Hi there,
I thought I may give it a try to revisit a scene named "Golden October", made back in 2001 with TG0.something.
Back then it was a combined effort between Peter Kleiner (running terradreams.de) and Martin Brunker. Back then, between us three, Peter had the best eye for finding great POVs and making nice looking seas, Martin was the master of surfaces and I had fun with atmospheres and clouds. This is the original image from 2001 that resulted from it. We've been pretty proud of it ;-)
http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg09/golden_okt_1024_2.jpg.html
Now, let me say something about this revisited golden october image. It's not an attempt to actually recreate the same image, that wouldn't even work. Instead I found it interesting to take an essentially identical scene and see and compare how much farther one can go using TG2.
That being said, I thought it would be good not to go too far from the original scene, meaning, I didn't want no additional mountain, or a disorted terrain or any other prominent scene modification.
This is a work in progress.
For example, the entire sky is temporary, a placeholder if you will, and eventually will look completely different. Also, unfortunately, in the final render I figured that the foreground is in some sort of half-shadow, which I haven't intended and which doesn't bring out the lighting of foreground like I wished. However I think I made a decent start with the terrain and vegetation as a whole.
A propos vegetation:
- Klas Gras
- Lighting Grass Pack
- Bush Pack (from this site, I don't remember who did it and there are no credits inside the package).
- Wallis Gras Pack
A few stats for the WIP render:
- Quality 0.8
- AA 10, using a new AA mode from the upcoming beta
- GI 2/1
- 13 hrs render time, on a good old, yet slow dual core (2x1.6 GHz)
- Resolution 1600x1050
So, for the next version I'll try adding trees, and maybe the final sky.
Best regards,
Frank
BRAVO! :o Just all around awesome!!
Soo much more realism and life in the image! The water looks great, like it's actually moving...
Good job!
Spectacular.
The only thing I think you should fix is the grey texture on the mountains in the background.
Give the mountain textures some more details and this wont be far from photo realistic.
- Terje
This is already a really great scene. I look forward to seeing future verisons of it
Very good scene. I think the foreground grass looks stiff, but maybe it does in real life. Haven't been there.
superb detailing and overall scene!
It will be interesting to see where this goes, it is pretty nice already.
Those clouds look good although I would probably change the seed of the masking fractal as the almost symmetrical large scale distribution looks a little contrived but that's just me being picky. ;D
I like the fake stones on the beach, they seem just right.
Thank you for the comments - I think I should be able to render the next version sometime next week. In the next render, I'd like to change the clouds. It's correct that the current ones, especially their distribution, doesn't look good, but again, they've just been a placeholder in this first version.
Further, the next image will have trees and different grasses. I may also ty to put trees on the foreground, but will have to elevate the camera for this. I'm interested in keeping a view on the ground at the same time.
I've also been playing around and attempted to make the sky look somewhat like in the old TG original, but no chance. The key is being able to switch off clouds casting shadows, while still allowing clouds to cast shadows on themselves, which is not possible in TG2, to the best of my knowledge. There are workarounds, though, such as increasing the ambient color in the atmosphere, or adding and ambient occlusion GI source, but it just doesn't have the same effect as the one in TG0.9 when switching off "cast shadws".
That old switch wasn't very realistic, but from an artistic view, it was very interesting, and I am mising that in TG2.
Anyway, as I wrote earlier, I don't actually want to do the same image again, so it doesn't matter much.
Again, thanks for the comments.
Frank
Looking forward to see how this develops! I like the original very much :D :D :D
Here it comes my TG2 friends, "Golden October 2008":
[attach=#]
Credits go to Floraworks alone:
* Slender grass
* Dense grass
* Razor grass
* Douglas Fir
* Eastern Hemlock
* Norway Spruce
A few image stats:
* Quality 0.8
* 1200x 723
* AA 6
* Soft Shadows
* AA bloom + Narrow Cubic filter
* 7 Painted Shaders (what a blessing this is)
* Render time: ~14 hrs (with just 50Mb subdivision cache per core)
Bye,
Frank
Wow! Sweet! ;D ;D
This is perfect, except for those white dots on the right shore. EXCELLENT work.
State of the Art!Nothing to criticize at all:
- excellent colours
- the isle really adds to the atmosphere
- the rock on the left is really fantastic! :D
- water is awesome...
- clouds are very moody ;)
Will there be a render as big as your "alpha" preview? I would really like to "dive" into the details! :D
thank you for the comments:
@calico: the white dots are actually small reflections
@MacGuyver: thank you, and yes, I'd like to have the image rendered bigger as well, however I've hit a memory limit on my machine, plus the render takes awfully long for my taste ;-)
However I shall try a bigger render, hoping it won't crash. I would also like to test if it makes a notable difference to render at quality 1. I have assumed that the AA filter would eat the detail away anyway.
Cheers,
Frank
Though looking REALLY good, I do feel it's a bit too dark...
Quote from: FrankB on November 15, 2008, 08:23:42 AM
However I shall try a bigger render, hoping it won't crash. I would also like to test if it makes a notable difference to render at quality 1. I have assumed that the AA filter would eat the detail away anyway.
Just some background questions: did you use raytraced shadows, GI surface details? How were your GI settings? I found it more profound to raise the GI settings than the quality slider (at GI 2/2 everything above 0.5 looks good to me, whereas GI 2/6 for example produces different results imho as far as I've tested it).
no raytraced shadows, and no GI surface details. GI was at 2/2, everything above that takes too long to compute for too little of a difference - for my taste.
The previous version was rendered with AA filter "tent" and AA 8.
I figured I can reduce the AA from 8 to 6, because the narrow cubis AA filter makes up for it, while being faster in total. I also haven't had soft shadows enabled in the previous version.
There are actually 2 elements I like best about this latest image: .the overall surface mapping and the sky/clouds, in combination with the lighting.
Regards,
Frank
Quote from: Mohawk20 on November 15, 2008, 08:42:02 AM
Though looking REALLY good, I do feel it's a bit too dark...
Thank you. What do you think: increase overall brightness or contrast or both?
Regards,
Frank
Looks pretty nice Frank. Only thing that bothers me is the lean of the trees caused by the wide field of view I presume? I usually try and set mine to 40 to prevent objects from distorting, especially near the camera. Do you ever increase the enviro light on surfaces? I would try increasing to 1.5 or 2 to see the effect on the dark shadows. However it's your Baby and I'm just thinking out loud. ;)
Quote from: FrankB on November 15, 2008, 12:38:31 PM
What do you think: increase overall brightness or contrast or both?
Regards,
Frank
Contrast is already very high (which is good in this case).
If you adjust the Levels, move the slider for the grays to the blacks, increase from 1,00 to around 1,28. That should be it.
Looks like this then:
Quote from: buzzzzz1 on November 15, 2008, 12:54:38 PM
Looks pretty nice Frank. Only thing that bothers me is the lean of the trees caused by the wide field of view I presume? I usually try and set mine to 40 to prevent objects from distorting, especially near the camera. Do you ever increase the enviro light on surfaces? I would try increasing to 1.5 or 2 to see the effect on the dark shadows. However it's your Baby and I'm just thinking out loud. ;)
thanks, Buzzz - yeah, the FOV disortion is obvious, however what else can I do to simulate or at least get closer to the human FOV? Probbaly render wider and/or stitch 2 renders together... I shall try that another time.
As for the brightness: first of all I have to say that I have three screens in my house: a dual screen setup with my computer (both LCD are different models), and a LCD TV with my HTPC. The same image looks very different on those three, especially with regards to contract and brightness. I have optimized the render for my favourite monitor, but for the LCD TV, I really had to add gamma and exposure.
But neverheless, I believe that it's correct to say that the overall image is a tad dark. I could be worth trying different postwork strategies. Thanks to openexrr, everything is possible :D
Frank
Thanks Mohawk, the image adjustments you did are looking good.
I will try that based on the 32bit exr.
Cheers,
Frank
You could also go over the top with post work and add "bloom 'n bright" (kind of effect I composed myself and try on every image I have, on some it works, on some it definitely doesn't ;)). In this case it takes away all realism...
Duplicate image to 2nd layer, increase exposure, heavy blur, set as overlay, adjust levels of bottom layer (increase brightness), flatten layers, sharpen (unsharp mask), decrease saturation.
interesting result, nevertheless!
I guess it would work better if the blurred overlay would be blurred less than you did.
(edit): also increase exposure a bit less.
Very nice image!
Quote from: FrankB on November 15, 2008, 01:38:51 PM
interesting result, nevertheless!
I guess it would work better if the blurred overlay would be blurred less than you did.
(edit): also increase exposure a bit less.
True... well, you know how I did it, so you can decide how you want to apply it (if at all).
This is really fine work Frank, well done! For me the dark areas work really well and are contrasted by some of the brights. I do think there may be a bit of an issue with one of the models you used on the far banks. It looks as though the reflectivity was turned up a little high and has given you a lot of white dots. Fantastic work with the clouds, very detailed and realistic.
I really like this, but there is something too artificial looking about the pine trees. Otherwise, it looks fantastic. I really like the foreground grass and weeds.
Clouds in the background - pure win!
Quote from: moodflow on November 16, 2008, 11:26:52 AM
I really like this, but there is something too artificial looking about the pine trees. Otherwise, it looks fantastic. I really like the foreground grass and weeds.
yeah i agree maybe use these serbian spruces instead for the island the ones in the background look fine i think!
(http://www.floraworks3d.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/serbianspruce.jpg)
http://www.floraworks3d.com/index.php?/Trees/Serbian-Spruce-Picea-omorika/flypage.tpl.html (http://www.floraworks3d.com/index.php?/Trees/Serbian-Spruce-Picea-omorika/flypage.tpl.html)
@ porcupine, moodflow, RArcher: many thanks, your comments have been much appreciated!
@Lighting:
Nice guerilla-style, thread hijacking tactics ;-)
... and a nice tree model, too. I would have used this one if I had known about it in time. For now, it's too late. I'm doing a high resolution, high quality render of the same scene at the moment, which is already rendering since 28hrs, and probably needs another 8 hours or more before it finishes. So my patience is up with this scene ;-)
However, in the high quality render, the trees on the little island are looking better than before.
Cheers,
Frank
Awesome work Frank.
Please do post the high resolution for us.
- Terje
Quote from: FrankB on November 17, 2008, 08:07:54 AM
@ porcupine, moodflow, RArcher: many thanks, your comments have been much appreciated!
@Lighting:
Nice guerilla-style, thread hijacking tactics ;-)
... and a nice tree model, too. I would have used this one if I had known about it in time. For now, it's too late. I'm doing a high resolution, high quality render of the same scene at the moment, which is already rendering since 28hrs, and probably needs another 8 hours or more before it finishes. So my patience is up with this scene ;-)
However, in the high quality render, the trees on the little island are looking better than before.
Cheers,
Frank
you could just do a crop render of the island and abit of the water to include the reflection? that wouldnt take that long?
also i just wanted to say what a great render this is what an amazing step up from your classic terragen image.
one crit those veg i assum thay are budhes on the right hillside seem to have a very high specualrity maybe reduce that a little.
Alright, after 38hrs of rendering on my good old dual core machine, here comes the larger version. I hope I have not destroyed too many details with my postwork.
[attachthumb=#]
looks very nice Frank...surfacing is perfect!...beautiful!
Wow. This is sensational.
Image of the Week stuff.
- Terje
Brrrrr, it looks cold and crisp. Great image
richard
Thanks a lot guys, this is much appreciated :-)
Quote from: FrankB on November 18, 2008, 05:03:04 PM
Thanks a lot guys, this is much appreciated :-)
You deserve it! Very nice render!!!
Personally, overall I like much more the one from your first post (october 1600 final_edit2.jpg)
It looks realy amazing and very realist.
Regarding the last rendered image, I don`t like the island and the trees sitting on it that in my opinion brokened the depth/perspective of the image.
Secondly, the clouds are oversaturated and there are too much haze in the scene.
What I like better than the first image, are the vegetations , the trees (the island trees doesn`t look so good) and the contrast of the image
(with that bright areas of interest).
Great work. Congrats.
Very nice work. I really like the realism in first version. The last version is getting there but I think the sky is too blown out and contrasty. The trees on the right look cool but the ones on the island look a bit similar and regular.
I'm probably going to make another revision of the scene, not that it won't take another 40 or so hours to complete. Not now, though. The points mentioned are indeed the weak spots, other than regarding the sky, which I like very much as is.
Cheers,
Frank