Just as an exercise I want to create a generic, boring, yet believable mountainside. Everything needs improvement at the moment, but you gotta start somewhere! There is some funky stuff happening on the rock surfacing that needs to be sorted out, the tree distribution needs to be less uniform, the atmosphere needs...something to make it pop, and the talus fields need to be more visible. Thanks for taking a look.
The starting point is good :)
How do you get your trees so well lit and soft? My trees are always too dark even after adjusting the diffuse on the texture sets.
Good POV. Good start. This can become a masterpiece.
David
Indeed, it's already really nice. WM terrain, I assume? I like the vegetation coverage of the foreground very much.
Good start!
This has huge potential - how did you get the talus BTW.
Great stuff already, again. Always a pleasure to see when you post a new thread and to see every iteration pass by :)
Talus fields are cool in general, so is this one :)
I'm not too keen on the vertical surfaces and splotchy yellow'ish texturing.
If I use a heightfield I always either disable fractal detail or reduce it to 0.1 or lower.
From there it's easier to add displacement, allowing you to keep certain slopes/parts to remain smoother rock.
Thanks all! I wasn't expecting so many responses so quickly!
Chris, trees are always tricky. I've done quite a bit of editing of textures in photoshop to give better results depending on the lighting: sometimes you need to desaturate the texture, other times it needs more yellow or red, etc. Terragen is great, using other tools in addition to Terragen increases the scope of what you can do. The softness of the trees could be due to using the Narrow Cubic filter, a tad higher than realistic soft shadows settings, and an opacity fractal on the needles to 'thin them out' in places.
Ulco, you're correct, the terrain has seen some WM treatment.
mHaze, the talus fields are masked by a flow map from the erosion in World Machine when sculpting the terrain.
Martin, I agree talus is cool! I've been inspired by the ones you've made. I agree the yellow sucks...it should have plant objects on it, but it doesn't for some reason. One more thing to figure out!
Thanks, all!
So basically trees are a lot of trial and error outcomes. I figured that long, long ago but i thought i'd inquire for some tips. I will try that Narrow Cubic filter and see what comes of it.
I haven't had too much time for Terragen so I haven't made as much progress as I'd like. I've mostly been working on the rock surfacing and the tree distribution, both of which I like much more now. I also moved the camera a bit to get closer to the tree line which I think could help by adding more layering to the image. I might end up changing the aspect ratio of the image since, besides the four peaks, there isn't very much in the background terrain that is interesting.
Looking very good. I especially like how you have multiple layers of vegetation with different overlapping distribution, trees giving way to bushes giving way to talus slopes, etc. Very realistic distribution, in general.
- Oshyan
Very convincing
Agreed, very photographic. Vegetation placement is just one part that can make or break realism.
Here is an attempt at a portrait style aspect ratio. I kind f like it better in this case. I've added some clouds to make the sky more interesting, added more plant species to the hillside to give better variety, did some pruning of the foreground vegetation, and I updated the rock surfacing. Thanks for taking a look.
Getting better and better :)
Portrait works well, but I think I'd prefer it to be a bit wider fov and tilted slightly more upwards.
The distribution of veggies are really awesome!
I also really like what you're doing with the rock structures.
I'm getting really good results lately with my rock structures + granite shader when rendering detail 1.5 with AA12 (CR or MN filter).
It's something I have been doing since the discussion around one of Mick Haze's fjord render where he compared upres vs higher detail rendering.
This showed that rendering at higher detail and AA greatly reduces TG's propensity for rendering too bright speckled surfaces.
It will also make your displacements shine more, probably.
Perhaps you could try a crop and see how it looks?
It seems you're dealing with the same issue I'm also always having trouble with: muddy looking renders.
There's a kind of veil of haziness with large scale TG renders which I for the life of me can't get nailed correctly.
"Yes of course, that's atmospheric haze adding up over distance" one would reply lazily, but it's not that easy.
Just go to whatever landscape photo website and see photo's of landscapes (similar to this render) with great atmospheric clarity and rich colours.
If you drop densities in TG's atmo model then the sky gets devoid of any scatter and will completely destroy richness in colours.
Too much logically also doesn't work.
All in all I find TG's fall-off of density very difficult to handle and not realistic.
There's just too much discrepancy with what I see with my eyes as well as what I see on many many photographs online, regardless of post-processing renders/photographs as they allow for similar opportunities for post-processing.
Second or adding to this is that TG's atmosphere also does not really seem to "radiate" as much as you'd like to see.
Say you like a clear sky, but still with some rays then it's either not possible because the sky is too "thin" for rays or when you increase "thickness" of sky you do get rays but your entire render is covered in a veil of haze/muddy look.
It's very difficult to explain, but I have said it before that there's something off about how haze and lighting work together in TG and how haze drops off over distance.
Cheers,
Martin
I like the latest render very much!
Could it be, that rays without any clouds or haze are in reality some kinds of lense-effects?
Perhaps in a future Terragen version it's possible to add lense-flares and stuff like this. I'd prefere to get such effects inside Terragen instead of postwork.
Quote from: DocCharly65 on September 08, 2015, 09:01:50 AM
I like the latest render very much!
Could it be, that rays without any clouds or haze are in reality some kinds of lense-effects?
Perhaps in a future Terragen version it's possible to add lense-flares and stuff like this. I'd prefere to get such effects inside Terragen instead of postwork.
I did not say without clouds, I'm only talking about atmospheric haze/blue sky.
But yes, there are also many examples of mostly lens-induced rays. So definitely could be!
Those should not be confused with what I'm trying to say though.
At some moment it will come to me how to explain properly what I'm missing.
That last render is just awesome! :o
This is really good. The rock structures are excellent and the vegetation is superb.
Awesome is right
Thanks all!
Martin, thanks for the suggestions! I'll do some crop tests to see how noticeable the improvements could be. Also, I know what you're talking about in regards to TG's atmosphere. It really is hard to put it into words.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on September 08, 2015, 08:56:14 AM
Say you like a clear sky, but still with some rays then it's either not possible because the sky is too "thin" for rays or when you increase "thickness" of sky you do get rays but your entire render is covered in a veil of haze/muddy look.
To get light shafts / god-rays from clouds I find it's better to use a second cloud layer with very low density, below the main cloud layer. I think this produces more natural results. You can precisely control the depth and density of the light-catching cloud to keep the clouds both hazy and contrasty at the same time. I'm thinking about ways to build this capability straight into the cloud layer in future versions.
Matt
Quote from: Matt on September 08, 2015, 08:40:30 PM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on September 08, 2015, 08:56:14 AM
Say you like a clear sky, but still with some rays then it's either not possible because the sky is too "thin" for rays or when you increase "thickness" of sky you do get rays but your entire render is covered in a veil of haze/muddy look.
To get light shafts / god-rays from clouds I find it's better to use a second cloud layer with very low density, below the main cloud layer. I think this produces more natural results. You can precisely control the depth and density of the light-catching cloud to keep the clouds both hazy and contrasty at the same time. I'm thinking about ways to build this capability straight into the cloud layer in future versions.
Matt
Thanks Matt, that's definitely a good suggestion.
Perhaps I'm trying to do too much with too few nodes.
QuotePerhaps I'm trying to do too much with too few nodes.
Perhaps TG requires to many nodes to do things ;)
^^JK a little
Very nice image!
Here is a comparison I've done between the settings I was previously using (0.8 detail / 8AA, NC filter) and the ones suggested by Tangled-Universe. In both images, the image on the left is the original and the one on the right uses the suggested settings. The new settings noticeably cut down on the speckled-ness of the rock surface and improved the look of the forests on the mountain side. Unfortunately, the new settings took nearly four times as long to render as the old settings. I might do some tests to see if there is a happy medium since I do like the rock surface much better using the new settings.
I really like the way the rocks look with my suggested settings. It worked out pretty much like I expected/hoped for.
Yes, the vegetation looks somewhat better, but not drastically much.
In the end all counts is whether you find it worth the extra rendertime. 4 times longer is long, definitely.
At least, depends on the initial rendertimes of course, but given 0.8 and AA8 it's not so fast for starters.
What's interesting though, to me, is that some aspects of the texturing looks quite different and everything looks better defined and "blends in" better.
I guess those litchens you tried before may actually work out better with these settings?
After a lot of testing I've found a middle ground that gives some results closer to the higher detail and AA settings, but doesn't take a year to render. I need to do some adjustments to the vegetation on the hillside since some of the populations seem to almost glow in the shadows. I might bump up the AA a bit (currently at 10), since render times aren't too bad, and it will improve the forest's appearance. Thanks for taking a look.
All the elements look fabulous to me. The rock surfaces are highly realistic with variety and detail; the vegetation distribution is well thought out and executed; and the background clouds, although occupying only a small part of the image, are still quite realistic and natural looking.
My only complaint is the whole thing seems rather blue-green and quite hazy. It *might* be realistic for a long view on a hot day, but if I were a photographer standing there I'd probably do everything I could to clear it up a bit while maintaining that sense of distance. So, pretending to be the photographer of the lovely scene you've created, I went and did a little post processing on the image. I hope you don't mind if I post it here. As always, results vary between monitors and color calibrations, but this looked "nicer" on my displays, and I felt it highlighted your excellent scene construction a bit better. Again pardon me taking liberties with your work!
P.S. It may be a bit too warm and the shadows in the foreground may be "smashed" a bit, but I found that the background trees were a bit too bright, as you mentioned. Without doing fancier editing with graduated filters and whatnot, it was hard to fix one without the other going awry. But hopefully you get the idea. I know you've got your own post processing workflow that would probably also make the end result look fantastic. :)
- Oshyan
I wish we could simply turn it off! In England, after a cold front shower, and at high altitudes there isn't much loss of the red wavelength.
Thanks guys!
Oshyan, I like your adjustment! This is now two projects in a row where folks have noticed a bit of a greenish tinge to the atmosphere. I'll have to take that into consideration on future projects.
Getting color right can be very tricky. I tend to stick with atmosphere defaults until near the end of a project and then adjust them if I feel they're not yet getting me the tones I want. This is largely because the defaults give pretty realistic results in most real-world situations of scale, etc. I don't know if you've done any such adjustment already, but if so it would be worth trying with just a default atmosphere and sun/lighting setup just to see what it looks like for "reference" of sorts.
Also, of course, if you have the ability to verify calibration of your monitor that's always important to do. :)
- Oshyan