I've been playing around off and on with terragen, and have finally made something that I would like to share on here. I started off with wanting to make it be Halloween-ish. That's where the orange color scheme comes into play. ;D I'm asking for help and critique on this image because I think there is something missing. I was thinking another fog layer (really a low-level cumulus 3d).
Render stats
800x600 (i'm using free version)
55 min 15 seconds (see comp stats below if you wonder why it took so long)
1,614,759 micro triangles
Moon is actually a second planet with haze density and bluesky density set to 0.
Starfield is an image projection.
Fog is cumulus cloud layer.
Tree is the Large Ash model provided by lightning. ( http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3759.0 )
Raytracing was checked on the Cumulus layer that is in the sky, otherwise raytracing was not used.
For more stats just look at the tgd.
Heh, we're chasing the same idea :)
Couple of things I've noticed ...
The ash tree has no shadow, and no obvious reason for being illuminated from the front.
I'd work on the ground texture, give it some relief to catch the moons shadow. And some grasses, bushes etc...
Is your sun positioned behind the moon? If that's your main light source that's where it should be. :)
I found that to get "silver lining" to my clouds I had to have "Enable ray traced shadows" OFF in the cloud layer The down side to this is the density has to be pretty high to actually obscure the moon. I also had Glow in atmosphere enabled for the "Sun/Moon" light source. To stop the whole sky glowing I dropped the glow power settings the the atmosphere and player with them in the cloud settings... quite a complex balancing act.
I'd add the stars manually in post.
Hope this doesn't sound like I'm slamming you top the ground, forgive me I've been thinking quite intensely about all these points with my current image ,,,
Keep working on it, you're off to a great start, night time images are hard.
Richard
Quote from: cyphyr on September 20, 2009, 06:20:45 PM
Heh, we're chasing the same idea :)
Couple of things I've noticed ...
The ash tree has no shadow, and no obvious reason for being illuminated from the front.
I'd work on the ground texture, give it some relief to catch the moons shadow. And some grasses, bushes etc...
Is your sun positioned behind the moon? If that's your main light source that's where it should be. :)
I found that to get "silver lining" to my clouds I had to have "Enable ray traced shadows" OFF in the cloud layer The down side to this is the density has to be pretty high to actually obscure the moon. I also had Glow in atmosphere enabled for the "Sun/Moon" light source. To stop the whole sky glowing I dropped the glow power settings the the atmosphere and player with them in the cloud settings... quite a complex balancing act.
I'd add the stars manually in post.
Hope this doesn't sound like I'm slamming you top the ground, forgive me I've been thinking quite intensely about all these points with my current image ,,,
Keep working on it, you're off to a great start, night time images are hard.
Richard
I've found out that night images are hard. the hard way lol.
Maybe i should've explained the image a little more. I actually didn't do anything to the ground, it's the bare ground that terragen starts with. I'll try and play with it a little.
The tree and surrounding fog is lit by a light source not the moon or sun. I couldn't figure out how to get the moon to light the ground. Actually the sun is positioned opposite the moon. Moon heading is 30, sun heading is 210.
I'll try moving the sun behind the moon and see what it gives me. I'll also try the ray traced shadows off in the cloud layer. I don't have photoshop but I do have GIMP and Paint.net i'll think about doing stars later, but idk, it seems easier to have terragen do them for me lol.
I might try adding some grass or bushes, and hope and pray it doesn't kill my computer. Oh one detail i forgot was i rendered this at 0.75 quality, with super sampling. If that even means anything for this image.
Don't worry bout it, i never even thought you were slamming me to the ground.
I think you need more objects to give the image depth, they don't need to be very close to each other. I would add a dry grass object as a population. The fog is too dense. With more objects spaced apart, the fog could be much thinner; but the more distant objects would fade into it.
The theme is a good one. I always liked Halloween.
Quote from: njeneb on September 20, 2009, 06:45:37 PM
I think you need more objects to give the image depth, they don't need to be very close to each other. I would add a dry grass object as a population. The fog is too dense. With more objects spaced apart, the fog could be much thinner; but the more distant objects would fade into it.
The theme is a good one. I always liked Halloween.
I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the tips, hopefully have another render in another hour or two. Assuming the computer doesn't crash between now and then.
Crap! I keep forgetting some things, does anyone think I even need to use AA bloom? I used it but i'm wondering if it just makes it take longer.
Quote from: typerextreme on September 20, 2009, 06:48:23 PM
Crap! I keep forgetting some things, does anyone think I even need to use AA bloom? I used it but i'm wondering if it just makes it take longer.
Wouldn't bother for now, you at the start of this journey. You should'nt need supper sampling at this stage either. Check that your cloud sampling is not too high also.
:)
Richard
I'd leave it on to be honest. You most likely won't notice more than a second or two difference and potentially could lose some quality, especially on the right hand side of the tree. Which as Cypher mentioned, doesn't look very flat. May be worth playing around with the brightness and contrast/gamma settings.
Quote from: cyphyr on September 20, 2009, 06:55:47 PM
Wouldn't bother for now, you at the start of this journey. You should'nt need supper sampling at this stage either. Check that your cloud sampling is not too high also.
:)
Richard
I turned off super sampling and AA bloom. Cloud samples are both 16. Atmosphere samples are both 16 as well. I set the fog's density to 0.003. (half what it was) Added a population of bushes. Did a quick heightfield as well, although i'm still playing with it a little.
I would love to have the moon actually cast light onto the surface but I can't seem to make it do it, or else it's showing up somewhere i can't see it.
I can probably fake it using a light source, like I am using for in front of the tree to light it up.
Right now, i'm toying with another sun being behind the moon, and just peeking off the right edge of the moon. Quick rendering as i type.
Ok so the sun behind the moon didn't work out like I expected. I'm lost now.
If your "moon" disappeared, up its luminosity to 1 (or thereabouts)
:)
Richard
Quote from: cyphyr on September 20, 2009, 08:11:34 PM
If your "moon" disappeared, up its luminosity to 1 (or thereabouts)
:)
Richard
Oops sorry bout that, should've specified. I didn't move the sun that was lighting up the moon. I just made another sun and placed it behind the moon but increased the heading by 7.5.
All in all, the moon stayed visible, just had an ugly yellow spot next to it. And part of the sky on the right side lit up as well as some of the ground on the right side.
Right now, i'm rendering two versions of the image with the tweakings i've done. One with the light source like the first image, and another without the light source. Both images have a new population of bushes and a heightfield in place. The fog's density has been reduced to 0.001. The clouds in the sky are not doing ray tracing anymore. I have disabled AA bloom and supersampling. Will post image one in about 15-20 minutes.
Scratch that, it'll be about 30-45 minutes. I've gotta reposition the tree. At the moment it's buried
I;m rendering at the moment but I'll upload a simplified version of my scene later. It may not be what your after but it should give you some pointers
:)
Richard
Quote from: cyphyr on September 20, 2009, 08:23:58 PM
I;m rendering at the moment but I'll upload a simplified version of my scene later. It may not be what your after but it should give you some pointers
:)
Richard
All right, thanks. No rush. These two are gonna take somewhere around 30 minutes to render now that i've got the tree positioned again.
Uploaded (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=7578.new#new)
:)
Richard
Downloaded ;D
Love the image richard. Posted in wrong topic. oops
Two renders, one with the orange lightsource and one without.
I'm thinking about trying to find a good, free pumpkin and place the orange light source in it. maybe. Would tie in the whole halloween feel i think.
EDIT: Rendered the images at 800x600. They were at 640x480. other than that, no other changes were made.
I like the darker one. It could use some dark ambient occlusion, not much. Just enough to simulate moonlight.
If I can find the model again that I used for this Halloween image a couple of years ago I'll send a link...
Good Evening, Vicar
[attachimg=#]
I think it came in a pack of about 15 free lanterns with different expressions, I'm no longer on that same computer but I'll try to find it.
Do they often hang people in front of the church where you are? :D
I like this. I'm sure kids would really love it.
Quote from: dandelO on September 21, 2009, 10:19:37 AM
If I can find the model again that I used for this Halloween image a couple of years ago I'll send a link...
Good Evening, Vicar
[attachimg=#]
I think it came in a pack of about 15 free lanterns with different expressions, I'm no longer on that same computer but I'll try to find it.
Ha ha alright. I think I may have found a decent pumpkin, i'll try it. http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/models.html?start=5 (http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/models.html?start=5) there's the link to it. I may try something with it in a little bit.
You should seriously consider redoing this image, when you have time, now that you have more experience. Then again, it looks pretty cool as it is.
Quote from: njeneb on September 20, 2009, 11:14:45 PM
I like the darker one. It could use some dark ambient occlusion, not much. Just enough to simulate moonlight.
I'll try some ambient occlusion in the dark image. Might wind up having two renders instead of one like i'd originally planned.
Alright rendered four images total. first two here.
Ambient occlusion was applied to the darker image from above.
First image is 0.25 surface strength.
Second image is 0.15 surface strength.
Ok continuation here, they wouldn't all fit.
Third image 0.10 surface strength.
Fourth image 0.05 surface strength.
O.5 definitely. Just enough to see the tree and landscape. It gives you a lot of 'room' for using illuminated objects if you choose to.
Quote from: njeneb on September 21, 2009, 08:56:08 PM
O.5 definitely. Just enough to see the tree and landscape. It gives you a lot of 'room' for using illuminated objects if you choose to.
Alright, i'm going to work on it some more tonight possibly. If not tonight, probably tomorrow.
Alright, I know the pumpkin is hovering in midair, i'm fixing that as I type this message. I just wanted to upload what I've done. Also, I have a question that maybe one of you can answer.
I found a jack-o-lantern and placed it in tg2, then I attempted to put my orange light source in the pumpkin, changed the light source to yellow set the source radius to 2 and strength 200. This resulted in the inside of the pumpkin being lit, but light is spilling out behind, under, and to either side of the pumpkin, as well as in front of the pumpkin (like I want it to only do) it's also making it grainy (which i'm not sure how to fix).
In simpler terms, how do I make the light not cast outside the pumpkin where it SHOULD be solid?
You should be able to tell from the pic below what i'm talking about, but if you can't maybe you'll be able to once I get the pumpkin positioned on the ground instead of above it.
===========
JUST TO APPEASE THE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE FOR THE JACK-O-LANTERN
I obtained the jack-o-lantern from here -> http://www.virtual-lands-3d.com/models.html?start=5
===========
Check the pumpkin for double sided polygons. They should be on. The light may not have raytraced shadows turned on. It should be on.
I right click on the location I like for an object, then copy coordinates. Then I paste the coordinates into the 'translate' inout of the object settings. The objects origin (object center) should be almost at the bottom/center of the object. PoseRay should allow you to check this and move it if necessary.
Quote from: njeneb on September 23, 2009, 06:15:58 PM
Check the pumpkin for double sided polygons. They should be on. The light may not have raytraced shadows turned on. It should be on.
I right click on the location I like for an object, then copy coordinates. Then I paste the coordinates into the 'translate' inout of the object settings. The objects origin (object center) should be almost at the bottom/center of the object. PoseRay should allow you to check this and move it if necessary.
Double sided surfaces is checked. The location is fine for me, I just had to adjust the height. I have aboslutely no clue how to use PoseRay or where to get it.
Where is ray traced shadows for the light source? I have it turned on right now for the render, and i had it on for the render above.
Looking good :)
If you want "light Rays" coming out of the Jack-o Turn on Ray traced Shadows in your fog layer, It'll slow down your render (a lot) But can look nice :)
Also everything njeneb said :)
Richard
Quote from: cyphyr on September 23, 2009, 06:30:36 PM
Looking good :)
If you want "light Rays" coming out of the Jack-o Turn on Ray traced Shadows in your fog layer, It'll slow down your render (a lot) But can look nice :)
Also everything njeneb said :)
Richard
Alright i'm trying it.
Ok I achieved the effect I wanted with the jack-o-lantern. Although I believe I need to raise it up a little bit more. The only thing I'm wondering about now, is why is it sooo grainy. Do I need to raise the fog's samples to above 16? This crop was rendered at 0.75 quality on the render tab.
In the atmosphere settings, go to quality and boost the samples to 128. The default is 16. Again, render time will go way up, but it will help with the graininess. You can also do a crop render by going to crop region in the render tab. Enable it, and then size the red box whee in the image you want.
Quote from: njeneb on September 23, 2009, 09:52:18 PM
In the atmosphere settings, go to quality and boost the samples to 128. The default is 16. Again, render time will go way up, but it will help with the graininess. You can also do a crop render by going to crop region in the render tab. Enable it, and then size the red box whee in the image you want.
Actually i did crop that with terragen. But wow, thats a whole lot to boost it to. I've been playing with it and have atmo at 32 and fog at 32. Any suggestions for the fog? or should I try it as it is.
Oh i just noticed, i have the fog's acceleration cache set to optimal, should i set it to conservative or none? see if that helps?
Ok i got a crop render done with atmosphere at 128 samples and fog at 64 samples. Most of the grain is gone, and that doubled the render time just for the crop, i'm going to try and get a good look in the crop and then render full. 0.75 quality on the render tab again. Results below.
Currently rendering atmo 128 samples, fog 96 samples just to try to reduce the graininess some more.
Ok to me it only looks like it made the grain randomize, but it's still there. So I'm going to drop the fog's samples back down to 64 and render the uncropped image.
TG2 cannot satisfy you with this scene. The contrast of the light and shadow in the atmosphere and fog is too strong to be rendered without grain without using insane quality settings in the atmosphere. I guess the grain will go away at 500 samples. Many of us have tried a scene like this, and I think it's fair to say that TG2 is not the app of choice for scenes like this. I hate to say but you better give up on this scene, unless you can live with veeery long render times.
Frank
Oh I dunno. The grain kinda looks like dust or flies. As I always say, if you can't fix it, act like you meant to do it.
Its not great but it is free(ish) ;)
Have a go at Neat Image (http://www.neatimage.com/) specifically designed for noise removal. Works in some cases but by no means all.
It really needs a larger area to work on but 30sec later here is a "filtered" result :) Looks a bit like smart blurring ... Could be better with a bigger image and more that 30 sec spent on it lol :)
Richard
The filtered image already looks better Richard! This could be the means by which this scene could be saved if the grain isn't supposed to be there at all :)
Why not cheat? An old volumetric light fake was to extrude the part which was supposed to be light beams. Make them single sided, add transparency, and give them a luminous texture with a fractal fade towards the camera.
Quote from: njeneb on September 24, 2009, 10:50:22 AM
Why not cheat? An old volumetric light fake was to extrude the part which was supposed to be light beams. Make them single sided, add transparency, and give them a luminous texture with a fractal fade towards the camera.
That would work perfectly, and be fairly fast, were it not for one small detail ... Terragen cant do proper transparency :(
Richard
Quote from: cyphyr on September 24, 2009, 10:55:12 AM
Quote from: njeneb on September 24, 2009, 10:50:22 AM
Why not cheat? An old volumetric light fake was to extrude the part which was supposed to be light beams. Make them single sided, add transparency, and give them a luminous texture with a fractal fade towards the camera.
That would work perfectly, and be fairly fast, were it not for one small detail ... Terragen cant do proper transparency :(
Richard
What? Why not? I remember back in the ancient days of TG2 water wasn't transparent but what is it doing now?
I was wondering if you could fake it with a water shader but I think you'd run into a stack of other problems. Try it and post your results, it would certainly be a useful trick if you could get it to work ...
:)
Richard
Ok wow :o , i just got home from school. I can live with the grain i suppose. Here is the overall image, it took 4 hours for my comp to render it.
I haven't even tried what you all said, and quite frankly i understand about.....none of it lol. I guess I'll just leave the grain, i'm pondering the idea of moving the pumpkin behind the tree, or just further to the left.
Ok I decided to move the pumpkin and rotate it towards the tree. It's still rendering. I also decided to drop the atmosphere and fog samples to 48. I'm not gonna be able to remove the grain, but I don't want the render to take forever either, so I'll just deal with it.
I like the idea of the jack o'lantern illuminating the tree.
I'd move the moon behind the tree (or the tree in-front of the moon)
:)
Richard
Quote from: njeneb on September 26, 2009, 01:48:51 PM
I like the idea of the jack o'lantern illuminating the tree.
Thanks, it's rendering, but being reeeal slow about it. I'm wondering if it's gonna take longer to render this than it did last time. And it hasn't even made it through the top third of the image in an hour, where before it took 30-45 minutes And I have even dropped the overall quality to 0.5. Which shocks me, and i've left the computer alone the whole time until just now when I paused it to check this. Even had tgd.exe set to high priority. So idk, for some reason it slowed down.
Quote from: cyphyr on September 26, 2009, 01:50:29 PM
I'd move the moon behind the tree (or the tree in-front of the moon)
:)
Richard
I'll see about moving it, although it might be another day. At the rate it's going now, I don't expect it to be finished for another 4-5 hours.
Hmmm. ok so I didn't move it back as far as I thought.
Changes made from previous image
Overall quality set to 0.5
Atmosphere samples set to 48.
Fog samples set to 48.
Jack-o-lantern was repositioned.
I'm probably going to move it back further so it lights up the tree more.
I did another render overnight, here are the changes from the image above.
Atmosphere samples and fog samples are now 24.
Pumpkin has been rotated 35 degrees clockwise from last image and repositioned.
I'm not sure which I like better, this one or the one above.
I believe thats the final render for this scene.
It works. The grain has smoothed out. Happy Halloween! 8)
Quote from: njeneb on September 29, 2009, 06:51:37 PM
It works. The grain has smoothed out. Happy Halloween! 8)
Yep, somehow I was able to decrease the samples and it came out better. Guess the positioning and angle helped there.