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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: sonshine777 on April 01, 2007, 11:50:10 PM

Title: The Ark
Post by: sonshine777 on April 01, 2007, 11:50:10 PM
Just thought I would share this with those who may not frequent the Terranuts site.

It's called "The Ark" some may remember the problem I was having with the century plant
well I overcame it by making a lower res model and populating the distant plant with it.

Enjoy!
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: old_blaggard on April 02, 2007, 12:40:23 AM
Wonderful composition!  The drama of the scene is great, and the foreground detail and realism is also fantastic.  I love how many different types of plants and types of rock you have.  Your far clouds look good, but the foreground ones seem to lack definition.  Other than that, though, smashing image!
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: Will on April 02, 2007, 05:29:39 AM
I completely agree, wonderful job overall! Great clouds, planet,s textures, everything expect the foreground clouds but thats not really bad.

Regards,

Will
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: Njen on April 02, 2007, 08:10:42 AM
It is a nice image. I love the clouds, and the variation of the plants.

Not sure if you wanted constructive critisism, but here is some if you would like to know:
Composition-wise, you have invoked the 'thirds' rule nicely along the horizontal, but the vertical looks a little off. I would suggest moving the horizon lower a little.

Your shadowed areas lack any kind of detail. What was your GI settings? on a bright day, the ground should be reflecting enough light to see the dark side of the rock. Check out pictures of Uluru (Ayer's Rock) to see what I mean. This goes for the foreground plants, especially on the right side...the blacks are crushing any detail that may have been there.

The displacement frequency in the rock object is causing some moire affect. To get around this, either increase the 'Smallest Scale' parameter in the colour settings, or increase the antialiasing.

I hope this helps.
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: RealUser on April 02, 2007, 08:40:09 AM
Nice shot indeed!  ;D I would say too the stones and lighting could need some refinement. All in all a very good image.
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: sonshine777 on April 02, 2007, 08:48:53 AM
Quote from: njen on April 02, 2007, 08:10:42 AM
It is a nice image. I love the clouds, and the variation of the plants.

Not sure if you wanted constructive critisism, but here is some if you would like to know:
Composition-wise, you have invoked the 'thirds' rule nicely along the horizontal, but the vertical looks a little off. I would suggest moving the horizon lower a little.

Your shadowed areas lack any kind of detail. What was your GI settings? on a bright day, the ground should be reflecting enough light to see the dark side of the rock. Check out pictures of Uluru (Ayer's Rock) to see what I mean. This goes for the foreground plants, especially on the right side...the blacks are crushing any detail that may have been there.

The displacement frequency in the rock object is causing some moire affect. To get around this, either increase the 'Smallest Scale' parameter in the colour settings, or increase the antialiasing.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the observations most of them I agree need to be fixed but I am going to wait fro the final to come out before addressing them. The GI was set to 0 and that is one reason for some of the darkness, but at over 100 hours to render this I didn't want to tie up the computer for another 100 to 200 hours just for a little more light definition especially given the quirkiness of the GI settings currently. So I haven't put this one to bed completely, it will be revisited as soon as TGTP is more stable in the areas you mentioned.

Thanks for the critique
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: rcallicotte on April 02, 2007, 10:16:10 AM
Great foreground, terrain, atmosphere (clouds, etc.), and nice details in the plants and objects.  One think I'd like to see, since we're so close to absolute wonder here, would be to see the green bushes a little different shades not only per bush but also in every bush.  Maybe a little change in each push and selecting numerous variations in the populator would enable this.  But, this is a very minor suggestion

Great work!

How did you get the ark shape from the mountains?  FANTASTIC!!
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: sonshine777 on April 02, 2007, 10:38:25 AM
Quote from: calico on April 02, 2007, 10:16:10 AMHow did you get the ark shape from the mountains?  FANTASTIC!!

I used the twist and shear fader on a terrain I downloaded from Terranuts called "copperwinewm teweakdesert rock.ter"
it has many free standing structures like this one. I fed the twist and shear shader through a surface shader to control the
start and stop elevations of the displacement.
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: rcallicotte on April 02, 2007, 12:11:59 PM
Right...GREAT JOB.  I'm not sure I know enough to know how you did this or maybe I just don't understand what you're saying.  You've manipulated the TER object well, though.  I'd like to try this.  Did you just add the terrain like normally?
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: sonshine777 on April 02, 2007, 12:48:40 PM
Quote from: calico on April 02, 2007, 12:11:59 PM
Right...GREAT JOB.  I'm not sure I know enough to know how you did this or maybe I just don't understand what you're saying.  You've manipulated the TER object well, though.  I'd like to try this.  Did you just add the terrain like normally?

Here is a screen shot of the nodes and a .tgc
Have fun and experiment!
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: rcallicotte on April 02, 2007, 12:53:10 PM
Thanks. 

I'm curious if you put the TER of the mountain in on top of the existing terrain.  Could you tell me how that part was done?
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: sonshine777 on April 02, 2007, 01:04:56 PM
Quote from: calico on April 02, 2007, 12:53:10 PM
Thanks. 

I'm curious if you put the TER of the mountain in on top of the existing terrain.  Could you tell me how that part was done?


Nothing special just selected add terrain and added the .ter heightfield.
Title: Re: The Ark
Post by: rcallicotte on April 02, 2007, 01:27:15 PM
Brilliant.  I've done this before with one load terrain, but it looks like we can do lots of other exciting stuff with adding various terrains.  I was reading BigBen's post on overlapping terrains...and now this.  Fun!

Thanks!