Just a early render for the "NWDA & Planetside True 3D and Animation Contest"
my plan for the next frame is to move the camera out into the open, while moving it to a higher altitude.
objects:
Walli's Pines (2), Dune's Swamp Cypress, NWDA wild grass (2), & a bush from Mr. LampPost's basic bush pack.
C&C welcome
Very nice to see you're entering the contest :)
It's good that you start working/posting in the recommended image dimensions.
For the viewers and you it is easy to see what the image has/lacks this way.
Looking forward to see your next iterations.
I hope you don't mind I share some thoughts on how to approach this contest:
I would not start this way, by choosing the vegetation you want to use. I'd first think of what I'd like to make/show and then design a terrain which supports this idea. Then I'd roughly lay out an animated path for the camera. This does not mean you actually have to animate a path, but make one in your mind. Then start detailing your terrain and check how it holds on all 6 frames.
Then if that's all ok I'd start adding objects/populations.
What do you think about this? It's of course a type of workflow, and thus quite personal perhaps.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on May 04, 2010, 08:58:31 AM
Very nice to see you're entering the contest :)
It's good that you start working/posting in the recommended image dimensions.
For the viewers and you it is easy to see what the image has/lacks this way.
Looking forward to see your next iterations.
I hope you don't mind I share some thoughts on how to approach this contest:
I would not start this way, by choosing the vegetation you want to use. I'd first think of what I'd like to make/show and then design a terrain which supports this idea. Then I'd roughly lay out an animated path for the camera. This does not mean you actually have to animate a path, but make one in your mind. Then start detailing your terrain and check how it holds on all 6 frames.
Then if that's all ok I'd start adding objects/populations.
What do you think about this? It's of course a type of workflow, and thus quite personal perhaps.
thats probably a good suggestion - i will give that a try, i was considering changing the terrain some, or possibly using a heightfield, like something from the seamless USGS site
That sounds like a good idea. I think an animation showing terrain, vegetation and atmosphere features is a lot more interesting.
Good luck and keep posting :)
Martin
Looks like a lonely forest.... but wonderful work
the next iteration will be a bit different
i will be using a Heightfield for the terrain, one from the USGS seamless server.
i should have some previews soon
Quote from: zaai999 on May 05, 2010, 03:34:56 PM
the next iteration will be a bit different
i will be using a Heightfield for the terrain, one from the USGS seamless server.
i should have some previews soon
Looking forward to it! :)
Me too ;)
Regards,
Terje
just a test render, Geotiff heightfield with a painted shader attached (blending)
i did'nt make the water that color just to make it pretty, it actually looks something like that.
C&C appreciated
Well, the water does look pretty.
Oh yes, keep the water!
some reference type photos:
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/guide/mmpond1.jpg
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/guide/mmpond2.jpg
http://image02.webshots.com/2/0/22/22/47302222DeeRQd_fs.jpg
The last link does not work here?
huh.
try this one
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1047302222038658180DeeRQd
I'm at work and thus using IE, so that might be the cause. Anyhow, this one works :)
unfortunately my contest tgd file got corrupted, i'm not sure how but even the back ups i made got corrupted too, TG2 would just stall when i load the file and then crash.
so i had to start over, not that big of a deal really.
i should be able to get a bit of work done on it over the weekend.
Sounds like trouble with the painted shader - if you used that. I've noticed that TG2 would crash after too extensive use of the painted shader.
You could try to take your corrupted tgd, open it in a text editor and remove all mention of your painted shader(s).
Regards,
Frank
yeah, i am using the painted shader a lot, to carve out the bottom of a pond, i find that in DEMs, bodies of water are always FLAT, so im using the painted shader to
fix that, its crashed few times already while using the painted shader, but i've been able to open the file again with out problems.
so removing any mention of the painted would delete it from the scene?
Unfortunately, yes, cutting out the painted shader would remove it completely from the scene. If you look in the text editor, the painted shader bits are easy to see, as they are large chunks of apparently random characters. If you have more than one, it might be worth cutting one out at a time, and seeing if the resulting file will open.
its a shame that the painted shader has those bugs/crashes, i was getting pretty good with it
looks like i may i have to do all my masking & heightmap blending with image maps.
I generally just create a manual backup when I get to a point where I want to heavily use the painted shader.
We'll be improving Painted Shader stability over time, of course. For now the best strategy is just to minimize how many strokes you have to do (and don't ever touch the sky! ;) ).
Also I highly recommend making regular use of the Save Incremental feature. You may end up with a ton of TGDs around, but not only will you be almost sure of a recent backup, you'll also have a history of your project if you ever want to go back to a particular step.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on May 07, 2010, 11:52:31 PM
Also I highly recommend making regular use of the Save Incremental feature. You may end up with a ton of TGDs around, but not only will you be almost sure of a recent backup, you'll also have a history of your project if you ever want to go back to a particular step.
- Oshyan
I completely forgot that existed! thanks for the reminder :)
i have been using the incremental save a lot more than i usually do since i started this project
turns out i did'nt need the painted shader after all. :)
in the GIMP i made a blending heightmap for carving out the lake bottom.
now i'm working on masks for tree cover, pines, cypress trees, etc, ect,
image: in real life the pond is about 4 miles long.
Pond? I'd call that a lake. :D The terrain and masking look great so far! Would be cool to have a dive down from this altitude (or maybe a zoom back from down low up to here).
- Oshyan
apparently not.
Quote from: Oshyan on May 09, 2010, 12:15:47 AM
Pond? I'd call that a lake. :D
i forgot to mention, i made the camera path last night too,
unfinished flythrough sequence, mainly just showing the storyboard/camera path.
changes:
-altered the masking map on the "Lake", the first version wasn't accurate enough.
-added MGebhart protrees sample tree
-changed water settings
-added clouds + made atmosphere changes
Nice test renders. I would add some more trees with different coloring. This is quite uniform (like my last image post).
thank you, i was definitely planning on adding more trees, and color variation, just added them yet, i will do that soon.
I find it difficult to envisage the final animation from this, as, apart from minor changes of angle/height/position, all the frames look similar. Do you have in mind some special feature (landscape or object) at which the animation will arrive?
i am currently re-doing the camera path.
i had originally planned this project to have a natural, pristine, untouched by civilization feel to it, that's why i didn't have any other (natural) objects in the scene, at the current time, but i think
i'm going to add the circular temple and other objects from the circular temple pack, to give it a bit of a fantasy feel to it.
how does that sound?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that whatever you do will be good, man-made objects or not. Perhaps I'm taking the usual attitude to an image - where is the point of interest? and applying that illegitimately to an animation.
I like this draft storyboard - I'm sure you still keep adding things to it, and the base concept you have chosen will allow for a lot of possible ideas. Just keep going :)
the point of interest will likely be ancient ruin of some sorts, located just beyond at the head spring of the lake, final frame.
i am also planning to have large monoliths/stones scattered along the side of the lake
i should have another render out soon.
i'm modeling some monoliths
soon a couple of different types of monoliths will be found in the scene.
I'll be interested to see where this is going. Trees, plant-life and basic outdoor scenes present some bigger challenges with details and render times. I'm interested to see what is next.
last WIP render
Water looks very good. The unusual trees and the monoliths give an air of strangeness about it.
i felt the old water needed to be changed, less transparency & more reflections, it didn't look realistic enough, or right.
The river and forest looks great, maybe the shore and the ground under the trees could be better, I think. Some plants, or a little pond feeling, I don't know...
The water has a bit less transparency than it could be, with more transparency, less decay, and a brownish color addition?
the surfacing on the monoliths is in no way permanent, i'm still trying to perfect them.
i recall a while back on here there was a technique posted for creating "color variations" within populations, for me specifically trees.
i searched for it in the file sharing section, and came up with results but still could'nt get enough useful info out of it.
does anyone know how its done?
latest 6 still render with different motion path.
i added some ivy to the monoliths with ivy generator
the trees now have a slight color variation (different diffuse color settings)
bushes added also.
the principal ruin will be in the 6th frame, in the open clearing where the bushes are.
C&C welcome
Looks good!
Quotei recall a while back on here there was a technique posted for creating "color variations" within populations, for me specifically trees.
i searched for it in the file sharing section, and came up with results but still could'nt get enough useful info out of it.
does anyone know how its done?
I'll tell you my way of doing this (posted before, you're right). Make a camera, set it in the middle of your pop, pointing down from a couple of hundred meters. Make a square image tile (photoshop) with some color variation pattern, import this in an image map shader, set to repeat, set some scale 10/10 or 100/100 or so), attach the camera. Scale and camera height are due to be varied according to your results.
Then open up your tree, attach a surface shader between the default and parts shader. Find the image map shader through the color input (and/or luminosity for more variation and interesting results), set the coverage perhaps a bit lower than 1. That's about it, but you'll need to tweak it!
---Dune
thanks dune, i try that as soon as i can get back to my computer.
this scene is missing is cypress knobs...
i'm going to get dune's swamp cypress pack.
with clouds, and lower altitude on frame 2
C&C welcome.
I wish it was rendered with more detail. The cypress does help.
soon as i perfect it a little more i will do some high detail renders, i think i did last one at .5 or .6 it has a bit of motion blur on it... i thought i turned it down some?
last night i bought Dune's Swamp Cypress pack, :)
and added 2 Cypress knees.
i will post a render (high detail, high AA) with the knees later when i get home from work. :)
when Hannes did a short animation, it gave me a urge to make a animation too, along with the fact that i have'nt really done TG2 animations myself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg95ZgW_4Vs
how do i get rid of the flickering? increase the quality? or is it something else?
i am also going to rename this project, i just haven't came up with a new name yet.
The flickering in this case looks like very low antialaising. What were your render settings?
- Oshyan
settings- Detail: 0.4 AA: 3, mitchell netravali filter.
i'm trying it again at a detail of 0.6 and 5 AA
will post results when its done.
I didn't read all the posts, but did you check "raytrace objects"? If for some reason not, what's the render quality of your objects?
Anyway If you want to animate a scene with plants I would recommend an AA of at least 9 and the Cubic B-Spline filter. This one is really very soft, but in animations it looks great.
Zaai, you may have the reflectiveness in some of your tree models too high. You may want to blend them down a little. I'm only basing that on the amount of flicker you were getting off certain trees.
i'll check that, i'm not sure what their reflective values are, i don't think i changed them..
next chance i get i'll fix them if needed.
the reflective values of the leaves were at 0
i'm also rendering a hi resolution still for the heck of it.
new render with new textures for monoliths.
Wow, that looks really great. The ivy is really the icing on the cake.
the ivy looks better the diffuse color darker in imo.
i had to turn off ray trace objects, the monolith textures disappear when i use it.
i decided to rename this project to Forgotten forest.
another new render with different skies and water (which i like better) :)
the next thing i will be working will be improving the dark ground texture some, probably will add some grasses too,
C&C welcome
This is really coming along. The ivy on the monoliths gives that extra bit of visual interest, and they are pretty mysterious looking. Look forward to where the animation takes us on this.
Sweet looking
thanks for the comments :)
i decided since today is a work day for me to do another hi res render of storyboard image #2
@ 2560x1560 ;) hopefully it will be done when i get home, it was partially done with the sky before i left this morning.
this is looking better and better with every step!
frame 200-
2560x1560 version:
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/158/1/a/nwda_2010_contest_wip_v4_by__zagadka_.png
Looking pretty damned solid, those pylons look as if they've always been there. I think I'd want to lose those tree trunks off the side of the river, and a thought on how to achieve that would be to use the same tree model, but set the object origin to just below the canopy, and set a new population, so that you get the folage to work as river side bushes.
a new render showing the new sand texture (mainly underwater) :)
now on to work on adding & tweaking populations
here is a render showing the new bushes i added last night (two populations), as well as a closser look at the shallow water, you can see the sand texture in some places.
C&C welcome
last one is sweeet zagadka!
Awesome, I like it. Maybe some dirt needed around the sand, it's too ... 'shiny' and 'tidy' yet. Or stones, more ground level grass and variations...
You're making good progress! :)
currently i have a very wide render going at home (3500x900) showing both shallow areas on both sides of the river.
@Rudolfking- i was already planning on adding some rocks & fixing the sand surfaces, just haven't gotten to that yet,
i will add some grass too
currently there are 12 populations in this scene.
It is getting better with every image! Would love to see the last image with the final settings :)
now see even more! :)
i'm really happy with vegetation/trees and the water!!
full res:
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/160/2/7/shallows_wide_view_by__zagadka_.png
now, back to work!
You are having fun :) Nice!
Water looks very good, and I like the cypress roots.
the water actually has some of its parameters animated (the transparency and decay distance) but its a slight change, not a big one.
i also plan on animating the clouds.
I like it, although I think the blurs the details a bit too much, considering the high resolution. Would be interesting to see a sharper version. Nevertheless, add a steamboat and you got a Louisiana swamp ;)
Quote from: MacGyver on June 11, 2010, 04:50:42 AM
I like it, although I think the blurs the details a bit too much, considering the high resolution. Would be interesting to see a sharper version. Nevertheless, add a steamboat and you got a Louisiana swamp ;)
:D
the thing is, if you add a Steamboat, you would need a Mark Twain TGO to go along with it, or just Mark Twain himself.
i'll be sure and change the AA filter.
i modeled & added a new type of pylon, i call them "forkers", there untextured right now, but they'll soon have some textures.
added rocks, from the nwda fake stones pack, they look alright in my stone testing tgd, but i cant get the texturing / coloring right in the contest tgd. ???
also added grass, needs closer spacing.... though i tried .5 and TG2 crashed.
C&C welcome
QuoteNevertheless, add a steamboat and you got a Louisiana swamp
What if you extend the population of the knees, and add some (clumps of) bushes and/or long grass, towards the center of the water, as a smooth gradient from land to water. Then you'll have a real swamp feeling. Forget about the fake stones, they don't belong in a swamp. I wouldn't use the forks either, but that's my personal opinion. And perhaps reduce the size of the ivy on the big pylons, so they themselves would look bigger.
---Dune
You must construct additional pylons. ;D
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-must-construct-additional-pylons
here is storyboard version 3
detail 0.5
AA 3
-changed the texture on the pylons (for RTS)
-changed the ivy
-added third cloud layer
-adjusted the distribution of the cypress knees
-added object for frame 6
the monument in frame 6 is currently incomplete, still modeling parts of it.
shoud i leave the pov in frame 1 the way it is?
i was considering changing the pov slightly, lowering it a little bit, changing the pitch for a more forward view.
C & C welcome
the strange pylon monument...
this object will be seen in the last frame
its not complete, i'm still having some ideas.
C&C welcome
here is what lies at the head of the river...
i know the surfacing on the ground needs some work
C&C welcome
It certainly looks eerie - if that's the effect you're after, I'd say you achieved it.
It looks good, I like the forest!
Add more detail to the ground, it's a bit flat and blurred.
This is going to be fantastic!
Rudolfking, that is one of the things im primarily focusing on right now. (the ground)
Quote from: Rudolfking on June 27, 2010, 04:58:41 PM
It looks good, I like the forest!
Add more detail to the ground, it's a bit flat and blurred.
I am half-way though re-surfacing the ground, i should have a render out sometime soon...
i changed the position of the sun, should i keep it like that, or use the old position?
second image: i am going give the river sandbars, i will post a render when its ready.
C & C welcome
sandbars, on the suwannee river.
I like the low sun. It may give you a more dramatic animation, as long as the POV is not all the time towards the sun.
ok, i guess for now i will keep it that way.
the POV: around the middle of the animation the pov changes and turns away from the sun.
i have another render going showing some of the recent changes.
New sun position
3 cloud layers, 2 are mine & the 3rd is DanelO's Cirrocumulus
rendering time- 8hrs 54min 37secs
personally i think the pylon textures could use some tweaking
C&C welcome.
I like the new sky. One thing I find a little odd is the strong colour contrast between different trees - I'd be inclined to make the really dark ones a bit lighter. But I know you like your darkness ;)
Quote from: domdib on July 08, 2010, 04:53:51 AM
I like the new sky. One thing I find a little odd is the strong colour contrast between different trees - I'd be inclined to make the really dark ones a bit lighter. But I know you like your darkness ;)
Yes, and maybe the redsky decay is a bit too much, the sun is quite at high elevation.
But I really like the water and the clouds - they're great!
yes, i'm quite happy with this new sky and clouds.
the pine trees use a color variation image map, (Dune's Technique) the cypress trees do not, i lowered the diffuse color, i may just use another color variation image map for the cypress trees
i lowered the bluesky decay some
Good composition but I agree about the trees, it looks a bit... distracting I would say. :P
i should have another storyboard version out soon.
i changed the lighting & atmosphere a little to match the sun position
imo the sun seems a little too bright, it wasn't like that before, something in the haze glow or bluesky glow needs to be tweaked.
alternate Pov for Frame 1
i'm thinking of adding a layer of fog above the surface of the water... maybe have it fade away as the camera progresses through the scene...
C&C welcome
Beautiful!
i have a updated render @ 1280x720 going at home... no fog yet though
updated version, different atmosphere settings, less rough waters.
Very calm - the fog would add something I think.
Oh, it does add something... it looks good :)
the fog
C&C welcome
I am not sure the scale of the fog is quite there. Smaller wisps would look cool. I do like the way this looks as far as density of the fog goes. Nice touch.
yeah, its not perfect yet.
i scaled the fog fractal down some since that render, i might need to scale it down some more,
the fog is masked with a painted shader to cut back on render time.
forgot to mention I'm using Dandel0's masked water tgc, so that's decreased to the render time some.
Looks good - probably looks even better closer up.
i will be away from my rendering computer until friday afternoon.. so, i thought this would be a good time to render a animation - not the whole thing, just a part of it.
here is a short animation sample (6secs)
with better AA & Ray traced Objects on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJyNUo65ccg
Darn Florida summer thunderstorms! :D
here is the new Fog
what do you guys think? should i keep it like this or keep tweaking it?
It looks like the sort of thing that you could tweak endlessly, but this looks pretty good to me.
i know what you mean, lots of different possibilities
i should show a render from higher up, showing the fog from a longer distance
Quote from: domdib on July 17, 2010, 06:11:30 PM
It looks like the sort of thing that you could tweak endlessly, but this looks pretty good to me.
This looks good to me also. It's the type of fog that burns off in the morning. Id' leave it like this; you could be spending too much time with it. There is not a just right look; this is good. 8)
here is a short test animation of the fog fading away (8s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbVPWkdNnEc
the populations are all turned off, and i had the sequence set to skip 3 frames at a time
(to cut down on render time)
Well done test I say. The full render animation will be cool.
Quote from: njeneb on July 18, 2010, 08:15:48 AM
Well done test I say. The full render animation will be cool.
totally.
makes me wish i had a couple more computers :)
this has been the most complex project i've made so far..
10 painted shaders, 7 active surfaces 10+ populations
story board version 4
need to improve some areas
C&C welcome
The atmosphere is really great and realistic!
I think I'm repeating myself - but add a bit more detail to the ground and win the contest :)
i know it needs improvement.... but for this project that's the hardest part!!! :o :P
I'm going on vacation on august 10th, better get crackin'! :)
edit: I did a 1920x1080 render last night, but it turned out some tree branches were blocking the camera's view, so its obstructed-
actually think it doesn't look so bad that way.
http://-zagadka-.deviantart.com/#/d2uc95b
i think i made a better looking fog.... i think i like this one more than the last, i'm not going to change it anymore i think.
more renders coming soon, gonna experiment with surfacing this weekend.
C&C welcome.
Nice and mysterious.
new surfaces, tests using image maps combined with surface shaders, max/min height settings.
tell me what you think, i've been struggling with this.
i'm going on vacation on august 10th and wont be back till the 17th, so, i am going to have to submit this by the 9th or the 10th. :)
does it near to being complete??
comments, crits. and suggestions are welcome.
I think I would submit this. It's quite cool looking.
Just my opinion, I think the fog would be better at the end, together with these..., eh, things ;)
how do you think the fog should be animated between frame 2 and 3? Just shut off, or how?
frank, i have the cloud depth is animated, it fades away during by frame 3
actually last night i was thinking of making the fog last through the whole animation, maybe even have it dissipate some, but not completely go away.
-------------------------------------
Extra! old photo render
http://-zagadka-.deviantart.com/#/d2v7c3o
It looks quite finished to me. Suitably weird!
Great!! In my opinion it would be best to let the fog appear throughout the whole animation. To make it less uniform you could add a very much bigger power fractal mask for the overall distribution of the fog, additionally to the power fractal you already have. So it would be possible to move the camera through areas with and without fog.
@hannes the fog now appears throughout the whole animation, i made some changes last night.
just need to make a few small changes.
i'll be re-rendering this soon, at hi-quality, should'nt take that long.
Quote from: domdib on July 31, 2010, 10:20:03 AMSuitably weird!
hahaha, i like that.
(last night the power went out five times before finally staying off for over a hour, bad night for rendering.)
storyboard 6, with fog changes
C&C welcome.
will re-render at higher quality after i get some feedback
Fog looks *excellent* now IMO. No more tweaking there needed if you ask me. Nice one!
- Oshyan
Oh yes, the fog is fantastic!!
I think you should submit this. Looks great.
thank you all :) for the comments
i will submit soon, once all six frames are re-rendered. :)
Much appreciated ;D
final storyboard, has been submitted
im not sure how, but the fog color has changed slightly, 5 of the renders were saved in openexr.
The fog really sets this off nicely. Good luck!
thanks! :)
i'm glad i am pretty much done with this scene, I've got another project that i need to work on (more) ;)
Good luck, Lane! You've put a ton of work into this, looks great! :)