Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: kaedorg on October 23, 2013, 02:21:27 AM

Title: Cloud Quality in Quality Tab
Post by: kaedorg on October 23, 2013, 02:21:27 AM
I look for more infos about the Cloud Quality in Quality Tab

Atmo quality is 16 in the default project and if i create a cumulus layer quality is set at 0.334305

As i usually use a minimum of Atmo quality at 64 (and rarely more than 128), i'd like to know if there is
an equivalent and logical scale for the Cloud Quality.
I guess also that after a number, the benefit in quality is too small regarding the increase of the render time.

All infos about that are welcome  ;)

David
Title: Re: Cloud Quality in Quality Tab
Post by: Dune on October 23, 2013, 02:27:04 AM
I'd suggest leaving it at default, UNLESS you get grainy atmo or clouds. Saves you a lot of render time. If it's too grainy, increase either atmo or cloud quality and/or AA, but stepwise, and see when you get satisfactory results.
Title: Re: Cloud Quality in Quality Tab
Post by: Oshyan on October 26, 2013, 04:20:44 AM
You are actually talking about 2 different types of settings. In the atmosphere you are directly controlling the number of *Samples*. In the cloud layer, the Quality control is intended to automatically adjust samples behind the scenes and estimate what kind of "quality" you are going to get based on your cloud settings (especially density). In general a cloud quality of 1 is ideal, however if you can get away with less you'll save some render time. The key concept is that the number of samples required for a given level of quality *varies depending on the cloud settings you use*. This is why Quality tries to deal with things automatically, because it's more complex than the atmosphere settings, the effects are more interrelated. Above all you should not consider atmosphere *sample* and cloud *quality* numbers to be equivalent or related.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Cloud Quality in Quality Tab
Post by: kaedorg on October 26, 2013, 08:14:40 AM
Thanks for your reply. Very helpful.

David