Hi guys,
the following is a scene I'm working on, but it's more a research / learning thing for me. So this image is in no way meant to be an art piece at all.
What I need is others have a look at it and tell me how natural or artificial the mountains shapes and snow cover is appearing for you. I've been tweaking alpine fractals and adding to them a little bit too long, and I'm afraid I don't have good judgement about the outcome anymore :)
Here's what I like about the image to far. The procedural (fake) erosion and the associated snow cover in the crevices, primarily on the right hand, shadowy side of the mountain. I also like how the snow piles up on the slopes in the foreground.
Still it's not quite there yet, would you agree? Where in the image would you point your finger at for improvement? How should this part look differently?
Scene has been post-worked slightly on colors.
Cheers,
Frank
The first thing which came in my mind was "Frank, why again this huge contrast in surfaces :)" lol
I think the mountain shapes look really good and if I'm correct you also blended some strata shaders nicely.
In my eyes the first improvement you could make is the bare rock surfacing. It's kind of featureless and dull at the moment.
The snow piling up in the foreground is pretty cool indeed :)
Cheers,
Martin
oh man....nice snow!....I agree with TU about base color....good start tho..
great!
the snow distribution is nearly perfect imho (for summer?), but the rock needs some improvement in my eyes.
A little bit of billowy displacement might do it - i uploaded some photos i took on the jungfraujoch last year mid June for reference. Link (http://img84.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=img6770iq.jpg)
this is one of my favorite examples :D
(http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/6731/img6781z.jpg)
@Goms: aaahahahahaa ;D
this quote just fits perfectly ;)
;D
It's a perfectly usable, general purpose quote :)
I should know, I've invented it :D
Frank, I think Goms nailed it. There are lateral outcrops, some large, most small. It's hard to get them right (for me anyway). I think you'll get this just how you want it to be. You are much better scaling details than I.
It's very impressive Frank. I think a question I have is whether it's truly realistic to have really tiny spots of snow distributed quite so evenly on the steeper slopes. Maybe it is, but something about it feels wrong (and Goms' image seems to confirm this), so you'd have to find some way of turning off the minor displacements that are snagging the snow by slope. Also, there may be just a little too much repetition of the striated feature which slants downwards to the left. But these are minor points. What I would be interested to see is making the rock much lighter (again, like Goms' image), as then you could apply some of your excellent rock surfacing, which might draw the eye away from these minor points, and make the gestalt more convincing. Also, if you were able to add some billowy displacement as Goms suggests, that might indeed enhance things.
Hello there! Great picture. @Goms: you got me! Thought first that was Terragen...
I would lighten up the rock a bit, like in Goms picture and on the left you have an almost perfect pyramid-shaped mountain, looks artificial to me, but I think that could be because it's TG2 and not a photo. On a photo I wouldn't mind I guess ;D
I've hit a rat hole with attempting to get better and smoother snow cover here. I just can't get the snow to cover larger gaps.
Try this: make a flat planet and add a crater shader, no rim. 5m deep, diameter 20m. Try to cover the crater with a snow layer.
well, I'm failing. I can get the snow layer to close in on the gap, but it looks funny and it's not really covering it.
Anyone?
Regards,
Frank
Ha, I don't even know how to create a flat planet :)
But in case that's not necessary: I can get a 20m wide 5m deep crater filled with snow with using favour depressions. BUT, only when I increase the patch size of the compute terrain to something ~2x as big as the crater I'm trying to fill.
thanks. I'll check that out on the mountain tomorrow.
:)
Frank
QuoteHa, I don't even know how to create a flat planet
Just sit on it for a while :D
Frank, I like it and am looking for the skiers. Maybe the contrast is a little bit too dark for the shadows. I could see you matching the photograph in another try or two.
ok, that worked, but it's hard to control. I want the snow to cover larger patches, but have a more granular patch size for e.g. displacements, and somehow blend it all nicely. I've got something working but not quite there yet.
Working with Alpines ain't the most simple thing in the world. And not the quickest either :)
Thanks so far,
Frank
Nice work with this so far Frank. Getting the snow to look "right" has been a major challenge for me when working with the alpine fractal. I know I've discarded a dozen projects or so the last couple years because I've never been happy with what I want.
To my mind what I would try to do is create more thick snow and less thin snow with more mountain rock visible.
Convincing snow is difficult on a flat area. I look forward to see how you do this. It would make a great pack to sell.
Perhaps the problem is that the alpine displacements are computed, and can therefore not easily been smoothed after compute terrain. I think it would be different if the alpine were smoother, computed and tiny displacements added after compute terrain,and smoothed again in the displacement intersection. Or am I seeing this wrong?
I think you need to use more than one compute node here... or consider another way to the right shape of mountains not using the alpine fractal. ;)
I'm currently tweaking the alpine and adding other displacements, then do I high-res heightfield output and load that instead.
I think this might be the best way. I use a heightfield in my "jump"-picture (which is still under development!) And it works better than the alpine fractal.
Goms, this fits a bit with our discussion recently where you proposed to have an option to choose which compute terrain node you would like to use for intersect underlying or other features.
In some cases that would make life much easier.