I begun working on this animation project 4 or so months ago but then had no time to finish it.
I don't like posting WIP projects but i post this to get more pressure on myself to finally to get it done hopefully.
The main objective is making fluids and objects by using only what Terragen has to offer.
Some parts could be made more easily with help from other software or comping etc.
But what would be the fun of it?
So what you will see here is all pure Terragen .
Curious how it will end :)
For now only still images.
This is the first one:
The ground on the above image looked a little too clean.
I like the wall of the well :D
Thanks :)
Ah, another interesting thread to follow. Good of you to post also the initial stages, Kadri! I am very curious what your intentions are and how you are going to solve the problems you no doubt encounter.
Thanks Ulco.
What i want to make is already in my mind.
But how it will end is another thing. I am curious too how it will look.
This is the biggest animation project i ever tried in Terragen.
One of my goals is to make the video at least 50 or 60 FPS and in HD quality.
I haven't seen any movie in that FPS so why not make this short animation to see how it will look.
I need to render it fast. I made this scene 3-4 times from scratch and
the last time was especially to get faster render times.
As i mentioned in another thread i used a plane instead of a planet node to get faster render times.
Don't know if it is always so fast but i got 2-3 times faster times in my setup.
Render time of one frame is 28 minutes (i7 2600 K ) for now.
Unfortunately the animation will be only 10-15 second long.
I was wondering if you would get back to this. 10-15 seconds long sounds great.
Wish it could be longer Michael :)
I wasn't pleasant with the snow in the above images. I think i will settle with this look.
The sun position and angle is a little different too.
I changed some snow and ground parts a little.
Too much time wasted but i think it looks better.
The snow is really nice, I like the ridged effect in the steep part, like it's about to collapse. It is very clean, is that on purpose?
I do have a little trouble with the sandy (?) ground. I would make the colors more consistent with the stones (or vice versa) and add more small pebbles or course sand.
Will there be water in the well? A plane with a water shader will do that nicely.
Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...I like the ridged effect in the steep part, like it's about to collapse. It is very clean, is that on purpose?
...
Thanks Ulco. Yes that is a effect placed strategically on a strata shader and powerfractal with simple shape shaders as mask and altitude control.
Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...
I do have a little trouble with the sandy (?) ground.
I would make the colors more consistent with the stones (or vice versa) and add more small pebbles or course sand.
...
There is always room for improvement.
Like you said the sand could be different and on the far side there could be much bigger rocks
or small higher snow free ground for example.
I think i will change only the color of the stones as you said and see how it will look.
Quote from: Dune on August 12, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
...Will there be water in the well? A plane with a water shader will do that nicely.
The focus is this mostly actually and i have kinda a working animated water already there but i will show that when all is finished Ulco.
I changed the ground and suddenly when render times where on the 1 hour 20 minute mark for 1 frame
i remembered why i didn't made the ground more dense 5 months ago!
I still wanted it a little different like Ulco said so i looked at other places where i could cut the render time.
I made the plane object much more smaller and used different sized masks
for every fake stone node and got it down to 39 minutes in the end.
If it was only for a still image i wouldn't even bother to try with those things.
I am quite bored to see the same picture since so long time
and i want to move along if there isn't anything you might say guys...?
Yes after a while you get bored with seeing the same thing over and over again, but your ground is way better now. I guess the water will be flowing down the sides of the well and across ground to the right? Then you may consider adding a reflective shader and some darkening to the well and ground, where the water will be.
Sometimes you don't need a compute terrain, if you don't use slope and height related shaders, you might (might, just test it) do without. That also saves render time.
Yes,there is one reflective darkening surface but it will be animated too and with the water together.
Hence there isn't one to see for now Ulco.
I striped all nodes to the bare minimum and there is only one compute terrain node already there.
The look changed more then i wanted without it. But it was a couple of days ago.
I changed many things after that. Maybe i can do now even without that one. I will have a look Ulco.
I just tried it without the last compute terrain node Ulco.
It is 3 minutes faster, but unfortunately the fake stones don't look right.
But it does have a softer ground look compared to my last render .
I think i will have a last try to get that softer ground look :)
The ground is looking much nicer and I like that snow bank at the back.
Thanks Ben.
I got rid of the left stone path because with this speed it would take to long to
finish the house with the primitives on the left back side.
The good thing was that it rendered surprisingly much faster.
This time i used some masks with simple shape shaders for the ground too that was under the snowy parts.
That ended only with a render around 50 seconds or so faster. I am probably near the diminishing return point.
Render time is now 29 minutes.
Moving on.
So much talk and only pictures i thought i should post an animation anyway instead waiting until the end.
This one is only an old low quality test and camera move etc. doesn't present how it will be when it is finished.
Small size but with 60 fps and there is even a magic pipe with water :)
[attachurl=2]
A nice addition could be to have the part of the snow that's ridged come down a bit, like it's sliding off. If so, you could try a vertical displacement shader, a rather sharp simple shape combined with a soft height restriction to soften the lower end, and just move the ridged part straight down so a 'crack' appears at the top.
Yes, the fake stones would be a problem indeed. I often have that problem if I have fake stones and can't use smoothing effect, then they appear differently as well. Another compute terrain may do the trick then, but that costs as well.
Ulco yes those kind of additions would look very nice but actually at first what i wanted for this was a basic cube and a plain ground ;D
For a still image i certainly would try to make it more detailed.
When you look at the (although it will be much different in the end) animation there isn't much need for that kind of detail.
But if i can finish this faster then i think i might have a look ones again.
Well, I gota say, I was impressed just from how the water interacted with the surfaces. Namely, as the water went over the top of the edge. Really glad you kept this on the burner Kadri. Its more than a little interesting to me. Depending on how complicated it is and how much work to get the water to behave, this could cause me to rethink my views on TG water; falls, rivers, ect. I guess we'll see ;)
Yes, the way the water goes over the edge is very nice
Kadri, How long?
I don't know Michael.
This project feels more like work then fun after such a long time.
But i will begin tomorrow ones again working on it.
I have stripped some fancy things that i wanted to do and
will concentrate on the animation only from now on.
Otherwise it will take too long to finish.
I hope when i see some working water tests ones again (and if they are any good of course)
it will change to be a fun project ones more :)
I kinda knew that it will be in this way.
I wanted pressure to keep going on and this was the primary reason i posted it as a WIP here.
So thanks ;)
http://www.uslawbooks.com/books/Dogbert_whip89.gif
WORK!
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:D