Every time I try to take a brake from these cloud studies I always end up doing them anyway. Here is the latest, what I'm calling advanced cloud study generation X. (x because I forgot how many generations I've alread tried ;D) Just a test render. I have been working on this for a while now and this is the first render that is ready to be seen.
Believable clouds, but something looks grainy or sandy.
I think what you are talking about is because of the resolution (and the smaller clouds). At a higher resolution, more of the actual detail would be visible and would, I think, fix some -- if not all -- of this.
Maybe it was the smaller clouds...but I envy your ability to get grain where you most need it on the surfaces and have not been able to figure it out. In this case, it seemed a bit too grainy...but, it's still nice.
What are you planning to do with all of your planetary work? Are you going to have a package we can all try or do a manual or do you have some other ideas?
It must be the clouds because there is no surfacing in this image beyond the brown base color fractal with a very large average scale. As to getting a grain from high altitudes, it has a lot to do with the fractal roughness, contrast, noise variation, buoyancy of variation, noise octaves, and scales. The color of the surface is also important (i.e. how much does the color stand out from the other colors). Perhaps I will try to make some kind of tutorial about it soon.
Besides making a bunch of renders and trying to make them better, I don't know what I'm going to do with my planet stuff. I'm no expert. I think the big push behind all of it has always been to create a complete planet -- from meters up to thousands of kilometers in space (a goal I have yet to accomplish). If anything, I might just make some tutorials sometime.
Nice. You're working at one end of the scale I have never concentrated enough on but it's a big thing to have to think of sorting out your sand and also what your continents or planetary scale clouds are like. My next move is upwards to try to get larger mountain range features. I'm tired of seeing what looks like a smooth overall planet level. My planets will look bad from outer space.
A closer angle.
Looking good?
It looks very good.
Looking good!
Quote from: old_blaggard on September 06, 2007, 12:07:42 AM
Looking good?
Are you asking me? ;D
And a just finished test render.
If I had time, I would compare this with a real picture. I'm curious exactly how close you are. Very good work.
A much closer view from roughly 150 m up.
Now, this looks real. I've seen enough pictures to know this is the real thing. You're just faking us out with pictures. Right? ;D
In my opinion the last looks the best by far, stunning picture! Haze glow could be a little bit improved, rest is excellent :)
Martin
Wholly crap! That last one is amazing. How much (if any) post-processing did you do?
The only thing that looks "off" is the stars, as they are too piercing, but that's just a secondary effect.
Do you have a "sharable" .tgd? This is one of the best planet cloud render's I've ever seen.
The only post work I did was to increase the contrast because the atmosphere was sharp and did not blend into space. I almost always have to do this. This is also why the stars look "off" (and I agree with you about that).
As of yet I do not have a "sharable" tgd. I will tell you that this image has 7 cloud layers -- which increase the render times a lot. That last render took, if I remember, just a little past 9 hours (cloud quality at .5/atmosphere at 30/ render quality at 0.9/ GI 2). And the closer the camera is to the surface, the longer the render time.
11 hours. It really needs to be a higher res, a lot higher. I've been quite tempted to buy deep recently. :P
This is very nice work.
When you believe you need Deep, I hope you'll consider it. You do extravagently beautiful work through the Free version.
Maybe it just isn't useful for you? Not sure. If you ever get it, I'm sure it'll be an amazing tool for you.
My main probelm is that I have no income at the moment. That's what I get for going to college. :D All I have is a limited supply from working this summer and $200 (or $300) is quite a bit to take out just for a hobby.
Is it just a hobby? I bet you might be surprised to learn what you can do with TG2.
Well keep these good results up! I saw that you even impressed Mr. Bianco himself (on your renderosity post).
You should definitely consider upgrading.
Additionally, I have 2 Dual Core PCs sitting here waiting for a new render, so if you want, I can try to render this image at a much higher resolution for you (and its not just a ploy to get the file from you - I just want to see this baby in high res!)
I also think you should consider upgrading.
It would be nice to se your work in high resolution :P
moodlfow, I'll take you up on that. PM me your email address and I'll send you the file.
Edit: Another test after adding some basic land forms from an old tgc. As you can see with some of the closer clouds, there is still work to be done.
This looks fantastic.
This is very nice.
Your progression with these large scale cloud structures is impressive to say the least, especially when its just a hobby. I know that the kind of realism you are producing is beyond me at the moment! I'd love to see what you could do with a upgraded version (but as a fellow college student I understand the money thing...) Where are you going to school?
Not to spill the beans early, but nvseal sent me the file to render on the renderfarm. Its about 50% done, and looks amazing at 1280x800, quality 0.7, AA-5.
Get the deep nvseal, because these renders need to be huge. They'll be brilliant.
Done! Thanks to moodflow for rendering, using his star image and stitching th image together.
what can I say, Perfect :)
Richard
This looks fantastic! I really can't believe the results you've gotten from this - these are cinema-grade global clouds.
so reaaaal
Gosh dangit! That's awesome.
Looks amazing! The only thing I think I missed was upping the luminosity of the stars so they are a bit more visible. But it was NVSeal's image, so I didn't want to change anything, and got his permission to change the stars.
I forgot to mention that I did increase the contrast to soften the sharpness of the atmosphere and space.
I love the angle looking down the redshift, awesome.
That's insane! The atmosphere actually looks, for lack of a better word, solid, and the clouds... Amazing!
Yes, saw at Renderosity. Superb. Some banding with the compression but I'm just noticing that because I want to see every detail.
That's a really neat orbital render! Superb clouds, congrats! ;D
Martin
Ok, tell the truth... When did you go up there and take that photo ?? hmmmmm?
Come on, out with it... You were with the Aliens weren't you...
;D