I have been trying to get a blue sky with very low haze, but the problem is even if I turn Haze density to zero, I still get haze from Bluesky density, but I need bluesky density turned up to have a nice blue sky (not black).
The problem is I am rendering an aerial view at 15,000 altitude, so I can see a long way into the distance so even a slight amount of haze really builds up. The only solution I have found so far is to render once with atmosphere turned off, and a second render pass with atmosphere on and composite to liking. Is this the only way?
Derek
What is the look you are trying to achieve? What you are describing may seem pretty straight forward but without a desired "blue look" it's hard to gauge what settings the problem is.
Can you provide your composite?
For example you could turn Haze to 0 and Bluesky Density to 0.1, but I'm not sure that's the "blue" and "clarity" you're after. Second image we've ramped up the Bluesky Height, and pushed the floor down some, while raising the ceiling a bit.
Feel free to take a look at this "Stratosphere" example.
Sorry for another post but had another thought, and best not to confuse with last example.
If you want no haze at all, you could just use the background sphere and a luminosity colour with a maximum height.
Which could also be combined with a default atmosphere (no height adjustments) with no haze and bluesky at 0.1, as seen in second image.
No, I do want some haze, but just a little. I'm putting together a few examples. Stay tuned! :)
Derek
See edit to my last post.
I'll check out your TGD file from your last post, but here are my examples to explain my issue more clearly.
Basically I like what Bluesky density of 0.5 - 1.0 are giving me for the horizon and the light haze over the ground, but as you can see the sky gets darker as you move towards the top of the image. I want to achieve a nice blue sky like in section "A". Notice how "B" & "C" get too dark to be realistic.
I was experimenting with the Height control settings, and I still don't fully understand what is going on there. The examples in the online documentation are don't help much. I find myself staring at animated GIF's a lot in the Terragen online documentation trying to catch everything from the text and the image changes (not an ideal method for docs IMHO).
Thanks for the help. I'll check out that TGD now.
Derek
What height is your camera at? It will help a lot trying to match looks, but I personally feel with the problem you're facing the luminous background surface layer might be the key.
Edit: By luminous bg I mean combined with a atmosphere.
Thick sky with a light haze.
Based on A + C, how does this look?
As a note, It probably can be done with an atmosphere alone, but it involves the settings which I, and apparently you, don't fully understand. The ceiling, floor, and bluesky decay and such. I'm sure Matt, or Oshyan would know if it's possible.
My camera is at 15,000 which I think is meters (everything seems to be metric in TG so I assume camera position Y which is elevation is meters).
I have a deadline tomorrow morning so I can't do anymore on this right now. I'll post an example tgd you can mess with in a day or so. For now I will just do some compositing.
Thanks,
Derek
One thing that's a shame to me is that when rendering with a thick atmo, it affects the surface render layers. We could do with shadows being a separate render layer and a surface render layer option that has no atmo shadows but retains surface shadows. Unless I'm missing something there. One render, one set of images spat out and comp.
I say that as I've had similar issues recently and had to either render a separate atmo as you say or render out a thinner one than I need and knock it back in the composite.
I'm just not sure what D.A. Bentley actually wants. He said he likes A's sky and B's horizon so I put them together into a functional setup for a scene, but doesn't appear to be it either. It's not hard to overcome.
Quote from: WASasquatch on May 30, 2018, 12:23:37 PM
I'm just not sure what D.A. Bentley actually wants. He said he likes A's sky and B's horizon so I put them together into a functional setup for a scene, but doesn't appear to be it either. It's not hard to overcome.
Basically it all comes down to not being able to separately control haze (Planet atmosphere) on the terrain from the sky. If I adjust the sky to my liking I get to much blue haze on the terrain, and if I adjust the Planet atmosphere to get the terrain to my liking then the sky is off (not blue).
I just finished my work, and was up all night so now I have to go sleep. I'll dig into your example WASasquatch later today.
Derek
Quote from: D.A. Bentley on May 30, 2018, 04:41:09 PM
Quote from: WASasquatch on May 30, 2018, 12:23:37 PM
I'm just not sure what D.A. Bentley actually wants. He said he likes A's sky and B's horizon so I put them together into a functional setup for a scene, but doesn't appear to be it either. It's not hard to overcome.
Basically it all comes down to not being able to separately control haze (Planet atmosphere) on the terrain from the sky. If I adjust the sky to my liking I get to much blue haze on the terrain, and if I adjust the Planet atmosphere to get the terrain to my liking then the sky is off (not blue).
I just finished my work, and was up all night so now I have to go sleep. I'll dig into your example WASasquatch later today.
Derek
I think it's working as expecting. We just can't expect not even the slightest amount of haze not to build up over thousands of km. Additionally, lighting plays a role in the perceived look of the haze over a distance.
So, knowing that the result you want is of course quite unrealistic (and if you zoomed out to space it would look "wrong"), here's an idea for how you can (mostly) achieve it in Terragen without comping, etc. Copy/paste the following into the node network and it'll create an Atmosphere node you can just plug-in:
<terragen_clip>
<planet_atmosphere
name = "Planet atmosphere 01"
gui_use_node_pos = "1"
gui_node_pos = "260 360 0"
gui_group = ""
enable = "1"
input_node = ""
gui_use_preview_patch_size = "0"
gui_preview_patch_size = "1000 1000"
enable_primary = "1"
enable_secondary = "1"
centre = "0 -6378000 0"
radius = "6378000"
seed = "0"
haze_density = "0.01"
haze_horizon_colour = "0.25 0.25 0.25"
bluesky_density = "0.15"
bluesky_horizon_colour = "0.200000003 0.25 0.3000000119"
bluesky_additive = "0"
bluesky_additive_colour = "0.1438666731 0.3779166639 1"
redsky_decay = "0"
haze_exp_height = "60000"
bluesky_exp_height = "60000"
ceiling_adjust = "1.866666667"
ceiling = "112000"
floor = "-16000"
haze_glow_amount = "0.5"
haze_glow_power = "1"
bluesky_glow_amount = "0"
bluesky_glow_power = "0.75"
enviro_light = "1"
enviro_light_tint = "1 1 1"
anisotropic_enviro_light = "1"
shadow_function = ""
ambient = "0 0 0"
fake_dark_power = "0"
fake_dark_sharpness = "10"
bluesky_density_colour = "0.2158000022 0.4535000026 1"
redsky_decay_colour = "0.805896461 0.6354003549 0.3678794503"
ozone_factor = "0.5"
improved_glow_model = "1"
number_of_samples = "16"
adjust_to_distance = "1"
enable_ray_traced_shadows = "0"
>
</planet_atmosphere>
</terragen_clip>
The basic idea is to use very low density and very high Exp(onential) Height values. What this gives you is an atmosphere that extends much further up above you (the hazes, at least), but is so low density that it doesn't attenuate light nearly as much over long distances. So you get a general, diffuse haze, but features are clearly visible even 100s of kilometers into the distance. Compare it with the default atmosphere and you'll see the dramatic difference. I think the key insight here is the use of very large Exp Height values to offset the lower densities, basically.
Hope that helps.
- Oshyan
Hey WASasquatch,
Thanks for the tgd scene showing me how to add a surface layer to the background to make a nice blue sky. I haven't really used the background node for anything yet, so it's good to know it's there, and your solution works perfectly. Now I can have a bluer sky even with reduced haze. :) Thanks Much!
Derek
Quote from: Oshyan on May 31, 2018, 07:45:07 PM
So, knowing that the result you want is of course quite unrealistic (and if you zoomed out to space it would look "wrong"), here's an idea for how you can (mostly) achieve it in Terragen without comping, etc. Copy/paste the following into the node network and it'll create an Atmosphere node you can just plug-in:
...
The basic idea is to use very low density and very high Exp(onential) Height values. What this gives you is an atmosphere that extends much further up above you (the hazes, at least), but is so low density that it doesn't attenuate light nearly as much over long distances. So you get a general, diffuse haze, but features are clearly visible even 100s of kilometers into the distance. Compare it with the default atmosphere and you'll see the dramatic difference. I think the key insight here is the use of very large Exp Height values to offset the lower densities, basically.
Hope that helps.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan! I forgot to thank you for your clip file. I also found this thread helpful for anyone finding this:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,12081.msg136959.html#msg136959 (https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,12081.msg136959.html#msg136959)
-Derek