Just testing a setup with two simple shapes to get a creek, ended up with this. Next step would be to get some more differentiation in the sand, perhaps layers of soil, and do something about those stones. Also the wind ripples need to be finer. Any other C&C welcome. This took about 3 hours to render at Q 0.5 and AA 4 and GI 2/2, while the water was masked out.
The only two things I see are the stones. (no shaders are attached?) and the wet sand could be a little darker. The ripples are maybe a bit large, but I have seen larger on creeks this size.
Nearly a photo , Dune :)
Your post says what you can enhance .
The water edge left below...The edge is a little too straight?
Great render I agree w/Kadri and njeneb Great foliage
Iteration 2, but the soil is too harsh here. And I can't seem to get just rounded pebbles on the wet sand, have to try something else. And the swallows need another seed... and the horizon needs more grass, etc.
I also thought to use a pop of planets for rocks (more smooth than the indigenous rock, but it doesn't seem to render at all >:(
Here I used 3 fill lights and GI 1/1 instead of GI 2/2, which took 1 hour less to render! Result is about the same.
Looking very photorealistic already, especially midground imho.
If you'd like I can help you with the fake stones. Have a week off so enough time to play :)
For some reason, I like the river banks in the first image. Regarding the grass cover which is very good, I'd like to see a few dried grasses sparsely placed.
Iteration 3. Better sand, better wavelets, so I'm getting pleased with this. The only thing that bothers me now is the clumps of soil on the creek bed, but that's easy to fix. Anything else, guys? Final iteration will be with soft shadows on, I think, at least the frontal part where the shadows of the swallows and bank are.
Ik stuur je een tgd, Martin. Heb je wat te doen met zo'n regenachtige week ;)
Maybe the ridged extrusions in the creek would look better inverted, like a cow or something walked through there.
Hi Ulco,
Had a play with your setup, here's the result after tweaking the base layer for the stones. It uses smoothing and IU in depressions mode.
As you can see we have rounder stones now as well.
The stones are a bit too dense, especially the smaller ones, but the idea is there isn't it?
The IU depressions gave another supercool side-effect and that's the big ridge underwater. It looks like a slab of sand/mud broke off under water :)
I'll send you this tgd, but will keep on playing in the meantime. It's a nice scene setup!
Cheers,
Martin
@ Everybody:
No one noticed a new feature in Ulco's images? ;)
Look at the grass ;)
I have noticed the grass. I thought it was a new object/s. Is this procedural (built in) grass? If it is procedural, it is really awesome. If it is a new model then the modeller needs to be told that the blades look very natural.
It's not new procedural grass.
- Oshyan
There's some color variation, per object seems like (unless those are distinct populations of course).
I don't know if I may tell the grass's secret, but it's not the variation, and it's not an inbuilt grass. They are two homegrown grasses, and the new feature is still alpha, but a great addition to the next update. You'll find out if you look carefully to the creeks edges :o
Nice update, Martin. I like the stones, but you encountered the same problem as I did when applying smoothing, namely that the creek bed changed in appearance (hence the ridge). The ridge is a cool extra indeed, but to the left there's a strange sharp shadow, which I do not like very much. It wouldn't be natural under flowing water, or it must have just been broken off. But I'll dive into the creek again (would be nice, wouldn't it :D ).
Anyway, this is my update, where I noticed another 'bug'. The edge of the render, be it a crop or total render (!), doesn't do the fine ridges I had under water. It's based on a get position, maybe that's the problem?
That's a pretty weird edge...let's take a look at that...
apart from the glitches, this is awesome!
The thing that would enhance the water's quality is some sort of 'adhesion factor'; whenever the water hits something only just (a couple of mm) under its level, it's level should slightly increase. I say this because at hard edges like on the left, the edge IS hard, and has an unnatural feel. But that's virtually impossible, I guess. I've tried getting that effect by using the ground as a displacement factor for the water and then smoothing it with some height restrictions, but it was hard going.
In the meantime I've made another swallow, with it's wings down, for some variety.
Thanks to Martin for his addition of the stones. They worked great when smoothing the last surface layer (stones), but I didn't like the hard edge, so I fiddled on. I found a way to annihilate that smoothing artifact by adding a negative smooth before the positive smooth, sort of. As you can see it works. Only some stones now hit the surface in the creek center a bit upstream, but that's fine with me.
Took 3.5 hours at Q0.55, AA 4 and GI 1/1 prepass with 3 fill lights.
Now this is looking best. Would try a slight reduction of reflectivity though.
This looks great!
I think you have sorted out the ripples very well. The size is excellent.
Pity that the water shader's ripples don't have the same "rotation".
Something you can't help I believe, since you can't get "vertical" ripples in TG2 somehow.
They are always facing horizontal related to the camera.
Dune what are the grass models you're using for this image? They look really good and the lighting makes them look very realistic and they have a different "feel" to a lot of the grass models I have.
Great overall image btw.
This is a very natural looking scene. The creek, grass and the creek banks all look very good.
Thanks guys.
@Martin, regarding
QuotePity that the water shader's ripples don't have the same "rotation".
Something you can't help I believe, since you can't get "vertical" ripples in TG2 somehow.
They are always facing horizontal related to the camera.
: I did rotate them (so it is possible, check the file if you will), but I wanted the sand ripples kind of perpendicular to the stream, and the water ripples dependent upon the wind, which (I think) is coming from the Northwest (if facing North). So they are different on purpose.
@Reck: I made these two models, they are very simple actually. I think there are a lot of (free) grasses about that are at least this quality, it all depends on the lighting I suppose. What I did do in the latter iteration is restrict the reflectivity on the leaves to the first 20 meters or so (distance shader). In the earlier renders the far away highlights in the grass bothered me.
looks like my grass models, but I know i havent uploaded grass models yet!!...anyway now i see this thread as i dont come in here often...everything looks great, the birds are too small? there again i dont know what they are and could be same size as wrens
Quotethe birds are too small
They're House Martins (swallows), 12.5 cm long, and very much the right size.
That's interesting. I never have liked too much specular highlights in my renders. I have always thought that it should decrease with the distance because of the atmosphere. (Unless something is metallic maybe). It never occurred to me to add a distance shader to solve this. I have been adding more haze, which does not always look right with low sun angles.
You learn something everyday, huh? It just occurred to me a couple of days ago. But even the simplest things just have to come up some moment.... just like negative smoothing (which increases the former displacement), which I found out some time ago, but now came in handy. But you (I) sometimes tend to forget previously learned things as well.
Yea, sometimes the elastic gets to stretched in my head.
The last render was worth the time spent. Especially like the grass, where did you get it from?
Quote from: ra on July 20, 2011, 04:58:22 PM
The last render was worth the time spent. Especially like the grass, where did you get it from?
I think he creates his own models.
Yes he does. I tried to make a longhouse for him once. I could not get it right, so he made his own. He's been modeling his own objects ever since. Once in a while he throws the model I did into one of his test renders. It's very nice of him. If I do say, the model I did looks good from the right distance. (Space shots :()
QuoteIt's very nice of him.
;D I'm just a nice guy :D ;D :D But Henry is very right; he put me on the track of modeling!
I am glad you have become so good at it. I'd like to model more myself, but I've been focused on Terragen 2.