Hey there,
I am having fun with the southwest lib from xfrog. I thought I'd share my WIP early and get a couple of tips from you guys.
A few stats:
- quality 0.9
- AA8, SS
- GI 2/4
- finished after 1:45
- Dry grass from Walli, other plants from xfrog.
- A variation of TU's "Sand" Pack beta
Cheers,
Frank
Excellent...summer color...
Except some NOISE in the upper left...
Great cacti! I'm not so fond of the dark groundcover, but everything else is fine. Like the vivid lighting and the sand is integrated nicely :)
Quote from: aymenk2003 on June 29, 2009, 05:13:59 PM
Excellent...summer color...
Except some NOISE in the upper left...
Well, that NOISE (why the caps???) is probably AA Bloom effect. Atmospheric noise is close to 0 in this image.
just to emphasize ... because it decrease the quality of the entire image by 25 %...
Quote from: aymenk2003 on June 29, 2009, 05:26:21 PM
just to emphasize ... because it decrease the quality of the entire image by 25 %...
no need to emphasize/exaggerate, we can all read ;)
:( :( :o :o
uhm... thanks guys, for the quick caps discussion.
Back to the topic: No matter how hard I try, I cannot see any noise. At all. Can you point it out a little more what you're seeing?
Regards,
Frank
It's no problem Aymenk, don't worry :)
Hey Frank, where are my sand-ripples?
And on second thought, isn't the right cactus awesomely big, say...too big?
Quote from: FrankB on June 29, 2009, 05:39:47 PM
uhm... thanks guys, for the quick caps discussion.
Back to the topic: No matter how hard I try, I cannot see any noise. At all. Can you point it out a little more what you're seeing?
Regards,
Frank
I think he means the break up effect in the very background grass nice image anyway frank lovely lighting! the sand is cool is it procedural or image maps or both?!
@ TU: No, the cactus on the right is really tall, compared to the other plants
@ wetbanana: the sand is entirely procedural. In this render, the ripples are mostly muted, because I didn't want a sahara look, but a shallower layer of sand.
Thanks,
Frank
Quote from: FrankB on June 29, 2009, 05:51:42 PM
@ TU: No, the cactus on the right is really tall, compared to the other plants
@ wetbanana: the sand is entirely procedural. In this render, the ripples are mostly muted, because I didn't want a sahara look, but a shallower layer of sand.
Thanks,
Frank
wow thats pretty impressive!!!
@ wetbanana: me using image-maps...naahhh :)
Here's another example of the sand: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=6809.0 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=6809.0) it's still in development and being tested by others.
Martin
Frank, this image is looking real good. Your choice of the large cactus is very good - looks like an 'Organ Pipe Cacti' which is common in the lower southwest of Arizona. In all. I find this a very inspirational piece ...you've got me thinking about my next project. I think these close-ups are more effective than those distant views.
Quote from: choronr on June 29, 2009, 06:07:58 PM
Frank, this image is looking real good. Your choice of the large cactus is very good - looks like an 'Organ Pipe Cacti' which is common in the lower southwest of Arizona. In all. I find this a very inspirational piece ...you've got me thinking about my next project. I think these close-ups are more effective than those distant views.
If so...I might have a surprise for you in a couple of minutes ;)
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on June 29, 2009, 06:12:41 PM
Quote from: choronr on June 29, 2009, 06:07:58 PM
Frank, this image is looking real good. Your choice of the large cactus is very good - looks like an 'Organ Pipe Cacti' which is common in the lower southwest of Arizona. In all. I find this a very inspirational piece ...you've got me thinking about my next project. I think these close-ups are more effective than those distant views.
If so...I might have a surprise for you in a couple of minutes ;)
Looking forward TU.
an update, before I go to bed.
Larger render, one new species and removed the dark groundcover mats.
Regards,
Frank
PS: 2nd variant with slightly more contrast
Dang!!!!!!! That looks fantastic!
These types of high detail images really suffer from JPG compression unfortunately, but it's a fantastic scene. I wonder if it wouldn't look better downsampled and still saved in JPG (more bytes-per-pixel ;D). Or perhaps a less compressed version on your web space?
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on June 30, 2009, 12:51:53 AM
These types of high detail images really suffer from JPG compression unfortunately, but it's a fantastic scene. I wonder if it wouldn't look better downsampled and still saved in JPG (more bytes-per-pixel ;D). Or perhaps a less compressed version on your web space?
- Oshyan
um I usually work with tiffs to avoid the jpg banding thing
I just mean for posting here on the web. I'm sure Frank works with lossless file formats when he's actually editing his images.
- Oshyan
yesterday, I was on a rather small notebook lcd and could not see any noise. However, now that I am viewing this on a larger screen, I understand and agree to the observation. It's not atmospheric noise, though. These plant models have very frail twigs and narrow needles, and with the resolution rendered, they appear altogether like a noisy mass.
I've rendered a crop at 2400 width, and left the crop unaltered (no postwork). There you can see that the "noise" is slowly resolving, but not gone yet. Maybe at twice the size again, the image will have enough pixel space to actually display all the fine details in that area of the image.
Regards;
Frank
damn, thats a sharp render Frank!...need to watch your step!....stunning realism!
Quote from: aymenk2003 on June 29, 2009, 05:13:59 PM
Excellent...summer color...
Except some NOISE in the upper left...
I've been off for some days but I wanted to second aymenk's opinion about the first picture. The plants in the brighter areas were quite pixelated. Hope you resolved your little discussion :-\
here's a crop from a "problematic" area from a 4800 x 2743 render.
At this resolution, you begin to see that the fine grained detail from e.g. these bushes is causing the noise in a smaller render.
I have the suspicion that it may be good in this case to actually reduce the AA and AA bloom, as this is beginning to "erase" some of the pixels of e.g. a small branch.
Cheers,
Frank
PS: isn't this sand really nice, how it generates that virtually infinite procedural detail?
The sand really looks right. It would be hard to render that plant without the noise. It's very detailed. Is there a model of the same plant which is more 'fudged'? I mean, with less detail, but modeled to look like the detail is there?
may you have to change completely this tree ...
I must say I'm really surprised that the sand holds up so well at this close.
Did you alter any scaling on the "grain"? If not, I might be able to get it even tighter than this ;D
Quote from: aymenk2003 on June 30, 2009, 08:20:25 AM
may you have to change completely this tree ...
I agree...it's almost un-renderable when it's not in close-up or nearby shot.
This is looking really nice. The lighting gives it a very hot/stylized look. I have to ask... are the dry plants available from Walli? Will they be released as a pack?
Cheers, Simon.
the cacti and the green bushes are from the xfrog southwest gallery, but the dry grasses are from Walli indeed. These are available through Turbosquid at the moment.
But while you ask, we're working on a dry plants pack for NWDA. I have seen very promising pre-final versions of these. The pack focuses on dry bushes, which IMHO are not available at the desired quality at the moment. I think these bushes could become a must-have asset for anyone who like to create desert / canyon / dry scenery with TG2, or any other app that can work with the obj format.
Maybe we'll do something about dry grasses later if the demand would be there.
Cheers,
Frank
They would be great to have. I'm thinking I need a second job for all the stuff I want. It would be hard, since I work fifty six hours a week now.
very good sand ^^
Beautiful scene, bravo!
Thanks Frank.... You've already pre-sold one pack of dry grasses and bushes to me, so I think the demand will be there. Come on guys.... who wants dry grass? Maybe we should start a poll on the interest in dry grasses and bushes eh... ;)
cheers,
Simon.
And don't forget the sand shader - I predict a lot of desert scenes in the near future, when that one comes out ;)
Oh, and of course, beach scenes...
All is being worked on :)
Fantastic work, Frank. Looks like somewhere I'd like to visit.
Here's the final and last render for this scene. I have added some of Wall's dry bushes and grass, slightly different POV and a couple of other smaller changes. Thanks for being with me on this little journey :)
Frank
It has been fun watching the incarnations of this image. It looks terrific.
Frank, this is holding my eyes for quite awhile. Very inspirational!
Beautiful association of plants!
Thank you guys, glad you like it :-)