I've been a TG user since 0.9 but never really tried to get beyond the very basics. Lately, inspired by the release of TG4, I'm trying to learn more about shaders, noise tweaking, placing objects, etc.
Here's a simple scene I did today, based on the default startup scene with various edits and additions. I like my photos artistic and my artwork photo-realistic, so this is some odd combo of the two: a TG render with Levels adjusted in Photoshop, along with a reduction of the wide-screen effect using Content Aware scaling, finished off with art effects from Topaz Impression.
The result reminds me of a thrift store painting so if anyone wants it for a dollar, let me know... ;-)
Interesting result. Nice to see you here, btw.
Nice first attempt. I find using the presets invaluable to learning terragen as they're constructed by folks who know what they're doing.
Thanks! I've been working on this so long it's getting dark out...
Nice, water's a bit noisy and could be higher res but nice.
Thanks, this is intentionally small (quickie render before bed). I'll run the 2-hour version later today ;-).
Quote from: plugsnpixels on November 12, 2016, 12:10:59 PM
Thanks, this is intentionally small (quickie render before bed). I'll run the 2-hour version later today ;-).
Will be nice and worth the time...
Higher res render (1343x806) in progress. 1 hour 45 minutes in, water still looks noisy (though I see the shaders are still being applied). Suggestions?
Also, it seems that the main control for render quality is image size (not ppi resolution) and perhaps Quality settings, yes?
I would adjust the roughness setting in your water shader to about .05 and go from there. The detail setting should be somewhere in the .6 to .8 range and the AA should be high enough to get rid of the noise in the clouds. Adjust from there. :)
Thanks yossam!
Questions:
•Where is the water shader roughness setting? Under the Water tab the only relevant setting I see is Surface Shaders, but nothing there about roughness.
•When you say "Detail setting", I assume you referring to Micropoly detail under the Render tab?
•AA setting location seems obvious, though what would you consider a good beginning setting?
The current render is at 3 hours with a ways to go yet (i7 MacBook Air; I have a Hackintosh in the office with an i7 twice as fast I could try next week). When finished, I will adjust the settings and do a smaller version, as I only intend it for my PDF ezine @ 72ppi.
The water shader has 4 tabs. The roughness setting is in the waves tab (first one). I meant to put .005.............default is .02.
Yes about the detail setting. The AA has an effect on the clouds now as to how noisy they are. Always make sure defer/atmo is checked under the render settings and adjust the AA until the noise goes away. I usually use at least 8, but that depends on the scene. Your render time should go way down from what you have now after you adjust the detail and water settings.
I see, I had to open the Lake object and select its shader to access those settings.
I'll make note of your setting suggestions; this thing took 5 hours to finish and really isn't that exciting anyway... I'll try one more render with some tweaks and see what happens.
Quote from: plugsnpixels on November 12, 2016, 06:56:32 PM
I see, I had to open the Lake object and select its shader to access those settings.
I'll make note of your setting suggestions; this thing took 5 hours to finish and really isn't that exciting anyway... I'll try one more render with some tweaks and see what happens.
also you can cut down on the areas of wave noise with the Wind patch effect and size...all sizes are meters so adjust accordingly
My (positively meant) advice would be to spend a few days reading all sorts of (older) posts and threads by searching for keywords that would interest you, scanning the wiki for information about what specific nodes are and do, and doing one or two step-by-step tutorials. To get a grip on the basics and find some smart helpful ideas.
Thanks Dune, earlier today I was searching threads about placing .obj files and all the weird stuff that can happen (black renders, etc.).
As for this present scene, after my 5-hour render I was making adjustments and TG hung, so I had to force-quit it. Since then, I lost the lake and rye grass and cannot seem to replace them (even with other plants). It's getting late so will give up for tonight.
EDIT: I see the water in the preview now, but not the grass population.
BTW, I was getting TG crashes ("unresponsive") under Windows 10 on the Hackintosh too, i7 2600 @ 3.4GHz, 16 gigs RAM.
The new water and noise settings were indeed helpful; render time for this sized version was 1:19.
I am having some weirdness though: Blocks in the clouds (upper left) and a sunken UFO in the water. I also couldn't get the grass population going, unless it's under the water.
I lower the water level and RTP looks like this (??).
This is way better, did I mention adding a Compute Terrain at the bottom of your Shader stack, see image, and anchor the populations to this.
I do this almost always now a days.
Thanks bobbystahr, I see you've been helpful on many threads for a long time!
I have yet to explore use of the nodes, but will make note of this and other new tips I am receiving. Perhaps you can provide more detail on how to do this.
Here's a different render of the same scene, with the tree's shadow dis-attached and coming form the wrong direction for some reason (there is only 1 tree object present, "Generic_tree.tgo"). Sun is at 139.5 (4-5 o'clock), elevation 19.125.
Update: Replacing the tree with another Silva3D tree fixed the shadow problem.
Looks good as artsy though!
Thr tree doesn't seem to be sitting on the ground, maybe it's the lighting...I'm guessing you've noticed on the object gizmo, in addition to translate, scale and rotate there's a drop to ground button on the far right?
Yes, thanks, and the shadow moved in and out horizontally depending on tree height (as expected), except that it seems backwards as if the tree is on the left. Tree in the render is dropped to ground or very close to it (adjusted for root depth).
New render coming shortly (i.e., yet another variation on the theme...).
Here it is. This deserves more work (winter mountains maybe, some rocks on the beach, more trees across the lake).
SIlva 3D Bobs_Bristlecone_Pine, fantastic.
I have an old promo page up for them here (http://plugsandpixels.com/silva3d.html).
Quote from: plugsnpixels on November 13, 2016, 09:41:47 PM
Here it is. This deserves more work (winter mountains maybe, some rocks on the beach, more trees across the lake).
SIlva 3D Bobs_Bristlecone_Pine, fantastic.
I have an old promo page up for them here (http://plugsandpixels.com/silva3d.html).
Yeah Walli's models are very good, a have a few of his collections.
The black water in RTP is logical; RTP can't see reflections yet. The blocky sky may have to do with the bucket size (afaik); did you change any default settings in that sense? The ufo may have to do with quality settings and the fact that underwater detail is usually (default) at 0.25 normal quality. May be upped in Render Subdivision Settings, but not above 1 and it does increase render time (especially with rough water!).
Good, thanks. And once I got rid of that particular tree the problems went away.
I still need to solve population problems with grass, etc. not showing in the previews or render.
I'll do more on the more powerful Hackintosh this coming week.
Quote from: plugsnpixels on November 14, 2016, 03:15:21 AM
Good, thanks. And once I got rid of that particular tree the problems went away.
I still need to solve population problems with grass, etc. not showing in the previews or render.
I'll do more on the more powerful Hackintosh this coming week.
It would be helpful in solving some problems, especially those involving TG native stuff we all have, if you post a .tgd so we could take it apart and see where you miss the boat...
You're right, there's no boat! ;-)
I'll be sure to share problem files in the future. I've modified this same one past the problem.
Here's a render from the Hackintosh. Took a little over an hour.
I was exploring how to insert clip files to add preconfigured ice and ground cover but that will take more research...
Your earlier, very noisy images were clearly *while TG was still rendering*. What you see when the render has not completed yet is before the AA samples have been merged, so it can be very noisy as compared to the final image.
The squares in the clouds are probably due to acceleration cache settings in the cloud node. Change it to None to be sure to eliminate such issues. You can try higher values (more "optimal"/accelerated) in test areas to see if you can get away with it (and lower render time).
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, more good tips. I did already figure out the bit about the AA pass, so that was good to see as it occurred.
I need to spend some time studying the use of Nodes next, though I have not seen a return of the cloud rendering problem since.