The Monthly Contest on Ashundar has the theme 'Hanging Valley' this month, and I'm participating.
I used the edge of a heightfield to get the hanging valley. The problem is that the border of a heightfield doesn't seem to get all the displacement of the rest of the terrain.
As you can see in my first decent test render below, which took 21 hours to render, the cliff sides don't have nice displacement on them, and other parts of the terrain have way to much displacement.
Have to work on that, as well as the colours, and perhaps the POV.
Tell me what you think so far...
I like the mountain on the right just fine. The color of the green looks too VR and the terrain on the left looks a little too rough, I think.
I thought so too... working on it.
So is this the edge of a heightfield with Border Blending on? If so that's going to really just smooth out any displacement there on the edge until it blends into the planet's base height. You might be better off creating some edge falloff in another way (perhaps editing the heightfield in another app) and then turning down Border Blending all the way if you want to do your scene this way. Of course you might also try finding an interior "hanging valley" or specifically crafting one in a heightfield editor.
- Oshyan
Well, with another POV and some surfacemap tweeks it's looking better.
I repainted the mask, because in another POV I noticed the waterfall was falling from left to right, which is a bit unnatural. That also means different clouds on the bottom, which is a shame because I kind a liked the shape.
Now rendering, I'll post as soon as it's done.
Next version:
I've repainted the masks for the waterfall and cloud, because the waterfall was running from left to right a bit (which I only noticed changing POV).
Have to work on the cloud's mask a bit because the nice shape of the last render is lost.
The waterfall is white, but a bit too white for my taste. It's a surfacelayer with a powerfractal stretched in the y and z directions, plugged into colour and displacement. It's child is a water shader, in this render without transparency, but the next will show a bit of blue I think.
The cliff face is looking better as well I think.
Have you considered using Dandelo's waterfall technique? Other than that, I think that this image is looking quite interesting. Perhaps more texture work on the steep surfaces would help, too.
I could use Dandel0's technique, however, the waterfall itself should have a lot of foam, so it can just be a texture, and I'm testing the painted shader from the bèta in this scene... (that's because I've paid for the software and we don't want you guys having a buggy bèta of course).
With that in mind I will be working to improve the waterfall until it looks real.
Mohawk, kept coming back to this last night and it got me to rendering a mountain side but anyway. I was wondering if you could continue with the water as in this quick markup? I like this wip though!
Nice markup Mandrake, good idea!
I'll paint that in as soon as I get the colours in the waterfall right.
Quote from: Oshyan on November 08, 2008, 02:42:47 PM
So is this the edge of a heightfield with Border Blending on? If so that's going to really just smooth out any displacement there on the edge until it blends into the planet's base height. You might be better off creating some edge falloff in another way (perhaps editing the heightfield in another app) and then turning down Border Blending all the way if you want to do your scene this way. Of course you might also try finding an interior "hanging valley" or specifically crafting one in a heightfield editor.
- Oshyan
Just a thought... You say the border blending will keep the border smooth. But that's only for displacements above it in the node structure right?
Nodes below it should treat it as any other surface, shouldn't it? Perhaps only after the 'compute terrain' node, but still, it should work to displace the border someway.
You could always add a fractal foam layer before the final water shader and still use my method. I've managed to use one paint shader for water distribution and still blended 2 water shaders to be applied to the final object surface at different areas all inside the water object's own network. Each water shader has its own node tree before it and can be edited seperately, they are then mixed with a merge shader to: 'Highest-raise' and 'merge displacement' only, not colour. Use a surface layer for the water shader that goes into 'input B' to add the displacements to specific areas of different heights/slopes.
Quote from: Mohawk20 on November 09, 2008, 05:19:03 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on November 08, 2008, 02:42:47 PM
So is this the edge of a heightfield with Border Blending on? If so that's going to really just smooth out any displacement there on the edge until it blends into the planet's base height. You might be better off creating some edge falloff in another way (perhaps editing the heightfield in another app) and then turning down Border Blending all the way if you want to do your scene this way. Of course you might also try finding an interior "hanging valley" or specifically crafting one in a heightfield editor.
- Oshyan
Just a thought... You say the border blending will keep the border smooth. But that's only for displacements above it in the node structure right?
Nodes below it should treat it as any other surface, shouldn't it? Perhaps only after the 'compute terrain' node, but still, it should work to displace the border someway.
Yes, I believe that's correct.
- Oshyan
I really need some help with this.
I extended the painted shader to have the river like suggested by Mandrake, but I can't get the waterfall to look realistic.
Inspired by Dendel0's waterfall I copied the heightfield to a second planet, enlarged it a bit and shaded it by a watershader, blended by the painted shader.
But as you can see below, no luck yet...
Turn of 'cast shadows' on the water surface planet. Use a displacement offset of the value required to move the water up above the terrain. The problem you'll face here is, it will raise ALL the water over the terrain because you have used a new planet that's entirely covered with water.
I like to use TG planes, they are seperate objects that can be scaled to fit into gaps in the existing terrain, or as the starting point to build the main terrain around.
I'd definately suggest building your terrain around the waterfall instead of the reverse, that is very tricky and I've had little success. Ask Big Ben, he's your man for building rivers onto terrains. Check out his river threads again for some help. :)
You could try this method that Old_Baggard came up with where you use a masked cloud layer to be your waterfall
http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item427
Yeah, but I want it in the distance, and just shiny reflective...
I'll get there though. Just keep pluggin' away.
This is more or less the result I wanted...
Now to improve the rest of the image ;)
Any suggestions?
The water stream needs reflectance and some transparency to look real. The cloud at the bottom needs more diversity.
These are what I see. I know it's a challenge to do what you're doing and I like how it looks so far.
The problem is that the water stream is a surface layer with a watershader as child. The surface layer has a streched powerfractal for colour to get the vertical strokes in it. But I have not been able to get it transparent...
The cloud can be fixed easily.
Jumping in here, but would it not be easier to just model the stream. Take a LW Micro Export from an orthographic camera plan view from above your area of interest. Then slightly extrude the "stream" polygons in your modeling app, loose any un-necessary polys and save as obj. Once you re-import the stream it will be in exactly the right place.
richard
I'd like it to be TG2 only....
Finally got the next version together.
As you can see below, the waterfall still needs a lot of work. As do the clouds, but those are easily fixed...
Please OB, I could really use your help here ;)
(For more versions of this render, check this post on Ashundar: http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?topic=4576.msg36224#msg36224 )
And here is the final version, with more samples in the waterfall clouds...
Entered in the Ashundar Monthly contest.
I hope for some competition here!!
final looks great!...well done!
Wow. This is very nice. Looks habitable. ;D
This might seem like an old topic by now (had to search through 3 pages), but all the time between the this post and the last, I've been working on a rope bridge.
I had to rebuild the model 3 times, because the scale was wrong.
I used the lwo exporter node to get the shape of the river and the island in 3DsMax so the bridge would really fit the landscape.
But when the last model was finally done, getting it to the same place as in Max was quite a challenge as well.
But I did it, and below are the results.
Now for a cottage on the island... to make it inhabited indeed ;)
Really believable. Great job on the foliage and terrain. Cool rope bridge. This looks good.
As requested by some at Ashundar, a closer view of the bridge...
I now see I need to extend the support poles downward a bit.
A very nice model indeed. I'd extend the support poles upto the original height below the deck just to make sure. Perhaps if you stretched the bridge a tiny bit, it would make the approach a little easier for residents too. ;D
Iain
When the next render finally finishes, you will se I did not only extend the poles down to twice the length (so having a firm base in the ground), but I also added some steps up to the actual bridge, made of logs nailed to the poles (only without visible nails ;)).
And here it is! (Well, below that is...)
I added a rope loop around the support posts, and steps up to the bridge.
I had to render this quite a few times with crop-renders, because of 'ray trace' errors (just full memory, after the program crashed the next version rendered in one go).
The next version will have more surface detail through a big decrease of the smallest scale settings of the rock and grass displacements.
Stay tuned!
Hey, probably not what you thought you might hear, but what I like best about the image is the overcast sky. Few people dare to do this, although in many cases it truly adds to realism - when compared to photography. I like that, and it brings out the lighting of the other part of the image pretty well. i think the terrain needs attention, though. The bridge is nice, of course :-)
Cheers,
Frank
Currently, the normal sky is just cloudy (like in the earlier renders above). This overcast impression is caused by a post-pro exposure increase for better view of the bridge.
That doesn't mean it isn't intended in the upload here of course. ;)
I have used overcast skies in my Ireland project, and I think I will change to it in next versions of this scene as well.
I have always intended to experiment more with overcast skies, because I live in Holland, and we have a lot of clouds casting over so to speak.
I'm currently rendering a 1024x786 version of the last upload with improved terrain detail.
That will showoff the bridge better.
Then I intend to create a path through to forest that ends in a clearing.
I want to place a hut in that clearing, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it myself, or try to find something on the internet...
And below it is, 1024x768 with better terrain displacements.
The tree pop is at highest quality, but I don't see much difference...
This will be the last bridge render, as you might be getting a bit bored with it.
But another reason is that I just finished a Log Cabin model :o ;D
I will try to upload the bridge model to Terragen.org/Ashundar if you like.
And here's a render of the cabin.
http://www.terragen.org/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-5752
I quite like it myself. Has a door I can easily rotate open or closed (and then export from Max again), and same goes for the window.
Apart from a fireplace it's empty on the inside though, as it's more for far away shots.
Added a powerfractal to the image maps to get much needed variation in the textures.
Once the downloads section at Terragen.org/Ashundar is open for uploads again I'll share the model there.
Coments and Crits are always welcome (could give me inspiration for model improvements).
Looking very good so far!
I'd reduce the reflectivity on the bridge a little and give it some more spread to make it softer.
I love the surfacing in the foreground and the models look really good.
The house needs to look like it's more in the earth. These both have some good elements, some of which are foliage.
Quote from: calico on January 20, 2009, 07:22:31 AM
The house needs to look like it's more in the earth.
I agree, but how should I do that?
Maybe he means you just have to sink it a bit.
Otherwise, you could also use the painted shader or a custom mask to mask the circumference of the house and add some rough displacements or rocks to make it look more like the house is more in the earth.
Just some ideas.
I used a heightfield shader to get the ground level (the flatten surface option).
Maybe I could roughen that up a bit...
Found another way...
Grass pop and a painted shader ;D
And for Frank: an original overcast sky!
Just for fun, a look inside the cabin...
The indoor lighting realism still amazes me in TG. Good Job Guys!
Hi Mohawk: that cabin is in bad need of a shake roof for a better level of realism, and the logs should show some wear and tear. If you create a texture for the shakes it would help to include some mossy covering of the cedar grain and maybe a bump map to make the moss stand higher than the shakes. beautiful image and bridge.
I should have gone for shingles (shakes), I know. But the roof actually consists of adjacent boards of wood, but because the texture just continues across them it's not really visible.
I made a path a while ago. Posted the new render at Ashundar, forgot to post it here, so see below.
This project is going in hold for a while, because I'm finally rendering a High Quality (1440x1080) anim of my Genesis project (http://www.terragen.org/index.php?topic=4533.0).