Hello Terragen 3! I've had this scene on my hard drive for about a year and a half, but I could never get the lighting the way I wanted in Terragen 2. I figured I'd give it a try in Terragen 3.
It turns out TG3 is awesome. The GI lighting is much better and more natural and I have to do a lot less work (thanks Planetside ;D)
I want to make the sky/ atmosphere more exciting, but at the same time I kind of like it simple. The path in the lower left is probably not going to make it to the final version unless I can come up with a better reason for it to exist.
Thanks for taking a look!
Awesome image!
very nice image and i do confirm : tg3 rocks ;)
I love this image. Great :)
With or without that path.
Very nicely done. I wana see it much bigger (but then it wouldn't fit on my monitor ... ???)
I like the path on the left (when I found it!). maybe just a little more exposure on the foreground but it's hard to say.
On one level the new GI and render layers (do try them out on this image!) are great but on another they just give us more decisions to make!
:)
Richard
Thank you all. The final is going to be quite large. This one only took 4 hours using GI 3/3, which is probably unnecessary and only bloating the render time. I might replace the water shader with a reflective shader so I can use the reflection softness, but 'll have to do some experimenting to see if it makes a difference.
Wonderful mood and i love the framing.
I would let the path where it is. He is adding variation and realism for me..
I love the subtle lighting in this. Looking forward to seeing where it goes...
- Oshyan
Excellent! It has lovely sense of stillness.
That is freaking awesome. Love the subtle lighting and the incredibly gentle atmo. I must concentrate on atmos more :)
no complaints here... only bigger maybe!
great atmo and detailing!
:)
J
Not too drastic of a change this time. I added some subtle clouds to the sky without making it too crazy, I guess I'm a sucker for simple things. I changed the path and added in a house to give it somewhere to go. I've also added some more plant variety to the field as well as increased the wind patch effect on the water. I'm pretty happy with were it is so it might be time to render it big.
On my monitor, the left foreground is really dark. Darker than the first post. IMO. it needs a touch more light all over, but especially in the left foreground.
Agreed with above. Other than that really nice.
This is a great point of view. Very well done !
That's interesting that it's darker on your monitors. I lowered the color saturation value for the atmosphere, but besides that I don't think I messed with anything that would change the brightness of the scene. There are more 'dark' trees in the second version so I guess the GI could somehow be picking that up and making it appear darker.
I'll play with some settings and create a comparison for you guys so I can see what looks best for people with different monitors than my own.
The amount of shadow looks fine on my monitor, just light enough to see that there are details there but not so bright that it changes the atmosphere of the piece. Might be interesting to add a very small bit of reflectivity to the path or have the house windows have a little light shining through or out.
It is also now quite easy to adjust the shadows and GI in post without changing the atmosphere if you render out all the different Render Elements.
Love the scene.
Thanks Ryan! I want to add some lighting coming from the house like you suggested, unfortunately the model is kinda bad so I can't actually edit the windows to make them transparent (and I'm to lazy to edit the house in blender) so that will probably end up being done in post work instead of Terragen itself.
At the bottom of the post is the lighting comparison I've quickly cooked up. The 1st image has the same settings that I've been using in the scene while the other two have increasing indirect lighting through the Enviro lighting. I think I like the third one the best since it give more contrast of the trees against the grass, but, to me, they all look good on my monitor. I don't want to push the lighting up much more in Terragen so any additional lightening of the shadows would probably be done by playing with the render elements in postwork.
I have a 2 monitor setup.
On the bad one there is absolutely no difference
between those 3 images and all three images does look absolutely pitch black.
On the better monitor i like the 3'rd too.
Looking very good though you might consider a second sun or fill light opposite the main sun set at a low altitude and low strength to bring out minimal details in the darkly shadowed areas.
3rd.....................
The 2nd version is definitely darker on a flip back and forth between the two, so regardless of processing, for whatever reason it's true. :D Are you sure you didn't change anything that would change that area?
I'd suggest trying an increase in Enviro Light Strength on Surfaces before fill lights and the rest.
- Oshyan
wheres the path?.......love sunsets myself, this is great one, but with the sky so light there should be more light on the foreground perhaps
Oshyan, I don't remember changing anything before, but I won't rule it out since it is noticeably darker. Now I most certainly have changed some settings, just about all of them in fact. Hopefully I've managed to find a better balance between having detail in the shadows without altering the mood of the scene.
Terrade, the path is poking out from the top of the house going upward and to the left.
I also did a minor bit of sharpening in postwork, just to see if it helps objects be differentiated within the scene.
Personally I think it's a wonderful balance now. The only tiny thing is there are some little "hot pixels" on some of the trees, right in the sun's path. I'm guessing maybe some specular on the trees? Not worth re-rendering for, maybe just do a despeckle or something (or not, they're really minor, hehe).
- Oshyan
Looks great!
Thank you guys! I want to make it bigger anyways, so having some hot pixels in there is as good of an excuse as any :D
I figured out how to get some light shining out of the windows in the house so I went ahead and did a crop render showing what that will look like when integrated into the scene. I like the way it looks since it makes the house seem more...lived in. Thanks for the idea Ryan.
This image looks great too :)
This is coming along very nicely!
I liked this image anyway, the balance of light and dark worked for me right from the start. It's sunrise, the lower left is in shadow; I have to squint to see there is detail there, I get to do that in the real world. Like I said the balance worked for me BUT the light in the windows is an artistic clincher, overall no change but just enough to draw the eye to the lower left, adjust to the darker lighting, notice the detail that is there, spot on.
The house lights are a perfect touch!
Thanks all, I'm glad you like it. This is the final version until I decide to render it bigger for use as a print. I did some post work cleaning up some hot pixels and filling in some gaps on the tree line for the hills. It's bigger than the others so hopefully that helps bring out details in the image.
Great!
Stunning, all the little changes really finished it off beautifully.