Hi all! I'm new here, and I want to share with all my experience in the difficult task of creating fully procedural planets. This planet was created for the 4X PC-game developed by us. It will have to hang out statically somewhere in the background and, I hope, to please the player's eye.
[attachimg=1]
Yes, and a special thanks to NVSeal for his wonderful clouds. Although one type of layered clouds (stratus), which I did not have, I did myself. Like everything else.
I hope you enjoy it!
PS: I'm from Russia, and English is not my best skill, so I hope that the Google-translator does not distort the meaning of my messages too much :)
Welcome to the forum. The image looks great.
That's a really beautiful and pretty realistic result! Very nice work. Lots of great detail, wonderful colors, etc.
Was it only made to be used for views from orbit?
- Oshyan
Yeah, welcome, Denis. Cool work. I hope to see more renders by you from now on!
Thank you, Kadri, Oshyan and Dune! It's really nice to see positive responses. But I am also open to criticism.
By the way, Dune indirectly helped us - we turned to him for help. We needed to understand how to superimpose the crater rims on each other (for the less prosperous types of planets) and he helped us in this. True, I have slightly improved the scheme. I can show you later. Well, I've read quite a lot of Oshyan's and Matt's comments. Thank you for them.
Quote from: Oshyan on July 23, 2017, 04:22:39 PM
Lots of great detail, wonderful colors, etc.
- Oshyan
After I learned to look for real shots of the planet and use a pipette in Photoshop - I do not give up anymore. The colors are real.
To be honest, there are too many parts somewhere. I have not been able to get rid of them yet. This is due to some peculiarity of the warper's work. He very much tore into small pieces of small-sized details. At the same time, the same warper can not hardly touch large elements or distort them insignificantly. All this requires very careful handling of the settings of the warper.
Quote from: Oshyan on July 23, 2017, 04:22:39 PM
Was it only made to be used for views from orbit?
- Oshyan
Yes, this is only for a glance from afar. Near everything is not so good. For example, there are problems with the coastline, if you use water:
[attachimg=1]
The picture shows that in places where the water is close to the surface, it is painted pure black. The problem gradually disappears if the render quality is increased, but a new problem arises - the render time that we can not afford. And anyway, the problem does not go away completely. Therefore, I do not use water at all now, but I simply apply a water planet in a photoshop with a mask of land, specially rendered for this purpose. By the way, here I must say that because of this problem the planet is not fully procedural. But all geometry - procedural.
Another reason why now it is better to look at the planet from a distance is not the best relief. But it just takes more time to set up and experiment. In the very first picture, the relief is barely noticeable and this is enough for us now. Planets are rendered in the size of 2048x2048px. Here's her piece near in originally size:
[attachimg=2]
Quote from: Dune on July 24, 2017, 01:50:01 AM
I hope to see more renders by you from now on!
- Dune
Dune, I think that I will spread the process gradually, as well as periodically post the old developments. I also work with nebulae and also plan to upload them gradually. Maybe it's useful to someone.
Agree with the others comments and welcome to the forum...keep up the good work.
Thanks for your explanations. For distant views like this I would indeed not work with transparent water (I know the black shallows issue), but with a sphere that takes the same colors as land, but with a height dependent overlay of 'ocean colors' and a reflective shader.
Bobbystahr, thanks!
Dune, did you do a single render in one scene?
How do you mean, Denis? The sphere and planet are rendered in one go, yes, if that's what you mean. You have to get the altitude from the terrain (displacement to scalar) and make a gradual mask out of that to mix in the 'watercolors' in the deeper parts on the sphere.
Quote from: Dune on July 25, 2017, 11:51:46 AM
You have to get the altitude from the terrain (displacement to scalar) and make a gradual mask out of that to mix in the 'watercolors' in the deeper parts on the sphere.
Yes, you understood me correctly. It seems that your variant is faster and easier for us. Although it will take a little bit to change my node network.
The fact is that my relief and colors almost do not depend on each other. I can make colors that follow the relief. But I can also make the colors different from the terrain. I have the same color and relief now. But to get oceanic reflection I did three renderings. One render - of colors and the relief. The second render - only monochrome and spherical ocean. And the third render was a black and white mask for separating the ocean and ground, which was then simply used in Photoshop.
The version that you proposed (with the second sphere), I did not implement, but it seems more convenient. I have to try. Thank you!
Very good work you've done here.
Well done. Planets althjoiugh simple to startget much harder once you get into the details.
One trick I have used to get round the water lakes/islands issue (too many of each along the coast lines) is to make the continents up from simple shape shaders. These provide a much clearer line betwene the coast and water even after multiple warps and distortions. Not trying to take away from your great work. Just you may find this a uesful trick.
Very simple version attached.
One of the first options was just this. I did not start from simple shape shaders, but from a fractal, adjusted so that it would give out the simplest basic form. Approximately so it looked.
[attachimg=1]
And then warping created such Ragged edges in some places. Here a few warpers in a row.
[attachimg=2]
So I do not think that a simple form or simple form of basic PFS will help to avoid this.
In the end I came to the conclusion that too much splitting in some places is a feature of the warper's work. Warper needs to somehow apply the texture to the surface, the area of which has been increased. If I were a warper, I also just increased the number of islands. So you just need to carefully configure the settings. Now I want to try a new smoothing filter, maybe it will help.
I just found this thread. Excellent Planet. I am trying to learn how to make planets in space as well, and still very much a beginner in Terragen. @Denis, can you go more in depth how you built this planet? Especially to a noob like myself? Do you have any templates or working files you can upload?
Hi, Eapilot! I, unfortunately, can not publish working files, since this work was done for the studio in which I work. And to create it took a lot of time. We tried different ways. It was necessary to get the drawing of the continents, colors and relief. I used the clouds by NVSeal. He is a member of this forum and you can buy these clouds.
I can say that in the end we came to a fairly simple and natural scheme. I can describe it with several words. The essence of the principle is to first create a round billet for the continent (as shown above, but there is a slightly more complicated form), which is painted in the right colors. On the edges of this billet are the colors of the coastlines. In the center of it is the color of the highest point. And then several power fractal shaders distort this billet into a shape of the continent. For that, only warp shaders are needed with the power fractal shaders connected to them. And this power fractal shader can give you relief.
By the way, I do not have any water as material. I made it a separate renderer. To get a reflection from the Sun, I just rendered the whole water planet and put a glare from it through the continent mask in Photoshop.
If something remains incomprehensible, ask, I'll try to tell.
WOW !
I didn't know that you are working on a procedural Planet, it looks great Denis!
How did you create the Phytoplankton Clouds in the Oceans?
STORMLORD
Here's my earth, made years ago in 3D Studiomax (with Maps).
http://www.dirkkipper.de/Galerie_3D_Studiomax/3D_Studiomax_04/index.php
Thank you, Dirk!
I was on your website. Your Earth looks amazing, crazy detailing and rendering in natural colors. Excellent.
My phytoplankton – it's just cyan color along the shoreline. It was generated exactly like all other colors on the planet.
Hi denis, welcome to the forum
I've working in my own similar project of a planet in terragen, you can see my thread here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,19476.0.html
Well, is the earth indeed, but many similar concepts are applicable here. for example: for my oceans I used the solution that Dune suggested you, and works.
I used a global DEM for continents, and another for bathymetry, which made things much easier than all procedural displacement.
my work was mostly focused in clouds, but the yours is much more, well... procedural maybe? :P
I attached a pic of a volumetric gas planet. just very warped clouds, but its a similar technique than your continents i think.
another thing, is that you can also add icy poles to your planet easily, with large values of max/min altitude contraist to mask that zones.
like also auroras. dont doubt to send me a PM for any ask, and please, can you explain me again the general process of your planet?
Pd: the english isnt my lenguage, and the russian is translated much better to the spanish than to english, so russian its ok. ;)
Hi, Ariel!
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
I've working in my own similar project of a planet in terragen, you can see my thread here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,19476.0.html
Well, is the earth indeed, but many similar concepts are applicable here. for example: for my oceans I used the solution that Dune suggested you, and works.
Yes, I saw the post. Indeed, many solutions work well for me. Therefore, in truth, I have not tried to apply Dune's proposal in practice, because right now I'm completely focused on creating procedural nebulae (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23403.90.html). So I'll be back to developing the planet after a while. Maybe in a few months.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
I used a global DEM for continents, and another for bathymetry, which made things much easier than all procedural displacement.
Yes, it's easier. And I would do it if I had to create an image of the Earth. But I have another task. I need to get a magic button that would generate a planet, but with a unique pattern of continents, oceans, clouds, etc. And I need planets not only of terrestrial type, but also, for example, desert, arid, volcanic and so on... This is a completely different task, but there are mutual problems.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
my work was mostly focused in clouds, but the yours is much more, well... procedural maybe? :P
Yes, they procedurally look, thank you for the remark. But I'm satisfied with this quality so far. Then we'll see. Maybe I can spend time improving them.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
I attached a pic of a volumetric gas planet. just very warped clouds, but its a similar technique than your continents i think.
Yes, it looks like this. In my continents there is nothing special, just setting up warpers and power fractals.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
another thing, is that you can also add icy poles to your planet easily, with large values of max/min altitude contraist to mask that zones. like also auroras.
Yes, this is a true observation. I will do this when I return to the planet. The pole should add great to realism. By the time of the auroras - I'm not sure that I will do this.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
dont doubt to send me a PM for any ask, and please, can you explain me again the general process of your planet?
Ok, thank you!
I have already explained the process here. Specifically, what exactly interests?
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 03, 2017, 10:48:14 PM
Pd: the english isnt my lenguage, and the russian is translated much better to the spanish than to english, so russian its ok. ;)
Ok, in PM I can write in Russian.
Great to watch the development of this. Glad you are sharing here!
Denis,
Thank you for the reply.
For Warpers, do you use warp merge shaders, warp input shaders, or both? I don't understand what billet is. That might have got lost in translation.
In a warp input shader the input is warped by the warper (second input); in a warp merge, the main input is kept as it is, but all stuff in the other input is warped by warpers, so you add a warped line of shaders to an existing not-to-be-warped line.
Thanks Denis
everything is clear now. PM is just if someday I start some similar project, and I would like to ask you for any doubt that appear on the way.
glad to hear that you gonna still on this
good luck
Quote from: luvsmuzik on November 19, 2017, 11:06:48 AM
Great to watch the development of this. Glad you are sharing here!
Thanks!
Quote from: eapilot on November 20, 2017, 02:01:58 PM
Thank you for the reply.
For Warpers, do you use warp merge shaders, warp input shaders, or both?
You are welcome!
Dune said everything exactly about their difference. I used warp-input, and this is very important. The thing is that before the warping the set of soils (colors) should already be formed. For example, in the form of a simple initial geometry. I called it a billet (I am Russian:). But in fact it is some sort of simple form (circle, simple fractal pattern), painted in the right colors. Something that (the length of this peninsula is about 2000 km.):
[attachimg=1]
At the stage of warping, no new soils (colors) are added in this way. We only distort what is already there. Therefore, I used several sequential input-wapers. Because if you just put another distorted layer on top of one distorted layer (via simple merge mode), you'll get some crap. In nature, a very rare situation occurs when one layer of soil does not take into account another layer of soil.
Quote from: Ariel DK on November 21, 2017, 10:37:56 AM
PM is just if someday I start some similar project, and I would like to ask you for any doubt that appear on the way.
glad to hear that you gonna still on this
good luck
Thanks! No problem! I can not always answer immediately, but always in the end I try to do it.