Since clouds take ages to render and test, does anyone have any amazing cloud .tgd files they would be up for sharing? I'm still working on a few of my own, but would like to see what others have pulled off so far.
Here's a clip file of an atmosphere with some nice cumulus clods.
... errr that's clouds, not clods.
i think they should improve this... if u want to get some nice cumulus u just HAVE to use 1500+ samples and that makes FAR too long render times.
If you ignore the terrain and look at the clouds, these aren't amazing but are pretty thick and believable.
Quote from: buchvecny on December 30, 2006, 03:04:27 PM
i think they should improve this... if u want to get some nice cumulus u just HAVE to use 1500+ samples and that makes FAR too long render times.
Well this sample method is in a way a necessary evil. I did read that they were looking into ways of optimizing the renderer, so that could shed time off eventually. But I like the fact that we now have ALOT of control over sampling the scene, even at the expense of render times (as it does make sense for true quality). It seems TG2 renders things nearly how the real atmosphere does, which is why it looks nearly photo-real. Multi CPU support will make this app shine even brighter when it becomes available.
True volumetric clouds are going to be render hogs regardless. I also bought Vue 6 Infinite a few weeks back (before I knew the preliminary version of TG2 would be out-but thats another story). Vue's procedural clouds are also amazing, but take just as long, if not longer to render, and they don't have as much depth as the TG clouds, in my opinion. In Vue, I created a volumetric storm cloud scene that did come out well. But the 4000x3000 render took over 96 hours.
I was able to get some cool clouds in my latest render:
(http://imagehost.meltingice.net/images/pictures/thumbs/viu1167517281a.jpg) (http://imagehost.meltingice.net/viewer.php?id=viu1167517281a.jpg)
You can download the .tgd here: http://www.meltingice.net/downloads/index.php?share=4&path=scenes%2FSky%20Explosion.tgd
Absolutely awesome looking clouds...- real picture book stuff.
monks
Try this ...
now just buy me C2D extreme and we can start renderin..
1000 or more samples certainly should not be necessary for realistic clouds. Certainly you can create situations where you need samples that high to get rid of grain, but these are generally not situations that would result in the most realistic clouds anyway. The edges would have to be very sharp, density very high, and likely depth also quite high. Luc Bianco's well-known cumulus cloud render didn't even use 1000 samples, much less 1500+. Personally I will never render an image with more than 512 samples. If I find it needs more than that to get rid of the noise I either A: assume it's a problem of my settings and adjust things, B: use a post processing noise reduction filter (Neat Image, Noise Ninja, etc.) or C: just give up and start over. :D
- Oshyan
Dang i love those high detail cotton-like clouds. This is what i am after as this is good for those very high rising cumulonimbus towers as well. ;D
I think i will have to wait a year until i can render those suckers.
I tried plopping in a twist and shear shader into the cloud shader, AFAIK it did nothing. Has anyone else tried it with success? I've also tried the strata and outcrops shader on it, to see what it would look like. Shoving a power fractal into clouds seems to have a nice effect though. I wonder what an alpine fractal would result in?
I'll put up my planetary render (with clouds) in a sec, for now here's my first successful 800x600 render, I think the cloud came out ok.
Ooh, and here's my second successful render, I was trying to copy one of Oshyan's sea renders as a lesson on water, I think the waves are too choppy, and they miss that golden glow, but other than that I think I've learnt enough with them to carry on.
Hello there Melting Ice:
I tried out the cloud scene you posted
http://imagehost.meltingice.net/viewer.php?id=viu1167517281a.jpg
but culdn't get such nice deep / refine render like yours. Any tips on that?
Regards,
Quote from: Yongkiatk on December 31, 2006, 12:28:18 PM
Hello there Melting Ice:
I tried out the cloud scene you posted
http://imagehost.meltingice.net/viewer.php?id=viu1167517281a.jpg
but culdn't get such nice deep / refine render like yours. Any tips on that?
Regards,
Hmm, well since I bought TG2 I set the anti-aliasing at 5, but I don't know how much of a difference that will make. I added a lot of contrast in Photoshop after it rendered as well so maybe thats why mine looks more deep and refined.
Thanks a bunch :) I also bought the TG2 and will do as you instructed & see. Your files certainly help me learn TG.
The cloud density input operates on the color values, not displacement. Twist and Shear only affects displacement, as far as I know (likewise Strata and Outcrops). The Power Fractal provides color, and the Alpine Shader probably does too. So they should work. You can use a Warp Shader to get some potentially interesting results though.
- Oshyan
Also sharing...
(http://xerraireart.com/Terragens/data/media/13/grace.jpg)
Download here ยป http://xerraireart.com/Terragens/categories.php?cat_id=14
Quote from: JavaJones on December 31, 2006, 02:18:51 PM
The cloud density input operates on the color values, not displacement. Twist and Shear only affects displacement, as far as I know (likewise Strata and Outcrops). The Power Fractal provides color, and the Alpine Shader probably does too. So they should work. You can use a Warp Shader to get some potentially interesting results though.
- Oshyan
Ahh I see, I'd assumed that they were based on a displaced spheroid, or something similar, but thinking back, that would have required quite complex algorithms to get anything remotely near pretty.
I'll have a go with a warp shader to see what I can come up with.
Hey Barb,
I'm glad to see your post. Very nice work by the way! TG2 should be a lot of fun for you.
Gary Poole
Quote from: Xerraire on December 31, 2006, 05:11:13 PM
Also sharing...
Quote from: JavaJones on December 31, 2006, 03:29:09 AM
1000 or more samples certainly should not be necessary for realistic clouds. Certainly you can create situations where you need samples that high to get rid of grain, but these are generally not situations that would result in the most realistic clouds anyway. The edges would have to be very sharp, density very high, and likely depth also quite high. Luc Bianco's well-known cumulus cloud render didn't even use 1000 samples, much less 1500+. Personally I will never render an image with more than 512 samples. If I find it needs more than that to get rid of the noise I either A: assume it's a problem of my settings and adjust things, B: use a post processing noise reduction filter (Neat Image, Noise Ninja, etc.) or C: just give up and start over. :D
- Oshyan
My settings:
Cloud Alt: 2700
Cloud Depth: 2085
Edge Sharp: 2.7
Cloud Density: .94
Coverage Adjust: .075
Samples: 1820
Results after half an hour:
(http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/VermilionMartyr/abort.jpg)
So, working on cutting the rendering time and dropping out the grain... and making the clouds look better >.<
What AA setings you using?
Nice looking rocks btw, but it looks like yor water entity cuts off about 1/4 the way into the right hand side of the image...
Quote from: ProjectX on January 01, 2007, 09:38:28 AM
What AA setings you using?
Nice looking rocks btw, but it looks like yor water entity cuts off about 1/4 the way into the right hand side of the image...
Isn't that a rendering artifact which would disappear when the render finished?
i honestly don't know, with the time it takes to render on my comp, I usually go and watch tv while it does its stuff, I just thought that maybe he'd moved the camera to the edge of the lake (if that's possible - I'd assume so, since you can specify the lake size) and so was only rendering the edges.
I'd say most of that noise is probably due to needing more atmosphere samples, not more cloud samples. What are your atmosphere samples set at? Complex rays and backlighting as in this scene really tend to require higher values of 64 or even greater.
Nice scene btw. :)
- Oshyan
Thanks ;-) I eventually got fed up with the clouds and threw this onto my DeviantArt- anyone can feel free to comment and look around the site.
(http://ic1.deviantart.com/fs14/f/2006/365/d/3/How_to_Get_Stoned_by_VermilionMartyr.jpg)
>Linky< (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45727818/?qo=3&q=by%3Avermilionmartyr&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps)
But, armed with your advice, Oshyan, I'm going to re-visit the scene tomorrow afternoon after school and see if I can get some decent looking clouds/sunlight effects in there.
My attempt at thick clouds is attached. I probably didn't optimize the settings very well though since it took over 30 hours to render with over 1000 samples.
Your fakestones look great! Would you mind to share the .tgd-file?
Quote from: VermilionMartyr on January 04, 2007, 12:39:14 AM
Thanks ;-) I eventually got fed up with the clouds and threw this onto my DeviantArt- anyone can feel free to comment and look around the site.
But, armed with your advice, Oshyan, I'm going to re-visit the scene tomorrow afternoon after school and see if I can get some decent looking clouds/sunlight effects in there.
Can I just make a suggestion about very high cloud densities (1.0+)? Try taking the edge sharpness down to a proportionally very low level, much lower than 0.1, as something to try out. Also, decreasing the smallest scale size in the Cloud Fractal shader (pattern) helps once you've done that).
Quote from: RealUser on January 04, 2007, 04:11:27 AM
Your fakestones look great! Would you mind to share the .tgd-file?
Quote from: VermilionMartyr on January 04, 2007, 12:39:14 AM
Thanks ;-) I eventually got fed up with the clouds and threw this onto my DeviantArt- anyone can feel free to comment and look around the site.
But, armed with your advice, Oshyan, I'm going to re-visit the scene tomorrow afternoon after school and see if I can get some decent looking clouds/sunlight effects in there.
Or at least share with us in more detail how you set this up without using a heightfield shader. Thanks.
Chucker
About this topic: is it possible to render clouds like Congestus or Cumulonimbus? Without models. And if possible, how can i locate these clouds in the landscape?
Thanks.
Claudio
I'll upload the .tgd when I get home. As for the technique I used, check out this thread:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=231.0
I basically just stacked a bunch of fake stone shaders on top of each other, then threw an image map shader on. When I first rendered the scene, which originally had no water, I got an image that basically looked like the texture I used, but with some bumps and lumps in it. I didn't get a coherent scene until I added water, which is what moodflow was missing in the above thread; if you add water (and position your sun well) you get a greater sense of depth in your image.
Unfortunately, I don't have any credits to give out for the texture... I'll upload it later, but I can't figure out where I got it from. =/ A good texture is key, baby.
Quote from: VermilionMartyr on January 04, 2007, 01:40:30 PM
I'll upload the .tgd when I get home. As for the technique I used, check out this thread:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=231.0
I basically just stacked a bunch of fake stone shaders on top of each other, then threw an image map shader on. When I first rendered the scene, which originally had no water, I got an image that basically looked like the texture I used, but with some bumps and lumps in it. I didn't get a coherent scene until I added water, which is what moodflow was missing in the above thread; if you add water (and position your sun well) you get a greater sense of depth in your image.
Unfortunately, I don't have any credits to give out for the texture... I'll upload it later, but I can't figure out where I got it from. =/ A good texture is key, baby.
I was about to also ask if you could post that .tgd file of those rocks, but just found out you did it similar to the way I did. It looks great!
Unfortunately, I can't get you guys the texture-- it's too large. But here's what I did...
do you mean the rock texture?, do you have a linky to it or is it possible you could email it?.... cheers... nice render btw
There's the texture, baby ;-) I had to zap it with the shrink ray in Photoshop to get it to upload... the new dimensions are 1280x834... the original dimensions were 2288x1491... you may need to re-size it back to the original dimensions to get it to look right when projected through the camera on your scene.
IF YOU THINK THIS IS YOUR TEXTURE, please contact me! I'd love to know where I got this beauty.
heres my attempt.... if only the preview screen didn't take so long...
files here http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~rawjdmbj/downloads/cloudscene.zip
-if you're looking for textures, there's a great new site with free textures, freely distributable, etc here:
http://www.texturesource.org/forum/index.php?board=2.0
Feel free to register and upload too. You can dload them from the gallery area.
A lot of the textures are seamless such as this one (they are indicated as such in the gallery description):
http://www.texturesource.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=935&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_GALLERYSID=927524c2caf284a22688b52e084e6fe3
if you want stone:
http://www.texturesource.org/forum/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=164
monks
Thanks Vermillion for the files! Much appreciated!
Wow! Nice pictures. I especially like the chopping seas.
Quote from: ProjectX on December 31, 2006, 11:07:32 AM
I tried plopping in a twist and shear shader into the cloud shader, AFAIK it did nothing. Has anyone else tried it with success? I've also tried the strata and outcrops shader on it, to see what it would look like. Shoving a power fractal into clouds seems to have a nice effect though. I wonder what an alpine fractal would result in?
I'll put up my planetary render (with clouds) in a sec, for now here's my first successful 800x600 render, I think the cloud came out ok.
Ooh, and here's my second successful render, I was trying to copy one of Oshyan's sea renders as a lesson on water, I think the waves are too choppy, and they miss that golden glow, but other than that I think I've learnt enough with them to carry on.
Quote from: moodflow on December 30, 2006, 02:39:38 PM
Since clouds take ages to render and test, does anyone have any amazing cloud .tgd files they would be up for sharing? I'm still working on a few of my own, but would like to see what others have pulled off so far.
Not Amazing but here you go. These were used in Goshute.
@vermillion - This reminds me of one of the textures I've seen sold on Renderosity.
Quote from: VermilionMartyr on January 04, 2007, 10:59:05 PM
There's the texture, baby ;-) I had to zap it with the shrink ray in Photoshop to get it to upload... the new dimensions are 1280x834... the original dimensions were 2288x1491... you may need to re-size it back to the original dimensions to get it to look right when projected through the camera on your scene.
IF YOU THINK THIS IS YOUR TEXTURE, please contact me! I'd love to know where I got this beauty.
@monks - Thanks, monks. These resources look awesome.
I shared a cloud TGD file a while back...you can get it here (3rd post from bottom, see the result on 7th post from bottom)
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=34.180
Enjoy!!
And here is one I once shared: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=622.0