You guys inspire me to do everything, so here's a canyon. Not too good yet, but it's a start. This brings to mind that I'd like to try and make a canyon railroad... you know... steep canyon, track hollowed out in one side. I'll try to find some reference.
Maybe something like this.
Great start Ulco!
My only thought as you begin is that maybe you should not do a desert canyon. Deserts canyons are cool, but there were a few already.
But something with lots of green I have only seen a few of in the last year.
Not tropical. But something "middle earth" *like* would be sweet! Train or no train.
Just a suggestion thats all.
Love those desert canyons; and, what you have here is an excellent start. My wife and I took a railroad trip in the Verde River Canyon. This is in Cottonwood, Arizona. Here is a link to the railroad: http://verdecanyonrr.com/
Perhaps a wip but I very like this image!!!
I'll keep that in mind, Ty. And thanks for the link, Bob. I wish the USA was down the road from here, love to take that train. I found some photo's of that particular track.
Here's a very early layout test, but VERY early.
cool
+1 cool :)
The horse is still there, but the terrain is changing fast :o
Looking good, rocks coming along nicely. Look forward to the next installments.
Big, but no good yet.
Cool concept Ulco.
You will probably agree with me that the canyon itself still needs some work.
What kind of canyon are you after? Do you use a reference or do you have something specific in your mind?
I'll probably change the scene to more like the reference I included above. With the river and not the huge overhangs. Usually my terrains grow from random settings, I then find a nice POV and refine. But I'm not happy with this either, so I full-heartedly agree, Martin.
That's a challenging reference :)
You can get that slated rock look by using a very tilted strata layer (>60 degrees) and then some fiddling with tilt direction (dependant on your camera rotation). If you then breakup that strata with a PF then you will get slated rock parts here and there as you can see in your reference.
I'm just spitting out thoughts here on what I would try. No guarantees it will work ;D
I'll just give it a go. I aim for something quite photographic, so I shouldn't make too fancy outcrops ::)
Its fun watching these develop.
Next try.
Much progress with this one. I like the composition too!
Looks pretty dangerous. ;)
Looks good! And thank heaven you saved the horse. But now there's a car on the tracks?? ;D
Coming along really nice! You might want to try adding a bunch of voronoi displacement at various scales (very large and small) to really get that sliding slab rock feel from the reference photo.
Thanks guys. I've been experimenting with a double set of strata (the shader) at various angles and hard layer heights and such. But that takes so much time that I haven't found the perfect solution yet. Small scales of hard layer depth (2) and spacing (9) seem to work quite nicely for very small shaly areas.
Anyway, here's an experiment with also some shadow throwing clouds (only secondary) and mist (low soft cloud layer), but I missed my goal. Back to the rocks, and I might indeed do some voronoi, Ryan.
Have you tried redirects for rock textures? It can be fiddly or you can hit a good result first time, anyway I've attached a clip file that is the result of many years of searching for good rocks, i'ts not quite there but it works. Not all of it is needed you can ignore the lateral displacemnt. You will have to play with the powerfractal and merge setting for the best results. Mick
Thanks Mick, I'll have a look at it.
In the meantime...
I'm enjoying watching this unfold Ulco.
Just looked at this again. You can add to the fun by adding a warper and you don't need the -1 displacement node that was put there for another function.
Fascinating!
I raised the lower areas by a surface shader blended by a distribution shader, which gave this nice river rock debris like idea. Also added some very warped (12) perlin, blended by larger warped perlin as -0.03 displacement input in water shader and used the same blenders to add a little foam.
Now perhaps for some shrub and real grass, and maybe a railroad thingy? Any other suggestions?
Don't forget the mountain goats on the cliffs ;D Mountain Goats Climbing Cliffs (http://www.google.ca/search?q=mountain+goats+on+cliffs&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=huJIUJ7tFKTviQKGoYD4AQ&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1256&bih=914)
The river already looks superb. I'd suggest some washed up debris and struggling vegetation (not the usual nice looking plants). This is a harsh environment.
Very nicely done and excellent looking details.
A couple of observations that may be of no importance for your purposes.
The river has a natural look, but one I would expect in flatter terrain.
In my experience the water is usually rather more blue, clear (not carrying silt, it is not that far from snow melt),
and the water surface is broken in steep canyons in the Rockies.
I say this as someone who has hiked in Colorado quite a bit. The rivers in those steep canyons are
dropping altitude fast and so they usually have frequent white ripples breaking over rocks. Difficult to create in a render, I know.
In the fast water there is little algae or vegetation so there is not much greenish cast due to algae even
in the slow parts of those streams.
Thanks guys. I already changed the water, you're right Fleetwood. Maybe I'll try some rapids as well in a next iteration. I don't know about the goats, though ;) unless somebody has one...
Ah, next one will have a better falls in the distance and more grass.
While the fast flowing river would certainly not be out of place, you can absolutely create a realistic render with (almost) still water. Colorado? Sure.
Here are a few reference images from Glenwood Canyon:
- http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/ae/51/6e/glenwood-canyon-and-the.jpg
- http://rockymountainscenery.com/glenwood/images/01.jpg
- http://photokayak.fit2paddle.com/glenwood/glenwood-canyon-081907-4a.jpg
- http://internetbrothers.org/wp-content/gallery/hanginglake/hanginglake_river.jpg
(Yes, you could argue some of the taming is due to Shoshone Dam)
The colorado river is massive. There are many slow and fast moving parts. I floated down a 6 hour stretch in Arizona. Except for one tiny part it was very calm. But when you have been drinking in the sun for 5 hours, that little bit of rapids can get you killed ;D
It looks good Ulco! Fast or slow its up too you. I just like that I can see rocks in the water. This always makes a water scene look more real to me.
Perhaps I like a little silt in the water after all, it's getting a bit 'busy' by now. And I might want to change the left wall, it's too uniform. And the grass is maybe too colorful. And then some trees of course....
Thanks for the refs!
Oh my, I love this thread! It's fascinating to watch this unfold and marvel at how the skilled approach and develop scenes. Even if I have no clue what exactly you do...!
I like the details you already added at this stage of the process (e.g. the water fall or the underwater structures)! One noob question, though: how did you do the "flat ground for the tracks" - is it just a displacement blended by an image shader mask? Sorry for the question, I seem to miss something here...
Thanks!
WoW!!!!
Great work, really nice to follow this thread :)
Very nice! Great work and subtility in the water!!!
Not entirely what I'm aiming for, but what the heck... let's post it anyway.
Nice work! How did you get the smoke effect from the engine?
wow this is getting better and better! (i have no idea how to do this yet ;D )
The smoke is a localized very dark cloud, the (fat but small) fractal blended by a circular simple shape shader and two X and Z warpers between SSS and fractal (so it warps the SSS). One small scale for the whole and a larger for the top part (blended by a distribution shader as well), with another distribution shader as final density to cut it of below (little fuzzy) and above (more fuzzy).
But it's not perfect, better to use a cone shaped cloud (to be found on the forum).
I possibly even linked this wrongly I now see, so don't take it as perfect.
Different rock, without strata shaders. Tilted the left part a bit more, changed the distance (added an erosion fractal). I don't really like the right bit now (vegetation colors, e.g.), so there's more work to do.
Definite improvement. Rock structures are very good. The water's fine. The vegetation is well chosen, though I'd add a bunch of yellow-brown and bare (dry) bushes/trees. The consistent saturated green on the trees is a question mark for me. I feel this is now really coming into place. Just make it look wild :)
I like the rock without the strata as well. Agreed also that the saturated, bright green trees seem a little too uniform. Otherwise looking quite good. Though some dirt/wear on the rails wouldn't hurt. ;)
- Oshyan
Looking good Ulco. I wouldn't mind having a go at animating that water with some of those get normal functions we talked about to simulate foam between the spoil?
Love this last image Ulco.
Looking Great! Especially like the water - the white random swirls/foam look photoreal. Only thing that gives me pause is the wet rocks on the river. Typically, the tops of rocks protruding up out of the water will be dry/not glistening.
Thanks guys. In hard times like this (buying a farm with all complications that go with it) it's good to get some +'s.
@Oshyan: a little wear and dirt on the rails is the easy part. I agree about the trees, I just picked some, but will do that more carefully.
@masonspappy: I'll have to set the distribution shader for the wet edges a little tighter, no problem. Thanks.
@ Jon: I'll get back to you ;)
I'm going to have to work on something else the coming weeks, so this is probably it for now. Wiped out the western wall.
Wow - impressive! Great job! :)
looks great, well done :)
cheers
^^ That is a gigantic change Dune.
Not even the same idea anymore.
Gigantic changes are easier in Tg than in real life, I can tell you that ;)
Ghehe yeah, only "delete left canyon" is enough to make a huge difference, imagine ;D
Quote from: Dune on September 16, 2012, 04:34:55 AM
I'm going to have to work on something else the coming weeks, so this is probably it for now. Wiped out the western wall.
I take it the foam between the rocks didn't work out Ulco? I'm not sure if I could do it either. The great thing about Terragen though, is when it frustrates the crap out of us, we can just nuke the terrain. ;D
I didn't work on the foam anymore, Jon. But what would be your suggestion? The river is a warped simple shape after all, so it's 'easy' to have the foam follow the stream, or restrict it to the sides. The 'get normal' stuff wouldn't probably work, because if you get the normal and apply something in the water, it's probably only taking the normals from there, not from the surface displacements. I'll do some more testing in between my current job.
I even tried applying the same displacements (as the ground surface) to the water plane once, then make some sort of mask out of that and then smooth those displacements again, and then use the generated mask to restrict foam to certain areas. But strangely, I can't even remember if that worked (too much TG experiments makes me :o ??? :P :-\ )
So great, Dune! Wish I had the foggiest clue how you made most of this. Inspiring! :D