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#61

Image Sharing / Re: Canyon series 1

Last post by blattacker - March 30, 2024, 04:20:51 AM

Perhaps the (expensive) way of calculating light?

I think that might be the case. If my (extremely basic) understanding of rendering principles is correct, I believe Lambert shading is a form of reflective shading, albeit diffused reflections. I would guess that those diffuse reflections require additional calculation. Moving into pure speculation, color would likely increase calculation time as it would reduce the amount of bulk operations that could be performed, since each ray could have different color values based on what color(s) it picked up (or, as it works in the real world, I guess it would be which colors/wavelengths got absorbed rather than reflected) along the way, but again, that's just pure conjecture on my part. I'm not quite clear on the scope of the physical aspect of physically based rendering.

#62

Image Sharing / Re: Canyon series 1

Last post by Dune - March 30, 2024, 03:35:27 AM

Interesting. Might well be the Lambert indeed. I wonder what's so 'special' about it, makes it different from say a one color surface shader, it looks so basic. Perhaps the (expensive) way of calculating light?

#63

Terragen Discussion / Re: Pixel gaps in rendering

Last post by Dune - March 30, 2024, 02:51:52 AM

Do they also appear in say sky, or barren TG ground? It would be interesting (but work) to disable stuff per pop/object, and see if there's still anything inside them that causes the filter to do something.

#64

Terragen Animation / Re: Cyan Eyed Biomes | Part 1 ...

Last post by Dune - March 30, 2024, 02:46:46 AM

I'm keen on small details myself (and - real - bird watcher, so small details matter). And I know how long it takes to get them perfect.

Yeah, it's in its last stages. Had a few proofreaders, so I'm rearranging/rewriting some stuff now, and hopefully send it to a publisher in the next weeks. One (big one) has already shown interest, or, I should say, the head editor was pretty positive about the first paragraphs. So I'll start with her, and hopefully get it out.
In short it's (of course) about a walled city with an oppressive regime, young woman finding forbidden info, and figuring out a way to see what's behind that wall (which nobody knows, due to the regime's secrecy - familiar, huh?). She meets an orphan boy, and they have to go together due to circumstances, and hopefully find what she (they) are looking for in life. It's actually about thinking beyond your box, showing interest and having guts to go beyond your boundaries. There are 4 story lines, slowly entwining (the orphan is not really an orphan, he finds out in the very end, and his parents took a terrible decison once, and father is trying to locate his 'sold' son). And of course there's a secret service agent looking for them. Setting is futuristic, but not overly so, and I take the opportunity to weave in some subtle ideas about society, and human behavior in general.
It's in Dutch of course (for the time being )

#65

Terragen Animation / Re: Cyan Eyed Biomes | Part 1 ...

Last post by Njen - March 30, 2024, 01:39:29 AM

I'm happy that those small details were noticed, I spent a lot of time fine tuning those.

Wow, you are writing a novel? I'd love to know more when you are ready to share, sounds like you are writing stories I'd be very much interested in.

#66

Terragen Discussion / Re: Pixel gaps in rendering

Last post by sboerner - March 29, 2024, 05:34:29 PM

I can understand why a filter or some other post process might product artifacts. Apparently, that is what is happening here. At least changing the filter has fixed it for now.

I also got similar artifacts when I tried to override the subdivision cache. (Just missing, black pixels, no strange patterns.) I've disabled the override and they too seem to have gone away.

One puzzling thing about the artifacts is that they always appeared in different locations. Sometimes there was just one, other times two, three or four. So they seem independent of any geometry or surface in the scene. The only constant is that they always showed up in the first 25 percent or so of the rendering.

Memory issue? My machine has 64GB of RAM, and it passed the Windows memory test I did when this all started. And the fact that they occurred on two machines tells me the problem isn't related to hardware.

#67

Image Sharing / Re: Canyon series 1

Last post by blattacker - March 29, 2024, 02:13:19 PM

Doing some quick experimentation on my end, the lambert shader does seem to take longer to render with the path tracer, but color seems to have a more pronounced effect. For reference, the experiment I did was just two simple shape shaders with no other displacement, and I tested rendering with the default "Base colours" pf shader, the default pf edited to introduce color rather than just greyscale values, a lambert shader with a grey value, and a lambert shader with a color value. All other setting remained the same. My results were:

• Render Settings: 800 x 450; 0.5 Micropoly detail; 3 Anti-aliasing (all default settings); Path Tracer; Max paths per sample 144 (high value to approximate a "worst case scenario")
• Greyscale PF shader: 54 seconds
• Color PF shader: 2 minutes 43 seconds
• Greyscale lambert shader: 2 minutes 30 seconds
• Color lambert shader: 8 minutes 1 second

Perhaps a workaround to try it out with the path tracer would be to render it out in greyscale and then either add color in post or process it like a black and white photograph?

#68

Terragen Discussion / Re: Pixel gaps in rendering

Last post by pokoy - March 29, 2024, 10:53:44 AM

I've almost always had similar problems with sun producing pixel artifacts similar to these, and the only solution was to switch to a non-sharpening filter. 
My guess is that the places where the artifacts appear are super bright pixels produced by reflections of the sun and either the filter or the soft clip effect isn't error-free when it comes to HDR values.

#69

Terragen Discussion / Re: Pixel gaps in rendering

Last post by Dune - March 29, 2024, 02:43:37 AM

Never would have though a filter could have 'caused' it, or at least could heal it.

#70

Terragen Animation / Re: Cyan Eyed Biomes | Part 1 ...

Last post by Dune - March 29, 2024, 02:42:00 AM

Awesome. I really like the landscape and the quiet flyover. Very subtly you're getting aware that it's not a 'normal' world. Small details, such as the lapping surf are great too. It also appeals to me as I'm currently finishing a 100,000 word dystopic novel set in world after a apocalyptic drama.

Good luck with your other stories!