I haven't posted anything for a while, so here's something new.
I'm still trying to master the clouds and to make a decent looking, procedural only sand. I've also found out that tone mapping the .exr file does wonders in fat-cumulus-like scenes.
Sand consists of two fractal nodes. One makes bigger waves (warped perlin mix) while the second (billows) is only for the detail. There is also a twist and shear shader attached to main sand shader.
I'm still struggling to get rid of those sharp ridges out of displacements. Any suggestions?
Render settings:
Q: 0.715
AA: 9 @ Narrow Cubic
GI: 1/3/8 SS:on
Cloud/Atmo: 318/48 (jitter: 0.95)
Res: 3600x2400
Render time: ~14H on Q6600 (@ 3.2GHz)
Picture License:
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Edit: Removed "No Derivative" from license due to .tgd posting.
marvelous sky ^^
The whole picture seems to be 3dimensional! Insane. Those clouds are incredible!
Hi
Amazing Clouds!
ciao
Naoo
Very good work, love the cloudscape! Did you use any of the NWDA presets for it? Just curious :)
Nonetheless, it looks awesome!
For those sharp edges you might try play a bit with the contrast of the powerfractal.
Another tip would be to add a couple of layers of rocks and then add a thick sand-layer as last shader.
Would look very realistic.
Is this also a WIP for...ehh....something? ;)
Martin
Very powerful image!
Reducing the contrast should help with the sharp edges somewhat.
*edit* Martin beat me to it, follow his advice ;)
Thanks for all your comments.
No, I haven't used any NWDA presets ;)
And I also consider this picture finished. It's a bit plain in the foreground but I really wanted to focus on displacements.
I've tried lowering the contrast but it can't be too low as it won't displace the surface noticeably. I've also considered adding some rocks but then it would look kinda weird on this picture as I would have to add some kind of "distractor" - a dead tree or something similar.
Isn't there a way to filter (add blur perhaps?) some sections of grayscale maps generated by fractals? For example - from 0.8 to 1.0? To have 0 to 0.8 sharp and 0.8 to 1.0 blurred?
Oh, very nice. This reminds me of some extreme photos I've seen in the really old photograph books from some of the brilliant professional photographers of years gone by.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on May 17, 2009, 05:08:52 PM
Thanks for all your comments.
No, I haven't used any NWDA presets ;)
And I also consider this picture finished. It's a bit plain in the foreground but I really wanted to focus on displacements.
I've tried lowering the contrast but it can't be too low as it won't displace the surface noticeably. I've also considered adding some rocks but then it would look kinda weird on this picture as I would have to add some kind of "distractor" - a dead tree or something similar.
Isn't there a way to filter (add blur perhaps?) some sections of grayscale maps generated by fractals? For example - from 0.8 to 1.0? To have 0 to 0.8 sharp and 0.8 to 1.0 blurred?
You can "select" grayscale ranges from fractals using the clamp function (use 2 constant functions as inputs) or the color adjust shader (reduce white point to 0.8 will "stretch" the color range from 0 - 0.8 to 0 - 1)
sick lighting! ;)
The lower clouds are some of the best I've seen out of TG2.
Very striking image. One question - how have you achieved the strong contrast between atmo and clouds? Was this post-work (the tone-mapping you mentioned), or the result of manipulating bluesky values in TG2?
stunning...
Amazing!
Quote from: domdib on May 18, 2009, 08:27:16 AM
Very striking image. One question - how have you achieved the strong contrast between atmo and clouds? Was this post-work (the tone-mapping you mentioned), or the result of manipulating bluesky values in TG2?
Tone mapping is mostly helpful in bringing out details in the darker parts of clouds, especially the base.
You can find a comparison between a regular image with adjusted levels and the same image, but tone-mapped and then with adjusted levels - Regular (http://porcupinefloyd.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Matter-116503198) and Tone mapped (http://porcupinefloyd.deviantart.com/art/Tone-Matter-121741449)
My technique in TG2 is to use rather desaturated colours and then to dig them out of the image in post-processing by using levels and saturation. This image was almost black and white after I took it out of Photomatix but I didn't paint it manually - it's just levels and saturation adjustments, so the colour was actually there.
Thanks for the info. I'm now actively considering buying Photomatix ;). (and if anyone else is interested in doing so, there's a discount coupon available if you go the www.beforethecoffee.com and click on his Photomatix tutorial)
Insanely awesome clouds... :) :) :) :) :)
good terrain too,
Man, these clouds are almost frightening.
They don't contain ordinary water, do they? ;)
Stunning image, very impressive.
Yes, tonemapping is a very powerful tool. Photomatix has a particularly nice local tonemapping operator. This is a really cool image. Thanks for posting. One thing to be aware of though... the photomatix tonemapper has been pushed to some extreme levels by many users, so that super dynamic contrast, deep blues, and enhanced edges is starting to become the unfortunate definition of "hdr" images... That is NOT a comment on this image, which I think has been tonemapped appropriately, and looks great. Just be careful with pushing photomatix too far;) it's becoming the "lens flare" of today;)
That said, even gamma adjustments can bring out a lot of detail in a flat (subdued) exr, which is the most basic form of tonemapping. I generally render pretty bland images so I don't blow anything out, then use gamma, gain, etc in fusion to adjust the image in post as you did with photomatix.
Good stuff. Any info on the cloud setup would be nice to know;)
Andrew
Quote from: MrHooper on May 18, 2009, 01:33:19 PM
Yes, tonemapping is a very powerful tool. Photomatix has a particularly nice local tonemapping operator. This is a really cool image. Thanks for posting. One thing to be aware of though... the photomatix tonemapper has been pushed to some extreme levels by many users, so that super dynamic contrast, deep blues, and enhanced edges is starting to become the unfortunate definition of "hdr" images... That is NOT a comment on this image, which I think has been tonemapped appropriately, and looks great. Just be careful with pushing photomatix too far;) it's becoming the "lens flare" of today;)
That said, even gamma adjustments can bring out a lot of detail in a flat (subdued) exr, which is the most basic form of tonemapping. I generally render pretty bland images so I don't blow anything out, then use gamma, gain, etc in fusion to adjust the image in post as you did with photomatix.
Good stuff. Any info on the cloud setup would be nice to know;)
Andrew
Tone mapping can be very spectacular but it can be overused as every technique - there's no doubt for that. I've learned so far that there are some types of scenes that work good with tone mapping and some that don't. There are scenes which don't look tone mapped at all, there are some which are flat after tone mapping and some that are simply weird. After all - it's just a technique. You can use it or not but yes - I agree that it may suddenly become a "lens flare" of today. Good comparison by the way ;)
As for cloud setup - I've attached a .tgd for everyone willing to take a look.
You can use this file freely under the CC BY-NC-SA license :-)
Excellent. Great clouds.