I just finished this medieval dwelling, tested it in TG and one thing led to another. Added some apartment blocks, a guy on the roof and one near his broken down car. Made the windows glassy, added a light source inside and another guy... women are all gone from this desolate town >:( (only his hand is poking through the window). TG is really great fun!
Very nice. Always amazed at how productive you are. :)
Will you be continuing with this scene? It has a lot of potential.
The following is not a critique, just a general observation with the use of man made objects in Terragen. It's a problem I also need solved for my renders.
So if I look at the individual parts of this image, each of them could almost be mistaken for a photo, but how is it that altogether, some of it looks like a scene from a computer game? For example in the foreground house, when I look at the bricks in the wall, they seem right. Windows look good, roof looks good... but what is it that's missing so that we would not mistake this for a photo? One thing that gives it away for me is that the house edge is such a perfect line so it becomes obvious that the bricks are not displaced and stick out a bit. Or the clean wall bottom above the dirty ground maybe. But I really guess it's mostly the bump mapping instead of a proper displacement... right?
Cheers
Frank
I don't know, it was just a haphazard mix of stuff for fun. But I agree with your observation that it is very hard to really make renders like a photo, due to the straight (poly) edges indeed. You see it in trees, buildings, etc. It's the bump mapping instead of displacement. I'll try something without raytraced objects, see if that works better.
I also think the edges should be slightly rounded to give a better 'displacement'. But that is not as easy and ups the poly count. I'm currently struggling with morph maps in Lightwave, apply texture first, then morph a wall (so I understand), so that the texture stays intact even from another angle. Hard stuff.
I like this also, Ulco, very nice foreground detail, and the closest house looks good too...I am intrigued as to what will come next?...
cheers
Jason
I tried another house, made the corners slightly rounded (rooftop, walls), but it doesn't change much in the way they are rendered (with bump). Flat as ever. Perhaps they should even be more rounded...
classic comedic terragen!
very good Ulco!
edit:
btw where did the houses come from?
I made them.
Thanks Ulco...very nice they are too!
:)
The second one really improved ... do you use fill lights???
You could try a normal map for the bumps,but both (normal or bump map) won't
be as good as displacement or,even better,real geometry,i'm afraid.
From my point of view it's not only visible on edges,the shadows are not
correct,too.Sometimes even the lighting that's on texture photo can be a
problem.
Volker - you mentioned problems with shaders and displacement with sculptris.
Could that be mac related? Tried it last year with good results.Diffuse
and bump map were exported fine (i guess that's what you meant by
shaders and displacement,if not please ignore my babble)
While answering J.Meyer, I am trying to stay as much on topic as possible.
The effect on normals I encountered on objects sculpted with sculptris was using Win XP (running on Parallel's Desktop for Mac). This has another restriction: I cannot paint with sculptris. So the exported objects were always untextured.
In fact I never use textures on objects, as the colour information does not tend to match my current scene. If I had a building, I would export all the bricks grouped together with a map, everything made of wood one map, and so on.
Inside TG2 I do the colouring, the displacements and so on. This keeps the objects a bit more integrated - at least I have more control ,-)
I was asking Ulco about fill lights, as they have a very 2Dish affect on some scenes ... this effect is anti-proportional with the sun's strength.
The overall effect is coming from a scene that has less shadows than ought to be ,-
Regards, Volker
There's one sun a 9 elevation ~90 right, and a shadowed fill at 15 high, ~90 left, just to give the apartment blocks some light. And you're right about texturing, I try to make as many texture shots as possible, but it's not always easy to get them with diffuse light (and from the right angle). I could have made the roof of hundreds of 'real' tiles, or vertical rows, but of course the more detail the heavier, and the more work. It depends on the kind of scene one wants to make, and how 'reward' will be gained. Some things can easily be adjusted in post, especially for 2D use. Like dents in a straight house's edge to make the bricks stand out.
What is the difference between a bump and a normal map? You can only use it in the default shader to apply 'displacement', can't you? So what would be the difference in effect?
Quote from: Dune on February 26, 2011, 08:47:01 AM
...
What is the difference between a bump and a normal map? You can only use it in the default shader to apply 'displacement', can't you? So what would be the difference in effect?
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/support-tech-discussion/7756-bump-maps-vs-normal-maps.html
The picture alone says a lot there Dune. But in TG2 it is a different thing of course. I am curious too!
Thanks, Kadri. Just read it and looked at the images. But would this work in TG2? I'm afraid not. I'll try a bump versus normal map, see what comes out.
Quote from: Dune on February 26, 2011, 09:38:58 AM
... But would this work in TG2? I'm afraid not....
I think you are right , but i am waiting for your test :)
Thanks for helping out Kadri.
Don't know if it'll make a difference in TG2 either,but thought it would be
worth a try.
Did another test yesterday,bump map with RTO checked vs unchecked,
and noticed that the shadows (on the objects surface) were almost,if not actually,
the same,kind of odd.
Curious what your test will bring.
Guys i found this here : http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=9132.0
It is from last year.
Don't know if we have anything new and i couldn't get all what was going on on that thread !
This maybe only me of course!
Just a speculation but i think bump vs normal map makes only the image a little different (like a different bump map for example).
It is not making advantage of the real benefits of the normal(!) ways for using Normal Maps .
But i could be very wrong about this. I have not tested this and can not test this for now.
Guys? Planetside? :)
The normal map should not be necessary as the normals are part of the OBJ (hopefully in a correct manner). The bumpmap can be used as a displacement image.
Such a displacement image is good. Maybe some procedural displacements in a parent node can make these 'bumps' convincing.
The images of the above posted threads are rather for real time renders in games. To give floor-tiles some details, i.e.
,-) Volker
Indeed, I don't think using a normal map or a bump map makes much difference, it just simulates bumps. A little different maybe. But maybe my texture isn't very appropriate to really tell the difference and a simpler smooth knob or pyramid is needed to exactly see differences in shadows. Anyway, here's a quick screendump of some tests; the settings are in the filenames. Interesting to see that a negative displacement in a normal map gives such a 'blurred' effect.
Nice test , Dune.
I think we are taking the wrong approach .
Does TG2 use normal maps or not (as real displacement) ; this is the question!
I don't remember anywhere that states this.
Did you try to say this Volker ?
So the real question should maybe , if we can use displacement (and in what degree) in our objects.
By using different images (normal maps or any kind of other image) we get different displacement (or not) according to the render and object settings.
We are making this Normal map thing more complex then it is really is i think.
TG2 is very good in this regard and doesn't look like it needs Normal Maps.
But there could be uses like , if you have only the low poly object and the Normal Map of the hight poly object .
I may be wrong of course ;)
I think I read that raytraced objects become bump mapped. Turning off the raytrace object option will do displacement.
This is from an old thread, or something Matt mentioned, I think. It was at the time that the raytraced object option was added to Terragen 2.
Quote from: njeneb on February 27, 2011, 12:53:35 PM
I think I read that raytraced objects become bump mapped. Turning off the raytrace object option will do displacement.
This is from an old thread, or something Matt mentioned, I think. It was at the time that the raytraced object option was added to Terragen 2.
Yes you are right , Njeneb :)
I was testing this right now. With the micro render we get real displacement. Without , there is only bump map whatever kind of map you use.
In 10 minutes i will post 2 basic renders here.
Well,
the normal map describes the angle of a single object's face within space. I assume that it is possible to use this information somehow inside TG2 using functions. But I doubt that you can use it for displacements.
For displacement functions and images you have a fixed angle (along normal, vertical, etc.) this is not changed by a normal map. TG2 will translate the normal map's colour information to a grey-image and uses its intensity (brightness) for displacing the object along the normal, and so on.
The normal map's information could be used for fake lighting and shadowing:
You have your camera's position (Get camera position) and the sun's position (Get ray origin). You have the current position on the imported object (Get position ...) and the normal of this position (Get normal ...).
You could read in the colour information of this point by using Get diffuse colour). Which is provided by the normal map and calculate some fancy illusions. Do I have your attention? Then the next sentence might be useful:
What you will be missing at this point is the original texture, but. Import a normal map or import the objects UV-map. I would choose the latter.
Bin the normal map. ,-) ;D
Sometimes it is fun to use the texture map as a displacement image ... or to multiply, subtract, and so on with an original bump map ... And of course you can use a high-density Bump map for a low poly object ... for some degree.
Be aware that you might see the faces' edges of the object sooner or later, when downgrading your OBJ.
Have fun and best wishes,
Volker
I have not much to say Volker .Thanks :)
Here is it.
The two Render images have exacly the same settings and shader maps etc.
Only one have "Ray trace objects" enabled.
The micropoly render does real displacement as we know already
(If someone want to use image maps as displacement the object should have appropriate poly count.
As Volker stated low poly object could begin to be problematic very soon.
And there are maybe the displacement limits of the TG2 render of course too. You have to try!
But i would choose a object that have the necessary-desired detail already and only then try the other options .)
Ray trace rendering does only bump mapping.
I used a png image as displacement . I can not try Normal Maps here.
But i think we would get as we said above the same bump map (only a little different because the map is not the same) .
I think there isn't much more about this , but would love to see one more test with a Normal Map to be certain (with micro and ray trace render). Dune? ;D
Thanks for diving into this guys. I'll try a normal map and bump map with RTO/no-RTO with a simpler shape. No-RTO would be interesting for close by objects, if we could choose by object.
And I wonder, Volker, how you would setup something like you mentioned with all the 'get...' nodes. Do you actually use that method, and if so, could you post a setup? Or is it wishful thinking...?
Quote from: Dune on February 28, 2011, 02:55:01 AM
And I wonder, Volker, how you would setup something like you mentioned with all the 'get...' nodes. Do you actually use that method, and if so, could you post a setup? Or is it wishful thinking...?
I am not that crazy ,-) At least not today :D
I tried something similar to fetch the edges of the terrain and objects ... wanted to get a lined out scenery with almost no textures and shadows - comic style.
You need the angle of your view to the surface. In fact, I was too lazy to dig into maths on that day :)
But this technique could be used to fetch the edges of an object to displace, bump it at the edges a bit more. This will not work on quadric buildings, though, as they have sharp edges.
,-) Volker
Well, crazy things are possible... sometimes.
Sometimes RTO isn't the best option, perhaps....