a little of my node setup ;)
;D <- this
Got to love a bit of Linear Step action! 8)
surf.jpg Makes me wanna grab a surf board...beauty
Very neat. Can the wave be rolled over further? Eventually needs some spray.
Very nice beach!
Impressive waves !
Quote from: bobbystahr on August 05, 2016, 01:00:58 PM
surf.jpg Makes me wanna grab a surf board...beauty
Dito... :)
Clever waves.
That's been illusive until now, well done
Quote from: Danny on August 09, 2016, 09:32:02 AM
That's been illusive until now, well done
And typically it's Ulco who comes up with it. One would think that a bunch of Water Effects could be prepared and presented as Easy Waves like the new and very useful Easy Clouds.
Quote from: bobbystahr on August 09, 2016, 10:20:43 AM
Quote from: Danny on August 09, 2016, 09:32:02 AM
That's been illusive until now, well done
And typically it's Ulco who comes up with it. One would think that a bunch of Water Effects could be prepared and presented as Easy Waves like the new and very useful Easy Clouds.
Totally agree with you. Effects with water that could have easily used would very appreciated.
May be inserted into the water parameters a function of water foam on the waves and near the shore.
I think the advent of the easy cloud might just be the beginning of that sort of user friendly approach to nodes and maybe built into the UI someday, there are only so many Ulco's in the world, Perhaps we should clone him .. yeeesss Clone Him !! ;)
Quote from: Danny on August 09, 2016, 12:33:43 PM
I think the advent of the easy cloud might just be the beginning of that sort of user friendly approach to nodes and maybe built into the UI someday, there are only so many Ulco's in the world, Perhaps we should clone him .. yeeesss Clone Him !! ;)
;D
Already done: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21943.msg220704.html#msg220704 (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21943.msg220704.html#msg220704) 8)
Easy surf is not as easy, I'm afraid. You can't easily bend it further down. And it's all in one direction. You can't just have waves in all wind directions without a way to 'procedurally vector displace or tilt by function', not merely by X or Z. And that's blue node stuff in extrema. This is perhaps good enough for local stills/animations, but not for a wider irregular area.
But there is the vortex displacement. Can that be tilted from y to x or z axis? That would create great rolling waves!
No, just tested it again (I did so before, I vaguely remember), that doesn't work, especially not since it is very local.
Well Ulco, that's kinda disappointing but I sorta had a feeling looking at your Blue Nodes that it would be very hard, if not impossible to make this as we wish it could be....sigh...the ever dreaming Bobby Stahr....
Quote from: Dune on August 10, 2016, 03:02:03 AM
Already done: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21943.msg220704.html#msg220704 (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21943.msg220704.html#msg220704) 8)
Easy surf is not as easy, I'm afraid. You can't easily bend it further down. And it's all in one direction. You can't just have waves in all wind directions without a way to 'procedurally vector displace or tilt by function', not merely by X or Z. And that's blue node stuff in extrema. This is perhaps good enough for local stills/animations, but not for a wider irregular area.
Thank you Ulco for showing us your secret "Dune" team ;) but I wanted to sent at Planetside staff. There are many years of easy settings to use on ArtMatic voyager for the water. It's not nearly as complex and realistic than those made with Terragen by Ulco but it would all even a good start to have access to this type of effect. They Can still be very useful to have at some distance.Maybe for a future version of Terragen.Just for a exemple three pictures that I realized in 2008 with ArtMatic Voyager.
Jo Kariboo Well the middle ocean waves were totally impressive and I like the shore effect in the other 2.
Thanks for chiming in, Jo. But for these effects, you won't need anything else than TG. The foam on tops of waves can be done by height mask, or wave mask (if you make your waves from a colored fractal), e.g., and the coastal surf foam is easily done by a displacement shader to scalar (blue) node, with some adjustment for area and softness, perhaps some sinus effect and breakup added, once you have your heights (most preferably with a stretched Y). I've explained the latter a while ago for someone: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20694.msg206019.html#msg206019 (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,20694.msg206019.html#msg206019)
Some other renders.
I straight-up want to marry those rocks. They're so good.
The last two make me "WOW!" again! :)
Great work,Especially the last two shots. :)
Nice to see the olive gang again. ;D
:)
Oh yeah, forgot this one. This is how the surf works in TG, by using the (stretched) heights through a displacement to scaler, and a color adjust or smooth step until you have the coastal area in sight.
Nice work Ulco.
Incredible! Great marbling on those rocks and foam is good too.
I'm glad the four of you are hard at work............... :)
I'm officially out of superlatives to compliment your creativity... :)
As a matter of fact the other three are out having a beer, while I'm doing the work :-\
I just realized some erosion might be nice in the latter to get better rock debris areas. There's not even a fractal warp in there, so there's more to try out.
Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2016, 11:54:17 AM
:)
Oh yeah, forgot this one. This is how the surf works in TG, by using the (stretched) heights through a displacement to scaler, and a color adjust or smooth step until you have the coastal area in sight.
Those are some awesome rocks...I've always been curious if you work to 'real life' scales on these images or just scale the veg to the scene you're creating. I realize the archelogical stuff is but just wondered about these rock inventions.
No, I always work in real scale. Only the MinceMeat is a giant by coincidence ;)
Quote from: Dune on August 14, 2016, 02:27:47 AM
No, I always work in real scale. Only the MinceMeat is a giant by coincidence ;)
Thanks
gobsmacked as always Ulco!
awesome stuff!
8-0
:)
Good study thread Ulco. I particularly like the last render.
Thanks Jon, and all others. I like the string of land and islands, but the front outcrop is a bit too contorted, a bit unnatural. But it started out as just another setup for the shore foam, and then you add some and click a bit... :P.
That last one is awesome in the true sense. It's full of awe! :D
Great composition.
I like that wide, wide view very much!