My first final rendering, but I'd like to improve this. Please comment, I would love suggestions. Also, feel free to rip this to shreds; I want to improve, so I need constructive criticism!
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/firstdraft.jpg)
It's a good start with a nice POV.
Give the water some transparency though, that would really help.
Also there should be less clouds (if any) over a desert ;)
If you could decrease the size of the sand grains a little bit more and make it less saturated yellow, this scene would be perfect.
The reminds me more of TG .9. Is this TG2?
Try dropping your lake 'Y' value or. increasing its size somewhat. You are rendering the edge of the lake above the land, there is no intersection between your waters edge and the terrain. Other than that, nice first try, much better than mine anyway.
Quote from: calico on November 03, 2008, 07:36:07 AM
The reminds me more of TG .9. Is this TG2?
Chech out the water, the plants and the clouds... this is TG2 alright!
Quote from: Mohawk20 on November 03, 2008, 11:22:24 AM
Quote from: calico on November 03, 2008, 07:36:07 AM
The reminds me more of TG .9. Is this TG2?
Check out the water, the plants and the clouds... this is TG2 alright!
dandel0, I see what you mean! I think I raised it to deal with the grass I had earlier, and then didn't return it to normal after I took the grass out. Mowhawk, I will try out your suggestions and post the result here. Big thank you to both of you, I really appreciate your feedback!!
With the water... I tweaked it earlier because I wanted the grass at the water's edge, and I was getting some that was sticking up out of the lake. I don't remember what I changed, but I'd like that effect with the dune grasses. I tried lowering the z value (the third value of "centre", right?) but I couldn't replicate the effect. Any idea what I could do to have the grass coming up out of the water? I feel like I did something simple, but I really can't remember o_o;; I'll keep playing around with it for now
You can change the 'water level' in the settings of the lake node...
Can't seem to get the same affect. Here are two renderings at different water level and center settings.
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/Picture112.png)
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/Picture113.png)
and
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/Picture109.png)
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/Picture110.png)
I've tried lowering z and lowering y, raising and lowering the water level with both. It still seems like the lake is on top of the surface and the reeds. I'll keep fiddling with the settings, but any help would be greatly appreciated/adored/worshipped.
As it was rendering, I noticed that the dune grass population is at least a third below the sand. To do that I would raise the z value, right?
In TG2, up/down is the Y component (second of three). Changing the water level changes the Y component.
Matt
I'd like to have a look at the save file if that's alright with you...
This seems like a strange problem, probably with a simple solution.
Try this...
[attachimg=#]
In your second settings I can see reflections of the grass in the water, it must be beneath the top of the grass then. Keep the water level(Y) =50 or thereabouts. Increase max radius to 2000 or higher so it continues past the grass and meets the terrain.
When using a lake radius of this size(2000m) you've got a 4000m diameter lake. 'X' and 'Z' values such as 2166.53m are more confusing than helpful. Round these numbers up to the nearest 10 or 100 so they're easier to manage/visualise.
If this doesn't help you can PM me the .tgd(I wouldn't need the grass objects but leave the population/object settings for them in the .tgd) and I'd fix the waterline for you and I'd leave your own settings there too so you can compare them against each other for a better understanding. Up to you though, I'm happy to help, TG2 is pretty daunting to begin with.
I think I've got it, actually, but I will also try those settings out this evening. I've got an evening class in about half an hour, but I thought I'd post the updated version along with my babblings. The water level in the following picture is about 10, and it seemed to work.
Mowhawk, I think I saved over the file where I was having the problem, although I have a lot of different save points so I may be able to find it if you still want to see it.
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/seconddraft.jpg)
Babbles written during tweakage process:
Mowhawk, I wasn't quite sure what to do about the yellow saturation; did you mean the color variation isn't enough? Or that it should be a paler shade?
I lifted the dune grass, but now it kind of takes over the image, so I think I'll lower the scale a bit. Maybe move it closer to the water... or the water closer to the grass...
As for the stone size, have I lowered it enough, I'm going to decrease the scale more. It looked much improved in the cropped section I compared, but seeing the full picture, it doesn't seem enough. Also, maybe I raised the water transparency too much? o_o More tweaks to come
Again, thank you all so much, your help means a lot to me!
Simply increasing the max radius of the water should definately make it meet the shoreline with the settings you have for this version. The water's edge is broken into 3 straight lines here(this is the very edge of your lake object), you want to extend this edge to meet the sand and continue(very slightly) beyond it, try adding another couple of hundred metres to the radius you have now, you probably won't need that much to meet the terrain but I think it would definately intersect then.
So if I don't see those three lines, they've intersected? I think I haven't increased the radius enough, then, in this next version, but I like where the shoreline is relative to the reeds and dunes; does it look alright, or is it obvious? Sorry that I'm such a noob ><
(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x289/EternalMoonPrincess/3rd.jpg)
No problem... asking questions helps us to learn.
Extend the water until you have a realistic smooth shoreline, and then lower it a bit more until the shoreline is in the spot the water ends now.
And I meant a pale shade of yellow, but on the other had, I'm not quite sure about that. Best thing to do is to get an image from google and compare colours.
I increased the radius and then lowered the z value, but when it got back to around the original place, the shore line looked pretty much the same. Still playing around with it.
It was the y value that has to be changed for height, remember?
But if you could attach the savefile to your next post (at the bottom under 'additional options'), I could take a look and help you out!
I have the y set so low, it makes the lake look like a puddle... but I should be able to change the settings around... I feel like I'm being more noobish the more help I get >< I could move the lake deeper (increase y) and move z back to have the shoreline in the same spot, then increase the radius and reduce y as needed... right? Attached the file.
I've had a play with this and a couple of simple steps fixed it.
[attachimg=#]
To have the water intersect at the crop zone you had set up for test rendering I needed to: Use a 'heightfield adjust vertical' to remove the edge of the terrain's slope and set lowest='0'(I find this is better than only adjusting border blending, in most cases). Doing this meant I needed to pull the terrain a little closer to the camera to intersect hills with the lake. Your population might need tweaked slightly to fit this but it's as close as I could get to match your scene.
I adjusted your lake and water shader to match the above.
All your original parts are still there to check settings against, very little has changed. The biggest changes are the lake radius and height. And the transparency distance needed to be very much higher in the water.
dandelO.
Sorry for the delay, another crazy few days. I like the changes you made; thank you! I have one question: I saw that you increased the decay; what does that do, exactly? The lake looks great, by the way! And I appreciate you leaving the originals so that I could easily see what had changed; I'll definitely learn from it.
Increasing the decay distance makes the water clearer for a further distance before it becomes the colour of the decay tint, it's measured in metres. Your lake and heights are of such a high scale(i.e. 3000m radius, when it looks to be a very close to the ground scene. It isn't though in terms of scale. Test this by changing the 'y' value of the lake transform by ten metres or so, it barely looks like it's moved).
Because of this large overall scale, low levels of transparency decay, like you had before, have little to no effect that you can see. I'd still probably raise it a bit higher than I've changed it to. You feel like you're 2-3m above the surface, you'd see more through the water at that height, but you're actually much higher, so large values of decay are needed to make you believe you are still close-up to the surface.
There are too many things that need improvements.
A better approach is, after you read the documentation about TG2, to do some specific test with the ground, water, sky etc. to see how reacts to different settings.
Then you could try to put these things together in a more complex scene and you`ll see that you`ll came with better results.
Have fun !