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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: zaxxon on July 22, 2017, 09:13:56 AM

Title: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 22, 2017, 09:13:56 AM
Aspen, Birch, Jeffrey Pines, two Coyotes and miscellaneous shrubbery. World Machine, Speedtree and Megascans.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: mhaze on July 22, 2017, 09:18:19 AM
Beautiful rocks and textures - scanned? Great narrative & veg.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: bobbystahr on July 22, 2017, 09:36:12 AM
Absolutely beautiful...Full Marks on this one for sure! *****
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Dune on July 22, 2017, 09:42:24 AM
Very natural, Doug. Exquisite render, with a subtle cloud. I like it very much.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Lady of the Lake on July 22, 2017, 09:55:39 AM
Wonderful image!!!!
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: masonspappy on July 22, 2017, 10:17:28 AM
 Very, very well done!
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Kadri on July 22, 2017, 11:54:06 AM

Looks great.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 22, 2017, 10:03:07 PM
Thanks for the kind comments!

Mick: the rocks are from Megascans, but there are some fake rocks in the midground. The fallen wood objects are also from Megascans, otherwise the trees and shrubs were made in Speedtree. And thanks for mentioning the "narrative", because there kinda/sorta is one, depending on what the viewer puts there.   ;)

Ulco: The cloud was a whole lot less "subtle" in prior versions. I think a lot of us have a love/hate fascination with the so-called "Easy Cloud". I truly am amazed at the rendered product, but constantly dismayed at the render times. For me it's the quality increase with large voxel amounts; to my eye the difference justifies the higher settings, but the time hit is painful. TG 4 with the RTP is a perfect companion to the V3 clouds and my favorite duo of added features. Still, improvements seem to be on the horizon!  :) I attached a prior test image showing a fuller cloud set. The time difference was almost two hours with my initial set up of 500 million voxels per cloud, the one posted below has a reduced voxel count of 350 million each (there are two separate clouds here) and the render time difference dropped to about an hour and a half. The final version contains just the single cloud and is set to 350 million voxels.

Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Oshyan on July 22, 2017, 11:10:29 PM
Foreground looks great, and I also love the subtle, minimalist clouds. Very realistic. The background texturing seems a bit simplistic and monochromatic though. Not unrealistic in nature, necessarily, but since you have total control of this "nature", it might be nice to see a bit more variation. ;) Still it has your signature understated realism, which I always enjoy.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 22, 2017, 11:44:10 PM
Oshyan, I had some earlier variations with more lighting and more color in the background, but it brought that area too 'close' to the foreground and sort of flattened the image while simultaneously creating a problem of too much color value and detail competing with the already pretty jammed detail level of the front. I also felt that the 'simpler' dark mass provided a better backdrop for the bright foliage of the aspens and birches. I didn't like the tests I made with higher haze settings, so any additional colors which might have worked in a 'heavier' atmosphere were tossed. I agree with your artistic sensibilities though, I always like to get that extra bit of punch out of the image. "understated realism", I like that.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Oshyan on July 23, 2017, 04:18:14 PM
Yeah, I can understand how that might be the case Doug. I wonder if in this situation it's a lighting issue. I think what I am seeing is that the lighter parts of the mountain that are in shadow seem a bit too light for what I'd expect. That could be due to either brighter-than-realistic surface colors, or additional light sources, or inaccurate GI (higher GI settings, or path tracing, could help). Or it could just be my expectations are unrealistic for the reality of the situation. ;) I'm curious which it is though...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: bobbystahr on July 23, 2017, 05:23:50 PM
I actually prefer the original, somewhere those cute coyotes got lost...Short attention span? he hee hee. Seems more focused.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 23, 2017, 06:47:37 PM
Bobby, the second image is a crop of an earlier test to show the left hand cloud. Those pesky Coyotes just seem to be following me around these days, which is no easy thing as they are not rigged... ;)

Oshyan, I've attached an earlier image with different lighting. I went away from that set up as I thought that the background detail was 'imposing' itself too much in the composition. I liked the way the terrain was displayed, but thought that on balance it didn't work.  Also, the final image is adjusted for color and saturation so perhaps there may some issues there that would resolve your impression. I've attached an unadjusted final image. I really need to start using the render elements with exr and take these to Nuke to have exact control, but my brain cells are already at red-line  ;D
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 24, 2017, 12:12:56 PM
Here's a link to a video showing 6 lighting variations illustrating the conversation above. The sun angle is changed but the elevation is constant between the six examples. Number 3 (with clouds) is the final. The color values in the shader are fairly close as is appropriate to a granite bluff. Pumping those values would create the same issue as increased light in keeping the background set back from the foreground.

https://vimeo.com/226758625

Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: bobbystahr on July 24, 2017, 02:20:01 PM
Quote from: zaxxon on July 24, 2017, 12:12:56 PM
Here's a link to a video showing 6 lighting variations illustrating the conversation above. The sun angle is changed but the elevation is constant between the six examples. Number 3 (with clouds) is the final. The color values in the shader are fairly close as is appropriate to a granite bluff. Pumping those values would create the same issue as increased light in keeping the background set back from the foreground.

https://vimeo.com/226758625





That, as it stands, is one of the nicer videos I've seen this month...great choice of music that totally suits the scene seen.
It's so good I dl'd it for my archives btw.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: archonforest on July 24, 2017, 04:24:40 PM
Outstanding work!!  Well done man!
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Oshyan on July 24, 2017, 07:45:31 PM
I think you were right about where to have the lighting in terms of angle. I guess there are no additional light sources/suns here either? Just seems to be a lot of light bouncing around into the shadows for such a low sun angle. But it might be various other factors, including camera exposure, etc. Or... personal preference. ;)

Regardless it's all nitpicking on my part. Just looking to make an excellent image perhaps even more excellent (to my eye).

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 24, 2017, 08:39:44 PM
I appreciate that Oshyan. And it is personal preference; I don't see the world as a photographer, and I often abuse the natural lighting protocols of TG  ;). My instincts as a painter kicks in and areas of light and dark and color values drift into that zone that solely serves what I think the image should be. But, that doesn't mean that your critical eye is unappreciated, nor un-acted upon. In this case I wanted the extra light to bring out small detail while still maintaining some depth, and the somber limited palette served to further push back the bluff. I really took your observations to heart: an artist with no self-doubt is a pretty poor one indeed.  You're correct about the extra lights: I usually use 3 suns; surface, atmosphere and low-powered sun offset from the primary surface light. I've rendered literally hundreds of images using the enviro light at numerous setting with some pretty high GI settings, and the same scenes with multiple suns set at varying strengths. I can think of number of images where your crits have changed my approach, so please keep them coming.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: luvsmuzik on July 25, 2017, 11:57:27 AM
All fantastic! Do you use soft shadows at all in your renders?
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 25, 2017, 12:40:52 PM
Luvsmuzik: Thanks, and I do use soft shadows with the main surface light, and with the atmosphere light, not with the secondary surface light though. And I always use soft shadows in all of my renders with sample settings of 16-32. The example images in the lighting test video took about 15 minutes each at 1600 x 900 with .45 detail and 6 AA (my normal preview res). So not much hit with soft shadows, but I have a pretty strong machine.  If anyone knows of a way to 'tint' the shadows like you can in the Unreal Engine, or adjust the shadow density like Vue I'd love to hear about it!

Bobbystahr: Glad you liked the music, high praise from the resident Tune-Smith here at the TG forums! John August & John Hermanson - Native American Flute & Guitar - Sheepherder's Pass. So Pass music for the Pass image! Seriously, these guys make some fine sounds and I use their music for many of my nature videos.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: DannyG on July 25, 2017, 01:08:29 PM
I love this scene, color and realism are eye candy for certain.  I had to nitpick.The megascan bits look a bit clothy, I am guessing 4K ? I am guessing that because 2K doesn't show well at all. I have been experimenting with a bunch of there scans lately. I have given up on the overlays as 90% of them just don't render well in Terragen. I have even tried loading the into Substance Designer to have more control over the more complex maps, but that really makes no difference. They still render looking like raw displaced overlays even with multiple node configs. Again this is not all of them. Some render quite well like the cracked dry ground variants, flatter stones and the flatter rock surfaces variants make very nice rock faces with minimal tweaking. Objs as long as they are 4K look fairly good, again this will vary from object to object, but usually you can get a good results with some tinkering as you did in this scene. 8K renders damn good, but the price differential with the subscription is pretty steep and once loaded creates an insanely heavy scene in TG. I know PBR full support is hard to come by except in select engines for MAX and Unity etc. Hopefully this is something that we get into as the results are pretty amazing and its cuts down on production time
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 25, 2017, 02:07:39 PM
Hey Danny! As you deduced these are all 4k texture maps and almost all the meshes are the highest res examples. The LOD 0 meshes work well in the near mid ground levels. My experience (still at the learning phase) is that they want to be well lit. I sort of 'stepped in it' with Matt wishing for a more 'complete' PBR capability in TG in a prior thread:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,22913.15.html.

With the help of Kyl and Cyphr and some patient tutelage from Matt I arrived at a work flow that I'm currently using. All in all I think TG does a good job with these assets, at least the 3D ones. I agree that the surface ones are problematic and after a few go-rounds left that off for a future project. I am still curious how the use of normal maps would work in conjunction with displacement maps in TG, if TG supported normal maps (which doesn't seem in the planning). Per my rudimentary understanding; the normal map contains light info baked in from the high poly mesh, which also includes the bounced light vectors to further add detail. I'm currently learning to make material shaders in Unreal, so I'll have some comparisons in the near future. I haven't used any of the 8k maps, but they're on my list.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: DannyG on July 25, 2017, 05:17:38 PM
Quote from: zaxxon on July 25, 2017, 02:07:39 PM
Hey Danny! As you deduced these are all 4k texture maps and almost all the meshes are the highest res examples. The LOD 0 meshes work well in the near mid ground levels. My experience (still at the learning phase) is that they want to be well lit. I sort of 'stepped in it' with Matt wishing for a more 'complete' PBR capability in TG in a prior thread:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,22913.15.html.

With the help of Kyl and Cyphr and some patient tutelage from Matt I arrived at a work flow that I'm currently using. All in all I think TG does a good job with these assets, at least the 3D ones. I agree that the surface ones are problematic and after a few go-rounds left that off for a future project. I am still curious how the use of normal maps would work in conjunction with displacement maps in TG, if TG supported normal maps (which doesn't seem in the planning). Per my rudimentary understanding; the normal map contains light info baked in from the high poly mesh, which also includes the bounced light vectors to further add detail. I'm currently learning to make material shaders in Unreal, so I'll have some comparisons in the near future. I haven't used any of the 8k maps, but they're on my list.

I seen this thread when it was live, as mentioned the obj's at 4K do a pretty darn good job, and like this thread mentions the tinkering of the roughness, normal and bump to really make them look real (sometime even omitting one or the other and just use the Albedo is enough)  I know Matt is well aware of it. The Full PBR support is essential for the ground materials. Its a nice to have but not a game killer for me. We'll see. We have lots of new things coming to keep us busy with 4.1 ready to drop, maybe in future builds
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: Oshyan on July 25, 2017, 07:07:44 PM
Doug, there is no shadow-only color adjustment in TG, in part because shadows and shadow color are actually computed fairly realistically. But that doesn't mean you can't influence the color. :D  As you might imagine the color in shadows comes essentially only from bounced light, i.e. GI (aside from the actual surface color that the shadow is falling on, of course, but you know how to change that...). The Enviro Light controls the way GI interacts with the scene and has some parameters for biasing things. If you adjust Colour on Surfaces then you effectively tint the shadow color, although you also tint all other GI lighting on surfaces, which has a noticeable but more slight effect on non-shadows surfaces (because primary lighting contributes more heavily to color in non-shadowed areas).

So for example attached is an image where I made the Colour on Surfaces pure red and you can see that the shadows are notably red, especially noticeable on the lighter-colored sphere (where of course the color of the shadows is more obvious due to the light surface color).

Now of course this approach may give you results you don't quite want, e.g. color tint on normal surfaces too. But of course this is more realistic. If you only use a slight color tint rather than the extreme (full 255 red) I used here, then it's quite possible you won't even notice the effect on primary-lit surfaces and only in the shadows. So it's a useful thing to be aware of and experiment with.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: zaxxon on July 25, 2017, 07:46:21 PM
Oshyan I had never thought of using the enviro light that way, I'll give it a try. Thanks.
Title: Re: Guardians below Old Man Pass
Post by: bobbystahr on July 25, 2017, 08:29:37 PM
Quote from: zaxxon on July 25, 2017, 07:46:21 PM
Oshyan I had never thought of using the enviro light that way, I'll give it a try. Thanks.

neither had, I was about to suggest messing with the Ambient colour myself but this looks smarter.