I am trying to add an object, a planet or a moon, to hover in the sky over top of the mountains, and I am having a problem getting my planets to show up, they are so faint that you can barely see them. They end up clear and transparent.
Yes, I am a beginner.
I try to put color into them but still no go.
Some of my classmates are having the same problem.
Could someone here give us a quick tut on how to put some color or at least make them opaque. Or bright!
We did fine with the Earth, but one in the sky is our trouble.
Thank you!
Jane
A render and/or .tgd would help greatly, as I have no clue why this is happening. My first guess would be that the planet isn't transparent but just hard to see through the atmosphere.
Ive got one cookin' now on my other Mac, will put it here very soon,,,,
Then we can see where I am going wrong, I hope.
Thank you,
Jane
Here it is, I made it dark red, its very very light pink.
(http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1WYsn04LPu9hzsY95bcXjFCGKbJpy_thumb.jpg) (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1WYsn04LPu9hzsY95bcXjFCGKbJpy)
Its behind the clouds, but still its way too light for what I need.
(I Photoshopped it for more contrast)
Jane
well you could tone down the color to make it less vibrent, you could place it farther away, or you could photoshop it. these are just some quick fixs mind you.
Regards,
Will
Will - don't you mean place the planet closer to get a more vibrant color?
I made the color bright so that I could find it, some of the others I made were not visible at all.
Is there a way to make them look more 'solid'? I will leave the clouds out of the next one.
Thanks again,
Jane
Jane, post the tgd in here. Also look at melting Ice's Tut in the tutorials section on adding planets, worked wonders for me.
It actually looks more purple than pink, but that's normal considering the light reflected from the planet is red and essentially passing through a blue filter (the atmosphere). If you want it to appear dark red, you will most likely have to photoshop it, unless you are willing to consider drastically altering the atmosphere. Terragen 2 uses realistic lighting principles and atmospheric light scattering. I don't know of any way to bypass these routines. One thing you might want to try is placing it higher up in the sky. The amount of atmosphere between the planet and the viewpoint is lesser the further it is from the horizon, and thus will have less of an effect on the light passing through it.
One more thing: Because of the realistic lighting, a planet is only as visible as the sunlight it reflects. Just like the moon. If you want them to be more visible, increase thier brightness by either making them paler or increasing thier saturation. The colors toward the paler end of the spectrum will be more visible. It is also important to remember that the atmosphere itself is an object, and thus can have significant effects on the appearance of things that are behind it. And putting the planet closer won't have any effect until you reach the atmosphere, at which point the effect of the atmosphere will be lessened as the distance between the planet and the viewpoint decreases, and thusly, the amount of intervening atmosphere.
here this should help....
http://paths.meltingice.net/tg2/adding_planets.html
Wow, thank you all for these answers! I will get cookin on some more soon. I think that now I will understand his tut, beforehand I was a bit bewildered. But I sure am catching on fast today. Here goes another one,,,,,,,
I dont save my .tgd s because none of them are very good. I just save them as .bmp s in a folder for our classwork.
When I get a good one, I will start to save.
Jane
They are actually opaque ;) Just look at the moon when it's visible during daytime. You'll see a crecent and the part that is not illuminated fades into the sky. If you want your whole planet to be visible you need to either move your sun so the visible side of the planet is in the light (i.e. the sun would be somewhere behind you. Or if you want to fake it, give the planet self illumination.
Oh, indeed thank you! Soon as this render finishes I will start on a new one and follow the tut as I go.
I know I should have TG2 on both my Macs, but they would both be tied up.
Another question, whilst rendering, can you be working on another picture on the same computer?
I do have other programs running, but I try to remember not to, and do my other stuff on this Mac.
Jane
Rendering is very CPU-intensive. It is possible to be doing all manner of things while a render is going, but exactly what strongly depends on your system specs. I browse and chat on the forums here while my renders are going without much trouble but I use Firefox and I have an Alienware Area-51m. I actually own two computers but they are in different rooms now and I use this one for rendering and foruming.
I start my tg in low priority. So it renders in the background and doesn't interfere with my other business.
Yes, my CPU is quite busy with TG2 on my new big Mac, but I manage to do other things(however I try to remember not to play with Google Earth at the same time).
I was wondering if while one is rendering you could be working on another TG image, but I know that wont work.
I should install TG2 on this Mac, but its a couple of years older than the new one and I know it wont cook TG2 renders as quickly.
Anyway, here goes another planet after reading everything,,,,Thank you all!
Jane
On my pc if I want to play with another scene I just start a second copy of TG. I've even done copy and pasting nodes from one instance to another. Didn't have any problems. You probably will experience some slowdowns if both instances are on the same priority level. (don't know how to set that on a Mac though).
Jane - what kind of Mac do you have? If it's one of the new Intel dual-core ones, you can make a copy of the TG2 application using command-d, and then run that one as well. You don't really have to worry about priority, because the system will automatically allocate the processing time pretty well, but you will have to watch out for RAM. I would recommend having at least 1GB (preferably over 1.5GB) when running two instances.
I can do that with other programs, but I guess we Macs cant do the priority thing.
I will try running 2 TG2s later, (I had better start dinner around here.)
Gee Ive certainly learned a lot here today, you all are wonderful.
I am going to give my 2 classmates who have been having planet problems the link to that awesome tut!
Thanks again,
Jane
Adding,,,,,Ive got 1.5 G on the newer Mac. But I dont have a MacTel yet, I plan on getting one this spring, but my computer room is not that big,,,,,,I should give this one to my husband.
I think you will find this to be one of the friendliest and most helpful forums on the internet, as i have. Hopefully we will see some of your wonderful work soon!
I love it! And you all are so amazingly helpful.
I could TG2 all evening, but someone better start dinner,,,,,,,or my husband will eat everything in sight.
Jane
i too am having trouble getting my planets visible in my render's.
can anyone explain the process to make the planet self illuminating?
this is what i'm getting now
Take a look at the TGD I placed here:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=713.0
The sun is a self illuminating planet.
It almost looks like your sky planet is being eclipsed by your terrain planet. That can happen pretty easily if the sky planet is too close. Try moving it farther away and making it bigger to compensate, then you should be able to move it out of the shadow. You can make it self-illuminating too, but that's not as realistic.
Finally!
(http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1V5gAKTO6i6BLqhzugIHwcprxJURV1_thumb.jpg) (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1V5gAKTO6i6BLqhzugIHwcprxJURV1)
Thanks for all your help, I am finally on the right track,
Jane
Quote from: Angealus on February 10, 2007, 04:17:35 PM
here this should help....
http://paths.meltingice.net/tg2/adding_planets.html
Haha thats the old site, use this link: http://www.designpaths.com/terragen-tutorials/adding-planets/
EDIT: looks like you got the issue fixed, glad to hear it :D
looks nice great job :0
regards,
Will
Great work!
Ice can you have the new one put in the tut sticky???? :)