Couldn't find a better resolution terrain but I'm fairly pleased with the plants and trees.
I really like the trees on the left side, that looks nice. Interesting color variations on the conifers especially, I wouldn't have thought of that. There's something off about the middle of the image, the area where there are rocks and snow, in the top left as well. Maybe the rocks are too sparse there for how steep the slope is? Or maybe it's the part where you can see the rock shapes under the snow? I think either the snow layer needs to be a little thicker, or it should be melted where the rocks are poking through. What if you use your fake stone layer to mask out those spots in the snow?
Great image!! I agree with aknight about the rock distribution.
Excellent! Agree about the rocks.
Much better Viewpoint and better iteration (agree to aknight also).
Especially the subtle debris trees in the water looks great imo, maybe you shopuld use some sand at the shoreline?
Overall a great scene until now.
STORMLORD
Thanks for the kind words folks! This one reached the point with all the populations and different shaders where everything was slow and heavy. :)
Quote from: aknight0 on August 24, 2022, 10:45:47 PMI really like the trees on the left side, that looks nice. Interesting color variations on the conifers especially, I wouldn't have thought of that. There's something off about the middle of the image, the area where there are rocks and snow, in the top left as well. Maybe the rocks are too sparse there for how steep the slope is? Or maybe it's the part where you can see the rock shapes under the snow? I think either the snow layer needs to be a little thicker, or it should be melted where the rocks are poking through. What if you use your fake stone layer to mask out those spots in the snow?
Thanks for the kindness. I agree that the broken up snow isn't perfect but I've given up trying to to figure it out. I think the oddest thing is the vegetation going into the glacier. They call it "Colchuck Glacier" but it looks like it's days are numbered with the earth heating up and not much of it left to begin with.
Not sure if this is better or not, I've definitely lost some of my bright green veg in taming it from running up into the snow. :)
Beautiful render!
as you are still tweaking it, I hope you will not mind some points of constructive critique:
When looking at photos online, the water seems even more intense in colour (or are these manipulated?), while to my eye the rock of the central mountain seems somewhat darker.
You mentioned the limited resolution of the DEM, maybe a method I often used for my Marsscapes may help:
Take an alpine fractal as child layer of the the steepest surface layer, with small sizes (50-100m feature size), even smaller displacement (maybe 10 m and displacement offset of -5m), tweak these numbers till you like what you see...
Your original mountain has quite a classical alpine fractal look to it, so this may provide convincing fake detail.
Best Regards,
J
This is a great update! The talus looks much better.
The water ist much better, it looks very natural this way.
But the details in the water, snow and mountains could be much better!
What helps to get more fine and faint details (you don't see crisp details at the surface of your lake, its all slushy and unsharp).
Just render it four times greater in resolution than you actually need it.
For example.... if you desire 1920x1080 scale your rendering up to -> 7680x4320. After rendering shrink it down again to your desired resolution (1920 x 1080).
You will notice that you get far more fine details compared to a rendering with just 1920x1080. It will be the same image, but far better, much sharper and with more details!
This is because each pixel in your shrunken image gets the information also from all the pixels beside. From below, top, left and right pixels.
Give it a try and see for yourself the differences. Especially compare your water surface details!
Surprise, suprise is guaranteed!
STORMLORD
It's a great update.................. but I still have some problems with the snow having a fake rock appearance up left (you see it most there). Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer.
Quote from: Mahnmut on September 30, 2022, 02:01:06 PMBeautiful render!
as you are still tweaking it, I hope you will not mind some points of constructive critique:
When looking at photos online, the water seems even more intense in colour (or are these manipulated?), while to my eye the rock of the central mountain seems somewhat darker.
You mentioned the limited resolution of the DEM, maybe a method I often used for my Marsscapes may help:
Take an alpine fractal as child layer of the the steepest surface layer, with small sizes (50-100m feature size), even smaller displacement (maybe 10 m and displacement offset of -5m), tweak these numbers till you like what you see...
Your original mountain has quite a classical alpine fractal look to it, so this may provide convincing fake detail.
Best Regards,
J
Thanks for the critiques mahnmut! I have used the alpine fractal in similar ways after learning this from a file Mr. Glimmerveen shared on the forums, I will definitely give this a try here.
The water has been tamed considerably from the true color of the lake water. Depending on the photo you see, the color varies a bit but is always some very saturated greenish blue.
No manipulation on this version. The first image I posted I believe I adjusted the contrast and brightness a bit, maybe that's why this version looks dull.
Thanks again mahnmut!
Quote from: Stormlord on October 01, 2022, 08:50:39 AMThe water ist much better, it looks very natural this way.
But the details in the water, snow and mountains could be much better!
What helps to get more fine and faint details (you don't see crisp details at the surface of your lake, its all slushy and unsharp).
Just render it four times greater in resolution than you actually need it.
For example.... if you desire 1920x1080 scale your rendering up to -> 7680x4320. After rendering shrink it down again to your desired resolution (1920 x 1080).
You will notice that you get far more fine details compared to a rendering with just 1920x1080. It will be the same image, but far better, much sharper and with more details!
This is because each pixel in your shrunken image gets the information also from all the pixels beside. From below, top, left and right pixels.
Give it a try and see for yourself the differences. Especially compare your water surface details!
Surprise, suprise is guaranteed!
STORMLORD
Agreed Stormlord! I am familiar with downsizing and sampling by nearest neighbor and I would love to render this oversized and do just that but here is the thing, and we have all heard this one before. An amateur such as myself knows just enough about TG to get into trouble... and I have.
I probably have MANY nodes that serve little purpose other than slowing my renders down and
slow it is. With the PT 1920 x 1080 this is a 2 hour 23 minute render. I might just go through the nodes today and try and optimize this so when I get everything as it should be I can do a large render with higher AA and detail.
Quote from: Dune on October 01, 2022, 09:08:28 AMIt's a great update.................. but I still have some problems with the snow having a fake rock appearance up left (you see it most there). Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer.
You and me both Dune. I don't know what the hell that is all about. My best guess is I've misused one of the nodes in the snow you shared some weeks back.
I say this because I have masked out the rock under all the snow but something in the top left snow is troubling me. I think I'll take a closer look at the snow layer as well.
By the way Dune.. the only time I become aware that English is not your native tongue is when you speak Terragen. ;D You said:
"Might be the 'problem' of a DEM, but if this were pure TG, you can use 2 masks for snow and rock debris by using 2 compute terrains with different patch sizes, deriving a mask from either, fed into a snow layer and the other in the fake stone layer."
I followed it all the way up to the 2 masks fed into 2 separate compute terrains of a different patch size. I admit I love a good puzzle and experimenting but alas I would never figure this out soon enough. The patch size or where I was adding these masks and computes into the network. You really are "Fluent in Terragen" as your title says. :) I do appreciate your wisdom you bring to the forums and guidance you offer.
Us amateurs still learning are better for these forums.
Off to dig through the TG file.....
Wow! It's amazing how far you've come in Terragen. This is a fantastic scene on first impression, I agree to an extent about the snow, it looks like a late spring shot and I do feel there would be a lot of night snow still that would be thawing during the day clinging to boulders. Also is that a shadow on the left? Or some rogue intersection?
Really though, wow! You're going to be a pro in no time.
I made a basic masking sample for you. There are more ways to do things, but this is one. Play with the variables and see what they do. You can vary the amount of snow (or rock debris), the snow smoothness (to the edge or further from edge), whether or not is has a melting edge at all, etc. Have fun!
With reflections (on the roughly displaced snow-stones edges), I wouldn't advice rendering this in PT though. That will take a lot longer, and the scene won't benefit all that much.
Two more versions, with some modified variables. In the latter I multiplied the mask by an altitude range (distribution shader with the white set at 4), so the top has a wider coverage.
Could aslo try my advanced fake stones, which the distribution density can take a scalar mask. This will make stones disperse to none, rather than fade to none. Can help with the boundary transition.
And one with added erosion plugin.
Quote from: WAS on October 02, 2022, 01:42:14 AMWow! It's amazing how far you've come in Terragen. This is a fantastic scene on first impression, I agree to an extent about the snow, it looks like a late spring shot and I do feel there would be a lot of night snow still that would be thawing during the day clinging to boulders. Also is that a shadow on the left? Or some rogue intersection?
Really though, wow! You're going to be a pro in no time.
Thanks WAS your words are very encouraging!!
Indeed it has spring feel to it but if their was clinging snow on boulders etc. I couldn't make it out from my reference photo but it would make sense that their would be. So far as the anomalous color shift on the left.. their is indeed a shadow there but also after much hunting and exploring that disturbed area there which also made it look like rock was trying to poke through was a rogue PF. All in check now. :) Thanks again for the kindness WAS. Also, when you say "Advanced FSS" Are you referring to the Voronoi FS? I have been fiddling with those a bit lately and their is a lot to like about them!
Quote from: Dune on October 02, 2022, 06:08:48 AMI made a basic masking sample for you. There are more ways to do things, but this is one. Play with the variables and see what they do. You can vary the amount of snow (or rock debris), the snow smoothness (to the edge or further from edge), whether or not is has a melting edge at all, etc. Have fun!
With reflections (on the roughly displaced snow-stones edges), I wouldn't advice rendering this in PT though. That will take a lot longer, and the scene won't benefit all that much.
Dune you are a rockstar! I wished I'd checked the forums before all the pruning and weeding of my nodes. I have a lot of issues straightened out but after seeing this new snow setup and the icy melt.. I might just have to see if I'm able to implement this into m scene. Haven't looked at it yet but I remember you mentioning if it were a "Pure TG" scene and not a DEM. So it has me curious. In any event I will definitely learn from and Use this setup it looks great!
Here is a new update with some issues resolved. No PT or clouds for now. Still have some disturbed snow top left but without the color variant. It looks a little more natural I believe. Also, the mountain rock is more true to color now and even if I haven't nailed down those odd off color (lighter rock) erosion lines. They are similar and as odd as they are they do exist.
It gets better and better!
Water is so much better and the rocks too!
STORMLORD
Quote from: Stormlord on October 03, 2022, 06:16:10 PMIt gets better and better!
Water is so much better and the rocks too!
STORMLORD
Thanks Stormlord!
Refining the odd rock face details... I have to enquire, is there a method that exists that you can sample a color from a photograph that translates accurately to TG?
Once again a great update, indeed in the water too. The erosion in the rock debris is also very nicely done. Good job!
Great improvement!
in my eyes, the colours are now spot on, water, rocks, great!
BTW, I wondered if the photos one finds online are manipulated, not your version.
Concerning the rock structure, for some reason it looks to me like it has been chiseled into that shape, but photorealistic in that way!
Cheers,
J
Looking great. I'd suggest making the rock debris the same colour scheme as the rock faces of the mountains, and darken the dust/dirt between them up just a hair.
Quote from: Mahnmut on October 04, 2022, 12:59:54 PMGreat improvement!
in my eyes, the colours are now spot on, water, rocks, great!
BTW, I wondered if the photos one finds online are manipulated, not your version.
Concerning the rock structure, for some reason it looks to me like it has been chiseled into that shape, but photorealistic in that way!
Cheers,
J
Thanks Stormlord & Dune! I think this scene might just be ready to be put to bed.
Not sure the scalloped rock is manipulated if that's what you mean but I do believe some color adjustments & saturation have been tweaked for sure. Makes it tricky when they do theses things. :)
Quote from: WAS on October 04, 2022, 03:13:52 PMLooking great. I'd suggest making the rock debris the same colour scheme as the rock faces of the mountains, and darken the dust/dirt between them up just a hair.
Oddly not sure why but the rocks from photos are way lighter then the dark mountain rock. Btw, this lake is in the Enchantments "Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area" your neck of the woods sort of.
I think you're using all the over contrastd photos which are, honestly, terrible to what it looks like IRL.
Like these: https://free4kwallpapers.com/uploads/originals/2015/11/04/it-was-quite-the-hike-colchuck-lake-wa-wallpaper.jpg sort of edited photos. They're like the most common and are raising the mid-tones way to high, as evident on the mountain itself.
In any case, you can see most the large boulders are in fact darker, it's the muddling by editing making the inbetweens brighter than they are. There is much lighter dirt, as a I mentioned, but it's not that bright at all. It's definitely a neutral gray not a light grey. Here it seems too tan, and bright, and there is no actual stone boulders void of dust/dirt within the fields.
I actually used this photo for getting the rock color closer to the real color. Admittedly I fell short of nailing all the odd erosion lines etc. but I'm finally possibly done with this one.
It's way too large of a dem to work with once you add the shaders and pops. Getting a High res DEM that just works with TG (no conversion) is irritating and the dems like this one is low res and massive amount of km's.
I cropped the dem in Global Mapper after realizing this but nothing lined up the same and I did make sure to keep the same resolution.
Okay WAS, darker rock. The final render is next in the coming days, PT, cloud and more AA.
Wow, this is quite an improvement!!! Looks great so far! I have one suggestion (and I don't know, if this works): somehow I'm missing some scale reference. To my eyes the trees seem to be smaller than the average size, and the background mountain seems to be quite close to the lake.
So I could imagine, that a lower POV of the camera might make the trees look larger. And maybe using a lens with a wider angle could push the background back a little bit. You could also use a slightly blueish (V2-) cloud layer to make the background a little hazier, which could make the background look even more distant.
As I wrote, I don't know, if it would work, but I think, it could.
Quote from: Hannes on October 06, 2022, 01:20:36 AMWow, this is quite an improvement!!! Looks great so far! I have one suggestion (and I don't know, if this works): somehow I'm missing some scale reference. To my eyes the trees seem to be smaller than the average size, and the background mountain seems to be quite close to the lake.
So I could imagine, that a lower POV of the camera might make the trees look larger. And maybe using a lens with a wider angle could push the background back a little bit. You could also use a slightly blueish (V2-) cloud layer to make the background a little hazier, which could make the background look even more distant.
As I wrote, I don't know, if it would work, but I think, it could.
Those are very helpful suggestions. I thought the same thing more then once regarding the scale and knowing the mountain was correct and the trees when correct eased my mind but without a solution. I will give these a go and see how it works out Hannes, thank you!
A good idea is to make the seafloor underwater (only your sand, not the stones ect.) in a very light color (nearly white sand!).
This lighten up the water a little and you get a much better (harder) contrast to other stones in the lake.
So you can see more details in the sea at the bottom which makes the final look much more interesting because of all the details.
Lake Tahoe 2019 (Fake Stone Lagoon).jpg
Lake Tahoe 2019, the original scene
Lake Tahoe with Seafloor.jpg
Same scene, with cutout to show up the light colored seafloor
Another good idea is to start your scene always with a clean sky (as you already did). I always do it this way, it renders faster while fidelling with the settings.
When you come closer to your final view and scene, add clouds and move them in a way that you receive a perfect positioned reflection of the sky in your lake.
Sometimes I added just the reflection of the sky which reflects in the lake as a seperate pass in my final composition to make it look better.
But when I do it, I do it always at last before final. The final touch so to say...
My Lake Tahoe scene above is a good example of it.
I placed the reflection of the white clouds just behind the mountain chain a little above them, to get a good contrast (light/dark) in the reflection of the lake.
But to receive this clean look I had to move the clouds in the original scene a little and rendered another pass just for this reflection.
STORMLORD
Not sure I did this right, it's odd how it effected the needles and leaves.
Cool!!!! You used some wider angle, right? I think, it worked. Maybe the haze is a little too blueish, but I like it. In my opinion the path tracer makes vegetation always look better, so I prefer "...PT w Clouds".
So do I. One small nitpick; I find the grey patches of debris higher up a bit too distinctive and monotone. Perhaps a 'grain' or color variation, and/or perhaps higher up a bit more towards the rock color would be nicer.
Quote from: Hannes on October 08, 2022, 02:33:02 AMCool!!!! You used some wider angle, right? I think, it worked. Maybe the haze is a little too blueish, but I like it. In my opinion the path tracer makes vegetation always look better, so I prefer "...PT w Clouds".
I agree maybe it's the "too Blue" that's helping to throw this off. It's also strange how the cloud washed out the foliage, less so on the PT version. The angle is as wider as I could go without having to scrap my saved pops and re-populate and possibly re-work new for the foreground. It will maybe just need to happen... not too crazy about my go at the haze. You Gents could likely pull it off no problem but me, not so much. I will have to try the wider angle route.
Quote from: Dune on October 08, 2022, 02:43:19 AMSo do I. One small nitpick; I find the grey patches of debris higher up a bit too distinctive and monotone. Perhaps a 'grain' or color variation, and/or perhaps higher up a bit more towards the rock color would be nicer.
Not 100% sure which area you are referring to Dune. I say this because in my mind it could be a few different spots which are possibly problematic. :-\
I think it would be easy to add a PF to vary the grey patches, so they blend more into hard rock. I've pointed at some of the patches in your render, and found a photo where, especially at right, you can see the more speckled rock debris patches.
Cool!! A reference image of the actual location is always an inspiration. You're very close.
Quote from: Dune on October 09, 2022, 02:25:14 AMI think it would be easy to add a PF to vary the grey patches, so they blend more into hard rock. I've pointed at some of the patches in your render, and found a photo where, especially at right, you can see the more speckled rock debris patches.
Also maybe a limit maximum angle with large fuzzy zone.
More refinement... I'm hanging up the mouse on this one. ;D It's not a perfect photographic match but it works. The fun has subsided on this one.
I can imagine, after a while you want to do something else. But the result is really great, nothing to complain anymore ;)
Agree with Ulco. Great image!
Looks great, and very much improved from the first version. Well done! On to more cool places :)
Thanks a lot guys, I really do appreciate your feedback and comments. This has definitely come a long way from the first post. I will post a final render in the coming days and set this scene aside permanently. As Aknight night said "On to other cool places!" 😀
This is amazing work throughout ! I love your water, its color and just the perfect opacity ! The veggies are ultra-realistic ! This is outstanding work !
Quote from: pclavett on November 09, 2022, 07:34:26 PMThis is amazing work throughout ! I love your water, its color and just the perfect opacity ! The veggies are ultra-realistic ! This is outstanding work !
Thanks pclavett! I appreciate your kind words. Also, on a side note I thanked you sometime back for your "Tree Distribution Complex" a quite hand node network I keep closes. Thanks!
You are Welcome ! Just went over all your images in this thread and they are all great ! I still come back to that perfect water though ! I was in Alberta in June and saw quite a few lakes with that water ! Still trying to get something done with this kind of look ! Take care and have a great day ! Paul