Hello everyboby!
After one and a half year without working with TG i'm back and tried the new TG2 (free version).
Inspired by the breathtaking images on NWDA and reading the several tutorials I tried to do my own image .... but ... :-\
I like to do photo realistic images but what ever I try .... all my images look very "artificial" and they are far far far away from those images of Buzzzz, FrankB, RArcher .....
Even when I work with the tutorial on NWDA ("Making of Wilderness") and put the clips in my own scene, the clouds look different, the surface is not really the way I want and all together it is very frustating. There is no difference between TG generated terrains or terrains build with other tools (like WM) - all look "smooth" and artificual.
What wrong with my settings???? Or is it the free download version?
Are there not enough (or wrong) surface layer? Are the render settings wrong? Is something wrong with the atmosphere? I don't know ....
In the attachment there is an little TGD-File of my last render. If you like, try out, make it better and please tell me what's wrong with it.
Thanks a lot!!!
Oliver
I downloaded the file. I'll get back to you Sunday morning about 9 am EST, USA. It's probably something about the render settings. I use 0.95 for the detail in the render tab. The atmosphere quality set to 64. Cloud qualities set to 1 with the sliders.
John (Schmeerlap) gave me a hint about these one day. He saw my stuff on Flickr.
- from what i can see your scene doesn't need supersample prepass. that setting is usually used when you have a bunch of very small objects in shadows. you should check the sticky thread about render settings.
-atmosphere settings: you usually don't need anything above 64 except in very certain renders. also ray traced shadows on the atmosphere is unnecessary unless you want to get a godray effect. Also when it is behind ground i believe, though that was a bug that they were looking to fix and that was a simple workaround it could be fixed now. also your haze is set high.
- same as above on the ray trace issue. you only need cloud ray traces if the cloud will be leaving shadows on other clouds or something like that.
Those things above will dramatically improve your render speeds, but it still seems slow so i could've missed some settings that shouldn't be touched in most images as its taking forever to render when it shouldn't. In general though, if you don't know what it does, play with it, but put it back to normal if after a test render it had no effect or a negative one.
Also,
-you should try using some free objects. check out the xfrog and walli free packs and learn how to place some trees/grass etc to give the image some life.
- as for smooth terrain, whatever you import from wm is straight from the wm data. also you can use the displacement tab on shaders to add some displacement into them and give it a little more bumpiness or whatever you want.
- have you given the wiki a look? http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Terragen_2_Tutorials. I've posted some video tutorials that goes through the basics of how to get going with all the major things in tg2.
I looked at your file also. I don't know why the cloud density was set at 10. I'll set it back to that. All the insight from neuspadrin is correct. These things aside, you actually did a really good job. I am going to move the fractal terrain to the first slot. This makes the height field cover the power fractal.
I played with your file a while. It seemed easier to start fresh. In this TGD the clouds need work. And I think the atmosphere haze can be increased a lot. Have a look, maybe there is something which might help.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/3738988580_8d1db53a77_o.jpg
Photorealism seems to come from alot of minute details working together. Proper small scale displacement, the right quality objects, and subtle lighting tricks all need to be in the right place.
I'll take a look at your file as soon as i can... ^^
give it a try and tell me if you find it better...
This has become a file shading post. ;D It will be cool to compare various interpretations of this theme.
hehehe sorry if i didn't post a pic of the render but i didn't have time to do it big enough (and with reasonnable values) to show it to everyone...
but i am sure ThinkPink will try ;)
I'm rendering your tgd now. I forgot to turn off the crop region function. The clouds looked better. :)
as you can see, i simplified the ground shaders... taking off surfaces layers (those nodes on the left are the ones i disconnected) and putting some powerfractals intead...
but it looks quite different from the original, i tried to kept the "spirit" of the stones and roughness of the landscape though...
but as i said, i didn't have enough time so i just spent 20 minutes on it :( (sorry ThinkPink, I'll try later to improve what i did if you want... )
The render of Seth's version looks great. All that it needs are some plant objects, and maybe the clouds could be improved.
yeah, the clouds defintely need to be improved :D
Wow! ..... what a response!!!!
Thanks to all!
Yes I will try out and will give you a feedback. But it will take time till next weekend. Then I will have the time (I hope) ....
I'm getting back a bit late here.... but I have modified the file a bit and done a quick render. I have tried to keep close to what was done originally. All I have really done is change the clouds (which still need work), small adjustment to textures (very little) and changed the POV. It seems to have lost some of the wash-out feel, which is a good thing. I don't have the time to work on it any more, so here it is.... as is. ;)
This is not bad. I like the rocks on the far shore on the right. I think I would increase the water's depth (below the transparency slider. (I am rendering, sorry)
I have had luck using a power fractal with very small scale and lead in scale for grass. Just use the offset slider with a small value. This helps break up the smoothness of the grass layer.