Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Animation => Topic started by: Goms on May 09, 2010, 07:33:22 AM

Title: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Goms on May 09, 2010, 07:33:22 AM
Sooo.... I'll give myself a try and will work on a submission for this amazing contest.
Basically i want to create a mostly simple animation that shows erosion in a geological time scale.
The first draft shows the cam path i had in mind and behind the image hack link there's a first example as proof-of-concept how i think the animation could work.
I have 6 Terrains made with world machine that are blended over time by simply merging them with the mix function.

After i saw the first small animation, world machine currently calculates the terrains with way more erosion. :)

I think the settings for stones, grass and maybe some trees will be challenging... also the time scale. the working title for now is 1 million, as for this amount of years, but i will need to figure something out about how much time this would really need and hoe strong vegetation changes in this time.

link (6MB on imageshack!): http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4016/71224333.gif (http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4016/71224333.gif)

current cam path already with erosion:
(http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=9702.0;attach=24388;image)

i think the final version should have many thick clouds for a dramatic atmosphere, moving and warping in 2-5 hour time lapse, even if this does not match the time scale of the terrain. ;)
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: freelancah on May 09, 2010, 07:57:23 AM
That's a wonderful idea. Sounds challenging too! Im looking forward to seeing how you manage the blending from phase to phase! 
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 09, 2010, 08:01:04 AM
Very cool concept :)
Are you going to use this terrain for the project?
Before you get really started with detailling etc. etc., you might want to look for other terrains which show the effect more dramatically.
I'm looking forward to see how this evolves :)

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: sjefen on May 09, 2010, 08:18:59 AM
This is very interesting.

- Terje
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Goms on May 09, 2010, 08:41:29 AM
Yep, but you are right, i need to optimize the erosion with wm first.
For now i have a larger terrain (in meters) and some more erosion.
The problem is imho that the more drastic the erosion is, the more terrains i need.
And as there should be six images, i want to stick with 6 terrains. Maybe 12 if i win to animate it.
I will see where this will end. :)
Next update in a few hours.
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 09, 2010, 08:54:35 AM
I'm afraid I can't follow you here....why would you need more terrains?
Can't you create one big terrain without erosion, save it, erode it, save that, and use that only?
If the terrain is big enough you could find enough POV's?

If you're going to use multiple terrains I'd be very happy to see how you blend those tiles together, since I haven't been able to do so yet because I have little experience in handling .ter's in TG2.
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Goms on May 09, 2010, 09:07:02 AM
Sorry, i think i described this point inadequate.

I blend from terrain 1 into terrain 2, then into terrain 3 and so on with the merge shader.
Therefor, as i need 6 images, i need 6 terrains with different erosion. So the more Terrains i have the smoother and more realistic is the animation. ;)
But there's only one terrain for each image.
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 09, 2010, 09:18:31 AM
Ah right, ok, I thought you used just two terrains. One non-eroded and eroded and then blend between those two only.
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Goms on May 09, 2010, 03:55:19 PM
ok, a new terrain with more erosion. :)
I think i will stick with something like this, maybe the terrain needs a little bit more details.
Also, this now is 2048^2, the final terrains will be 4096^2.
These two images are now the first and the last terrain.
(http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/9725/newterrain.gif)

and this is the wm-internal view.

(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2390/wmview.jpg)
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on May 14, 2010, 09:35:14 AM
the terrain looks really nice.

Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: FrankB on May 14, 2010, 09:51:39 AM
When can we expect to see the next update? I'm curious, you know... :)
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Goms on May 14, 2010, 12:18:27 PM
As soon as i finished playing around with my tg2-internal scene from this (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=9846.0) thread. ;)
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: rcallicotte on May 17, 2010, 02:46:48 PM
Cool idea.  Can't wait to see the finals.
Title: Re: 1.000.000 WIP
Post by: Hannes on May 17, 2010, 05:25:19 PM
This is going to be interesting. Great!  :)