Waiting for my animation renderjobs I was a little bored and wanted to try something new...
...what if the desert slope goes on through an imaginary forest...
Hope it inspires for a nice sunday afternoon walk with the dog :)
[attach=1]
Three floors of trees (each of them 2-3 species from xfrog USA-Conifers- / USA-West-Library)
Lowest floor mixed with some xfrog EU-Shrubs
8 layers of different xfrog Groundcover-objects
The TG-project is of course prepared to be animated some day. I can "walk" the complete 1.6 km slope but I could also stray through the forest off the path app. 200-300 m.
Yeah lets take that walk...wait I got no dog >:(
Otherwise cool render. Like it.
Thanks :)
I have a similar problem... it looks foolisch to take my cat on the leash ;D
...perhaps I will change the size of the side-stones. In the desert it was ok to have that size, but in the forest I think they need not to be as big...
Looks sweet! Slow drone flight animation along the road then into the trees for a while before returning to the road! :)
Agree re: stone size in a forest, other wise a stellar image for a time killer. Also agree to yeah, animate a walk...could be very cool.
Nice, but maybe the stones need some dirt or green/brown stuff on them, lichen, algae, mosslike. They're very desertlike, which is strange in a dense wood.
Quote from: Dune on January 09, 2015, 12:12:16 PM
Nice, but maybe the stones need some dirt or green/brown stuff on them, lichen, algae, mosslike. They're very desertlike, which is strange in a dense wood.
yup....agree
Ok :) wip
Ground colour / stone colour / stone size ... and some more ideas...
Unfortunately only my reserve PC is left for work... 6 years old Athlon... the i7's are all busy ;)
Animation is planned... but one step after the other :)
...Correction: 9 years old Athlon... I bought it in 2006! - Wow - how fast time flies!
Prolly enuff for your athlon, heh heh heh....but nope, Dune pretty well covered(pun intended) it
8) ;D
OK... my Proll had a hard night ;) But I think the ground with a few traces of clay-like soil looks better now.
and now... let's throw a tree branch...
[attach=1]
For the test only a simple affordable dog-model... hhey- they want 800 bugs for the huskey, I like! :P
But if I don't come to close, it's OK for the moment. (Anyway he would run away if you come to close to his branch :) )
But I think I will change the dogs tree branch... I don't really like that straight piece of wood in his mouth.
Its funny, I looked at the op then scanned down to the last image. And there is that dog all of a sudden! I think that dog is going to try and bite me. If it does Im going to kick its ass! Damn dog! >:(... It is scary though when a dog that size comes up on you like this.
Only want's to play... ;)
Here the 3D anaglyph pic for courageous people who like to shudder 8)
[attach=1]
Next week I will see what I can do with his tree-branch and perhaps I find a less creepy dog ;)
What glass u need for this? The red and bluish one?
Hey that do is cool and wanna play only? Cant u see?
yes - red blue (i call it red cyan)
for adjusting I always use red cyan but for watching the finished pic I prefer line interleaved passive. (Asus and LG offer nice monitors) If needed I can upload the mpo too, but you then must check if R/L need to be reversed - depends on monitor.
Yes of course he wants to play - can you see? Clap your hands and do a little jump forward. Then he will jump and run back the road to keep his branch :)
Wow...excellent! Getting Dune-like well done!
Looks good. Just a little color-contrast postwork makes it even better i think.
Agree with Bobby
Quote from: DocCharly65 on January 10, 2015, 08:04:01 AM
yes - red blue (i call it red cyan)
for adjusting I always use red cyan but for watching the finished pic I prefer line interleaved passive. (Asus and LG offer nice monitors) If needed I can upload the mpo too, but you then must check if R/L need to be reversed - depends on monitor.
U talkin chinese...not sure I understand...anycow I have a 3D glass that I bought in a cinema and that got some brownish lens?? Is that work for your pix?
Thanks very much - but Dunes shoes are much too large for me
(I hope this figure of speech also works in English) :)
@archonforest:
这是很容易 :)
The glasses from cinema are usually polarized and you need special monitors or TVs with the passive 3D technology (then you can use mpo or jps files)
The image you can see in my post is red cyan (what you call red-bluish) and you can watch it with red-blue glasses.
The advantage of red-blue: You can watch it on EVERY monitor - even print it and watch the printout in 3D.
我希望我能帮助
(Chinese for "I hope I could help" :)
@Kadri:
I had to rise gamma. Otherwise the parts in the shadow of the trees would be to dark (especially a girlfriend watched it on her handy and could not see much) I tried some postwork but it looked too "toystory-like" - less color saturation looked more realistic.
But I work on another version with better contrast, brighter light and better color...
I hope to finish a new version today in the afternoon with a new dog and a new branch.
Mighty fine work Doc.
Quote from: DocCharly65 on January 10, 2015, 06:05:51 PM
Thanks very much - but Dunes shoes are much too large for me
(I hope this figure of speech also works in English) :)
Yup it totally works; and I did say
Dune-ish heh heh heh.
That is a *really* great-looking road through the woods. I especially like the part in the foreground-left where it looks like there was a puddle that has gathered some mud and then dried up, giving you that smoother gray area. Great little touch, very evocative for me.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, really happy to hear this :)
While I was waiting for some brainwaves for my Shepherd Dog scene, I got advise from my stepdaughter: So I changed the mood to a brighter less mystic late morning scene and changed the dog.
So here comes "puppy in the forest":
[attach=1]
Ohhh... the puppy got lost???????? :-[
Now that looks great; but, either way, the compositions and light(s) are winners.
Oh no... will never get lost... waits for someone playing with him...
Funny thing... my girl already gave hime a name: "Winston"
I thought the Shepherd Dog scene looks cooler but now I don't have any more chance... she loves this one ;D
Quote from: DocCharly65 on January 11, 2015, 02:11:01 PM
Oh no... will never get lost... waits for someone playing with him...
...except nobody around... :'( ohhh Badger this lost puppy is on you man :P
Quote from: archonforest on January 11, 2015, 02:33:11 PM
Quote from: DocCharly65 on January 11, 2015, 02:11:01 PM
Oh no... will never get lost... waits for someone playing with him...
...except nobody around... :'( ohhh Badger this lost puppy is on you man :P
Not really true... The camera man is there... Hey can you imagine how hard work it was to make the puppy stay there and not running with it's tail wagging towards the camera?? Making him sitting there was just impossible!! ;D
Huhh...forgot the cameraman... :)
Otherwise great render. Love the forest and the lights/shadows over there!
Nice.I love the lighting more.
Needs Soft Shadows, but otherwise looks good still (though I prefer the original dog :D ).
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on January 11, 2015, 03:11:34 PM
I prefer the original dog :D ).
- Oshyan
:D :D :D :D
Ahhh ... you got it, Oshyan! I had a silent small voice in my brain that something bothered me... I think that's it.
Usually I switch soft shadows off for my (mostly) animation renders, because it had some strange effects on the GI. But for this one I will give it a try.
In app. 1 hour the right eye pic for my 3D version should be finished then I can try Soft Shadows.
Concerning the dog... I like the original dog too -- but the girls win -- they always win ;)
Soft Shadows should be fine with animation, although you may need higher samples to avoid additional noise (or you can try turning off Sample Jitter, depending on the scene. Sometimes this works quite well.
- Oshyan
Is that "Detail jittering" under "render" - "extras"?
No, I'm referring to the Jitter Samples checkbox (formerly a slider) under the Do Soft Shadows option in the light source/sunlight node.
- Oshyan
Ah, thank you. I'll try.
It interesting. The stick in the dog's mouth.
I did not see that at all. Even you saying it is there now, I have to make my self see it. To me it really looks like it is something behind the dog.
The puppy is is a funny response to me. I Laughed a lot when I saw it. Thanks for that.
You're welcome Badger :)
Anyway the puppy made me a hero for my loved ones 8)
Nevertheless I want to put the new stick (in front of the feet of the puppy - almost unremarkable) in the mouth of the german shepherd dog and use the same lighting as here.
I remember now, why I mostly don't use the Soft Shadows: I had a increasing render time from 3 h before to 5.30 h now but the mood with the soft shadows is much better:
[attach=1]
I wonder a little about the interference of the straight lines of the shadows in the foreground... when I have more time I'll play with some settings. On the other hand I vaguely remember to have seen this effect in real life too...
But now an absolutely new question:
I'm thinking about an animation from inside a car driving down the road. I found a model for testing this and already have separated the windshield. I have tried many settings of a glass shader but the view outside the car is always blurred so much that you can not see anything of the road properly outside (I also tried a water shader - it doesn't work, because it cannot be doublesided and the surface of the windshield with water shader is only outside the car). Any suggestion?
Really cool. There's a little banding in the shadows though. Not important, but my eye fell on it. Not enough samples maybe, or is that the absence of jitter in soft shadows?
For a sharp look you could either take the window out altogether, or go inside the render node and change the subdivision settings from 0.25 to 1. I think the glass shader still needs that (haven't used it much yet).
Thanks Ulco, what you call banding seems to be what I called interference... In fact I switched off jittering in soft shadows - let's see, what happens when I switch it on.
Update 10:34
I did a cropped render of that area... Switch on Jittering is it. Means, there will be an updated picture in some hours...
Super work.
This latest image is absolutely beautiful.
QuoteI'm thinking about an animation from inside a car driving down the road. I found a model for testing this and already have separated the windshield. I have tried many settings of a glass shader but the view outside the car is always blurred so much that you can not see anything of the road properly outside (I also tried a water shader - it doesn't work, because it cannot be doublesided and the surface of the windshield with water shader is only outside the car). Any suggestion?
If I got you right you could try to flip the sides of the windshield so that the outside becomes
the inner side.In case the windshield is bent it would not be flipping,but swapping the
polygon surface qualities.
Having Jitter off will give you higher quality at reduced render time *but* can cause banding like this. In an animation it's much less noticeable. Turning it back one will get rid of the banding, but without increasing samples, in this case you may have slightly more noisy shadows (have to see). For a still we'd generally recommend keeping Jitter enabled, unless there is a lot of vegetation on the ground breaking up the shadows, in which case you won't see the banding anyway. For animation Jitter can often be disabled, giving you less noisy results at lower render times, while still having most of the benefits of Soft Shadows.
Anyway, it's definitely a better-looking result with Soft Shadows!
- Oshyan
Wow, that's really an improvement! I saw your first try a few days ago, and now I just had a look at your latest one. The lighting is fantastic, and the soft shadows are a must! I hope you can get rid of the banding.
Great image!!
Thanks Hannes, and of course to all who have assisted me... and in fact I got rid of the banding :)
Here the (expected) final "Puppy in the forest"
[attach=1]
Now you may guess, why my project file folder is still called "speeders in the forest"... and belongs to the "animation plan" 8)
Already very busy again ;)
This is sooo nice. 'Image of the Year'!!!
Well done and I echo Bob's comment. I love watching stuff grow in these threads. It's where I learn most and most often get inspiration.
Nice image Doc :)
It looks really good now, Nils! One thing that struck me is the tyre-flattened area of the tracks; they're kind of shifted to the sides and not centrally located in the tracks, or is that on purpose? Especially noticable further away.
This will be awesome as an animation, can't wait (I know I have to ;)
Thanks Ulco.
Mhh... I MUST say now, they are intentionally not centered ;)
I saw it already on the direct precursor (desert slope) but it never really bothered me, because it is assumed that the type of usage of this road remains unclear.
Maybe it's used by 100s of R2D2s, maybe it was asphalted before. I specially liked the thought from Oshyan about dried mud on the sides. Then you even could see old rests of asphalt between the mud and the middle part...
Lack too deep TG3 knowledge I like to play a little with imagination... E.g. even though it's not really there, you perhaps can see that there seems to be decayed foliage around the woodpile...
Whoa, that is incredible! It looks VERY natural, and I love how the trees came out. Now possibly the sole indicator that this is not a photo is the dog. Somehow the fur does not appear too realistic. But as for the rest, it's top notch!
Sorry for two weeks absence... business and family matters...
Nevertheless here come some (i hope so) improvements in the detail work...
I replaced the Puppy by "Apollo", gave him some society and most of the time I experimented with the puddles... I promise: none of the puddles is from the rottweiler ;)
[attach=1]
With the 3D- version I have still big trouble: I can do what I want, if I use smooth shadows, the shadows (especially of the fakestones) are not congruent and I get flickering between left and right frame... does anyone know a solution?
In red cyan it's not too bad:
[attach=2]
YEAH a real dog!! :D :D finally :P
LOve the details very nice shot.
Realism plus! One of the best images I've seen.
Easily one of the best roads I've seen since Hannes won the NWDA road contest and those puddles rock. The lil bird bottom right adds just enough.....
Very nice ! :D
Terrific!
Looks great.
and here we are back in a quite old thread again... ;)
It's time to work on the integration of this road into my "2020 movie".
First step was to add puddles all the 1.5km of the road. I also did a bit detail work. There are 8 different populations of leaves, branches and other kind of dirt on the road now.
The vehicles are optimized for animation but it's not sure that they appear all at the same time in my animation.
Here I just used the same POV to test different daytime views. Later I will test all 100-200m of the road if objects and plants are ok or something else looks too bad.
Let's begin in the night with some extraterrestrial monster-fireflies ;)
[attach=1]
Early in the morning. Intentionally without the "casting shadows function" in clouds/atmosphere to get a kind of "sun shining through the trees needles". I didn't want god-rays.
[attach=2]
In the late morning. The weather is hazy. I hope the feeling is like the forest will simultaneously reflect your voice as he tries to swallow it.
[attach=3]
I also tried it already for 3D (anaglyphic red-blue)
[attach=4]
Tonight a hi-res "afternoon-version" should be finished. Here is only the 1280x720 version:
[attach=5]
Looks good Doc.
The light is very realistic and natural!!!
That looks amazing! Great work!!
You're a master!
Thanks :)
But I'm not a master, only a pupil in this forum ;)
Last night I experimented with some more variations of POV:
Here first the promised "HQ Afternoon"
[attach=1]
One for the animation important POV is the view to the stars. The stars are made as projection on the background shader as I learned in the Frankb planet pack I bought on NWDA.
[attach=2]
In my animation I will use one additional effect: Either slowly passing clouds or a clear sky and 1 or 2 passing meteorits... I will see later. Here I tested just the clouds. Not the best ones but ideally suited for 4D noise animation.
Left side usual / right image 3D Red Blue anaglyphic:
[attach=3] [attach=4]
Let's rephrase 'Master' into 'Master of Animation and StoryBoarding' ;)
The detailed render is very good, but how will you keep the rolling robot on the ground? I assume the whole path it takes it virtually flat, and you 'just' have to bend its direction here and there.
My problem with stars is that it always looks like it's dust on the monitor. There's a kind of harshness and lack of depth, which is obvious of course, due to their nature, but I wonder if there would be a better way..... But of course, for animation it's a great addition, nobody will scrutinize it like a still.
Excellent!!!
Quote from: Dune on June 23, 2016, 07:56:16 AM
...
My problem with stars is that it always looks like it's dust on the monitor. There's a kind of harshness and lack of depth, which is obvious of course, due to their nature, but I wonder if there would be a better way...
If i understand rightly what you mean that is sometimes a problem to me too Ulco.
I try to use very very subtle clouds or colors -depending if it is an image or real 3D scene- to break the sky a little up just for this.
Quote from: Dune on June 23, 2016, 07:56:16 AM
The detailed render is very good, but how will you keep the rolling robot on the ground? I assume the whole path it takes it virtually flat, and you 'just' have to bend its direction here and there.
I found out a nice trick when doing the canyon renders, Ulco. Not very fast but quite effective:
I set the wheels of the robot almost perfectly on Y=0 in wings3D. I let the Terragen preview render the ground with view from above the robot. Then I pause rendering and watch the ground from UNDER the ground. Then I place the Y of the Robot that I can see all of the 3 wheelscoming through the ground a bit. Then rotating the X and Z axis of the robot untill all of the wheels look same deep "under the earth". If you do this at least all 3-5 frames, you get a nice kind of wiggeling over the ground and almost authentic.
I am an absolutely blue-node-noob but sometimes second before fall asleep I think about a theory that a kind of script could keep an object on special places, axis or "relative" paths... I am thinking about something like "get position / get terrain height..." but in this I am really not a master -- I am even not present at all ;D ;D
But perhaps it's interesting for the developers and explorers of you. I personally would even buy something like this in NWDA.
The stars: As I told it's from FrankB and I do not understand 100% but I think it works like this:
One small png of a star is projected randomly and repeated allover the background which has an additional surfaceshader inside its node network.
Because of render speed I usually never have detail levels above 0.5 - sometimes even down to 0.3 depending on the action or movement in the scene. so I have never seen the "dirt on the monitor" effect. But I can imagine that it happens with your (as I asume up to 0.8-1 detail levels because I can follow the getting smaller star-size when I e.g. increase my detail level from 1280x720 at 0.1 (fast test image) to 2300x??? at 0.5 (some oversize to 1920x1080 to compensate if I loose material when adjusting 3D views)
What about using a population, tweak it until there is only one instance? Animate the population the way you want, check "repopulate every frame" and use a compute terrain with the appropriate size (balance between floating and getting each little hole).
Quote from: Hannes on June 23, 2016, 09:34:50 AM
What about using a population, tweak it until there is only one instance? Animate the population the way you want, check "repopulate every frame" and use a compute terrain with the appropriate size (balance between floating and getting each little hole).
Interesting idea! I think this could work and I will test the method. With the lean effect it would look even more authentic.
First I have several other things in the pipeline at the moment (the helicoper ... 8) :) 10...9...8...7...6... ok - a joke... will need some more days but almost finished. :)
Great workaround from under the ground Doc and a fine solution from Hannes...But this all could be a moot point if we had collision detection....izzat on the wish list yet?
Yeah Bobby! Some of us would dance on the table with that feature ;D
To my eyes the afternoon version has the most convincing lighting so far.
Keep it up Nils.
Hi
To place objects on the terrain exactely I would like to suggest to try this workflow:
01 - copy a lot of Landmark objects along your imaginary animation path
02 - right click as close as possible to the Landmarks position on the terrain and "Copy Coordinates"
03 - then right click again and "Copy altitude".
04 - one more right click to "Copy slope angle".
05 - paste the altitude value into the Landmarks Y-position.
06 - repeat process as often as needed with Landmark objects as many as needed.
07 - put the found values into the appropiate channels of your wheel objects.
Now you can use these Landmarks and their respective values in an on the terrain to animate any object along this path.
Some tweaking and all should be set on a believable track.
This should take out a lot of guess work which is in present "underground" method
and might be faster as well. Since you do not need to render (preview is sufficient).
And a big plus in my opinion is this: if you copy and paste the found values into a txt file
(ordered by Landmark, reasonably named and grouped) you can refer to these values
always later again - as long as you do not alter the terrain, of course.
Hope that helps (hope I did not miss a crucial step...)
Very curious how this all turns out!
cheers, Klaus
QuoteThen I pause rendering and watch the ground from UNDER the ground.
Yeah, that's the way I always check my objects' postions on ground, but a lot of work for an animation.
The Landmark idea is a very good one, probably fastest, but Hannes solution didn't work very well in my case. I tried that in my waves animation a while ago, to get one boat bobbing with the waves, but after a few frames suddenly another boat appeared, and dissappeared again a few frames further. Perhaps the instance occurence is related to some Y component, which obviously alters.
The easiest way for the users would be if Matt could implement a 'repopulate or reposition per frame' of a single object. Magic button!
I watched the video about exporting a terrain to a vector map just before.
(User-contributed Tutorials / Export Terragen terrains as vector displacement map / digitalguru)
That might be worth a shot as well.
If you look at the terrain object he can get in Mudbox (or any other 3D app I guess) out of the exported map
you would have a terrain to animate your object on in an instance.
Never imported any animation file into a Terragen channel so I am not sure if that works well.
cheers, Klaus