Plenty still to do on this :)
I know the lighting is more than just a bit off! It's about ten times too clear!
I want to make the canyon to the right darker and the foreground shadowed area more illuminated.
When I get something I'm happy with, layout and lighting wise, I want to try using the depth pass to fade our the different colour channels separately. It should work but it will require somehead scratching to figure out :)
Cheers
Richard
You're off to good start but honestly I'd lose the building unless you're willing to build in a lot of coral buildup detail to the model outside of Terragen that you'll have trouble getting inside it. I've also learned from experience that these types of deeper water underwater scenes tend to look better when the light comes from above unless you're dealing with very shallow water environments, then raking the angle like a traditional landscape can work.
Having said all that I like that more here are starting to do this kind of stuff. It's something that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately in TG and I'm sure we could all learn stuff from each other.
-Greg
Yes, more light from above would make it better I think. Maybe you should put the building further to the back, more vague. And maybe you can use the ivy generator to grow 'something green' all over it. I agree it's too clean. But I like the explosion of light. You probably didn't even need a water shader here ;)
Definitely nice start, draws you in.
Wonder what it would look like with the main light shadows turned off and a real weak light casting the shadows, or maybe ridiculously wide soft shadows.
Ok, you absolutely right about the temple model. Mother said it reminded her of a goldfish bowl! It has to go, but can stay as a useful object to do some more tests with ... for now.
Looking at the Google image searchimages (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=coral+reef&client=firefox-a&hs=66v&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=D9J_UrfEN82ihgfgloDYDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=888#imgdii=_)of coral reefs I've become convinced many of the really bright ones are done with flash photography but nonetheless you can see the light fall off very convincingly.
The only way to do this in Terragen will be to use the render elements and use a grey scale depth pass to fade out the saturation of the coral as it recedes into the distance. Below is a first attempt at this. It works (technically) but needs plenty more effort. Following on from this I will need to find out a way of doing the same de-saturation but on a per channel basis.
Cheers
Richard
You could use a Distance Shader input into a Adjust Saturation Colour function and it will fade the saturation as distance increases.
You could set the Distance Shader to use either the Z-depth or Spherical distance.
That will work for planet surfaces (thankyou, this may be useful) but not for population surfaces. That will have to be done with modified depth passes.
Richard
You are exactly correct there Richard with regards to the falloff technique. That's how I've always done underwater stuff. Renders are always done full RGB and then later in comp we attenuate the ref and green out according to distance from camera and add the fogging effects There's a lot of variables involved on how much attenuation you get but red always attenuates first, followed by green. It looks like you're off to a great start here.
I was messing with this last night and finally got frustrated as I couldn't get the Snell's Window effect to work correctly no matter what I tried though I've seen it done on Dune's renders so I know it's possible.
-Greg
Here's a really good example of red attenuation, followed by green, which then gives way to full blue only. From this example, red is gone about 4-5 meters away from camera as the image clearly shifts to green/blue. About another 7-8 meters away the green gives way to solid blue, which eventually forms the backdrop color.
I use Nuke to process the depth mattes to do this but you can use anything these days.
Another example is the Snell's Window effect looking straight up past the divers which is what's presently kicking my ass.
Slight update.
Not processing the channels separately yet ... Used the depth pass to add some blur and a slight kick back on the levels.
Depth pass is so very useful :)
Richard
As a retired Padi diving instructor and a professional underwater photographer i bring you here some informations about colours and luminosity underwater.
Absorption
Light intensity Depth in meters Disappearance of colours
40% 1 m infrared
5 m red
14% 10 to 15 m oranged
7% 15 to 25 m Yellow
1.5% 25 to 60 m Purple / then Blue/Green
1% About 70 m monochrome (end of colours)
Another point is that with a mask : things seem closer by 3/4 of the distance.
Ex : a Fish at 1 m from you will seem to be at 0.75 m
And things also seem bigger by 4/3 of the size
Ex : A Fish 1m long will seem to be 1.33 m long
David
Awesome stats! Now if we can get the Planetside team to make an underwater "atmosphere" that mimics these values.
This is really cutting wood, guys! I'm a bit frustrated I don't have time to dive into it again as well :( I'll tell you that the Snell's window effect in my render was a (TG) trick, I don't think it can be done by just the water, etc.
Regarding the color falloff; using a (de)saturation node should be possible to be used on models as well, theoretically. Maybe I'll experiment a little with that.
EDIT: works.
Nice Richard! I like the colors and camera placement
Meh! Forgot the depth pass!
Re-rendering with alterations ...
Yep. That's the stuff. I feel it needs something on the left, like a shark or something in the shadows. Feels like there's a little too much dead space there.
Two more, one with some depth processing on the saturation.
I think I need to practice the technique some more and having blocks of different coloured coral will help show up the effect.
The composition needs some work too and I want toge a lot more coral on the outcrops.
Cheers
Richard
That's more like it! I think anything you do after this is just perfectionism creeping in. If I'd add or change anything at this point, I'd let a little light hit the statue a bit. My eye keeps getting drawn to that point and frustrated that it can't see more. Other than that, great work!
Very nice and realistic vegetations ! Do you create the vegetations ?
These are very nice, Richard! I like the colorful fish and corals, really gives it a lot of depth. The first one of the two is better, a bit of mystery adds to the scene. In that respect I disagree with UponInfinity; the statue is a mystery, I'd keep it that way. Now for some blur in the distance!
The second one is my favorite - great work!
Is that a statue of Athena? In any case, can you share where it came from?
Quote from: TheBadger on November 12, 2013, 12:18:23 PM
Is that a statue of Athena? In any case, can you share where it came from?
Not sure if it's supposed to be Athena ... It's named "Gera apophiose" and comes from Archive3D (http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=0ea984c5).
Richard
Really starting to come together.
Another version, still not quite right.
The thing with the light attenuation s that is not like de-saturation, similar but not the same. The colour channels are bled out, but not to grey but to the overall colour of the water column at that point.
Thanks kaedorg for the info on colour depth change.
I'm doing another render now with including some "Macbeth Boards" to see if I can get a better handle on it.
Cheers
Richard
Your snell's window should be more cyan with white for the brightest areas around the sun. Right now it's very magenta which indicates too much red. The sense of depth overall though is really nice.
I didn't know the term 'attenuation', but if you want the color channels to bleed out, you could probably use the convert 'blue nodes' plus a color adjust or surface layer blended by a (or more) distance shader(s) to decrease each channel, before putting them together again.
Impressive!
Of course you have depth pass that is used to de-saturate the background also has to be blurred separately so it can then be used to add some depth blur ...
Getting more physically accurate but I think I have lost some of the drama ... which is ok since there wasn't much there in the first place :)
Cheers
Richard
I still like it very much! Maybe the blur is slightly too much... I was thinking the same with mine. Just a little may be enough.
Now with added spectacular ... :)
Sympas :D
Looking great. I agree with previous comments that the defocus effect is probably a little too heavy still. The colors of the water column overall seems a little too magenta as well, but the sense of depth is very good. All the little critters are great too. Where did you find all the little reef fish?
Looks nice Richard !
The DOF makes it nearly kinda look like a miniature for me .
But other then this i like these images very much Richard.
Very cool stuff Richard :-)