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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: WAS on December 17, 2019, 01:21:34 PM

Title: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: WAS on December 17, 2019, 01:21:34 PM
Just something I was working on, playing with extreme displacement situations that were warped into a vortex and than eroded.

I do know when I did a 3000px wide render, that there is banding in Daniil's plugin suddenly! I'm not sure if this is TG 4.4.46 or another version that itnroduced this but it's kind of annoying. The heightfield in this scene is 6K.

(https://www.3denv.com/images/2019/12/17/TheCauldron585769150bd1cee5.md.jpg) (https://www.3denv.com/i/M4I)
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: Matt on December 17, 2019, 02:14:36 PM
If there's banding in the output of the plugin then it's likely to be caused by the plugin.

With heightfields (in Daniil's plugin or in general), if there's a lack of precision in the height values then the higher the resolution the more visible the steps are. Low resolutions can hide those steps by interpolating between them over larger distances.
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: WAS on December 17, 2019, 02:19:07 PM
Quote from: Matt on December 17, 2019, 02:14:36 PMIf there's banding in the output of the plugin then it's likely to be caused by the plugin.

With heightfields (in Daniil's plugin or in general), if there's a lack of precision in the height values then the higher the resolution the more visible the steps are. Low resolutions can hide those steps by interpolating between them over larger distances.


Yeah I figured. Has anything changed in how heightfields are handled? I don't remember any banding ever in his plugin, low or high resolution. Never a report either. His work in Gaea has had a issue though. The plugin hasn't changed for over a year, but TG has.

I noticed one thing though with his plugin for a long time is the finished terrain seems to lack subdivision. Adding further displacement or lateral displacement makes weird round tearing artifact displacements that twist around. I don't know if that's also his plugin or just heightfields or what. Never been able to really defeat it.

And no offense or anything, but newer TG builds differ from past 4.3 builds in strange ways. How input is handled in certain shaders, shadow artifacts in underwater scenes that weren't there before, past scenes just loading different because of a lack of Texture Coordinates after Compute Terrain now. There few other things I noticed but can't remember them off the top of my head.
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: DocCharly65 on December 18, 2019, 02:16:41 AM
Sorry - no so deep experiences with highfields. :(

But thums up for your landscape. I like that very mystic look. As ifthere came down an extraterestrial artefact or meteor. Could be a scene in Russia from the first Lara Croft movie or in the Final Fantasie movie.

High realism though mystic touch. A big like so far! :)
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: RogueNZ on December 18, 2019, 03:01:12 AM
Fantastic image, the surfacing is spot on
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: Matt on December 19, 2019, 09:44:49 AM
I don't think Terragen has changed in any way that would cause this.

This can be verified by loading the scene into older versions of Terragen.

Seeing something for the first time might simply mean that you didn't encounter this particular combination of settings before now. But we don't know for sure. The only way to be sure is to test it in old versions.

As for the other things that you think have changed in 4.4, whenever this happens can you load your scenes into older versions of Terragen?

I will troubleshoot TGDs if you send them, but the first thing I will do is test in old versions to find out if - and when - something changed.
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: WAS on December 19, 2019, 04:09:07 PM
Quote from: Matt on December 19, 2019, 09:44:49 AMI don't think Terragen has changed in any way that would cause this.

This can be verified by loading the scene into older versions of Terragen.

Seeing something for the first time might simply mean that you didn't encounter this particular combination of settings before now. But we don't know for sure. The only way to be sure is to test it in old versions.

As for the other things that you think have changed in 4.4, whenever this happens can you load your scenes into older versions of Terragen?

I will troubleshoot TGDs if you send them, but the first thing I will do is test in old versions to find out if - and when - something changed.

I'll try to send the files over when I encounter changes if I remember. A good one is the old night sky I shared. The stars get a weird blotchy perlin appearance broken up into noise. I chalked it up to the new AA.

As for the banding, I was always under the impression the plugin was using raw float data, and this shouldn't be a problem within TG unless you export to a lossful format. How the plugin uses TG could change this.
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: WAS on December 25, 2019, 10:24:46 PM
Here's a link to the full res version, realize you can't view it from previous link: https://www.3denv.com/images/2019/12/17/TheCauldron585769150bd1cee5.jpg
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: mhaze on December 26, 2019, 07:06:59 AM
Excellent work, a great idea and I like the desolation, end of the world look of this.
Title: Re: The Cauldron terrain study
Post by: WAS on January 03, 2020, 02:00:46 PM
Quote from: mhaze on December 26, 2019, 07:06:59 AMExcellent work, a great idea and I like the desolation, end of the world look of this.
Thanks mhaze. I like to envision how you would terrace scenes we make and this one has a lot of paths to to summit that's fun to envision, least in full res.