No Mojo users that I know of except myself have taken up TG2 at least not any who previously did not use TG much. Why? There is a reason for this.
During my use of TG2 I came across three annoying problems. Two of which effect everybody even if they don't get heavily into functions but no doubt these problems will get improved. Ray traced shadow issues with displacements and spiky terrain or large displacements getting cut off at render time, especially at higher quality and scale of render. These problems do also exist in other apps to a lesser or greater degree. There are other things that will get improved in TG2. Render optimizing for example. All things that will improve in the future.
There is however another problem. The big issue in my opinion. The power fractal control or lack of it.
Mojo users have told me that they sent TG2 to the Recycle Bin or Trash (Mac) after testing it. Their words not mine. The first thing they will do when trying TG2 is hook up a power fractal. Then they will look for it's position input (nowhere to be seen). Then they'll wonder where the largest and smallest scale input is. The result scale input, the roughness input etc. Then they may wonder how they can domain distort the fractal. Not possible except with the warper which is very poor.
The general topic was brought up in December last year on this forum and part of my argument was backed up by Calyxa who is not just biased for Mojo since she was the support:
Quote from: calyxa on December 27, 2006, 05:17:10 PM
Quote from: efflux on December 27, 2006, 05:04:05 PM
I feel locked out of TG2. The shaders appear to be hard coded and we can't study internal networks. The strength of this upgrade is that we can get at the engine yet we have no info as to how to start using function nodes. In Mojo you just jump in and experiment which is cool. So you learn. You can see how everything works behind the standard UI but not so in TG2. This is a big weak point in my opinion and more info about editing function nodes needs to be supplied or better still some examples.
I agree with a lot of that and am looking forward to seeing more info on nodes and more examples.
Since then I have persevered and discovered that you can do a whole lot with nodes, including recreating more powerful fake stones. The voronoi thread says it all in what can be done beyond what some of the shaders do and I have gone further with altitude driven distorted noise stratas - this looks really cool but no distorted and altitude driven fractal. So all techniques used in Mojo can be used in TG2 except manipulation of the power fractal.
This is a core concept that destroys the chances of tapping into the wealth of knowledge from Mojo users. It was even suggested I write Mojo to TG2 tutorials. I could do this for many things but the power fractal is the sticking point.
The problem lies in the power fractal's lack of inputs to control various functions from other functions. Domain distortion being one powerful technique e.g. using another function to twist the fractal's position around.
I am finding myself using noises rather than fractals for many things and distorting the scales and domains of these with a fractal but not the other way around >:(
As new basis functions get added to TG2, which I'm sure they will, this situation will get even more frustrating and even with every basis function Mojo has, TG2 would still be crippled.
For those of you who don't know about these techniques it is not so easy to explain. Mojo is the only other program with all this control but it is TG2's main competitor and now a frozen app that will become defunct if not redeveloped. No multi core, no GI, very poor UI, useless Mac version (yet Mac users still stick with it) amongst other things yet most users stick with it or simply don't do any landscape work anymore because TG2 can not supply the power of Mojo fractal control even despite the fact that TG2 has this underlying power. I can understandable this. Without a suitable app I'd prefer just to give up with procedural landscape and do something else until an app that can do it all properly appears. Yes, Mojo has the isosurfaces but that's besides the point here.
Here are some example pictures. The first is a scale distorted (with a power fractal) perlin noise for clouds done in TG2. Not bad. Clouds don't always need all the detail of a fractal:
(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/812/tg2distortednoisecloudsvj4.jpg)
Then we have the same technique for surface textures (voronoi noise this time). Again, pretty cool and I've used a colour gradient hack to get more than two colours. I now have similar looking strata functions:
(http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/4523/tg2distortednoisesurfactg2.jpg)
Now look at this. It's a Mojo perlin ridge terrain built from a fractal but highly distorted by noise in it's position (the other way around from the above TG2 examples), not distorted in scale but kind of similar shapes are possible and you can distort a noise's position in TG2 if you want. You can use various maths functions in TG2 to get these kind of cliffs instead of a curve graph. However this terrain is impossible in TG2 due to the lack of controlling inputs on the power fractal. In this case no positioning input. You can not distort a fractal in this manner (as far as I know, maybe somebody can tell me otherwise - the warping function is totally limited) despite the fact that TG2 has a capability to do this but the user is stopped from doing it. Distorting a noise with a fractal for terrain (as you can do in TG2) will not give you all the fractal detail that you want:
(http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/2598/mojodistortedfractalterjg4.jpg)
Other than this issue TG2 is fantastic. Great UI, loads of endless functions can be built, GI, great atmospheric engine etc. There are a few other things that Mojo can do over TG2 but it also works vice versa. Not major issues like this lack of fractal control. TG2 does not have all the difficult to rectify fundamental faults and bugs of Mojo. Mojo users did not voice opinions and so the faults carried on.
I'm glad you're saying something, efflux, and I especially like how you're explaining this so clearly and so graciously.
Definitely one for Matt to respond to I think. Hopefully the final version or even the current alpha version addresses some of these issues?
Although I've not seen anything about future versions being able to manipulate the power fractal beyond what we have now.
Kevin
Hi efflux,
I have to say I agree with you on a lot of these points. For me the most interesting thing about TG2 is the way it would allow me to create the same sorts of things I did in WaterWorks and such just using function nodes. I'm not so into making zany landscapes like Mojo users, I want to create realistic looking effects for realistic landscapes, but it's all coming from the same sort of place. I have added some simple nodes for functions I'm used to using in making shaders, and which would be familiar to others who learnt to do it the same way as me. I would like to see some fractal nodes which are much more stripped back and allow control much like you'd expect to be able to if you were writing things in code i.e. you provide position inputs, the fractal spits out a value. For sure the fractals in TG2 are powerful but I also would like to see more control over them. One thing I did like about Mojo was that it seemed to match pretty closely what I knew about building shaders. I actually worked on Mojo up until the first Mac release, but I have never really liked it as an application beyond a few things about the approach it took.
I should say that despite being one of the developers of TG2, I really haven't had much time to play with function nodes and such as much as I would like, so perhaps there are ways to do what we want which Matt knows of but which none of us have been able to figure out yet. It would be good if he could fill us in. However, I am going to make it my personal mission to implement a bunch of noise nodes which work a lot more like we would expect, covering all the basic noises. There is a lot to do at the moment, but I'll fit them into what spare time I have. I already have the code to do the noises, it will mainly be a matter of wrapping them up as a TG2 node. To start off they probably won't be a sophisticated as the Mojo ones or the existing ones in TG2. Matt probably won't like them much for various reasons, he has his own take on a lot of these things and in most cases to great effect, but I think it's valuable to have access to a bunch of noises that are well understood and familiar. While they may be older and not so sophisticated they still provide building blocks for more sohisticated effects.
Regards,
Jo
Hi Jo, Thanks for the reply.
Any level of control or any extra noise nodes etc are all useful for anything from realistic to crazy. The power should be centered around the power fractal and I'm finding that it is the opposite. The power is in function nodes which are fully controllable in any way you want leaving the fractal slightly out of the equation which is a weakness so hence my message above. I don't know if anything can be improved with this in future but it leaves TG2 as contender to the procedural throne which is still occupied by Mojo despite all it's lackings and what looks like future death as a viable usable app. Mojo is not an app I really want to use anymore. TG2 is still alpha of course so to be this good at this level is not bad going but the fractal control needs to be better.
At present Mojo is actually capable of much more realistic terrains and rocks and not just because of more basis functions but because of what I describe above. Even although the TG2 renderer and atmospherics are far better. You can get amazing surfaces on your rocks with TG2 but the larger fractal forms are not as good.
Hi Efflux,
Quote from: efflux on November 09, 2007, 09:23:10 PM
At present Mojo is actually capable of much more realistic terrains and rocks and not just because of more basis functions but because of what I describe above. Even although the TG2 renderer and atmospherics are far better. You can get amazing surfaces on your rocks with TG2 but the larger fractal forms are not as good.
Well, I think the Alpine Fractal is pretty good. Matt has shown me some stuff done with that aside from a few fractal artefacts is very good. I haven't seen much which comes close with Mojo stuff. I have seen some good stuff, for sure, there is a recent image on Renderosity which is quite impressive. It seems to be few and far between though, possibly because a lot of people seem to concentrate on non-realistic landscapes ( Ken wasn't really interested in realism anyway ).
Regards,
Jo
Mojo started out as a landscape generator to create realistic landscapes but some stuff was thrown in that facilitated weirder stuff. However much of the stranger stuff comes from those very functions that you now see creating very realistic landscapes. Armands has posted a couple recently and ages ago before he stopped for a while. All utilizing Mojo's more realistic capability despite the fact that Armands has created some crazy planets.
The goal needs to be to create an app with maximum procedural control possible to create naturalistic planetary phenomena. This facilitates both earth like realism and anything else you care to create. I'm not really especially into any style although much of my stuff is quite strange. Some of the more extreme was to push TG2,s capability but what I do like is the ability to create something that may be realistic but with at least some slight surreal quality. Probably my stuff will retain this quality but simply get more real looking. This is where lots of power fractal control comes into play.
This is what I have been trying to say with various feature requests and other posts I have made here, which have been about one thing and that is providing users with the tools and functionality needed to do what they require weather its some thing wild like a fantasy/ Science Fiction type scene or some thing more realistic. TG2 and future incarnations of the same could be the industry leader in the terrain visualization field and surpass every thing else out there Vue included.
I agree with efflux that more control is required after all shouldn't software be controlled by its user and not the other way around? What we have with the Technology Preview is just the beginning but to quote one of my teachers form Secondary School "Start as you mean to go on" , I realize that as of now that Planetside are a small company, but it is one that is entering the commercial arena now when TG2 is a final commercial product latter this year and that means that it will receive a different kind of attention than it has in the past, with the aforementioned attention comes the responsibility that a commercial product brings with it, and people who will be using TG2 in the professional arena are going to demand a level on control, that right now is not provided or at least is not immediately obvious upon first inspection.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Hi,
Quote from: efflux on November 09, 2007, 10:07:03 PM
Mojo started out as a landscape generator to create realistic landscapes but some stuff was thrown in that facilitated weirder stuff.
I don't think I'd agree with you on that. I was involved with Mojo before it was ever released, and Ken was very definitely all about Mojo being a vehicle for exploring fractal space using landscapes as a way to visualise that, much more so than with the direct aim of creating realistic landscapes, right from the start. Realism was never a priority for him, I don't believe. I've had quite a few discussions about it with him. He seemed to think that realism had been "done" and the real challenge was "hyper-realism" or something, whereas I think most people would probably agree that making visually pleasing cool looking freaky stuff is relatively easy compared to coming up with photorealistic natural scenes. It's been a while, but I certainly remember that was the situation.
QuoteThe goal needs to be to create an app with maximum procedural control possible to create naturalistic planetary phenomena. This facilitates both earth like realism and anything else you care to create. I'm not really especially into any style although much of my stuff is quite strange. Some of the more extreme was to push TG2,s capability but what I do like is the ability to create something that may be realistic but with at least some slight surreal quality. Probably my stuff will retain this quality but simply get more real looking. This is where lots of power fractal control comes into play.
Well, of course I agree with you, and while for us TG2 is primarily about realism we would also like it to suit those who have leanings toward the more fantastic. We think that a renderer capable of good "Earth like" realism also helps to make the stranger stuff look more convincing. Part of the reason there is a node type interface is it lets ( or should let ) people branch out and create things we might not have concentrated so much on because of our interest in realism. We are not trying to create another Mojo, we are trying to create a photorealistic landscape visualisation app, but there isn't any reason we can't also make it attractive to those who are into what it seems a lot of the Mojo community are.
Regards,
Jo
Hi,
I just thought I should add that there are actually a few "primitive" noise functions already, such as the Perlin and Voronoi noise in the Functions->Noise menu. Matt would have to confirm it, but you could probably replicate a lot of the functionality of the Power Fractal shader starting from the Perlin node.
Regards,
Jo
Hi Efflux,
Well, I had a bit of a play and came up with this:
[attach=#1]
It doesn't have the same fine ridging your one does, but I think that could be added easily enough by mixing in another fractal or something. It is generated by a Perlin noise node, with the input position distorted by another Perlin noise node. This is the network:
[attach=#2]
It isn't a super clear network, I just bunged a bunch of stuff together. BTW life is much better now with shader previews in separate windows, which is in the latest alpha.
Here's the distorted Perlin noise, prior to the gain and abs functions being applied:
[attach=#3]
This is the noise which is being used as part of the distortion, it's just a regular Perlin noise:
[attach=#4]
I'm not sure if this looks like what you've been getting at. I think while I still agree there needs to be more "primitive" noises like the Perlin noise and Voronoi noise nodes and is important to have good access to their basic parameters ( such as input ), you can maybe do more with what is available now than you think. Don't get too wrapped up in the Power Fractal, as ingenious as it is ( I just had a look at the code, no idea what's going on :-).
Regards,
Jo
OK thanks for replies.
Yes, I have got shapes similar to those Jo but without distorting the power fractal which is my point, that in these circumstances of full control using nodes, the power fractal gets left out of being able to provide the necessary detail that we ideally need.
Ken Musgave was not necessarily into just creating totally realistic landscapes. I realize that but his fractals are the best yet at creating shapes on a larger scale that can get as close as is possible to realistic shapes. This was what he aimed at. My opinion is that his vision of what Mojo should do was totally correct but the failure came in the implementation of certain things and basically bad business moves.
At present Mojoworld is actually capable of creating quite realistic landscapes in the same way that TG2 can do more weird stuff. Mojoworld has one advantage with it's isosurfaces but TG2's displacements are actually more capable than Mojo's standard displacements to get closer to those isosurface forms. TG2 has an edge on some angles like atmospherics and GI which does make for very realistic scenes but once you start to think beyond a stage set then TG2 lacks those vaste and interesting variations needed to create big vistas of varying form. This is not helped by the problems I describe above. Those kind of limitations is why I can't drive the fractal to have those kinds of variations. The forms the fractal actually creates are great. There are no problems with that. Mojo's problems lie is usability more than anything although there are a few things it lacks that an app like this should now have. I harp on about Mojo because it came close to being the dream tool. Tragically it didn't quite get there. What I'd hate to see is TG2 end up with the same fate.
It may be Matt's intention to create a planetary generator that can create things that look like planet earth. This is all well and good because planet earth is the richest planet we know of. The trouble comes in cutting things off from the user which unwittingly limits their capability to actually create realistic forms. I've demonstrated this above. The distorted voronoi noise surface you see has an intricate rich shape. Anyone with any imagination can see that with some different colours then this could form a resemblance to the kind of strata (I actually have a proper altitude driven strata version of this) found in nature but I can't drive the power fractal to achieve these forms. If I could, then I'd have all those beautiful fractal iterations as well. There are numerous other limits I could describe. What if you want the fractal to only follow planet surface position? This can create effects that look like say lichen or something following the downwards flow of water. Another example would be driving the fractals displacement amplitude with another fractal. This can create incredibly varied forms. There are a whole bunch of these limitations with the power fractal at present.
It should now be simply taken for granted that TG2 can achieve very realistic photographic like shots. The Renderosity gallery has a lot of this stuff but the question is, are these pieces of work actually interesting pieces of art? Many of them sadly are not. This is what it must boil down to whether you're creating realistic or fantastic scenes. Non TG2 users who browse these galleries do not care too much about whether the stuff look like photos. This is why those types of work often only get comments from other TG2 users. People know CG software can achieve a good degree of realism. We want this realism to get better, of course or more varied to be precise.
I'm only trying to view my opinions here because of course I want TG2 to be as great as it an be for all users no matter what style of work. I agree with much of what Cyber-Angel says. The more control and the more variety TG2 has then the more it becomes a serious commercial product with wide appeal. It should be a future aim of Planetside to get Vue and Mojo users.
Hi Efflux,
Reading over what you were saying originally again, I think what you were getting is basically that you wanted the finer multiscale detail in your example, as opposed to the simpler smoother sort of thing you'd get from the single octave Perlin node, for example. I don't think this is a particularly big deal, essentially it just means there needs to be fractal node like the Perlin and Voronoi ones which is a multi-fractal, perhaps with a controllable number of octaves. Any single multifractal is going to give out on detail at some scale, depending on the number of octaves. Maybe the Power Fractal could be adapted, for that, I'm not really sure.
Anyway, just for laughs and because I don't really play with this stuff as much I should, I did a simple sort of multifractal where I blended together the same fractal as the image I posted above, but at varying scales:
[attach=#1]
QuoteKen Musgave was not necessarily into just creating totally realistic landscapes. I realize that but his fractals are the best yet at creating shapes on a larger scale that can get as close as is possible to realistic shapes.
I don't think that was the case at all, although my experience with Mojo is limited in more recent versions. I think Ken was/is very good at fractals and had a deep understanding of them, and the variety of fractals he was able to add to Mojo meant that realistic landscape forms could be created, but from what I know of Ken, it wasn't really what he was into. TG2 is definitely lacking in the variety of fractals on offer, no argument there.
I am a little bit surprised that there is no way to control things like the input position of the Power Fractal. Hopefully Matt will chime in at some point on why this is, if in fact it is. It is the weekend, I'm only answering today because I'm working Saturday due to taking Friday off to go fishing :-).
QuoteIt should now be simply taken for granted that TG2 can achieve very realistic photographic like shots.
Well, to be frank, there is still a very long way to go and it can't be taken for granted at all. That's not to say I don't think TG2 is capable of very realistic shots, but it would be a mistake to think we've "solved" photorealism and so can concentrate our limited resources on facilitating things which diverge from an aim of photorealism in general.
QuoteThe Renderosity gallery has a lot of this stuff but the question is, are these pieces of work actually interesting pieces of art?
From a purely personal perspective, while I'm impressed at the creativity and skill shown in the creation of "unrealistic" type images, they do nothing for me. For me they aren't interesting pieces of art, and I wouldn't hang them on my wall. However, it takes all sorts to make a world and that is simply my personal opinion and not something which influences TG2.
QuoteI'm only trying to view my opinions here because of course I want TG2 to be as great as it an be for all users no matter what style of work. I agree with much of what Cyber-Angel says. The more control and the more variety TG2 has then the more it becomes a serious commercial product with wide appeal. It should be a future aim of Planetside to get Vue and Mojo users.
Thanks for very much for the input, please don't think that because of my personal proclivities it isn't appreciated :-). I think it's fair to say we share the same sorts of goals.
Regards,
Jo
Well everyone has different tastes and yes there is loads to go before we have all kinds of different things that truly look photographically real. What I mean is that in some circumstances it's possible to create a scene that really does look like a photo. Then viewers tend to start to take this aspect for granted. They look for something beyond whether it simply looks like a photo or not. What I mean is that TG2 users who have this skill to make a realistic looking scene should consider that the picture also needs to have a feel. Good composition, colours etc etc. This is what I think lacks in the TG2 galleries. For example this picture by Volker is a beautiful image. it's quite realistic but has a lot of artistic content:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_154/file_1534725.jpg
Another example to describe some of the things I'm on about here is one of mine. Not entirely what I'd like to give as an example because it will be seen as an unrealistic fantasy image but this landscape has some terrain variety at large scale levels but not on on very small scale where you need a fractal. I had to build that up with surfacing. Even if you go into outer space it still shows some large scale variety. Why? because the whole terrain was built from noise functions rather than fractals so I was able to shift it about it more various ways. However it only touches on what I'm talking about and is not as good an example as I'd like to give. Way more is possible even with noise functions. I'd like to show one where I had to use noise functions to create something with more realistic types of features. The reason TG2 suits me slightly better than most Mojo users is because I tend to build low detail terrains anyway and use fractals to provide surface detail but this is not the only way I'd like to work. If you look at some of my more recent images, they are heading in a more detailed route which is why these problems with the power fractal are beginning to bug me.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_149/file_1489410.jpg
It's probably possible to blend up a load of power fractals to try to get this all over variety whether on a small hill or from space but this is quite difficult to achieve and not so efficent. The easiest way is to use less fractals but have to input control I'm talking about.
I can't find the gain function node in any of the menus! anyone know where it is?
I think Jo may be using another version of TG2 that we don't have access to. Hence no gain scalar, whatever that is.
To sum up here. This is what I'm getting at with my views. What you ideally want is to use as few fractals as possible but have as much control over the forms of those fractals as possible. The reason for this is that if you have to substitute other functions for certain levels of variety that should be achieved by less functions then you destroy the lyrical flow of the shapes. This is the whole ideal goal of fractals, to provide that lyrical variety at all scales. This is a word that has been used to describe the difference between Mojo and TG2. Mojo has more lyricism in the flow of the forms due to being able to do much more with one fractal or at least manipulate that fractal with other fractals or functions without losing the original form. Rather than adding another form you are manipulating an existing form with another function.
To elaborate further. Say you have a mountain and you want that mountain to be part of a variety of flow at very large scale. It's not so easy to do this with the fractal at present. So lets say you use noise functions that you can twist and bend to a large degree of variety but not at all scales. You lose certain scales of detail i.e. small which require noise upon noise. However these extra forms don't follow the natural flow of things too well. Smaller scale rocks on a mountain often tend to naturally follow a lyrical flow of the whole mountain.
Jo, while I'm certain what efflux and you are communicating about is somewhat outside of my level of grasp, I appreciate what you're doing for this community. Thanks for taking time to make TG2 even cooler. I can't wait to here how all of this works out with Matt. And thanks again to you, efflux, for making this a clear level of interest for the end-users here.
Hi efflux,
Quote from: efflux on November 09, 2007, 11:59:36 AM
However this terrain is impossible in TG2 due to the lack of controlling inputs on the power fractal. In this case no positioning input. You can not distort a fractal in this manner (as far as I know, maybe somebody can tell me otherwise - the warping function is totally limited) despite the fact that TG2 has a capability to do this but the user is stopped from doing it.
The Warp Shader works by warping the "position in texture" value, and therefore allows you to warp the input position of the fractal, or any other shader network you might want to build. It has to be warped by a displacement shader, but that displacement shader can be anything. The Redirect Shader allows displacement in any direction, so you can use that as your warper.
Here's one example, using Perlin noises to generate displacement in X, Y and Z directions, which is then used as a warper for the Fractal Terrain:
[attachimg=#]
It's a bit cumbersome to set up each time, so we probably need to be replace it with something simpler, but it's very flexible and it should definitely be able to do the kind of distortion you're talking about as well as a lot more.
I've attached a clip file from the above screenshot.
EDIT: Made some corrections and attached new version of the clip file.
Matt
Quote from: efflux on November 10, 2007, 09:37:54 AM
To sum up here. This is what I'm getting at with my views. What you ideally want is to use as few fractals as possible but have as much control over the forms of those fractals as possible. The reason for this is that if you have to substitute other functions for certain levels of variety that should be achieved by less functions then you destroy the lyrical flow of the shapes. This is the whole ideal goal of fractals, to provide that lyrical variety at all scales. This is a word that has been used to describe the difference between Mojo and TG2. Mojo has more lyricism in the flow of the forms due to being able to do much more with one fractal or at least manipulate that fractal with other fractals or functions without losing the original form. Rather than adding another form you are manipulating an existing form with another function.
I agree with you there. I always liked to work that way when writing shaders, but some of that flexibility has been lost in some of the "high level" shaders in TG2.
The Power Fractal does need some more options to allow you specify a different input domain, not just the current "position in texture". You also mentioned the need to use functions to control amplitude etc. That kind of function-based control over parameters in many of the shaders is something I have planned to do for a long time. It's not going to make it into version 2.0, but it's very likely that we will add this capability to many of the shaders in some future version.
I also want to add a basic Fractal function that has all of the basis functions that are available elsewhere in TG2 (although I know there aren't many right now). I'm also thinking about some kind of Fractal Iterator function which might allow you to build any kind of basis function you like and then have that iterated into a fractal. Then you'd be able to use any basis function as long as it is possible to define it with function nodes.
Another possibility I'm thinking about is to make function versions of the important shaders. Instead of operating as full-blown shaders, they would output colour/scalar data and have inputs for many of the things that are merely sliders in the shader versions.
It will take some time, but I think you will find the control you are looking for in future versions.
Matt
Quote from: efflux on November 10, 2007, 10:07:34 AM
Smaller scale rocks on a mountain often tend to naturally follow a lyrical flow of the whole mountain.
Yes, that's very important, and it's much easier to do that when everything is ultimately derived from the same function.
Matt
OK, Thanks very much for replying to this, Matt.
My thread here may seem very blunt and critical. It's not meant to be negative but was kind of designed to get a response on these issues. Getting the Mojo users interested is a problem. They have generally been very negative towards trying TG2 but it doesn't help when I can't explain methods to get something similar to Mojo.
I will try the graph you suggest. That should be very useful.
"Fractal Iterator function" This sound like a great idea. I am very pleased that you are considering all these things. Ideally I'd want everything split to fundamental levels of control in the graph whether this be separate nodes or inputs on other nodes. At the end of the day, it can all be made as shaders which many people will prefer to use and I certainly use the shaders but sometimes they don't do what you want.
My intention is actually to do animation. Part of the reason I am not entirely into earth like scenes is due to this. My animation will not be of this type. However, the realism of the renders is important. I am using Modo but they spent time trying to replicate ZBrush type displacement painting that can ultimately never compete with ZBrush so now full animation will be coming in the next version (a mistake move for them in my opinion). In the mean time I may be using Blender. Modo can still render the animations. I looked into XSI but that cuts out any Macs I use since it's Windows and Linux. Better to wait for Luxology to sort out Modo and I already have a license for that. Linux is however very cool for rendering. Hopefully Luxology (Modo) will consider this but they seem to have ditched development of the full Linux Modo version. How all this fits together I have yet to work out so it may be some time before I get fully into TG2 again and I have other stuff to sort out anyway. I come from a traditional art background so I have a lot of the concept work. That part is easy for me. ZBrush 3 for Mac will come out early next year so then it should all start to roll together.
One of the problems with Mojo is that it simply doesn't cut it when animating or trying to composite into any kind of animation. It looks CG whereas TG2 does not. You can see a tremendous difference in realism between a Mojo and TG2 animation or even if you're just compositing in stills. This was the big mistake with Mojo. Not thinking about how it could be used by anyone seeking something to use for animation or even matte painting. When I installed Mojo Linux version (they initially released a renderer for Linux) it installed into a folder called games which says a lot about the whole confused idea about what Mojo should be. The concept behind how it created landscapes was OK but not how the user would ultimately use it. Maybe not all Ken's fault. It is not good enough and I don't like the results from Vue even although it has been designed with all this in mind and it has those ecosystems. Mojo was however really good at integrating with 2D animation (since it doesn't need the same degree of 3D realism) but I've ditched that idea. With the amount of time in takes, you might as well go 3D.
Thanks.
Ryan.
a question Matt...if I may...
why use get position in texture for terrain displacements??
I edited my message here. Ignore what I said about the get position in texture. In any case, it's actually get position in geometry that I've mostly been using not get position in texture.
Prior to the Compute Terrain, Get Position in Texture is actually the same as Get Position. In more general circumstances, however, Get Position in Texture is the one you want to use most of the time. Most of the shaders use Get Position in Texture internally. As a general rule, use Get Position in Texture so you know it's doing what the shaders would do, unless there's a specific reason to use one of the other position values.
Matt
We need a bit of info on those position nodes. I edited out the stuff on my last message about that. This info should be in the nodes documentation. Otherwise we'll have to experiment to work it out which I'll be doing soon so I have that clear in my head and not stuff I've read on the forum. The only real position experiments I did were altitude.
Besides that I've been experimenting. Matt's graph gave me some ideas. I've never actually been able to get the warp shader to work the way I want but now I'm hooking a fractal into the three displacement shaders instead of three perlin noise. I used the colour output to control the displacement in much the same way as I used it for distorting function scales before. The results were this:
(http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2469/fractaldistortion10bd1.jpg)
You can see here some very interesting warped shapes. The key is that we can't use straight noise functions anywhere or we're back to the problems discussed earlier. At least a fractal to distort the noise is necessary. In this terrain it is 100% fractal created. This is a lot more Mojoesque regardless of the technique or level of realism.
OK. This is now turning into a solutions thread. Next test:
(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6226/fractaldistortion20ih7.jpg)
Again 100% fractal using a power fractal in the same way as I used it to distort on the Planet Pig thread but hooking into the three displacement shaders in Matt's graph. This time it has a clamping function to get the steep step.
It's solved but I will examine this graph angle more carefully. This is the TG2 version of what the Mojo render showed but it's actually a better terrain. A warped ridged perlin but way more interesting than what the warp effect inside the power fractal gets you. The colour of the fractal hooked into the displacement is controlling the range of scale doing the distortion.
I actually now have terrains that are some of the best I've ever created even beyond Mojo. Ironic, given the title of this thread. It seems there is always a way with TG2 but it's NOT easy to find them.
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1605/fractaldistortion30graplk0.jpg)
Thanks for that last post efflux I've been drinving myself mad trying to get a similar effect for the last hour - I was close but not close enough
Hi mhaze.
It's Mad, this thread. Starting out as critical and then a solution. The key is in ignoring the 0-1 colour settings in the distorting fractal. You set up big scales for that fractal but then use the colour to set a range of distorting scales. This is crucial because the perlin alone doesn't give you the power of a fractal and the fractal warp effect is best disabled. I hate it. I can't believe yet another problem is solved. It could be tricky to work this out but any problems and I can help.
The clamp multiplies the altitude several times to stretch out the vertical displacement then clamps this stretching, Say at 0 to whatever altitude. In my example the higher clamp value is not actually set at an altitude that has any effect - it's higher than most terrain. I don't want flat tops on the hills.
Another point is that I heavily use the spike limit on fractals to get sweeping shapes with no nasty spikes. Set it right down to a very low level. You'll need to increase displacement amplitude when you do this.
Next stage. Demonstrating my distorted perlin strata function which supplies colour and displacement. There is a tgc file on the Planet Pig thread with this. I've no time to continue now but at least some things are sorted.
(http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/1884/fractaldistortion40xb9.jpg)
Thanks
I was clamping max far to low - still some way to go but at last I think I'm beginning to make some sense of it all
I think what it comes down to almost anything is possible (possibly given the right basis functions), it's just a matter of knowing (or figuring out) how. I would agree that some of Mojo's functions are useful in achieving certain results easier, but I question whether those results were immediately obvious or achievable (with good quality and controllability) in Mojo either. I remember the early days of Mojo and how much people stuck with many of the defaults and the same type of planets. I have seen how really few people in the Mojo community have ever even gotten very good with Mojograph. So I think at least a part of this is really just trying to come at TG2 from what you're used to in Mojo, some of which really does make sense and which we'd like to incorporate into TG2. Some of it is also just obscurity or lack of documentation, but those problems will also be solved in time.
Ultimately I think there is a remarkable amount of power and flexibility here already, especially considering the limited number of basis functions and the lack of externalized/networkable parameters. It will only get better from here, building on what we have, and I think it's safe to say that TG2 will grow beyond Mojo in most respects over time. As has been said it's already ahead in several important areas.
So while I see Mojo'ers point and respect their needs as users and that they may not be met by TG2 at this time, I also think it would be valuable to them as artists to experiment with TG2 and the *other* ways of creating the effects they want. After all for the most part it's the end result (the image, the art piece) that matters.
- Oshyan
The same thing seems to happen every time. I think it can't be done then there is a way but this is a cool direction because it's very related to things you'd immediately find in Mojo. I have already linked these pictured to a Mojo user who is open to trying TG2. Not one of the TG2 belongs in the recycle bin users. It will take a lot more to get them interested :'(
However, I understand totally why they believe this.
There is still a problem though. Even on terrain scale distortions like this, the shadows issue rears its head but that perlin billows terrain before the first colour picture I posted, is a really nice terrain and a basis for others I have worked on. I'm not actually so keen on ridged terrains. I might still try to tweak this a bit further, say try the perlin mix basis but I can't spend long on it.
Here's another test to show where I'm trying to head. There are an absolute minimum of nodes here. The strata function also plays a big role in providing that kind of flowing detail to give variety and scale. This terrain has endless sweeping variety and even appears so from high up but retains the fractal detail at close range. Maybe a bit too warped to be truly realistic but it has a hint of that Mojo lyricism.
(http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4482/distortedbillows30qd1.jpg)
I have this all sorted. Complete Mojo to TG2 crossover (at least every aspect that can be crossed over) but TG2 has the better atmospherics and GI which obviously shines through in the renders. Other than that, this image uses the same techniques as can be used in both apps. All the basics of how you'd do things in Mojo for all the components - distorted fractals, stratas and colour gradients. The core ingredients of a Mojo planet as long as you don't count Mojo's isosurfaces but that's not a necessity. The actual graph is not so simple in TG2 but it has that simplicity of function yet complexity of result as in Mojo. This is the finale image. A true Mojoworld in TG2 but it's better than in Mojoworld.
For those of you wanting to try this. In my previous graph shot, set up the power fractal attached to the warp shader's shader input as you would for the terrain normally. The clamp influences things here but just forget the clamp function to begin with. Then set up the other power fractal in a similar fashion but enter a huge value into the high colour setting. Maybe 10 times that of your largest feature scale. Then enter another value in the low colour a bit below the high colour setting. Set the warp lead in to nothing on both fractals. We don't want that.
(http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6421/fractaldistortion50tx3.jpg)
awesome result efluxx
You'll have to play around with the distorting fractals settings a bit. Make the smallest feature size quite big or reduce the colour roughness for example. I'm making you experiment rather than giving a tgd. Once again, if it's a problem I can tweak some files.
no I prefer this way rather than TGD...
:o amazing efflux
apart from the colours i used ( so 70's ), am i on the right track here? i should try adding some smaller scaled displacement too, that's looking really awesome in your image
efflux, a TGC is always nice to see what values are used. I learn better this way, but it's up to whoever feels they want to share this. I'm learning, nevertheless. Matt's TGC helped me to see the values he used to better understand the setup I had already created by his drawing and explanation. This is the best way to learn, I think.
You're on the right track, child@play.
That is the result you should be getting. It's pretty extreme but you've got it working. It's just a question of tweaking the settings and you'll see what happens whether you want it really warped up or more natural.
Calico. I've supplied a tgc of the terrain from that screen shot with the graph, since the settings for this distortion are not so easy to understand but it's the same principle I used with the other distortion techniques. child@play got it working and by tweaking things wrongly you learn. Also, many of my files have a lot of time spent simply getting a nice result rather than just testing a technique. This part should be up to everyone to experiment with but I understand this is a bit tricky so here is a file.
Another point to mention here is that when you really twist things about heavily it's often better to set the detail at rendering to higher value especially if you use terrain that has ridges. This is just a question of seeing what it looks like at lower settings first. You may see serrated looking edges. The shadows problem crops up again with this technique but not as bad as with smaller displacements. That problem varies a lot with everything so there are no easy to explain hard rules about how to best avoid it.
i've run into the shadow problem too, but i guess that's what happens when you're going to extremes. the most challenging part will be taking this great technique ( now i know how to use that warp-shader, ha 8) ) and get realistic images out of this. or at least surreal/abstract images that look natural.
as always sir, following your experiments was great fun and very informative
Yeah I'd also like to add my thanks to Efflux and Matt for some great tips and files it's threads like these that move the community along and improve the quality of the work we all produce - a big thanks
It's a pity this thread looks like it has a more critical angle from the title because it turned out that things are possible that I thought were not but not easy to find the way hence the initial message about Mojo users not trying TG2.
well......you can always change the title....:)
How do I do that? It would be OK to keep the why Mojo users won't adopt TG2 bit or haven't already adopted TG2 but I'd rather leave out the TG2 Fault aspect. It makes it seem there is no way around the issue.
Never mind. I have changed the title to something a bit more suitable.
Thanks for the example file Matt!
Thank you efflux for overcoming yourself and posting a file. ;)
I spent some hours experimenting with Matt's file and your
file saved me a lot of time i'd have had to spend just searching
for some of the values you used and which i probably never
had found else.This way i could compare and see where the
differences are and that makes much more sense to me.
Since i'm busy with lots of stuff i do appreciate.
Cheerio,J.
@efflux - Thanks for the file. I have been playing with Matt's ideas all day off and on at work. ;D ...in between compiles...er, or something. Anyway, I'm ready to goof around with your file now and I'll post something from all my labor. Thanks again.
Thanks to you, too, Matt.