Played around with a second planet, which looked like an asteroid. So I decided to destroy the earth! ;)
looking good!
Nice one!
Such lovely destruction! Really nice.
Super destruction! Like a frozen moment. May I make 2 suggestions? I see you have added some rocks, but I think you can add more to expand on the feel of explosion. If you blend them by the highest ridges, these would seem like exploding magma. And 2: if you stretch the soft cloud in the Y direction, it seems like gas exploding out of the planet. I really like the fat clouds of smoke and the glow in it.
I really like the way those clouds are working in top centre.
Very cool render. A slight motion blur on the asteroid would probably give it greater sense of speed.
Very nice but you have a definite line where your atmosphere ends and space begins, I would blend that a bit more.
Epic Stuff !
Thank you, guys!
@Saurav and Andrew: you're definitely right. Probably there's no other way than doing it in postwork :(. I'll take that into account.
@Ulco: the rocks are actually an imported object made out of a particle system I created in 3ds max, using the asteroid as emitter after I imported it into Max with the Micro exporter. See attached image.
I wanted the rocks not to just float above the asteroid but to shoot out building some kind of trail. Obviously there aren't enough rocks and there seems to be no way to make them look moving at high speed without pw...
Btw I'm not quite sure what you mean by "If you blend them by the highest ridges".
Absolutely stunning. A terrific use of Terragen. The title says it all, I'd hate to be around when that one lands.!!! So a few details could be improved? You guys seem to miss the point. This is real creative work, long may the author keep producing! His message has come across in no mean fashion and I for one, appreciate that.
rat.
Quick and dirty Photoshop blurring.
The motion blur of the asteroid creates more sense of motion but unfortunately destroys a whole lot of detail...
@Rat: oh boy, thank you! But it seems my english is quite improvable. What are you referring to by saying "His message has come across in no mean fashion..."
It does loose a a bit of details but personally I like it better with the motion blur, creates more tension in the image. ;D
Saurav is right; quite dramatic and much more realistic. Like you're about to be blown to pieces.
With blend by highest peaks I mean that if you add a floating pop of rocks around the planet, you can blend their distribution by the same fractal that produces the highest peaks, perhaps stretched even more into Y, and possibly using the color adjust (white slider down) to get more 'peak' into that mask.
Deep impact imminent..
Very movie like, thumbs up! :)
That is one HOT render :) Print-worthy IMHO. Congrats!
Animation animation animation!
;D ;D ;D
Unfortunately this image only works with this POV. If I'd animate this you would all realise that I cheated ;).
I wish there was a cool particle system in TG where you could also use cloud puffs as particles to create a fiery trail behind the asteroid...
Much better, can you do the shot a couple of seconds later with the fiery ball slightly further away from the camera?
Hannes, I can understand how my words didn't quite register as it's quite a common phrase here in the UK. Should have realized, sorry. What I meant is that you have created an image which tells a story. It's for the viewer to follow it through and realize there is going to be one hell of an impact at the end of the thirty seconds. Brilliant! Photoshop blurs might just have helped, but I doubt it. However, just for the hell of it I am going to put your image into Photoshop and try it out myself. (Since I've been teaching PS for years I ought to be able to do something with it I reckon).
rat.
Thanks again, guys!
Andrew, this is exactly what I can't do, because once you see more of this asteroid, you'll notice that it's just a glowing potato. If there was a convincing huge fiery trail behind it (which I have no idea on how to create one), it would of course be possible.
Particles! Particles! Particles! :(
@Rat: ah, I see. Thank you! Feel free to post it here.
Hey Hannes, thanks for letting me show what would happen if some blurring was applied to your already super fireball image. I haven't blurred the lot, only the parts that seem to matter. I've also warmed it up a bit where it's impacting the atmosphere and done a bit of sharpening of the planet below. It's highly debatable whether I've done any good, but only you can say.
rat.
A scene in line with the times when people are beginning to realize the threats that exist. Excellent creation Hannes, this is truly an exciting image.
Outstanding! I like the motion blurred one the most :)
That looks pretty cool.
The asteroid might be a bit too much in the face, but it is well executed!
About animating; I remember you once did an avalanche animation Hannes?
I suppose theoretically you could use similar techniques for a smoke trail here. No fire though.
Cheers,
Martin
Nice work !!!
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on July 01, 2013, 04:06:20 PM
About animating; I remember you once did an avalanche animation Hannes?
I suppose theoretically you could use similar techniques for a smoke trail here. No fire though.
Cheers,
Martin
Hey Yeah! Why not? Can you do it?
At least maybe as an ice trail on a comet not on a coalition course? The comet could just be passing by!
I wanted to do something similar but thought it was to advanced a topic for me. If you have time maybe you will try it Hannes.
In the end I thought I would make my planet in T2 and do a comet in AE with E3d. But it was hard to get the placement and scale of the tail right in 3D space. But if you could get it working in T2, reasonably well, then it would be easy to add FX and details in AE. It could look rather extraordinary if the base part in T2 was good.
Thanks for your thoughts. I'd love to animate this, but creating a convincing trail will be quite difficult if not impossible in TG. It might work in combination with other 3d apps as suggested.
I don't think the technique I used for my avalanche animation would work here, since it was nothing but moving localised clouds with an animated cloud fractal and a tilted camera faking a view up the mountain.
I'll give it a try to first animate the asteroid without thinking about how to create the fx stuff. This is going to be tough...
I remember an old thread where someone made smoke trails of a rocket, using blue nodes to create lines/tubes as a mask for the cloud's fractal.
You need something similar here. Just a thick procedural tube shaped mask which extends in time in the direction of the comet's trajectory.
I'll search for the topic, it exists, definitely.
There you go:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,4090.0.html
That link is 5 years old, geez, I'm wondering if I'm even normal when I can remember this :o
Oh thank you! Now that you mentioned it, I remember that thread. I'll take a look at it.
OK, the good news is: I know how to increase the radius of the trail.
The bad news is: since I seem to be too dumb to understand this blue node stuff, I have no idea how to use this in my asteroid scene.
Well, I know how to use it as a density shader of a cloud layer, but in the clip file the trail is always parallel to the surface, right? What I need is a trail that's perpendicular, so that it's pointing away from the asteroid. (I hope I used the words parallel and perpendicular correctly, but I think you know what I mean, don't you?)
[attach=1]
Sweet!!!
Well, I have hope here. 8) Not really sure Hannes, but I think you have done much more complex things with T2. It seems like it anyway.
The image is from the thread T-U posted. Great thread Martin! Thanks for bringing it up! But just to be clear, your question was rhetorical, right? ;) JK.
On the image, the wide part coming from the comet would look good, then getting thiner, maybe. But Im just wondering how your going to place the cloud tube thing in space? Based on your last post, Hannes, it now sounds even harder than doing it in 3D inside of after effects where your not even dealing with such a vast amount of empty space. I am guessing you would place the rock object, or other object first, then attach the cloud coordinates to the objects, some how. And then fiddle with it manually?
I wish I could be of more help :(
Well at least I can give you a little insperation, maybe. When in doubt return to the 90s! ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOE73pxpys
Hi Hannes,
I have never investigated the setup.
5 years ago it was way beyond me on over my head and probably it still is :)
I can imagine that the function uses some kind of get position and then uses an X or Z to scalar like operation.
What we need to try is to either make it perpendicular, like you suggested, or see if we can generate a vector by defining 2 points in 3D space.
I can imagine the comet is an object and the planet is "the" planet.
All the blue nodes stuff is probably not using the comet as a base for its coordinates.
If you are interested here is the latest version of that setup. I believe this one sets the plume in the Y direction.
I made it a little easier to set up by putting all the internal functions in the internal nodes and only inputs in the external.
I also added a density setting as well.
Awesome image...I love it...hey, its heading straight for my house....what the he@#????
Thanks very much, mogn. Very handy and useful for a lot of stuff. What do min and max density do? I found no difference when increasing max from 2 to 5 for instance.
Thank you guys for your efforts to teach me using blue nodes.
It doesn't work. First of all: it's true, I'm too dumb to understand what these blue nodes are actually doing. "Scalar" sounds like an alien species to me although it seems that they do something with the scale of something.
Second: blue nodes bite. I'm afraid of them.
OK, I found a solution for creating a trail that works pretty good, and is quite simple.
Since the asteroid is another planet, it's quite easy to stack a lot of localised clouds with increasing altitude values and decreasing density settings on top of each other. The colour of each layer is adjustable, so I can create a nice Fire-to-smoke falloff.
Here is a screenshot of my first test.
Ha! I was sure you would come up with something nice!
But I see your still destroying the world... Probably for the better I guess.
Really looking forward to your final conclusions of this experiment, Hannes.
Quote from: Hannes on July 03, 2013, 05:59:04 AM
Thank you guys for your efforts to teach me using blue nodes.
It doesn't work. First of all: it's true, I'm too dumb to understand what these blue nodes are actually doing. "Scalar" sounds like an alien species to me although it seems that they do something with the scale of something.
Second: blue nodes bite. I'm afraid of them.
I'm still learning blue node stuff and I have SO much to learn if I look at stuff from Ogre or Jon (Hetzen).
What I do know so far about scalars:
Vector = point in space with a direction and magnitude
scalar = point in space without direction and with magnitude
Speed = km/h = scalar
Temperature = scalar
60 km/h west = vector
So nodes like "get altitude" gives you a scalar value at each point.
Since altitude is not a direction, despite that we use the concept of altitude as a direction in our mind, it is just expressed as a value in some kind of unit like metres and thus is a scalar.
TU, thank you very much for your explanation. It was in vain...
It feels like almost fourty years ago, when my math teacher tried to explain me some formulas. He was really a very good math teacher, but after his fifth try I went home and cried.
Now I'm at home and crying. :'(
Honestly, I almost understood what you were writing. But it will probably take a lot of time until I will be able to use some blue node stuff on my own...
Until that I'll stick to my stacked layers. No blue nodes (as far as I know...)
Im in solidarity with you bro!
I am just guessing, but some instructional materials on the subject from planetside could probably help a bit... You never know.
Anyway, the image you posted looks rather promising. Likely a good method for stills at the very least. And probably could be used for a lot of effects.
Hannes, maybe you will collaborate on this with someone? As far as I know, no one has even tried what your doing for this purpose. For that reason alone its rather fun to see this develop. And if on top of breaking new ground you manage to get it to look great too, well, my nerd self says thats pretty cool.
It looks good as it is, but I say push on to the bitter end anyway!
Thank you, Badger for your encouraging words. At the moment I am testing my method for an animation and I have to say that it looks quite promising. The fact that the asteriod is moving and "move textures with clouds" is unchecked for the trail layers makes a nice effect. I attached a test movie in lousy quality, but it shows how it looks so far.
...still no blue nodes ;)
[attachimg=1]
YOU DID IT!!!!!!!! :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
Imagine Hannes, you may also be able to put water on it? Make Ice?
And because you used a planet, you can apply vector displacement maps to get crazy shapes?
[attach=1]
[attach=2]
Now we're making movies baby!
A scalar is just a single number, a quantity, or a magnitude. If you read up on scalars the definitions are more specific and jargon-laden than that, so I'm not surprised that they are hard to understand, but I think for the sake of understanding what they are in Terragen you should think of a scalar as a number. e.g. 0, 1, 2, 5.6, -10.3, -5, 1 million, etc.
A scalar only becomes a point in space after you multiply it by a vector, but that's because the result is a vector, not a scalar. Often we just deal with scalars, without vectors, so there's no need to think of them in terms of vectors all the time. So, scalar = number.
If you multiply a scalar by a vector (that is to say, multiply a vector by a scalar), the scalar multiplies the length (or magnitude) of the vector to create a new vector. Vectors can represent the difference between two points (i.e. the displacement from one point to the next), and when you multiply such a vector by a scalar it multiplies the length/magnitude of the vector. However, if you are using the vector to represent a point in space then it multiplies the point's distance from the origin, because a point is represented by a vector that takes you from the origin to the point.
Otherwise, a scalar is just a number.
Matt
Hannes, like you said, its just a test video. But I noticed that the clouds are moving up from the object, rather than back and away. Maybe that is what should happen. But if so, shouldn't it happen slower?... The upward movement I mean.
Cant wait for the next render man!
@Matt, thank you so much for your detailed explanation. Maybe a short and very simple tutorial where scalars and other things like that are used would be nice for those like me who have difficulties with those abstract things.
@Badger, actually the clouds and their density shaders aren't moving at all. The only thing that moves is the asteroid. So the clouds stay in place which is what I want. There is no reference point for the movement since the earth is hidden for testing purposes, but right now I am rendering another test animation (a bit larger and longer), which shows the earth and hopefully the correct behavior of the trail.
First of all:
@rat: I forgot to say thank you for your efforts, sorry! I liked what you did. What did you use in PS?
@TU: funny! What I did is quite exactly what you mentioned some threads before. I used a very similar technique like in my avalanche animation.
Here is another test animation as mentioned. I thought about posting it in the animation section, but it's still part of this thread I think. Maybe the next one.
It's quite noisy and flickering. I used a little time blending in AE to make it a bit smoother.
Ahhhhh I see now. Great! It works perfectly, it seems.
Its really fantastic Hannes :o
I only see one issue. Really not a issue, just a observation. And that is the comet is far outside the Exosphere, but comets don't burn until they reach the Mesosphere.
Ok OK, im being a dick. It does looks great. Never mind me and my back seat driving. :P
Still, since I brought it up anyway. How hard is it to move that death star around anyway?
How hard will it be for you to render the shot your showing now, then a shot form deeper in the atmo, then a shot from ground looking up as its coming in?
Would you just copy your nodes and then put in new coordinates, or just move the camera, or what? Is it hard to work with?
Some info you may want, depending on how far you decide to take this.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/layers.htm
take a break if you need Hannes, but don't abandon this one. Its freaking cool!
edit*
Sorry, last question... Is the planet/comet object rotating? I thought it was. But now I think its just an effect of the camera moving...
Can the object be set to rotate on its axis? I remember lots of discussion on this in the forum, but cant remember what the conclusion of those threads were.
Hey Badger, thanks again!
The issue you mentioned came into my mind too. Call it artistic freedom. I'll let it burn for the same reason you can hear loud explosion sounds in space in almost every sci fi movie. ;D
The asteroid isn't rotating. I guess it would be possible to just animate the rotation, but in this case the trail's localised clouds have their coordinates on the planet, so they would follow the rotation too, which is not wanted. A solution would be to create a non renderable not rotating planet for the trail and an identic one that's rotating and renderable, but not connected with the trail.
At least in theory...
Moving the asteroid is just like moving any other object. Since it's small enough you can use the handles, which is quite comfortable.
It's quite special to sync the trail with the asteroid. They move automatically with it, but for some reason the coordinates have to be adjusted during the animation.
QuoteI'll let it burn for the same reason you can hear loud explosion sounds in space in almost every sci fi movie.
lol! I accept that answer with a huge smile! ;D
Thanks for answering questions!
Rendertest with higher quality settings. I disabled GI and used a fill light setup instead. Rendertime for this image: 34 minutes.
Strange artifacts in the orange glow to the left. I don't know if these are really artifacts or parts of the asteroid?! It's still there even with acceleration cache set to none.
Looks like a rib cage.
Indeed! I'll see if this will be neglectable or not. I started the animation with rendertimes of about 11 minutes per frame, since the earth, which takes longer to render, is not yet visible.
Thanks Matt, of course very useful!
I was wondering a few things:
Quote from: Matt on July 03, 2013, 10:18:59 PM
A scalar is just a single number, a quantity, or a magnitude. If you read up on scalars the definitions are more specific and jargon-laden than that, so I'm not surprised that they are hard to understand, but I think for the sake of understanding what they are in Terragen you should think of a scalar as a number. e.g. 0, 1, 2, 5.6, -10.3, -5, 1 million, etc.
Ok clear.
Quote
A scalar only becomes a point in space after you multiply it by a vector, but that's because the result is a vector, not a scalar. Often we just deal with scalars, without vectors, so there's no need to think of them in terms of vectors all the time. So, scalar = number.
This is where I get in trouble, because in my search for math-wisdom to figure out differences between scalars and vectors I come across multiple sources which clearly state:
Scalar = vector without direction.
So my question is simple: are those sources wrong or is TG using a different definition?
The definition you gave does explain why scalars and colours are interchangeable in certain parts of the node network, as colour also allows you to specify a number.
This doesn't answer my question of course, since this only describes the implementation of these principles in TG.
It's just to see if I can get my new way of understanding it now being confirmed.
Quote
If you multiply a scalar by a vector (that is to say, multiply a vector by a scalar), the scalar multiplies the length (or magnitude) of the vector to create a new vector. Vectors can represent the difference between two points (i.e. the displacement from one point to the next), and when you multiply such a vector by a scalar it multiplies the length/magnitude of the vector.
Say I want to multiply a vector with a scalar, do I use a multiply vector node or a multiply scalar node or does that not matter?
(edit: there's something in the docs about data type conversion that should answer it I believe/hope)
Quote
However, if you are using the vector to represent a point in space then it multiplies the point's distance from the origin, because a point is represented by a vector that takes you from the origin to the point.
This confuses me, because it implies that there are other ways of representing a point in space than a vector?
My belief was a scalar, but as you may know by now I don't know it anymore :)
Consequently, I don't understand the "however", because to me it's the same as the first part of that paragraph.
I don't understand the difference you're explaining.
I hope you find some time to explain some of these ultra-basic things.
Thanks in advance :)
Martin
OK, thanks guys, now I'm completely confused! ;)
I'm so glad that I didn't have to use the blue nodes...
Very nice Animation test.
Go,Hannes,go!
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on July 04, 2013, 10:14:42 AM
Quote from: Matt on July 03, 2013, 10:18:59 PM
A scalar only becomes a point in space after you multiply it by a vector, but that's because the result is a vector, not a scalar. Often we just deal with scalars, without vectors, so there's no need to think of them in terms of vectors all the time. So, scalar = number.
This is where I get in trouble, because in my search for math-wisdom to figure out differences between scalars and vectors I come across multiple sources which clearly state:
Scalar = vector without direction.
So my question is simple: are those sources wrong or is TG using a different definition?
I have never seen a scalar described as a vector without direction. A scalar is not a vector.
Quote
Quote
If you multiply a scalar by a vector (that is to say, multiply a vector by a scalar), the scalar multiplies the length (or magnitude) of the vector to create a new vector. Vectors can represent the difference between two points (i.e. the displacement from one point to the next), and when you multiply such a vector by a scalar it multiplies the length/magnitude of the vector.
Say I want to multiply a vector with a scalar, do I use a multiply vector node or a multiply scalar node or does that not matter?
(edit: there's something in the docs about data type conversion that should answer it I believe/hope)
You would use a Multiply Vector. With most function nodes in Terragen, the last word in the name of the node (here it is 'vector') tells you what datatype the node outputs. When you multiply a scalar by a vector you want to output a vector, so use Multiply Vector.
Quote
Quote
However, if you are using the vector to represent a point in space then it multiplies the point's distance from the origin, because a point is represented by a vector that takes you from the origin to the point.
This confuses me, because it implies that there are other ways of representing a point in space than a vector?
My belief was a scalar, but as you may know by now I don't know it anymore :)
Consequently, I don't understand the "however", because to me it's the same as the first part of that paragraph.
I don't understand the difference you're explaining.
I hope you find some time to explain some of these ultra-basic things.
Thanks in advance :)
I'm not the best teacher of this stuff. Try this:
http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/physics/chapter4.rhtml
You can step through all the sections of this chapter using the "CONTINUE TO THE NEXT SECTION>>" link below the text.
Matt
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on July 04, 2013, 10:14:42 AM
Quote from: Matt on July 03, 2013, 10:18:59 PM
However, if you are using the vector to represent a point in space then it multiplies the point's distance from the origin, because a point is represented by a vector that takes you from the origin to the point.
This confuses me, because it implies that there are other ways of representing a point in space than a vector?
My belief was a scalar, but as you may know by now I don't know it anymore :)
Consequently, I don't understand the "however", because to me it's the same as the first part of that paragraph.
I don't understand the difference you're explaining.
My sentence wasn't very clear.
A vector can be used to represent a point, or it can mean other things. I was trying to say that if your vector is a point (e.g. "Get position"), then multiplying that vector by a scalar moves the point further away from the origin or closer to the origin, but it always stays somewhere on the same line from the origin to the point. The line is infinite in both directions. I should also say that if you multiply by a negative scalar, the direction of the vector is reversed, so the point ends up on the opposite side of the origin, but it's still somewhere along the same infinite line.
Matt
That sounds logical, unless you multiply the vector by vector, which deviates from that line.
Thanks Matt, that makes sense now.
I have learned that a scalar is simply a value, a number, as Matt described.
A scalar doesn't really exist at the origin or any other position, because it doesn't have a multi dimensional position at all.
A vector is a way to describe the position of a point in space, and it's direction from the origin.
The way to write a 3D vector is [x;y;z]. For example, the vector [1,2;3] describes a point that it 1 step away from the origin on the x axis, 2 steps from the origin on the y axis, and 3 steps away from the origin on the z axis.
Now, if you multiply [1;2;3] with a scalar (let's say 5), it works like this:
5 * [1;2;3] = [5*1;5*2;5*3] = [5;10;15]
The result defines a new point in space, that has the exact same direction from the origin, but now farther away, at exactly [5;10:15]
Cheers
Frank
Back to my asteroid. Now that I am even more confused than before I am glad that I could do it without scalars and such :).
At the moment I am rendering the so called final animation. Rendertimes per frame (800 X 450 px) are quite high, because I had to turn off the acceleration cache for the first four or five cloud layers of the asteroid to get rid of some heavy flickering and the mentioned "rib cage" effect. No GI, just a fill light setup. When the animtion is done, I'll post it in the animation section.
Can't wait.............
I had to dig out this thread, because the animation is finally rendered at last. I put the movie into the animation section:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16329.new.html#new
Outstanding Hannes!
Wow.
Some really good work, Hannes.