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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: Hannes on January 10, 2009, 07:54:32 AM

Title: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Hannes on January 10, 2009, 07:54:32 AM
(http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6578/alpinefractal08sw6.th.jpg) (http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alpinefractal08sw6.jpg)

Nothing special. I just wanted to create some alpine picture. I used some of Luc's cloudsettings.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Seth on January 10, 2009, 07:58:04 AM
the clouds look strange (scale problem ?)
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Hannes on January 10, 2009, 08:00:48 AM
What do you mean, too big or too small?
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Seth on January 10, 2009, 10:10:56 AM
i am not really sure, but here is where i think the clouds are strange.
they don't look right, transparancy looks weird in this part and the clouds seem very artificial , with less details...
whereas everywhere else they look like shampoo lather ^^
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: PG on January 10, 2009, 04:07:53 PM
Yeah I see it. I think they're too big for the scene. As if they should be over a flatter terrain. Hard to explain really. Umm... ok, like you've created the clouds and then created the terrain to fit them, instead of the other way around.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Seth on January 10, 2009, 05:00:10 PM
thanks PG ! sometimes i really wish my english to be better so i can figure out how to explain things to people ^^
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: rcallicotte on January 10, 2009, 09:49:13 PM
Nothing special, hah!  That mountain range is well done.  Clouds are about believable.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Mohawk20 on January 11, 2009, 09:14:41 AM
Clouds should have the edge sharpness decreased I think...
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Hannes on January 11, 2009, 10:07:17 AM
Thank you all. I'll try decreasing edge sharpness.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: moodflow on January 11, 2009, 02:38:44 PM
I really like that mountain.  Its one of the best I've seen so far in TG2.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Seth on January 11, 2009, 03:41:49 PM
indeed !
great mountain :)
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Volker Harun on January 12, 2009, 07:01:37 AM
I agree with Moodflow.
I do like the clouds' appearance ... I guess that you could swap the values for edge sharpness and density. And maybe divide the value of edge sharpness by 2 could solve this.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Tangled-Universe on January 12, 2009, 07:36:14 AM
Rather than most people I think you should keep the edge sharpness untouched.

If you reduce the density of the cloud and reduce the fake internal scattering and/or light propagation you'll end up with more transparent clouds with more gradients in color and density which will give a more natural look.
I agree with Michael (PG) about the scale, I'd reduce it by a factor 2 or so.

(The reason you have to reduce the fake internal scattering and/or light propagation (depends on the mix setting which of the 2 to adjust the most) is that when you lower the cloud density the effect of glow power will look stronger (sort of independently from the actual glow power setting).)

I hope this helps, but it will probably confuse you even more :)

Martin
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Hannes on January 12, 2009, 04:43:42 PM
Thanks again for your comments and suggestions!
First I'd like to show you an updated version which I started to render before I read the suggestions by Seth and Volker.
I tried decreasing the edge sharpness alone which did not help very much. Then I changed the noise flavour from Perlin billows to Perlin mix 2 and reduced the scale by 2 (I knew you would suggest this :))
The main thing was to decrease the smallest scale to 0.0001. Here's what I got so far. I like the clouds in the background. They are pretty detailed but in the foreground they still look a bit like bubble bath even if it's better than before.

I'll try your suggestions right now for the next version.
(http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/6246/alpinefractal8eeditmedsc0.th.jpg) (http://img368.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alpinefractal8eeditmedsc0.jpg)
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal
Post by: Seth on January 12, 2009, 04:46:06 PM
very good one !
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated)
Post by: rcallicotte on January 12, 2009, 06:38:20 PM
Oh, very good, Hannes.  This reminds me of the movie "Cliffhanger".   8)
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated)
Post by: Tangled-Universe on January 12, 2009, 06:40:24 PM
Ah that has improved already.

I don't see why you have changed the smallest scale value to 0.0001. First of all: this scale isn't noticable at all. It is 0,1 millimetre. That's exactly about the lower-limit of human vision. Second: the most probable reason that you don't see much small scale features is because the lack of noise variation, buoyancy from variation combined with the roughness of the fractal. These settings are quite heavily inter-related as you might know already. You'll see that it won't be necessary to have such small scale features and thus will have a lower octave density fractal which probably render faster.

I think the scales are much better now by the way. You still might consider my suggestion for the lighting.
The terrain is just excellent, don't touch it! Please :)

Martin
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on January 13, 2009, 05:59:18 PM
OK, the main thing is... I didn't touch the mountains. ;D

Here's my final update:
(http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/335/alpinefractal09tueditmeuq2.th.jpg) (http://img67.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alpinefractal09tueditmeuq2.jpg)


I played with the roughness value in the density settings which produced a lot more details. Additionally I tried your suggestions, TU, and it really helped a lot. Thank you all.
I'm going to explore the Smallest Scale settings. I think there WAS a difference even if it doesn't seem logical, but maybe I'm wrong. We'll see, I will let you know.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Tangled-Universe on January 13, 2009, 06:15:26 PM
Cool to see it worked out quite good :)
I'd also consider it finished, it's great!

So, now...did you do anything special to the alpine fractal? My honest guess is not that much, but it just looks very good.

Martin
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Volker Harun on January 13, 2009, 06:29:13 PM
Very good - overall ... I am glad that TU's hints did help.
The smallest scale and roughness go hand in hand ... a roughness of 0 will ignore the smallest scale. The higher the roughness settings the more of the smallest scale shows up.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Hannes on January 13, 2009, 06:49:14 PM
Good to know, Volker. I learned a lot during the last days.
The alpine fractal shader is not modified but I added another fractal shader and a strata and outcrops shader with a distribution shader (coverage 0.25) as blend shader that has a power fractal shader as fractal breakup shader.








...seven times the word shader...

In the effects tab of the snow layer I checked "intersect underlying" with favour depressions.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: efflux on January 15, 2009, 04:03:30 AM
Cool mountains and clouds are much improved in the later version.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Saurav on January 15, 2009, 04:47:18 AM
Clouds are much improved in the latest version.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: moodflow on January 15, 2009, 03:43:38 PM
Still looking great.  One suggestion for the clouds would be to drop the density a bit and actually increase the edge sharpness (at least to see what happens).  I've found this helps my clouds when they have a similar "bubble bath" look.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: FrankB on January 15, 2009, 05:05:14 PM
a shame, I can't see the image in full because imageshack won't respond to my knocking.
Hannes, the thumbnail is looking really cool, but why not upload it here, directly at the forum?

Thanks,
Frank
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Hannes on January 15, 2009, 06:47:53 PM
Hi Frank, like this, or what do you mean?

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/1681/alpinefractal09tueditmesc0.jpg

Moodflow, I'll try!!
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: rcallicotte on January 15, 2009, 07:40:08 PM
I love this, Hannes.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: FrankB on January 16, 2009, 09:07:36 AM
Quote from: Hannes on January 15, 2009, 06:47:53 PM
Hi Frank, like this, or what do you mean?

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/1681/alpinefractal09tueditmesc0.jpg

Moodflow, I'll try!!

Hi Hannes, well imageshack is not only very slow at times, sometimes it doesn't even load the image (timeout) or blank pages.

Instead, if you make a post, scroll down a bit and you'll see an link called "Additional Options...". If you click that, an area expands and you can select to upload an image *directly into this forum*. Easy to use :-)

Cheers,
Frank

PS: imageshack apparently was working today. I have seen this image now, it very well done. The only recommendation I would have is to try to reduce the tiny white spots. Having some is ok, but I believe that these are a few too many ;-)
A matter of taste, probably.
Title: Re: Alpine Fractal (Updated again)
Post by: Hannes on January 16, 2009, 01:56:51 PM
Thanks Frank,
it's always good to learn something new :-[
Imageshack is really a pain in the lower part of my body sometimes.