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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: Tangled-Universe on March 03, 2009, 01:51:05 AM

Title: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 03, 2009, 01:51:05 AM
Don't have much time to write something about this, cuz I've got to go to work...
One thing though....the lighting is strange, yes :)

More info will follow...

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: FrankB on March 03, 2009, 02:10:14 AM
wow, now *these* are some brilliant rock structures! It even has little veins that creep across the surface. And the roughness is very believable too.
Don't know what you mean with the lighting. Looks good to me. It's apparent that you have spent quite a lot of time and love into making these surface.
I know this is not easy to do. Congratulations!

Next, this has to be placed into a nice scene.

Frank
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: darthvader on March 03, 2009, 02:33:12 AM
*drools over the thin cracks on the canyon floor*
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Seth on March 03, 2009, 02:51:49 AM
good rocks and love the cracks too ^^
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Saurav on March 03, 2009, 02:59:08 AM
Great structures and detail. Lighting looks very realistic to me.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 03, 2009, 03:12:39 AM
Thanks guys ;D
I wasn't so sure about the lighting, think the shadows are a tad too bright, but it seems you guys like it so maybe I've to try to look it in an other way.

Here's some info about how this is basically done:

The wall is a stretched heightfield (10000x1500m) with a "vertical adjust" shader attached to it and set to a couple of hundred metres. Without any fractals applied to it this just looks like a smooth box.
The walls of the canyon are being displaced with a redirectshader on a single axis.
The fun thing of this technique is that you can align another heigthfield next to it, so in parallel.
Using the same redirectshader will automatically create a twisting canyon :)
Further voronoi-functions, strata and powerfractals are applied for displacements and coloring.

Title: Announcement
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 03, 2009, 03:15:51 AM
I'm working on optimisations for this technique and with the help of FrankB I've developed a canyon "ready to use" and which you can even paint in the desired shape!
The walls will have the same displacements as in the latest rock-pictures I've shown lately, like the one above.

I'm planning to release this as a tech-pack @ http://nwda.webnode.com/ (http://nwda.webnode.com/)

Further info will follow later :)

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 03, 2009, 07:44:29 AM
Cool displacements and VERTICAL!   :P
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: mt_sabao on March 03, 2009, 09:30:08 AM
beautiful!
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 03, 2009, 01:02:33 PM
Another one :)

Just changed the seed value of the powerfractal for the redirectshader and also changed sun's heading and elevation.
Rest is the same.

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: ra on March 03, 2009, 01:42:17 PM
Awesome!  This definitely rocks!  ;D
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: RArcher on March 03, 2009, 02:51:08 PM
This is very impressive Martin!  Well worth the time you have obviously invested.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: choronr on March 03, 2009, 10:44:57 PM
Amazing work Martin; looking forward to the release.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 04, 2009, 09:12:20 AM
Hey, TU.  No hurry, but how's this going?  I'm willing to wait to see something beautiful be available, so no rush.   ;D
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 04, 2009, 12:23:12 PM
Quote from: calico on March 04, 2009, 09:12:20 AM
Hey, TU.  No hurry, but how's this going?  I'm willing to wait to see something beautiful be available, so no rush.   ;D

Thanks for showing interest Calico and others as well of course :)

It's progressing, but slowly ;) I'm working on this for well over a month: clarifying the shaders, re-arranging them and setting up base-scenes and principles to get you started right away.

I have a new render cooking of a 2-sided canyon. Will post that in about 2 hours.

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: moodflow on March 04, 2009, 12:37:04 PM
I really like the crisp hardness of the stone walls.  Very convincing!
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Zylot on March 04, 2009, 01:00:04 PM
These are definitely some of the more convincing rock walls I've seen. 
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 04, 2009, 01:28:41 PM
This is an example of how a canyon could look when using 2 walls with the same displacements applied to them.

The displacements render quite fast.
I have a quad 6600 @ 2.4 GHz and 8GB RAM (the latter is not THAT important in speed).
This scene is rendered @ detail 0.9, AA 8, GI 3/3 and with 96 atmospheric samples.
The water also has subsurface volumetrics, though I don't know how much this add to rendertimes.

So, you guys guess: what was the rendertime? ;)

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: MacGyver on March 04, 2009, 02:29:46 PM
Let's say 3-4 hours?
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: folder on March 04, 2009, 02:39:03 PM
hour and a half
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 04, 2009, 02:51:58 PM
Quote from: folder on March 04, 2009, 02:39:03 PM
hour and a half

I wish ;D

MacGyver is quite close...
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: MacGyver on March 04, 2009, 02:55:07 PM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on March 04, 2009, 02:51:58 PM
I wish ;D

MacGyver is quite close...

Your specs are quite good so I guessed it would be rather quick ;D
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 04, 2009, 03:22:15 PM
3 hours and 15 minutes.

Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 04, 2009, 03:26:51 PM
4,5 hours :)

Given the complexity of the setup and the water and GI I think this is very fair.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: choronr on March 04, 2009, 03:32:13 PM
Very convincing Martin, I can see a lot of possibilities!
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 04, 2009, 03:46:52 PM
96 samples of atmosphere!  I should have guessed it larger.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Seth on March 04, 2009, 06:41:25 PM
good job Martin :)
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Oshyan on March 05, 2009, 01:12:22 AM
It looks excellent for the most part, but I can't help noticing the render errors at the cliff top edges. It looks like excessive displacement. Is that something you think you'll be able to resolve?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 05, 2009, 01:44:22 AM
Here's another one. I think I made a little mistake with the color at the water's edges...hmmmm...

Quote from: Oshyan on March 05, 2009, 01:12:22 AM
It looks excellent for the most part, but I can't help noticing the render errors at the cliff top edges. It looks like excessive displacement. Is that something you think you'll be able to resolve?

- Oshyan

Thanks Oshyan.
It is excessive in a way that it isn't supposed to be there. The reason is quite simple: the displacements of the redirect shader are abruptly cut off by the max heighth of the canyon.
I should be able to restrict them.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Mohawk20 on March 05, 2009, 05:30:51 AM
Are you using a texture based surface? Sometimes the texture on the outcrops looks like it's a piece of paper, cut off with scissors.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 05, 2009, 06:03:53 AM
Quote from: Mohawk20 on March 05, 2009, 05:30:51 AM
Are you using a texture based surface? Sometimes the texture on the outcrops looks like it's a piece of paper, cut off with scissors.

What is that? ;)

The edges are kind of warped and depending on the pov some edges may appear very very sharp, as you can see. It's just a matter of the angle of the cliffs in regard to the camera, or vice versa.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 05, 2009, 08:36:55 AM
I think maybe Mohawk was wondering if you're using images for the texturing.  At least, this is what I was wondering.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 05, 2009, 09:15:55 AM
Quote from: calico on March 05, 2009, 08:36:55 AM
I think maybe Mohawk was wondering if you're using images for the texturing.  At least, this is what I was wondering.

I know he meant that :) By saying "what is that? ;)" I was making a joke :p
I've been here for quite some time and most of the guys (and girls?) here know I'm TG-purist, especially you should also know Calico ;) lol
So for the sake of clarity: no images/maps or whatsoever...pure TG ;D

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: rcallicotte on March 05, 2009, 09:23:25 AM
GEEZ!  Really?  FANTASTIC!!!

I should have known better.   :-[
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Mohawk20 on March 05, 2009, 10:52:48 AM
I got the joke TU, no worries.
And it's interesting behavior of the displacements (since they're not image maps  ;)). One would expect that the small displacements make outcrops of their own on the edges. Unless you used a very cruel method of confining the edges...
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: inkydigit on March 05, 2009, 03:50:19 PM
very interesting work here....methinks I might have to try this method.....thanks for sharing!
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: choronr on March 05, 2009, 04:43:06 PM
Martin, would it be possible to add 'talus' to the lower part of the canyon walls? It would seem that water then would make a better transition with the terrain. This of course would require some slight stratification.

Bob
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 09:55:31 AM
Hi Martin,

Your displacements are really good here. I agree with Bob about the talus especially if you are going to offer this for sale as a tech-pack. With that I think it would be a big seller.

Cheers  :)
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 10, 2009, 10:37:57 AM
Quote from: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 09:55:31 AM
Hi Martin,

Your displacements are really good here. I agree with Bob about the talus especially if you are going to offer this for sale as a tech-pack. With that I think it would be a big seller.

Cheers  :)

I'm working really hard on this and I've made the rocksurfaces way better, but I'm running into some serious issues regarding displacement-render-errors etc. I hope to have these fixed soon and then I'll concentrate on getting a nice talus.
I'm not familiar with the term "Talus" by the way, but I think you mean it is a kind of smooth part at the bottom of the canyon which blends smoothly into the vertical surfaces. Kind of?

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 11:03:26 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on March 10, 2009, 10:37:57 AM
Quote from: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 09:55:31 AM
Hi Martin,

Your displacements are really good here. I agree with Bob about the talus especially if you are going to offer this for sale as a tech-pack. With that I think it would be a big seller.

Cheers  :)

I'm working really hard on this and I've made the rocksurfaces way better, but I'm running into some serious issues regarding displacement-render-errors etc. I hope to have these fixed soon and then I'll concentrate on getting a nice talus.
I'm not familiar with the term "Talus" by the way, but I think you mean it is a kind of smooth part at the bottom of the canyon which blends smoothly into the vertical surfaces. Kind of?

Martin

I'm sure you are.  Yes Talus as Bob referred to is basically materials that have fallen to the bottom of rock faces over centuries creating these transitions from Horizontal to Vertical. Not the best way to put it, but hey, I'm not a Geologist.  ;) Attached is a sample I found on Google.

 
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: nvseal on March 10, 2009, 12:53:38 PM
For a second there buzz I was about to jump out of my chair.  ;D
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 01:06:34 PM
Quote from: nvseal on March 10, 2009, 12:53:38 PM
For a second there buzz I was about to jump out of my chair.  ;D

LOL.....Sorry to Startle you, I only wish! 
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: choronr on March 10, 2009, 01:13:21 PM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on March 10, 2009, 10:37:57 AM
Quote from: buzzzzz1 on March 10, 2009, 09:55:31 AM
Hi Martin,

Your displacements are really good here. I agree with Bob about the talus especially if you are going to offer this for sale as a tech-pack. With that I think it would be a big seller.

Cheers  :)

I'm working really hard on this and I've made the rocksurfaces way better, but I'm running into some serious issues regarding displacement-render-errors etc. I hope to have these fixed soon and then I'll concentrate on getting a nice talus.
I'm not familiar with the term "Talus" by the way, but I think you mean it is a kind of smooth part at the bottom of the canyon which blends smoothly into the vertical surfaces. Kind of?

Martin
Hi Martin,

A description and picture of 'Talus' (also called 'Scree') can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scree . Hope this helps.

Bob
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 10, 2009, 01:48:25 PM
Thanks Jay & Bob, very useful :)
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Tangled-Universe on March 10, 2009, 03:22:25 PM
First concept of adding Talus-like structures...
Now you see the base of the canyon...naked huh :P

Martin
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: choronr on March 10, 2009, 03:54:45 PM
Great beginnings Martin. I think a very limited strata at the base might be good.
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: MacGyver on March 10, 2009, 04:13:08 PM
Looks promising so far! :)
Title: Re: Semi-procedural Canyon
Post by: Confusoid on March 13, 2009, 12:02:06 PM
Also to make the Talus more convincing is you need a deep cut erosion were the loose sediment building the Talus will fall away and out from. Don't know how hard that would be to achieve but so far the Talus itself looks good.