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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: Icegrip on November 08, 2012, 11:36:43 AM

Title: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 08, 2012, 11:36:43 AM
Right now Im working on an assignment to build a historic scene from a boreal forest from early 1900 and if possible to compare it with information/data how it looks today. Im using real terrain DEM and have also draped the DEM with ortophoto. Im creating image map shaders from shapefiles describing the coverage of the different forest stands. (Ryan Archer method) Each stand is populated differently so I have a LARGE number of populations.

I will post some WIP work of some of the steps. Comments and critics welcome :)






Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 08, 2012, 11:39:45 AM
Terrain draped with ortophoto of today to get better texture of mires and ground...even though they will be placed with  objects later on.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Oshyan on November 08, 2012, 01:41:26 PM
Sounds like a promising and ambitious project. You said it's an "assignment", is it for school, or do you mean a work assignment? Either way I'm looking forward to the results.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 09, 2012, 10:19:57 AM
It's a work assignment.

Couple of updates.
Started with just populating some shaders with trees to find out a convincing height of the trees. These forest were not clear cutted in areas like they are nowadays and not as monocultural(?) as today.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 09, 2012, 10:31:59 AM
Figuring out how to create realistic looking mires and vegetation under the trees will be intresting....for the mires Im striving to get something like these two photos, a typical mire where I live in north of Sweden.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Bjur on November 09, 2012, 01:07:34 PM
It´s looking rly good and (more important i guess) very natural/realistic for me..  :o
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Henry Blewer on November 10, 2012, 08:28:28 AM
You can leave the 'mires' areas very flat. Your object selections, how they are sized, and the blending shader will make the lower and higher vegetation stand out.

Try using a power fractal with a distribution shader as its blending shader. The distribution shader will control the slope; constrain the objects to the flatter areas. The power fractal will control the coverage for the lower/flatter areas, and the higher tufted areas. You can test this at the end of the shaders tab (node group).

Check negative check box below the population's blending shader for the higher/tufted vegetation.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: masonspappy on November 10, 2012, 11:05:11 AM
Would like to see a larger size of the last two images.  What I can see in the smaller pictures looks great
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Kadri on November 10, 2012, 12:58:52 PM
Quote from: Icegrip on November 09, 2012, 10:31:59 AM
....for the mires Im striving to get something like these two photos...

They are photos.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on November 10, 2012, 06:38:30 PM
i like it (or maybe dont really like it)
when you look at a thumbnail and think its TG render for a sec or so,
when its actually just a photo

Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Bjur on November 10, 2012, 09:25:53 PM
Dont drink at night and post!

Thought the little pics were generated stuff..  :)
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 11, 2012, 03:45:28 AM
Quote from: njeneb on November 10, 2012, 08:28:28 AM
You can leave the 'mires' areas very flat. Your object selections, how they are sized, and the blending shader will make the lower and higher vegetation stand out.

Try using a power fractal with a distribution shader as its blending shader. The distribution shader will control the slope; constrain the objects to the flatter areas. The power fractal will control the coverage for the lower/flatter areas, and the higher tufted areas. You can test this at the end of the shaders tab (node group).

Check negative check box below the population's blending shader for the higher/tufted vegetation.

Thanks Njeneb! Yes, the mires will have a flat look. I have a lot to learn yet. I use the mire mask to place the populations. And made three different grass populations with different heights and spacing to differ from each other. So I can actuallyt use a distribution shader within my mire mask?


Quote from: zaai-three-nine on November 10, 2012, 06:38:30 PM
i like it (or maybe dont really like it)
when you look at a thumbnail and think its TG render for a sec or so,
when its actually just a photo

Quote from: Bjur on November 10, 2012, 09:25:53 PM
Dont drink at night and post!

Thought the little pics were generated stuff..  :)


Sorry for the confusion guys, from now on I will only post renders. :)

Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 11, 2012, 03:49:00 AM
Adding snags and dead wood to the ground and some more blueberrie plants.

Vegetation needs to be denser and mire-work are next to fix!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 11, 2012, 04:54:29 AM
After some testing I found a way with the mire. Using the grass populations that comes with Terragen and using different coulours on the grass, from "yellow" to brownish red and different sizes.

Net is to get some low rugged pine trees on the mire...
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: TheBadger on November 12, 2012, 01:41:42 AM
Looking good!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Henry Blewer on November 12, 2012, 08:23:03 AM
You can use multiple blending shaders; each controlling an element of the final blending shader mask. For instance, this is a simple setup for making clumps of trees.

Get Texture coordinates                       Constant Scalar
                |                                                      |
                 ___________________________
                                           |
                             Voronoi Cell Scalar
                                           |
                                Power Fractal
                                           |

The power fractal is the blending shader. The Voronoi Cell Shader makes the clumps. Get Texture coordinates provides coordinates for the voronoi noise. The constant scalar is for scale. I use the same value for the constant scalar and the power fractals scale. The default smallest scale of the power fractal is usually fine. The lead in scale of the power fractal controls the spacing distance of the clumps.

You can also adjust the coverage using the color controls of the power fractal.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 12, 2012, 10:41:14 AM
Thanks Njeneb! :) I will have to play around with this before putting it into the scene.

Clumping of trees would be a great thing to do as it adds to the realism even more. Is this technique going to alter the number of objects in a population or just their distribution pattern? I hope only the distribution as I still would like to know the number of objects I place on a surface area.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 12, 2012, 10:50:33 AM
Added smaller trees on mires, standing dead trees and some more under vegetation...
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Kadri on November 13, 2012, 02:09:32 AM

Looks good , Icegrip!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 14, 2012, 12:11:05 PM
Thanks Kadri!

Added some stones, larger Pines, standing dead trees...
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 17, 2012, 02:44:03 AM
After many hours...

On a cloudy day 1913.

Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: mhaze on November 17, 2012, 04:40:02 AM
Very good indeed, I've been watching this with interest, keep 'em coming!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: masonspappy on November 17, 2012, 06:22:48 AM
Really nice! You've managed the randomness factor to the point where tree placements look quite natural.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Kadri on November 17, 2012, 07:04:13 AM

It looks realistic , Icegrip!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Dune on November 18, 2012, 03:09:56 AM
Great progress, Icegrip.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on November 18, 2012, 07:36:28 AM
Quote from: mhaze on November 17, 2012, 04:40:02 AM
Very good indeed, I've been watching this with interest, keep 'em coming!

Thank you! I will do some more POVs.

Quote from: masonspappy on November 17, 2012, 06:22:48 AM
Really nice! You've managed the randomness factor to the point where tree placements look quite natural.

Thanks! I've used many different populations with "different randomness".

Quote from: Kadri on November 17, 2012, 07:04:13 AM

It looks realistic , Icegrip!

Thanks Kadri!

Quote from: Dune on November 18, 2012, 03:09:56 AM
Great progress, Icegrip.

Thanks Dune!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: TheBadger on November 20, 2012, 11:31:08 AM
nice population control.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on January 12, 2013, 04:06:15 AM
Long time since any update. But now it's time!  :)
FrankB showed a nice modification of a render in the thread "Ponte Salario. He used a program called Snapseed and I thought it might suit this purpose, to create a rough rugged look at an old photograph.

This is what I came up with, I call it "Incoming rain".



Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: TheBadger on January 12, 2013, 07:27:41 PM
Excellent!
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Mor on January 13, 2013, 03:30:28 AM
Great and very natural result. It's been nice to watch the progression of this.
Title: Re: Creating a historic scene - Forest land
Post by: Icegrip on January 16, 2013, 01:56:52 PM
Quote from: TheBadger on January 12, 2013, 07:27:41 PM
Excellent!

Thank you! :)

Quote from: Mor on January 13, 2013, 03:30:28 AM
Great and very natural result. It's been nice to watch the progression of this.

Thanks, nice to hear you like the progression steps.