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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: AndyWelder on August 31, 2017, 04:36:09 PM

Title: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on August 31, 2017, 04:36:09 PM
Working on this one on and off for a couple of weeks now. Sorry for the low render quality but this is a test after all, certainly not the final entry. There's still a lot of work to do but I ran into problems.
The biggest problem at the moment is the fact I can not edit the populations of fallen trees. I.e there are trees hovering, trees penetrating rocks and other flaws.
Also I'm not sure about the spheres atop the rock features...
And there's a question too: Would this kind of equirectangular render be OK to enter with?
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on August 31, 2017, 11:01:57 PM
Nice eerie image you got going there. If that's the TG spherical render that's what Danny wants, but much huger in the final. I like the spheres myself.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Dune on September 01, 2017, 02:08:09 AM
I like it, it's a great terrain, and do keep the spheres. The only thing I'm not keen on are the vague artificial shapes behind the mountains. But why can't you edit the trees? You can zoom in to every tree and move it around, just don't lock the camera to that POV.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 01, 2017, 03:07:02 PM
@ Bobby: It's not a real spherical render but six separate cube faces made with the camera setup Matt made available for the Planetside VR Challenge stitched together with an old version of Pano2VR and than exported as a equirectangular panorama. Though I do have the Pro version of TG3 the spherical camera does not work. Even the 3D preview is stuck at 5%. I did mention this problem already while working on an entry for the Planetside VR Challenge but no suggestions from there that did fix the problem. This is my work around.
@ Ulco: At first I had no clue on what "the vague artificial shapes behind the mountains" could be but while replying to Bobby it dawned upon me that you might be interpreting the remnants of the cube faces as parts of the landscape. The artificial shapes/cube faces are the most visible on the right side, near the darker sphere, right? Dang, if that's the case I really have to find another work around for the not functioning spherical camera...
And zooming in as close as possible to those trees was indeed the next thing I wanted to try. 
Thank you guys for the input so far. Much appreciated!
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Dune on September 02, 2017, 01:45:39 AM
Ah, cubefaces, that could well be the problem. Did you make a GI cache? That might help. It's really worth perfecting the scene.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 02, 2017, 04:32:54 AM
QuoteDid you make a GI cache?
*slightly insulted* Did I make a GI cache? Of course I did use GI cache! ;) Without GIC files this scene would be almost impossible to handle; the pops are huge. But maybe somewhere in the process I did forget to stop editing this population... This happened a couple of times working on other projects and resulted in similar behavior of the edit feature. I'll delete this population (after writing down the settings and seed) and load a fresh one.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Oshyan on September 02, 2017, 05:37:17 AM
How did you *use* the GI cache files? It can be a bit more complicated when rendering cube face images. You need to either render 1 large GI cache in  *spherical* camera mode, or render out your GI caches for *every cube face* sequentially (i.e. camera direction #1 outputs gicache_0001.gic, camera direction #2 outputs gicache_0002.gic, etc.), and then do "equal blend within range" using all 6 of the .gic files, specified as a frame range wildcard (%04d for example).

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 02, 2017, 11:03:58 AM
Now it's afternoon I do notice I wasn't thinking clearly while responding to Bobby and Ulco this morning; blame it on too much blood in my caffeine... I was talking about Population Cache files where Ulco was talking about GI Cache files if I'm not (again) mistaken.
A .GIC wasn't used for the renders yet. And I would go for separate .GIC's for every cube face render.
BTW, Ulco, I fail to see how a .GIC could have any influence on the behavior of populations... But there is much more in TG that I don't grasp so you could have a point.

Oshyan, a spherical camera to base the .GIC on will not work here.

Deleting the population of fallen trees did the trick, the new population can be edited.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Dune on September 03, 2017, 02:21:03 AM
There's no smiley for 'slightly insulted' I guess  ;)
I indeed meant GI cache, which is to catch the global illumination beforehand and spread it evenly in all 6 renders, not a population cache, which of course would be handy for huge pops. But if you edit, as you've found out, and reload the 'old'  pop cache, you're editing is futile/overruled.
I'm looking forward to your final.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 11, 2017, 03:42:07 PM
The 360 degrees panorama is ready. There are still those artifacts of the cube face render setup that I can't get rid of nor found a work around for. I let the folks at NWDA decide if they think it's acceptable. Speaking of which, it looks like the page with info on how to enter is gone... Victim of the overhaul? Or just me looking at the wrong places?
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Oshyan on September 12, 2017, 01:08:46 AM
Andy, did you try following my instructions for blending the GI caches for cube faces?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 12, 2017, 02:11:06 AM
QuoteAndy, did you try following my instructions for blending the GI caches for cube faces?
Affirmative. I also did use 'Ray detail region': '360 degree detail (highest)'...
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Hannes on September 12, 2017, 08:40:30 AM
Too bad, you couldn't get rid of the edges (yet).
However, the smooth lighting is superb.
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 12, 2017, 10:29:11 AM
Thank you, Hannes!
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: DannyG on September 12, 2017, 10:51:45 AM
Andy, I hope to have power/internet restored tonight. I am currently in Southern Florida where Hurricane Irma stopped in for a visit. Things are getting back online. This means I will be able to view your submission as well as get the shop back up. I will keep you guys posted
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: AndyWelder on September 12, 2017, 12:46:32 PM
@ danny: Crossing my fingers  :)
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: Oshyan on September 13, 2017, 12:44:36 AM
Glad you're safe Danny!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Entry for the NWDA VR gallery WIP
Post by: bobbystahr on September 13, 2017, 01:03:07 PM
Ditto to Oshyan's and Andy's comments.