A new project I'm working on. The hardest part was to get the embankment just right, with the road (gradient-colored by distance shader) going down on the land side. And I'm not satisfied with the reflection of the clouds yet. I made patches of windblown water, but this distorts the clouds. I'd rather have a vague reflection, so there's work to do. And the sharp edges of the dike/water gives some strange artifacts, have to make it softer I guess.
The gray patches will have some buildings, and there will be more variety in trees, vegetation...
---Dune
Shows your usual superb attention to detail, and is very nicely lit.
completely agree with Dominic!
Just awesome. This can easily be mistaken as a photo.
Thanks, guys. Here's one with another light angle, and some improvements (embankment, water, vegetation, little roads, fields...). I think I like this one better. Now has the houses and sheds as well, though these still need some work.
Agree with Henry; this is top drawer TG2 work. I especially like the textures and colours in the marshy grasslands.
John
echt nederlands!
awesome work, reminds me of my time in the bollenstreek!
This really shows off your skills Ulco. The light in the 2nd render is better.
I like the second as well. I'd probably have it a bit brighter like the first and if possible tone down the sunlight reflection a bit, maybe just move it a bit lower so less of it is visible but that's just a niggle for me.
What wonders can a little extra do; soft shadows on (5/5), environmental light from 1-1.5, detail=0.5 and AA=4, GI 2/2/8. I did reduce the size to 80%. It's getting there....
If you can reduce the reflections from the house models, then you have photo-realism. Great stuff!
Actually, they have very shiny roofs. I've seen them and taken pictures. In the centre of the large roof is a long 'airing window', which is glass, so really shiny. And some small glass roof windows. The thing that I don't like is the dark walls. They are dark, but not this dark.
Thanks for your C&C!
I take your point re the shiny roofs, but what I was really trying to get at is that the overall reflectivity of the house models seems at odds with the rest of the scene, giving them a definite CGI feel, as if they're made of plastic. I'm not a modeller, so I don't have any good suggestions for how to fix it, but I guess it's a minor point anyway.
What I like with Terragen 2 is the new AA. Even lower settings does quite well for many scenes.
The houses may use a gloss paint which makes them look more shiny than most house paints commonly used today. My grandparent's house was painted gloss white. It was difficult to look at when the sun was shining on it at times.
very nice scene with a lot of attention to detail!
As you did not say its final, I will raise some points that have a cg-ish feeling to me:
- some of the greens seem to be slightly off. But often you can take a reference picture and proof the greens, so I might be wrong ;-)
- the greens of the trees seem to be to "regular"
- the trees lack some "definition", probably thats a matter of GI detail
- roofs and even walls are often way more shiney then most people would believe at first. Still something makes "pop" them out of the rest. The boats for example blend in perfectly. Again this might be a matter of GI (detail), as the small hut in the front almost seems to be hovering
But all the above is nitpicky
So to make this long answer short: great work!
Thanks for your comments, guys, that is really helpful. For the client this is probably good enough, but as a perfectionist I'd prefer a perfect image. I'm a little concerned about the 'popping' houses. They're too small for the displacement on the roof to work (which would make them less 'perfect', but I guess if I make the walls lighter it helps blending them to the ground. They also need some 'stuff' around them, so they don't sit there by themselves so much. By the way, there is no 'small hut'; the large one is a horse riding/training center of at least 30-40 meters long and 15-20 wide with an enormous roof. The house to the right is quite a mansion.
What greens are you referring to, Walli? Tree greens? I may need to change them, give them an extra set of leaves in a slightly different color, or throw a texture over the population. Can you expand on 'the lack of definition'?
---Dune
the greens - I marked them on your picture. It´s the light green on the ground. In the background it works I think, but the same color in the foreground looks strange to me. I am not sure - probably its because usually when looking on grass like stuff from above, it gets darker - because you see more from the ground. From lower height with flater view angle you don´t see so much from the ground and so it looks greener. So if the background stuff is light green, then the same material/plants/grass/whatever it is should look darker in the front, because you see more from the ground.
By the way, something similar can happen with a color shift from green to brown - when you have blossoming grass. In that case, when looking from above/steep angle, then it looks mostly green. But when looking in a flat angle you will see more of the blossoms which often are brown - so in that case the distant color would be more brownish.
And of course you also can have a mixture of both effects ;-)
Definition with trees: if you look at your reference picture, you will notice a higher range from bright green to nearly black green in the tree crown. Towards the center of the trees the crown almost gets black. The outer areas tend to be much brighter, especially when sunlight comes from the back, they almost have some sort of halo.
The trees in your rendering are to even, not so much brightness contrast in the crown. And I think there probably could be some varying hues also.
Please let me know if I should send you the marked picture.
As I said, you already did a great job and i am sure that your customer is really happy!
Thanks, Walli, Your comment is very helpful and opens my eyes for another trick nature can play. You're right of course, and I realize again, that looking carefully is the key. I think a distance shader can do the trick with the 'grass gradient'.
I also have to figure out how to make the crown more definite, perhaps indeed by putting extra leaves more towards the trunk and give them a slightly darker hue. I'll get to it.
---Dune
the tree definition volume is tricky and often depends on the model itself. On some it works well, on others not so much. Of course you also have to compare to the realworld counter parts as there are species out there that don´t show so much definition too.
One trick that I sometimes use (not sure if it works in TG, but it could) is a spherical, 3D gradient that I mix into the leaf colour. The center of this gradient is put into the crown of the tree and so I am able to "fake" darkness and volume.
Very realistic. I agree with you, that the dark parts of the houses don't look quite right. Additionally using the Cubic B-spline filter could be another improvement.
QuoteAdditionally using the Cubic B-spline filter could be another improvement
I used Mitchel-Netravali, would Cubic be better? I thought Mitchel was better with vegetation? I'll check it out on a crop and compare.
@Walli; I got your mail, thanks. I'll climb into my trees again.
Cubic is softer. It doesn't look that unnaturally "CG-crispy". In my opinion it looks better for vegetation as well.
woah, this is fantastic, Ulco!
Thanks, Frank.
Here's a little (tiny) filter test. I don't like the soft one, it's too vague. Mitchel seems to give the most definition in the shadowy areas, so I'll stick to that. I think I've also got the reeds a better color now, as well as more definition in the (altered) poplar trees.
I can't see the difference on my monitor. How annoying! >:(
What was the filter on the lower right big image?
That would be Mitchel himself. Yeah, I know they are tiny.
After a crisp render you can make it softer with post.
But the other way around is only posible to a certain extent .
Nıce image as always , Dune :)
Next render, and I'm quite satisfied with the result, thanks to Walli's helpful advice. The trees are better IMO, as is the reed color. The only thing that I'd have to check is the height of the poplar trees. They're really tall bastards, but I made new ones, which appear slightly higher than anticipated.
best dutch render ever :-)
You may have to look at the populars with a house in front of them, or beside them. They are really tall!
Great looking scene!
Yeah, that's what I was going to do. The poplars are about 2.5 times the house height, I'll check from below.