My first rendering which I created in TG Classic 0.91 was that of a simple Tropical Island scene.
It took nearly 3 weeks to end up with this rendering in March 2009 after starting to work with TG.
The transparent water was very hard to achieve in TG Classic, but at the end it was very cool
1 - Tropical Island 2009.jpg
Tropical Island with TG Classic made in 2009
But I never made a cool new version of a Tropical Island in TG 4.0.
I will develop a nice Island scenery, we will see if it will become more tropical or pacific styled...
2 - Pacific Island Terrain.jpg
GAEA based terrain for my next island scenery
So here actually my next journey begins!
First I designed a fresh terrain ground shader and made a basic ocean water.
3 - Pacific Island Starter 2024.jpg
Pacific Island 2024 (Starter Scene)
So this is my scenery base file so far...
Now I have to develop a nice vegetation setup for my island 8)
STORMLORD
That's a great island. I like the inlet! Mangroves! With trees and so on, it will also get dimension. I would guess it's a few K wide.
Looking forward to where this leads to.
One possibility here is to drop the water level a wee bit for an atoll with an enclosing reef, and it might give you more expansive beaches (for me to stretch out on). Drop in a few palm trees, and with a cheap flight thrown in I'll give it a visit. :)
The Terrain was exported from GAEA with a resolution of 8192 and exported as 32-Bit TIF, then re-imported into TG 4.7.15 as a 5000x5000 wide Area.
So there's plenty of space! The island itself was created in a way, that I have a horseshoe shape, with a flattened area inside the horseshoe.
My idea is to have a Bay Area for planting some sail ships here. The other way round was to lower the water depth to get a nice atoll. So John is so right!
2 - Pacific Island Terrain (GAEA).jpg
Screenshot from inside GAEA of my island
4 - Pacific Island.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
Now I have planted some vegetation on the island and rendered it again with another cloud layer to bring in shadows on the island.
I also rendered such a shadow version, but the shadows produce some nasty looking watercolors in the ocean at the end.... hmm... ???
So this image here is a mixed version, with the new sky and island vegetation, but the older ocean without the nasty looking shadows.
Unfortunately, I do not have any mangroves in my plant collection. So sad... but ok, I always work with what I got and this is my result.
Some minor changes have been made in the shader network. Slightly lighter sand at the coastline, etc...
All in all, it looks good so far, but as always, there is room for more improvement.
Beside of being able of doing this, I rendered some masks to do the masking of heaven, ocean and island (with and without vegetation).
But before I can go further now, I have to convert some older max sail ship models into tgo's which will take some time...
STORMLORD
It's starting to look very good.
Yep, I like the tree pops, maybe drop the max altitude to get them off that top shelf on the mountain (just a personal preference, that). At this scale I wouldn't be too bothered about particular tree species as they'll all blend in to one another if tightly packed. The one thing I would do is to increase the haze density, and maybe play with its height control, as the whole scene looks a little too stark from near to far horizon.
When I do islands I like the horizon to disappear in the mist.
But, yes, it's certainly coming along nicely.
Haze density is really one thing, that I had never in mind.
A very good idea, John! So I have to try this...
At the moment, I am working on bringing in more color variations into my populations.
Recently I have made a nice autumn color rendering (Indian Summer Valley), where I used a tileable image map in the color slot as an overlay for nice color variations in my trees.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,30637.0.html
In this Pacific Island scene, I embed instead of an image overlay a color mixer to the color slot in the Parts Shader to bring in more subtle variations into my trees and plants.
For the colors I used a prominent leaf of the population, applied a blur to it and took the brightest and the darkest green tone for the PF color 1. Then I copied the same colors to
PF color 2 and pushed the slider a little bit further apart. The result was a very natural color tone appearance in the population, but with a wider range of color tones.
A little bit complicated to explain, so please allow me to show you, what I mean and how I did it in this case...
5 - Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass).jpg
Color Tinting Populations
6 - Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass).jpg
Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass)
By a direct side by side comparison, it is obvious, that this shading solution leads to more color variations in my vegetation.
So this will be the way I go with...
7 - Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass).jpg
Side by side comparison
8 - Color Tinting Population (Vegetation Pass).jpg
Pacific Island 2024
And now it is time to start converting some ship models into tgo's...
STORMLORD
Small Update...
I made some very nice changes in my pacific island scene, but intend to import some beautiful sail ship in the bay before presenting the new update.
Until the last post, I converted some ship and during the whole process I have to produce some other stuff before I can convert them into tgo's.
For example, last year I got a nice Texture Generator (Filter Forge) and started to build up an impressive high resolution texture base with it.
But I never made some good looking wood textures. Now I added over 100 new textures to my lib. Wood, wood planks and fabrics for flags etc.
They come in an excellent quality in 4K and they are seamless tileable!
Filter Forge Textures.jpg
Filter Forge Textures
After that, I started to convert my sail ships and use these nice wood planks, and wood textures.
So please allow me to present here four different ships which has been overhauled, converted into a tgo and ready for use in my pacific island scene.
1. Le Soleil (1668)
2. Le Sirene (1778)
3. Le Glorieux (1756)
4. HMS Victory (1737)
Sailships.jpg
Four different sail ships
Le Soleil (1668).jpg
Le Soleil (1668)
Le Soleil (1668) - Terragen.jpg
Converted version for Terragen
Some flags here have been made in a medieval style, (not realistic, but beautiful!)
So I'm nearly done, but my last ship Le Superbe (1785) has no flag!
So I decided to create a "flag in the wind" animation in 3DsMax to get a realistic flag which I can export for my last ship (and for further use other variations as well).
Flag in the wind.jpg
Screenshot from my flag animation
Made in 3D Studiomax to achieve realistic flag models for export and conversion
However... when the last ship, Le Superbe (1785) has been overhauled, then I convert it also into a tgo and import my ships into my pacific island scene.
Then the next major update will follow closely... so stay tuned!
STORMLORD
Beautiful ships! I didn't know these flags were as big as these, but I looked it up and yes. Huge. I would, however, darken the rigging quite a bit.
I was also astonished that they used in the medieval such huge flags!
But they look quite nice...
Many years ago I have build a flag generator with casual medieval symbols to create fantasy flags.
Together with the new "flag in the wind" animation tool in 3DsMax I have fantastic capabilities, great!
Flag Generator.jpg
Fantasy Flag Templates
Regarding the ropes... some minor changes are not a problem at all if you got a clean model first!
But you're right, the rope shader isn't realistic (I have to darken them). So thank you for your sample.
Now I have finished the last ship with the missing flag :-)
Le Superbe (1785).jpg
Le Superbe (1785)
(Added flag from my animator tool)
Time to convert the last ship to tgo...
STORMLORD
Maybe you should also make and add some flags that hang down, when no wind blows. I have sometimes added other parts to a ship (hanging flags, rolled, or limp sails), differently named, so in TG you can choose and make one invisible by opacity, according to the situation.
Ulco, you are full of professional tips. A very clever idea...
Also to search in old paintings for reference images, I had that never in mind.
I have learned so much from you, thank you very much for all your valuable input!
STORMLORD
Yes, it all seems to be coming along very nicely: great tips about dirtying the rigging, and limp flags, and all. But I won't be a happy bunny if I see a fleet of galleons moored in that bay that are so squeaky clean they belong in glass showcases. Those timbers and paintjobs seriously need textures that portray signs of weathering. And seeing I'm in such a beastly mood, you're not seriously thinking of mooring HMS Victory among those Frenchy warships. What's the story there?
Harrumphing over my "porridge a la Maroc"
John
You may have noticed, that I plan a big war John!
French and English dude's, but who win's the battle...???
In the meantime, I try to make you a happy Bunny with the next version of my HMS Victory?
Here I updated nearly all materials and imported new flags because in the old ones, some UVW coordinates weren't really correct.
After running into some minor problems, the first sail ship is done so far... please allow me to show you a first clay render.
I haven't seen it first, but later I saw that two of my flags (top left mast and keel post) collided with the ropes. Ups...
3840 x 2160 - HMS Victory (1737) - Collision Problem.jpg
Flags collided with ropes
(AO Render)
I created with my flag animator several banners, flags and Gedöns, then I removed the old ones to get a new and exciting fresh look!
Flags can now be done in a very short time in perfect quality. My cloth simulation works excellent, and it's fun to simulate new banners.
Flags and Banners.jpg
Some new created flags and banners
Flag Paint Job.jpg
Flag paint job
After designing all flags and painting some masks for shredding also, I imported them in my base mesh.
Here it is important to look carefully if there is any collision in the scene?
So here are no more collisions and beside of that, also commercials can be done easily!
So... write me for such a job if you're interested.
3840 x 2160 - HMS Victory (1737) - Fx.jpg
HMS Victory (1737) with a fresh and modern look
(Flag test successful... check...)
Then I exported the ship from 3DsMax as OBJ, edited the .mtl file and re-imported the mesh into Terragen.
Here I started to manipulate the shaders to develop an older and used looking vessel.
As a starter, it's not so bad!
3840 x 2160 - HMS Victory (1737).jpg
HMS Victory (1737)
So I really hope, that you're satisfied with that version because it was a lot of work to do!
But I also had much fun doing it...
The other ships will have to follow now...
STORMLORD
I've just been listening to some Techno albums this evening, so am in a much better mood now. hull colours are looking suitably besmirched.
You're doing a grand job, Dirk. Maybe one of the French ships will have a broken mast from a direct hit from one of Victory's guns. Here's hoping. ;D
In Lightwave you have a 'destroyer', possibly in Max too. If this is really going to be a battle, there's destruction, fire and smoke. Mayhem.
Good job so far Dirk!
After a lot of work regarding the ships with proper scaling, recomputing normals, painting maps and designing new flags,
I rendered some nice island shots. By the way, exchanging flags (full flag, hanging flags, etc.) is now a matter of minutes,
because yet I have all necessary tools at my fingertips. Surely the ships are not perfect, but for mid-range shots they are
quite useful.
17 - Size Comparison.jpg
Size comparison by length
I further improved the island scene...
- As John mentioned, I faded the horizon into some haze, which looks now more realistic. THX !!!
- I rendered a reflection pass to bring in a very nice effect which adds more beauty to the scene.
- The atmosphere got some minor adjustments, density, haze... etc.... etc...
14 - Pacific Island.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
15 - Pacific Island.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
16 - Pacific Island.jpg
Meeting of the fleet
I think, this will be not the end so far...
There is more room for improvements like some underwater vegetation or rock design and vegetation distribution.
But definitely this is a fine render to go along with it. So I hope you like it!
STORMLORD
I sure do! What is the light part at the stern of the front and right ship? It looks like some default shader is luminous.
Maybe a dinghy with some rowmen would be cool, like they are meeting eachother in person.
This is obvious a way too strong reflection from my used gold shader.
I didn't notice that in the beginning, later when the zoom image was rendered it became obvious... so... I've to adjust that...
STORMLORD
Am I seeing a Union Jack on two French ships. The battle must be over, the Royal Navy having captured and commandeered them. Rule Britannia. ;D
Yes Britannia rules... it's better than giving them a kaiser wilhelm flag...höhö...
After adjusting the gold shader, I rendered another viewpoint from the land side.
To make the scene more calm, I also changed the atmosphere to a discreet tropic sky.
Now you can also see the white water at the shore, which I used in my Pteranodon Hunter scene.
I added a beauty "glittering on the water" pass (tgSurfDirectSpec with negative multiply) as before.
Pacific Island 2024 - Ships Bay.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
STORMLORD
Great view. But (nitpicking again) for a tropical island I'd use palms instead of poplars and ?... There are probably some palms out there (for free). XFrog has them too. Or sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/tags/palm (https://sketchfab.com/tags/palm)
I would at least mix some in.
Thank you Ulco, and you're right, but I do not have a good palm. I have a queen palm...
When Autodesk had at the end of 2000 an anniversary to celebrate, they offered 100 XFrog plants for free.
I downloaded them, and 15 years later started to use them in TG. Why the heck they didn't pack more palms in their giveaway?
STORMLORD
So here comes another render which I did last night.
Several passes have been rendered, to end up with this image (which is impossible to get in one pass alone).
Pacific Island 4 - Horseshoe Bay.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
(Horseshoe Bay)
Next time I will create a scene with palms and tropical stuff.
STORMLORD
Pacific Island 2024 (Tropical).jpg
Pacific Island 2024 (Tropical Version)
I got all palms which I have in stock and did a remake with the same viewpoint as before.
The planting has been arranged in a way, that the trees surround the vessels like a frame.
Now, the island with the ships looks like a shot from a treasure hunter movie.
Hope you like it!
STORMLORD
the palms are really looking good in the last picture
the boats may be the right size, but they need to be bigger for that pic, a little bit
Nice like this. But the central palm is missing the opacity input.
Thank you all for your input!
The high palms at the beach are 20m, the biggest ship has 69m and the other two 53m and 57m.
Doesn't look it unreal, when I make the ships bigger Doug? But ok, I will render a bigger ships version.
I tried the opacity with 0.9 (I thought), but after looking into the settings, opa was set to 1.0 and 0.9!
So the first render is rendered nearly without opacity. So you're right, I will render it with a lower opacity again.
By the way, these palms are the best I have in stock to knock down any critism regarding poplar lobardi... LOL....
STORMLORD
I really like the POV of the multi pass render of Horseshoe Bay. The ships are far enough away so you don't have to worry about pedantic knowitalls like me harping on about flags, rigging, weathering, and bits of what the captain had for breakfast on his beard. ;D
But it needs a leaf.tif for opacity (check alpha), then you can use opacity between 0.50001 and 1 for more to less light between leaves. The tif isn't loaded I guess, or alpha not checked.
Thank you John :-)
Allow me to give you some background info, how I am doing stuff...
XFrog is getting better, but the older plants have often very small maps and the masks are crude.
Sometimes you got images as png, or tif, then as tga, even gif. One map comes in 72 dpi, other times it is 247.03 dpi or has 1200 dpi and so on...
Therefore I always make a Photoshop file from the original images, scale them equally to 300 dpi and mostly make a new mask because the originals are often not as good as they should.
Here I blow them up (from a small 512 up to 10000), then apply a gauss blur filter, scale them down again and cutout a new mask with soften edges (I fine-tune the mask after I down scaled it in Photoshop).
This way, the mask is better as the original, especially if they are small! Normally I also like to unsharp the edges only a little bit, so transparency looks more soften and not so sharp at the edges of a leaf.
I know about alpha channels. So please be patient for a moment Ulco, I will render a new image overnight with a corrected shader settings for the palms.
I also added some different new leafs to the green palms. Originally it had only one leaf which was nasty and has been replaced by a new painted leaf.
In the beginning I painted only one leaf, now I have painted six different colored leafs... this looks very promising...
Your hint to make the leafs a little bit transparent is really great!!! It looks so much more natural, not so dark in the center!!!
22 - Studio Palm Set - Color 1.0 - Translucency 0.0 - Fresnel 0.1 - Opacity 1.0 (leafs only one color).jpg
Studio Palm Set
Color 1.0 - Translucency 0.0 - Fresnel 0.1 - Opacity 1.0 (leafs only one color)
23 - Studio Palm Set - Color 1.0 - Translucency 0.25 - Opacity 0.8 (leafs in six different colors).jpg
Studio Palm Set
Color 1.0 - Translucency 0.25 - Fresnel 0.05 - Opacity 0.8 (leafs in six different colors)
STORMLORD
SCREENSHOT - Pacific Island 2024 (Ships in Bay) 1.jpg
Pacific Island 2024 (Tropical Version, Ships in Bay)
Screenshot
STORMLORD
After changing slightly the viewpoint, I added to my studio palms five more colored leafs.
I had once painted just only one leaf, but now with six different colored leafs they look now more natural and just beautiful.
The opacity, translucency and Fresnel reflection has been adjusted in the shader. Overall, It's an excellent addition to my scene :-)
Pacific Island 2024 - Studio Palme one and six leafs.jpg
Studio Palms
Left with only one leaf (previous scene), right with six different leafs (current scene)
Pacific Island 2024 - Ships in Bay.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
Ships in Bay 2.0
So this is the current look of my pacific island scenery.
In full resolution on my 31.5" monitor it just looks beautiful, maybe I will make a print to hang it in my house?
STORMLORD
The central tree still lacks the opacity map!!
Could it be that central tree has opacity mapped, and it has a leaf similar to the one in the top right of those in the illustration attached.
Quote from: Dune on February 23, 2024, 06:45:54 AMThe central tree still lacks the opacity map!!
No Ulco, I have an opacity mask applied, I'm absolutely sure!
Nevertheless I checked it again, and now I finally see, that somehow the checkbox "Use alpha channel" was still activated in the leafs.
And because I use a JPG image as mask (which has no Alpha Channel), any masking will not happen, that's why... shame on me...
Checkbox Use Alpha Channel.jpg
Checkbox "Use alpha channel" was still active in the leaf's shader, that's why...
(Preview rendering was done with deactivated checkbox of course)
Thank you John for your considerations as well!
Every helpful advice is always appreciated!
STORMLORD
(Ok, I will render it again... ups...)
Another night, another render...
Pacific Island 2024 - Ships in Bay 3.0.jpg
Pacific Island 2024
Ships in Bay 3.0
Improved lightning inside the core of the palms, some shader adjustments.
Opacity changed from 0.9 to 0.6 and I set a second sun to light up the shadows a bit.
STORMLORD
Now the opacity works fine.
Yes!
But it is also the second sun placed to the left which gives and spreads more light to the center.
The trees only has been rendered as a separate pass and overlaid in this image.
But who cares? The final result is what counts...
STORMLORD
Here comes a new perspective, this time from an offshore viewpoint.
The sky and the water have been changed to get a more paradise shot from a remote island (together with my ships).
I had a more Treasure Island scene in my mind and this is the result so far.
Pacific Island 2024 (Ships Offshore).jpg
Pacific Island 2024
Ships Offshore
I know, there is no waterline, but it is fine, how it is now.
Actually this was a simple quick shot, but the perspective was cool, that I decided spontaneously to start a 4K render.
So when you have set up mostly everything, you just need to adjust the sun position and look for a nice viewpoint.
But that such a beautiful render was the result, is terrific! I really like it and have found another cool viewpoint quickly.
So the story continues... stay tuned!
STORMLORD
Great view, Dirk. You mention waterline, but it would surely enhance the scene, at least the front ship. Just add a dark, stained underside (black surface shader, coverage 80% or so) to waterline on the hull, a meter or so above water level, final position, using Y, a little breakup (through transform, world position). Something like that. You may also need to use the same for the keel part.
Even easier (and lazier way) would be to make a selection of the part of the hull you want darkened in PS and apply the burn brush, or adjust slider in Brightness/Contrast.
Of course Ulco is correct to show you the Terragen way. Being a lazy so and so I'd make the post Terragen adjustment described above.
Yes Jon, first I painted a waterline on the hull map.
But because I never made a sail ship render with a waterline, I decided to do it the way Ulco mentioned.
Thank you for your tip!
Thank you also Ulco for the compliment and your explanations.
When I first saw the final render, I though, awesome!
Now I designed a waterline shader as you wrote and see that you're right.
It makes a difference and adds more realism to the scene.
HMS Victory (1737) - Waterline.jpg
HMS Victory (1737)
Waterline Shader Test
Waterline Shader.jpg
Waterline Shader
With and without waterline
Note:
I stretched the PF mask in Y to get a more elongated/thinner fade between the water line and the hull map beneath.
Pacific Island 2024 (Ships Offshore).jpg
Pacific Island 2024
Ships Offshore with Waterline Shader and edited water (softer wave surface)
Maybe the waterline isn't dark enough, or I simply used a wrong seed of the PF?
In the Waterline Shader Test rendering, it looked pretty good so far...
However, the render looks really beautiful!
STORMLORD
Yeah, great! It really makes a difference.
Same scene but different settings...
Pacific Island 2024 (Caribbean Sunset).jpg
Pacific Island 2024
(Caribbean Sunset)
STORMLORD
Lovely all .... but this last twilight one does it the most for me ! Excellent work !
You've conjured up a really realistic Pacific atmosphere here; lovely detailing on the island too.