I have to make this.....
I can see why. Looks like a great challenge. Go for it! :)
Great Challenge - look forward to seeing your efforts.
What - that is not from you???
Ok than let's begin ;)
I can imagine how it's general layout would be. The most difficulty would be the people, objects and the foreground.
The problem is to get the whole panorama onto a 2:1 ratio image. But the biggest problem is that they suddenly want something else, the bastards. Having spent more than half a day putting this together. I am not particularly fond of capricious clients >:( They will suffer 8)
So this a neverending WIP.
Quote from: Dune on November 10, 2018, 02:05:35 AM
The problem is to get the whole panorama onto a 2:1 ratio image. But the biggest problem is that they suddenly want something else, the bastards. Having spent more than half a day putting this together. I am not particularly fond of capricious clients >:( They will suffer 8)
So this a neverending WIP.
But a fantastic wip it is. It's rather nice actually, and what you accomplished today is great.
Quote from: Dune on November 10, 2018, 02:05:35 AM
But the biggest problem is that they suddenly want something else, the bastards.
Just bill them. Time is money :D
. . . and there are special rates for clients like that.
Quote from: sboerner on November 10, 2018, 05:44:12 PM
. . . and there are special rates for clients like that.
or special rooms in hell...I'd go on with it as a personel project as it has a real Ulco feeling as a painting and can only be more awesome in 3D
Well, they're a multizero client, so I swallow and digest :-X
That's Zierikzee if I'm correct, isn't it?
I grew up just 5km away from it!
Curious to know which client you are working for :)
Good luck with this assignment and keep the updates coming!
Yep, Zierikzee. Thanks.
:-X
Another new challenge. Very much WIP.
Even when you can see the same objects for now, it looks nice. Curious about the finished image.
Yes, that's something I have to change, there's only 2 shovelers, and I don't want to make 20. So merging a few clothing colors in the pop might help.
That will be great... already very curious. Especially how the water will look at the end.
Cool trick with the 20 workers ;)
QuoteAnother new challenge. Very much WIP.
Can you tell us what's going on in the image? I'm curious.
Your human figures just keep getting better and better.
I've been working on my humans a great deal lately and still find out new ways to do stuff, so luckily they do get better. In the older days when commissioned to do something involving humans (or animals) I tried to pursuede them to have a distant shot :P No issue anymore.
The construction is a medieval drainage 'pipe', which was somehow used to dry the polder behind it (though I would have expected some kind of windmill at the other end). At front is the sea. But here the embankment is being opened to flood the polder (against some enemy in some war, I have the details somewhere). So citizens are being forced by the army to do the digging. Army still to be made....
Will you be adding any human(s) to your scene, btw? It would really lively it up.
Oh, and here's an update on the first one. Very low res.
And the second setting I need to make.
Better and better!
That will be a great collection of pictures!
Crop of the peat people. I often have problems when using small scale displacements, due to the 256 variation limit (I guess) they tend to make lines (left area). I still have to look for a way to overcome that.
Wonderful Details!
Dimensions of any kind procedural setting or scale are my personal nightmare... i cross my fingers for you :)
Finally found out why my folds didn't come out well, got a workflow now that works better.
Nice progress.
Quote from: Dune on December 13, 2018, 01:56:08 AM
Finally found out why my folds didn't come out well, got a workflow now that works better.
What was the reason Ulco ?
Well, actually it wasn't really a reason, but folds just didn't come out well. So I made a cavities mask and used that to darken the texture. But that didn't work out really well either, and now I do the obvious ( ::)); use it as an extra displacement mask. Huge difference.
I see.Thanks :)
Quote from: Dune on December 13, 2018, 02:12:05 AM
Well, actually it wasn't really a reason, but folds just didn't come out well. So I made a cavities mask and used that to darken the texture. But that didn't work out really well either, and now I do the obvious ( ::)); use it as an extra displacement mask. Huge difference.
heh heh, same pipeline I often find myself in; try, and try, and try again then finally do the obvious...
:D
Quote from: bobbystahr on December 13, 2018, 10:32:01 AM
heh heh, same pipeline I often find myself in; try, and try, and try again then finally do the obvious...
Ohhh yesss! I know this kind of workflow - mine is the same too ;) ;)
QuoteThe construction is a medieval drainage 'pipe', which was somehow used to dry the polder behind it (though I would have expected some kind of windmill at the other end). At front is the sea. But here the embankment is being opened to flood the polder (against some enemy in some war, I have the details somewhere). So citizens are being forced by the army to do the digging. Army still to be made....
Will you be adding any human(s) to your scene, btw? It would really lively it up.
Thanks for the explanation! Citizens always end up doing the dirty work . . .
I'm planning to add some human figures to my scene and probably will be coming to you for advice/suggestions. My goal (hope) is to use all original models, but I may have to compromise when it comes to people. We'll see.
QuoteI often have problems when using small scale displacements, due to the 256 variation limit (I guess) they tend to make lines (left area). I still have to look for a way to overcome that.
Can you use 32-bit image maps for displacements? 32-bit OpenEXR files are often as small (or smaller) than corresponding 8-bit tiffs and load very quickly.
(Sorry for the delayed response. Real work and other distractions have been keeping me off-line lately.)
The lines are not in image map displacement masks, but in procedural PF's. As soon as you use values like 0.1-0.5-0.005 for dirtlike displacements, every small distance the pattern is repeated, as there seem to be only 256 different seeds. At least I explain it that way. When using values like 0.1-100-0.005 it is not so (for the close up views anyway), but some displacements are then too big for what I need. I may have to experiment a bit to see what can be done.
And then there's another iteration of the dike breaking. Yellow stripes are supposed to be soldiers (still making them), and there are some errors and ugly stuff. Water is faked, but I may resort to a real water surface again.
Comments very welcome!
That is so cool! Beach gunk awesome. Great weathering on boats, maybe split/create a bottom shader for a waterline effect?
Very nice set up. I like this light and the shadows in the back in the grass. Agree with you, the fake water made is a little strange.
Wonderful illustrations. The character poses convey a sense of real interaction and indicate a deeper story. The evolution of your use of TG is recreate these montages is truly notable. These early 'sketches' are remarkable, the final images should be even more amazing!
This will be great when finished! I agree with the water surface in the foreground - especially the reflections are missing there.
If I hadn't read your text bevor I would have thought you want to add some shrubbery there - but adding Soldiers is as good - perhaps one bush? :)
Thanks. I didn't spend that much time on these guys, and they're not perfect, but they will do on a distance. I don't know about the Full Metal Jackets; maybe they need better shading too....
Maybe a bush, but I guess they don't even want the flowers >:( Still have to see whether they like this setup. I like to convey the onrush of wild water, so the water definitely needs work.
I thought of a waterline effect, but I can't do it by altitude (what I normally do), so it has to be some kind of extra mask, which is a bit more cumbersome.
Quote from: Dune on December 16, 2018, 12:10:00 PM
I thought of a waterline effect, but I can't do it by altitude (what I normally do), so it has to be some kind of extra mask, which is a bit more cumbersome.
Oh, I was just thinking select the lower faces of your boat in your modeler and create new shader. TG seems to update and reload pretty nicely lately. :)
QuoteThe lines are not in image map displacement masks, but in procedural PF's. As soon as you use values like 0.1-0.5-0.005 for dirtlike displacements, every small distance the pattern is repeated, as there seem to be only 256 different seeds. At least I explain it that way. When using values like 0.1-100-0.005 it is not so (for the close up views anyway), but some displacements are then too big for what I need. I may have to experiment a bit to see what can be done.
Oh, I see. Thanks for explaining. I guess if you try to break it up with another PF then you'd get an interference pattern that also repeats? Curious to see your solution (if there is one).
Scene's looking terrific. Will this be one of your large murals?
No luckily not, or I would have to pay much more attention to details ;) But still; it'll be delivered at A3 300dpi.
Regarding a waterline; some textures are out of their box, so to speak, with tilable textures, so it's not that easy to grab another mask. But a simple solution would be to use some distance shaders and cameras at the same angles as the boats (and same locations) and darken the shader set. I'll see if that's nicer.
Btw, Steve; I would suggest you try DAZ. Whatever people say about it, you can get quite decent people out of it, especially if you can adjust them (or clothe them) in another modeling app. For larger distance they're more than fine. And DAZ is free.
Update with the new soldiers, 'real' water, some fish, etc. But to my annoyance, a lot of shaders broke their links (presumably after inserting some sort of clip with same names). I only found out later, and repaired, but seem to have forgotten some (helmets mainly). I know the _1_1_1_1_1 wasn't the best, but this is frustrating too.
Anyway, still work to do, as I'd like deeper shadows under the boats. I guess path tracing would do that a lot better.
a.) I like the new water in the front! Much better! :)
b.) Seems that I know this error too! I had it in my safari-tgc's and in others when getting into high recource usage (many fakestones-layers or many big populations) In my case I had especially this kind of error in lost links between populations and the relating object makers. Result were black populations :( It looks a bit like a recource (RAM) dependent problem in my case. After reconnecting manually I didn't have the error... so far ...
I don't know if it has to do with RAM (but your case may be extreme). I think it's just a naming problem; as soon as a node is introduced that has a similar name somewhere, links are broken. Sometimes internal links are even replaced by a link to the new (external, or somewhere else internal) node. I guess the only way to deal with this is to rename every new node used... EVERY ONE!
But the strange thing is that I do have nodes with similar names, but they are in different levels. So how in heavensname does a new external node change internal links somewhere?
Water looks much better but you're right that the boats need contact shadows – they seem a little detached from the ground.
I agree with Doc – I think the broken links are a memory or file-processing issue. I experienced the same thing (for the first time) when I was having painted shader troubles with my big project. The file also includes many populations. Too much data or something – seems that Terragen sometimes loses its place when inserting new objects. The broken links all occurred inside internal networks.
Naming nodes is good practice, yes, but there should be no need to give every node a unique name. The application itself duplicates internal node names when you insert new render nodes and so forth.
I've also had a problem with TG forgetting camera setting and mixing shaders on me as well....maybe this is a TG thing as we're on 3 very different computers
I fixed all broken links, most having to do with reflective shaders and transform shaders, and a few multiply nodes, renamed them too, and hope it'll stay good from now on.
New iteration, and I think this'll be the concept to make them consider. It the peat image, they even fell over a thumb of one of the guys (not a middle finger :P), so you can imagine how picky they are.
Any further ideas?
Another wow with a heh heh heh added; the 3rd soldier from the left seems to have a long gun, many years before it's time.
Quote from: bobbystahr on December 19, 2018, 08:50:41 AM
Another wow with a heh heh heh added; the 3rd soldier from the left seems to have a long gun, many years before it's time.
sorry Ulco, another hehehe... ;) The soldier in front pointing his finger to the right seems to have a modern uniform.
But a.) I can be wrong
(Perhaps I am confused because his clothes are similar to a camouflage suit)
But much more important: b.) WOW!
This image is a test right? ...like where's waldo...off to look for more hee hee hee
Quote from: DocCharly65 on December 19, 2018, 10:24:05 AM
Quote from: bobbystahr on December 19, 2018, 08:50:41 AM
Another wow with a heh heh heh added; the 3rd soldier from the left seems to have a long gun, many years before it's time.
sorry Ulco, another hehehe... ;) The soldier in front pointing his finger to the right seems to have a modern uniform.
But a.) I can be wrong
(Perhaps I am confused because his clothes are similar to a camouflage suit)
But much more important: b.) WOW!
looks like camo fatigues to me as well
The pointing guy in front is a civilian with dirty clothes. Looks like camo indeed; I'd better take it off. And I actually don't know whether late medieval soldiers (1500 AD) had long guns. Maybe I should make that a short musket. Good show, guys! I had given them a sword, but later saw that it resembled a samurai sword, so I had quite a job to replace those by a decent sword (for the next iteration).
a blunderbuss would be in period and cool as heck
https://www.google.com/search?q=blunderbuss+definition&rlz=1C1CHZL_enCA715CA715&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi62u_fwKzfAhWW14MKHdv5CIMQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=577
https://sketchfab.com/tags/blunderbuss
nice selection at sketchfab
Thanks, Bobby. I already had a look yesterday and found some small muskets. Quicker than making one myself ;) Didn't know 'blunderbuss'. Nice name.
I had a go at a FullMetal Pullover :P I have to study what they really look like, though....
maybe less 'bendy' below the waist/skirt area I'd think but the texture rocks
Great textures!
Update. Ground had to be much darker (clay), some new people, pop of long branches lining the embankment, etc..... Water now also has a depth related frothy coastline instead of a faked one.
Very nice update Ulco.
Definitely – water, boats, shadows, people. Foliage distributions look great, too.
Nice, see you solved the boat problem...what. out of curiousity, was it?
Testimony from the old days in real! Just impressive!
Terrific stuff.
Thanks.
It wasn't solved; I had to set the altitude of the middle boat 80cm different from the flanking boats that are on same heights. But I guess it has to do with the simple shape being used to get the gap in the embarkment (outer boats maybe just outside that area), and some flattening in a surface shader to get the beach smoothed, but I haven't checked it out yet. I don't think I used a compute terrain too. The altitude in terrain I used must have come from a place where that difference was still apparent. But it works.
Quote from: Dune on December 31, 2018, 02:25:59 AM
Thanks.
It wasn't solved; I had to set the altitude of the middle boat 80cm different from the flanking boats that are on same heights. But I guess it has to do with the simple shape being used to get the gap in the embarkment (outer boats maybe just outside that area), and some flattening in a surface shader to get the beach smoothed, but I haven't checked it out yet. I don't think I used a compute terrain too. The altitude in terrain I used must have come from a place where that difference was still apparent. But it works.
for situations like that I find dandling a Compute Terrain of the stack bottom and anchoring to that fixes most everything...thanks for that tip of long ago.
Yes, for pops, but these are 3 the same object, and not a final altitude, but altitude in terrain, or it can't be angled.
D'oh, my reading comprehension is a bit off lately!
Horseman under construction... in a 2-minute landscape.
The horse gets it, some times y gotta stop and smell the flowers heh heh heh...looking good Ulco.
A really good horse! But as well I am fascinated by the damp earth that seems starting to dry and the scattered tufts of grass.
It's 'only' a DAZ millenium horse, but with Zbrush tail and manes.
The horse looks good, especially the gloss on the skin. The guy however has too much shine I think. By the way, I think people generally have a rather dark skin and hair in this otherwise beautiful series, if I may say so. :) But that could also be due to my screen. Have you tried to fake subsurface scattering? That is of course easier said than done. Maybe a bit of reddish translucency and luminocity.
I tend to give the people a bit of sweat and a tan, as they're mostly outdoor people, but it might be too much sometimes. I also tried translucency and luminosity, but that's hard to control in different light circumstances, so as a default I keep it off. Thanks, René. May have another go at it, especially for close-ups.
Edit: with a bit of faked SSS, but it's hardly (or not at all) visible. Hat off for more light on lighter face.
Looking more real now... 8)
This horse is really great! I like the subtle shininess and the bump showing the veins.
Just got here. Agree with Hannes. The models look super - horse's skin reflectivity and vascularity is a nice step towards realism in this example.
Agree - horse looks great!
Excellent horse! I very like the ground too!
Final of the embarkment breakthrough is finished, after 19.5 hours. Water at subdiv setting of 0.75 with RT clouds and 2 soft shadowed suns (one to get the dark soft areas under the boats) took most of the time. It almost stood still when doing the last bits of water, so I paused rendering and set clouds to no-RT and decreased samples in soft shadows from 6 to 3, also decrease subdiv settings again to 0.25. Then continued rendering. No crash, luckily, but I've tried that before, so I knew it'd work. Rendering immediately increased its pace.
This is a part, can't show all. I'm quite happy with the result, though I should have changed a few things (like the footsteps). Up to the next challenge, which will be interesting too (medieval boat-pulling gear).
What a huge amount of detail! Cool and realistic idea with the footsteps! :)
Another masterpiece :)
Love the ropes,footsteps and rusty junk.
Awesome and worth the 19.5 hrs buuuuut...are the boot prints reflective of the footwear they had then...somehow I don't think the boots then had tread on the bottom...they look, to me, too modern Ulco.
You're very observative, Bobby, and maybe right. I really don't know. Maybe they don't either ;)
Quote from: Dune on January 12, 2019, 12:04:48 PM
You're very observative, Bobby, and maybe right. I really don't know. Maybe they don't either ;)
didn't wanna hex your fine image but that jumped out at me...sorry
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHZL_enCA715CA715&biw=1350&bih=568&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=EB86XP70BseVjwS4-qiYDw&q=medieval+boots+soles&oq=medieval+boots+soles&gs_l=img.12...35844.37471..41043...0.0..0.92.441.5......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i8i30.xyhut1VRbnk
Quote from: bobbystahr on January 12, 2019, 11:42:43 AM
Awesome and worth the 19.5 hrs buuuuut...are the boot prints reflective of the footwear they had then...somehow I don't think the boots then had tread on the bottom...they look, to me, too modern Ulco.
That came into my mind as well instantly, though I like the footprints very much. They could be a bit more chaotic with a lot of just mud where people were walking through over and over again.
Nevertheless, this is nitpicking. Fantastic image and great details.
Nice. I like especially the look of the shore.
I should have thought of that. Well, if they fall over it, all I need to do is re-render some part with the right soles (and some wild displacements). I hope not, because these people were a pain in the .... 8)
Quote from: Dune on January 12, 2019, 12:36:10 PM
I should have thought of that. Well, if they fall over it, all I need to do is re-render some part with the right soles (and some wild displacements). I hope not, because these people were a pain in the .... 8)
sorry man...
The debris at the shoreline and the boot prints (realistic or otherwise :D ) do look great. I'm a little unclear on exactly what your render settings where, but it sounds like some of that may have been unnecessary from the beginning... But in any case I'm glad you got the render you need in the end.
- Oshyan
I really like the attention to detail in this picture, the ropes in the boat and on the ground with the footprints, the reflection of one of the characters on the wet ground. An impressive and successful set up as in all your images.
Thanks guys, and no need for a sorry, Bobby. I'm glad you mentioned it. That's what the forum is about isn't it? Fresh eyes!
Regarding the render settings; Ray-traced clouds is default of course, detail 0.6 and AA6 is quite reasonable (even low), soft shadows with already a lower sample rate than default (6). I needed the extra sun with very soft shadow for the dark areas under the boats (but samples were also extremeley low at 6). The raised subdivision settings (0.25 to 0.75) I needed for some fish swimming in the lower area, but maybe the latter could have been left out or added in a small crop render. I also added another layer of RT reflections for the beach and little stream, but cut it off exactly where the water/foam is, so it doesn't overlap at all (which would have really raised render time), but the tiny displacements will have lengthened render time. Lessons learned.
That was easily solved; replaced footprints image map, and rendered a crop.
Quote from: Dune on January 13, 2019, 08:17:15 AM
That was easily solved; replaced footprints image map, and rendered a crop.
now authentic...good stuff and thankfully a fast fix..less displacements without the tread lug depressions I'd imagine as well.
Looks good in the "fixed" version Ulco. And yes those are overall reasonable render settings, certainly. I think if it were me I might try using Defer All with much lower Soft Shadow samples (e.g. 1), but it would require some tuning to get to the same render time. Once you did quality would probably be higher (at equivalent time), but it's hard to say for sure.
- Oshyan
I may try that, as I believe the shadows under the boats and between grasses would be much better. Btw. that rendertime of 19h didn't apply to the previously posted crop; the whole thing was 5040x2250px.
If noone would have mentioned it, I wouldn't have seen it but in fact the new footsteps are much more plausible :)
Anyway, here's a new setup. I partly rendered in PT (the colored part). I like the water, and the veggies come out a bit better. Used a 1 sample soft shadow instead of the 6 samples in RT mode.
There's our friend the heron.
I'm sorry that you aren't able to share the entire scene. What you've shown so far has an amazing level of detail.
Quote from: sboerner on January 14, 2019, 12:19:15 PM
There's our friend the heron.
I'm sorry that you aren't able to share the entire scene. What you've shown so far has an amazing level of detail.
dito!
Oh my god, this will be another killer scene! And your crops from the dike, man, unbelievable detail! Love the improved human models are well.
Yeah, PT water really looks great, even without transparency (in many cases anyway; sometimes you need it of course, and that will be possible in the future).
- Oshyan
Looks great Ulco.
Rendered a complete 1920px image yesterday in PT. Here's a comparison of part of it. Water is at default (0.01), so I guess that could be a tad 'sharper". I'll have to wait until the transparency works, though.
I am not sure because of this cheap monitor here in office... the right one looks a bit like having better contrasts. Is it the PT version?
Very nice scene besides! As usual I could watch all the details for hours :)
Strangely, it's the other way round. Left is PT, right is standard RT rendered. You can see it mainly in the water.
Interesting result. Did you do *any* post processing on these?
- Oshyan
Yes, the RT version has been adjusted; PS auto-tone, then faded the auto-tone by 50%, which brought out a little more definition in the pure TG render. Only after that was done, I decided to run a PT version.
Another WOWSER!
And yet another setup with a boat winch, trying to replicate this old drawing.
You even of course got the bird!
Excellent and i very like n. Ws_test-3.jpg !
Like this a lot, great wind mill and cute bird. And that boat winch is a new one on me. Have you seen one in life or are you just a wizard at perceiving what's not visible heh heh.
Quote from: Dune on January 17, 2019, 01:50:33 AM
Yes, the RT version has been adjusted; PS auto-tone, then faded the auto-tone by 50%, which brought out a little more definition in the pure TG render. Only after that was done, I decided to run a PT version.
That's what I figured. Just makes it a bit hard to compare 1:1. Do you not save the original renders (without post work)?
- Oshyan
For these tests/WIPs, no. I do for final big renders, which I also save in EXR. I clean up the auto save folders now and again too. So no direct comparison this time, I'm afraid.
Incredibly close to the template and realistic at the same time. I like it :)
Super modeling, Ulco!!!!!