Hi all ! Have done an image with those trees from Aron Kamolz that I posted in the file sharing section. They were converted from Blender files into TGO format and should be available in Aron's Artstation or Gumroad acount soon. There is a free sampler available, with updated better version available later this weekend. The work on this one was not very much on surfaces but object placement, light and atmo. This is a preliminary render with others to come. Thanks for any comments and suggestions ! Paul
This is looking really good! The veggies are well chosen, and the light and haze are great. Looking forward to your next versions.....
You could try some veggies on the water, like lily pads near shore, a bit of murky algae on the surface, or small rushes, or patches of reed/grass. But that really depends on the type of river you intended.
Beautiful!
Absolutely beautiful! Along with Ulco's suggestions I'd say, that the shoreline looks very dry. Mabe a bit darker and some specularity would be good. And I guess, it's rendered with the legacy renderer? If so, try the path tracer. Plants in indirect light always look better with the path tracer. If it IS a path tracer render, I'd activate or increase the GISD.
Oh my - that is lovely!
I just answered you in your other thread, and came back here to take another look at your image. Did you use a cloud layer for the mist? If so, did you check "Receive shadows from surfaces" in the quality tab? If not it might be worth a try as well, to get some more depth in the forest.
Hi Hannes ! I did use a faint cumulus layer for the mist ! I did not check the receive shadows from surface...... so another spot to adjust ! Appreciated ! Paul
Nice render man! Love the lighting and mist. Veg and rock look pretty great too!
Thanks guys for the comments ! I did another render with the sun in a different position and also inserted another sun opposite to the main sun, no shadows, no atmo effect but at 90 degree high up in the sky with a value that was approximately 5% of the main sun, to give the Path Tracer some light to play with ! Thought this might adjust for the lack of effect of GI with this render mode. It did render the shadows a bit better without giving too much light to make it look nuts ! Have also inserted a moon and some faint stars where the sky is getting darker from the setting sun. Have also done another of the same position as the first and will illustrate the various study renders to illustrate the differences ! Will post those later ! Thanks again and take care !
I have to say that the vegetation on the lower right side looks kind of weird. Most likely the lack of shadows. It's less obvious on the left side, but I'd say, I'm looking forward to your other tries.
Actually I'd love to see your image with just the default light settings (one sun, one environment light) and no postwork.
Agree with Hannes. It seems the sun is so low now, there are no shadows anymore. And an extra sun I would set at 90ยบ (straight up, at any rotation) and strength maybe 0.2-0.5 or so. That will only throw some light on the tops of branches and leaves (and ground), so also leaves some darks on steep sides and undersides.
Hi guys ! I thank you again for your help ! I am including on this post the trials done with the standard and path tracing renderers. The first image is the "Initial Render", path traced, one sun, GI 3.2 but later I note that this really does not impact the path traced render ! The left woods are extremely dark ! I then bring it into Photoshop and boost the shadows on a duplicate layer and then blend it into the first and come out with the "Initial Render Photoshoped". It does look pretty nice although still a bit dark. The problem is then that shadows function can really mess up some of the things that are right at the outset sometimes. I then redid the same image with the standard renderer with just one sun at the same spot, strength of 9 and GI a bit toned down at 2.9...... and the "Standard render GI" was the result ! Then a second sun was added at 90 degrees and a strength of 0.8, no shadows, just lighting surfaces and the result was "Path Traced 2 suns". This is exactly how it came out, no Photoshop involved ! I think the veggies look better with the Path Tracer but I might have done better, as Ulco said, to have the high sun even weaker, say around 0.3, again as suggested. This would have likely given me just the necessary lighting for the Path Tracer to give me details that a milder Shadow enhancement in Photoshop would have made nicer than my initial post. The next step is to do exactly that..... but have to change a few things as that last one, with the light coming from the left was done on my PC rather than my Mac and I love the additional trees that were inserted in the woods..... younger beech trees with more lush leaves ! I will fix this today and do another render overnight. I am having a lot of fun with these trials..... and thanks to you all, learning quite a bit ! Appreciated ! Have a great weekend ! Paul
Actually I like your "Initial render" most. But yes, it's quite dark in the forest. Maybe it's realistic, since a real camera might see it like that. Either the dark areas are brighter with an overexposed background or the way you rendered it.
But there's one thing that came into my mind: what, if you'd add the second sun straight up in the air, but with (very soft!!) shadows activated? For the path tracer you can decrease the samples for the soft shadows, since the path tracer handles it pretty well (I think Matt wrote something like this some time ago).
Nevertheless I'd love to see, how the hollow hemisphere solution would look in this case.
I again agree with Hannes (boring...). It may also be that some settings in veggies are better than other for certain light circumstances. Like translucency, reflection, opacity, leaf color base...
OK, I created a scene somehow similar to yours. Here is the result.
As expected the original render is quite dark in the forest area.
The second sun/no shadows image rendered the fastest and looks terrible (to my taste). The second sun w. (soft) shadows image took the longest to render. The trees look quite nice, but the shadows on the floor don't fit to the "real sun".
For the other images I loaded the hemisphere that I already mentioned. I attached it here. It has a radius of 50 meters. You can scale it like desired. I think, the hemisphere only has to cover the foreground trees in your case.
Paul, you asked me how to make it invisible and so on. Here are the instructions: after you have imported it, go to the object's "Rendering" tab, uncheck "Cast shadows", and set "Render" to "invisible". No need to care about the normals.
I used a luminosity of 1, which is the value in the TGO. Do some tests in your scene, and use a value that looks best.
If you use this method, you may have to increase the AA. The indirect lighting tends to render a bit more noisy.
I hope, this helps. Actually it was great fun to make this comparison.
(see post before!!)
Actually I just thought, all this may not work in your scene, since you have water. And even though the hemisphere is set to invisible, it will reflect in the water. :(
Unchecking "visible to other rays" (also in the rendering tab of the object) also kills the additional lighting! >:(
Too bad!!!!!!! However, it works in "dry" scenes.
Quote from: Hannes on December 03, 2022, 12:16:41 PMOK, I created a scene somehow similar to yours. Here is the result.
As expected the original render is quite dark in the forest area.
The second sun/no shadows image rendered the fastest and looks terrible (to my taste). The second sun w. (soft) shadows image took the longest to render. The trees look quite nice, but the shadows on the floor don't fit to the "real sun".
For the other images I loaded the hemisphere that I already mentioned. I attached it here. It has a radius of 50 meters. You can scale it like desired. I think, the hemisphere only has to cover the foreground trees in your case.
Paul, you asked me how to make it invisible and so on. Here are the instructions: after you have imported it, go to the object's "Rendering" tab, uncheck "Cast shadows", and set "Render" to "invisible". No need to care about the normals.
I used a luminosity of 1, which is the value in the TGO. Do some tests in your scene, and use a value that looks best.
If you use this method, you may have to increase the AA. The indirect lighting tends to render a bit more noisy.
I hope, this helps. Actually it was great fun to make this comparison.
Yeah I've always liked luminosity in place of a second sun. The sun interacts with too many other functions, like transparency of leaves, even when the strength is super low, it gets added to calculations there.
I'd imagine if you were using this method for overcast, with water, it may work.
Actually, it shouldn't be that you have to take steps like these to get some light in canopies and such. Perhaps there should be a setting (changed) in the Path tracer itself, so more light is transmitted through dark areas. Like the GI in RT.
I agree with Hannes once more, btw., but I will still use an extra sun where needed.
Well guys, this discussion got really interesting ! I love Hannes' idea of the luminous sphere and thank him for sharing it. His pictures of the examples are great and indeed, the luminous sphere appears to give great results. I inserted the sphere and adjusted its size to fit my project, did a few cropped trial renders and came up with a value of 0.85 for the luminosity, that seemed to fit my needs. The water was also affected very positively and had to do some tweaks to my rivershores and riverbed to make it look nicer. I started the final render and then read Hannes comments about the possible problem with the reflections in the water ! By then the render was under way and knew it would take hours to see the water..... so simply went to bed ! This morning, the render is done, and everything looks pretty good. I do not see artifacts in the reflections but note that the sphere extended beyond the bend in the river...... so maybe was just lucky. Also, I had toned down the reflective tab for the water..... so as to better see the riverbed. During that time, the 2 suns render was going on my MAC and also came out during the night. As far as the vegetation, both seem acceptable with only minor differences. The second sun was at a value in strength of 0.25. The water, though, is way better in the luminous sphere version. The river shore is also better in the luminous sphere version, but I did tweak the shaders and added one of my Fakerock Complex...... so that comparison would not be totally fair. I think, that the luminous sphere wins. I do not see reflection artifacts that are disturbing, and just the foreground river appearance seems to be worth it ! The images have not been photoshoped at all exdcept for reduction in size and conversion to JPEG. I will take the time to tweak them in Photoshop later and post them and see which one wins, think it will still be the sphere, because of the water ! Agree with Ulco that it would be nice for the path tracer to take into account some of the GI illumination..... if that is possible, computing-wise ! Again, your help is appreciated and I must say that I have learned a lot of things with this one ! Have a great Sunday all ! Paul
I agree with you here; the luminous dome absolutely wins (light on trees in front is wonderful), but the stones also add a great deal of perfection. I love this render! Did you check out render times of both (extra sun and lumnous dome)? They can be found in automatic saved renders titles. I wonder how much they differ in your case.
Sorry Ulco, did not check the times but they were less than my sleep time (6H, 4000PX, Detail 1, AA 9) for both and difficult to compare as one done one my old MACPRO and the other on my new PC..... think they were relatively similar though ! The rocks really improve the shore and the perfect light on them gives them credit ! I could not figure out the comment the Hannes did on the reflections with the dome as it did not seem to impact mine..... so I did an experiment ! I did a whole in the ground with water, put the dome over and did a few renders. The setup with no sphere is "SPHERE OFF". You can see with the setup with the sphere on and visible in "SPHERE ON". I put a reddish tint to see the effect on the ground and you can see the reddish tint on the soil ! Then I put the settings as I was instructed for making the illumination, sphere invisible, visible to other rays on, no shadow..... and you get "SPHERE INVISIBLE". Hannes was right.... we get the illuminated soil but the reflection is that of the dome, the mountain being hidden. When you turn off the "VISIBLE TO OTHER RAYS", then the mountain reflection comes back but the soil is no longer illuminated....defeating the purpose of the dome..... as in image "OTHER RAYS OFF" ! Then I increased the dome size by 100, getting the dome beyond the mountain..... and got "VERY BIG DOME". The "SCREENSHOT" show that the dome extends beyond the mountain ! Now the mountain reflection is back and the illumination is still on.... but includes also the mountain being illuminated. Still, it seems that you can keep the purpose and the water reflections by extending the dome beyond whatever you need for the reflections..... so in a way, you can bypass the limitation. Do not know if having such a massive dome decreases the effect on the shadowy areas or whether it screws up the render times though ! So it seems that the reason that my reflections were not affected was that the dome extended beyond what was needed to get them. If I now look at my image, there are minimal discrepancies in the distant middle reflections but it shows less because of all the mist issues. This exercise was worthwhile as I again learned a few things. Again, all your feedback appreciated ! Paul PS: As an afterthought.....might take a very very large dome to include your clouds in the reflections !!!
Great!!!!! I really like how this came out. The stones at the shoreline look beautiful!
I think all this would be easier, if we would have the possibility to just increase the environment light's multiplier while we're using the path tracer, like we can using the legacy renderer. I once had a discussion (I don't remember if it was with Matt or with Oshyan) about exactly this. I think it was Matt, who said, the path tracer represents a real lighting situation, and increasing the exposure would be the realistic way to brighten up a dark forest scene for example.
But why not having the possibility to cheat a bit, knowing it's not physically correct?
I did another try with a second sun. The only way to make the false shadows look OK was to use a very large soft shadows diameter (200). Takes longer to render than the hemisphere solution.
I would imagine that those soft shadows are costly on rendering time ! This thread has taught me a lot of things ! Think that each project requires a different solution in terms of shaded areas and your luminous hemisphere solution is certainly a very good one......if water reflections are not an issue. As noted above in my simulation, there are ways to bring back mountains and surfaces by pushing the hemisphere further than the content that will be part of the reflection......but there is probably no way that the sky can be brought back in those reflections if you use the hemisphere. Even if you pushed the sphere into space, you probably only override the background node. On my images, you note that the one where the mountain reflection is now seen that the reflections of the sky are not blue but whitish ! Again, thanks for all your time and efforts ! Paul
It was my pleasure!! :)
You could try a luminous plane hovering above the forest. Light wouldn't be as 'spherical' GI-like, but you won't see it reflected (if placed well). I do that sometimes, as said before.
All good suggestions my friends ! I did Photoshop the last render a bit and got a bit more detail in the shadows. I also rendered another with the sun a bit more right so as to hit the left foreground.....but the trials with the PT again had very dark woods and doing the regular renderer with GI gave vegetation that were far from the beauty of the PT. I had of course that huge water expanse to deal wit the luminous sphere....and trial renders showed indeed the reflections of the sky as a bland white expanse. What I did then was rotate the sphere so as to create an amphitheater-like structure around the back of the camera with its border extending frontward but not to a point to be visible to the camera (by making it visible for placement). Then the trial renders showed better shadow areas and reflection appropriate. You can now see some of the blue sky and most notably the sun in the reflections. The water here was given a 50% reflective strength so as to permit seeing the riverbed more. Using a plane as Ulco has said would likely produce similar results but...... as he said as well, it would be nice if you could keep the huge benefit of the PT for objects and get some light adjustment capabilities in the shadowy areas...... but as my mother used to tell me all the time..... "...maybe you cannot get everything you want my boy!". The last one was included in a 4000PX format if you wish to examine the detail further ! Now on to another project and see you again soon !
Gorgeous!!!!! What a beauty! I like the first one better. Somehow the lighting looks more interesting to me.
Quote from: pclavett on December 05, 2022, 09:24:34 AMWhat I did then was rotate the sphere so as to create an amphitheater-like structure around the back of the camera with its border extending frontward but not to a point to be visible to the camera (by making it visible for placement)
Now, that's a great idea!!!!!
Left one is great indeed! But how do you rotate a sphere to get an amphitheathre-like structure. I can't 'see' it in front of me. Another way would be to make some sort of soft ramp from a plane, bending overhead from behind camera.
As far as I understood he took the hollow hemisphere and placed it like a baseball cap above the camera slightly rotated upwards. I hope this makes sense.
Actually rotated it 90 degrees on the X axis, went with the top view to take the half-moon appearing structure, placed it so that it covered the active camera, the hemisphere, almost touching the back of the camera.....making sure that the size of the sphere covered the viewing angles. It seemed to do the job. I am experimenting now with a model of the Enterprise-D (Star Trek TNG) in space..... and guess what, no big difference there for the Standard and RT render for shadows...... and guess GI does not apply much in space ! The shadows were very dark on both renders......and it probably is like that in space. Nevertheless, I surrounded the ship with a luminous sphere with faint luminosity and got pretty nice results and shadows that still permitted to see a bit of the textures as I wanted ! Thanks again for all the feedback ! Paul
A hemisphere? In TG? So something different than a sphere, a half sphere... have to look than up.
Like the hemisphere I shared.
Ah, I see, I didn't download it.... yet. Thanks Hannes. Handy!