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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: Hannes on December 21, 2009, 05:44:57 PM

Title: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on December 21, 2009, 05:44:57 PM
Officially my first image with the new release. Unofficially my 140.000th one  ;D. Anyway I really love the improvements!!! Thanks to you Planetside staff  :)

In this image you can see lots of power fractal terrains with different sizes, one negative crater shader, some strata and outcrops shaders, a few twist and shear shaders, three fake stones shaders and the shaders I forgot to mention.
I used Aymenk2003's Zoulik shrubs and Freelancah's Medusa.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Henry Blewer on December 21, 2009, 06:12:38 PM
Very good strata and color. Love it!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: FrankB on December 21, 2009, 06:21:11 PM
oh yes! This is a great render. Lovely detail and variance everywhere. Bigger please :)
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: PorcupineFloyd on December 21, 2009, 06:22:45 PM
Great surfacing. This image is very hot :-) Literally :)
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: otakar on December 21, 2009, 06:24:50 PM
Stunning! Seems like a place I hiked in not long ago! Great variety in rock structures! A++
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 21, 2009, 07:02:42 PM
this one is really really good...composition, terrain, surfacing...
i want to see a bigger render too  :o
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: CCC on December 21, 2009, 07:04:36 PM
Reminds me of some parts just outside of Zion minus the erosion.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Kadri on December 21, 2009, 07:45:16 PM
Great image , Hannes  :)
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Mandrake on December 21, 2009, 10:27:34 PM
Print it! Beauty!!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: choronr on December 21, 2009, 11:51:33 PM
My favorite kind of scene. Artistically and quality wise, this is an outstanding render.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Linda McCarthy on December 22, 2009, 12:58:12 AM
Just plain awesome!  Excellent, inspiring work.  Linda
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 03:13:15 AM
Thank you all!!! At the moment I am rendering a hi res version. It's going to take some time. I'll post it as soon as it's finished.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Dune on December 22, 2009, 03:30:36 AM
I agree with all of the above (fine detail, composition is great), but I must say that something is nagging. The lonely tree seems way too big. To me, this looks like a big landscape, the 'bushes' to my eye are trees about 5-8 meters high, so that makes the one tree a real giant. What if you decrease the lonely tree dramatically....
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 03:37:53 AM
It may be difficult to get the scale without having reference objects, that's true. But the bushes were intended to be bushes, so it's the scale I had in my mind. Btw the tree had double the size in my first attempts, which looked REALLY ridiculous.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: EoinArmstrong on December 22, 2009, 03:56:00 AM
Love the lighting and the stones - nice terrain shapes too :)
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 04:30:36 AM
i m very curious about your terrain setup...is it possible to see a network screenshot please ?
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: inkydigit on December 22, 2009, 04:55:37 AM
agree with Bob, this is most excellent, I too am curious about your terrain/displacement set up....looking forward to the hi-res!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 05:23:14 AM
OK, I'll post it, when the render is ready. I hope you won't be disappointed, because I didn't really know what I was doing. This node stuff is really a little bit too abstract for me. I like to work intentionally, and that's what I did. I added a bit of this and a bit of that, deleted something, and in the end I had something, but I don't know exactly how.

First I used different power fractals with different scales in the terrain tab. One of them with a stretched noise. I also used a crater shader with negative displacement to get the tower shape. I moved it below the other displacements to make it more irregular. I then wanted to distort only the "tower" a little more, so I created a new surface layer, made it completely red to distinguish it from the other shaders. I used a distribution shader and a distance shader to modify only the tower with a little bit of twist and shear and strata shaders. I then moved this shader below the others, so the displacement remained but the (kind of override) red colour wasn't visible anymore.
When I was adding the first fake stones shader I accidentally typed in a ridiculously high value, which gave me another nice deformation and colorization right in front of the tower.

For the colours I use a power fractal image function additionally to the colour itself most of the time. Usually I start with a grey surface layer, then I add a more brownish layer with less coverage, and then I add whatever fits my needs.

Adding plants wasn't very difficult. The generous people in this friendly forum provide us with everything we need. Thank you all!!!
I hope that I can contribute something in the future.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: schmeerlap on December 22, 2009, 05:52:23 AM
Wonderfully textured and stratified landscape. Though the size of that Medusa tree is jarring with my sense of proportions too. Putting that scaling issue aside, this is an excellent render.

John
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Henry Blewer on December 22, 2009, 07:57:09 AM
I use huge fake stones quite often to make the terrain more varied. It's a great technique. You have done a great job, I look forward to the larger render!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: domdib on December 22, 2009, 11:23:54 AM
Great displacements, and really love the lighting.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: GioMez on December 22, 2009, 11:41:12 AM
Stunning.. really!
I love everything in this image!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: buzzzzz1 on December 22, 2009, 11:55:35 AM
Extremely realistic scene, especially the Lighting and shadows. Everything looks superb but I think I would forget the hero tree and add a little breakup and and/or displacement to the strata.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 12:11:30 PM
OK OK OK, right now the last quarter of the high res version is rendering. WITH the hero tree.
BUT I decided to render an even higher resolution render with some improvements regarding the details WITHOUT the tree afterwards. I have to think what can be the eyecatcher or the scale reference instead.
It's always a problem for me to break up the strata. Whenever I use a power fractal as a blend shader I get the strata broken up but also some nasty displacement, even if I uncheck the displacement.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: FrankB on December 22, 2009, 01:13:51 PM
Quote from: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 12:11:30 PM
Whenever I use a power fractal as a blend shader I get the strata broken up but also some nasty displacement, even if I uncheck the displacement.

...that's because the displacement is ignored when you use a power fractal as  a blend shader. Only the color information of  the power fractal is interpreted as a mask. If you have displacement artifacts, then you need to reduce the color roughness and maybe the color contrast.

Cheers,
Frank
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 03:56:35 PM
Thanks for your reply, Frank, but it's a bit confusing. I want the displacement to be ignored and I want the color information to be interpreted as a mask. Maybe I didn't get you right, but anyway I'll see what I can do.
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: pfrancke on December 22, 2009, 04:41:38 PM
top notch TG image.  I'm looking forward to the next cut!!
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 04:46:26 PM
OK, here is the 3600 px version. No other changes yet. (For some reason I couldn't upload the image unzipped  ???)
http://www.terragen.org/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-6136
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 04:56:19 PM
WOW ! Thanks for the big version , Hannes  :)

Kadri.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 05:21:22 PM
wow thanks...for the high resolution...it's rocks
the strata on the main moutain are maybe too "hard"...but it's just a detail

can you render it 2x bigger again and again and again...... ;D i wan to see every details...i m sure there's a coyote in the background.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 05:27:12 PM
Quote from: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 05:21:22 PM
...
;D i wan to see every details...i m sure there's a coyote in the background.

Where ? I want to see it too ;D LOL

Kadri.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 05:35:51 PM
you have to ask to Hannes the 2x bigger than the bigger version to see it too.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 05:37:13 PM
OK !

Hannes ?  ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 05:45:58 PM
Oh boy!! ;)
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 05:50:18 PM
oh dude...show us you got balls
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 05:52:40 PM
I'd rather show you some images  ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 05:53:11 PM
Or a coyote LOL  ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 05:56:08 PM
Or maybe the balls of a coyote...  ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 05:56:52 PM
...that would require a really high resolution...
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 05:57:10 PM
OK !

;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 05:58:29 PM
x 1.5 bigger ?
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 06:04:45 PM
When I have fixed some things I'll try a 6000px wide render (in crops), but it's going to take some time.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Kadri on December 22, 2009, 06:08:16 PM
Quote from: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 06:04:45 PM
When I have fixed some things I'll try a 6000px wide render (in crops), but it's going to take some time.

Wooops  :o     ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 22, 2009, 06:09:49 PM
Quote from: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 06:04:45 PMbut it's going to take some time.

if you have enough time, i think you will not regret it.
i like a lot the right side background...i can make a beautiful standalone picture if you crop it in your 6000px render.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: EoinArmstrong on December 23, 2009, 04:12:33 AM
Holy monkey... the hi-res render is jaw-dropping - amazing job :D
Title: Re: Mesa
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 23, 2009, 05:00:56 AM
Very sweet work again! I like your style :)
Nice colors and composition. The strata are cool, though a bit sharp and less breakup.
The scales of the objects do work, but for me they don't speak for themselves. At first glance I thought it looked odd.
In overall very good work again, missed your work lately and I hope you get back soon with something new.

Quote from: Hannes on December 22, 2009, 03:56:35 PM
Thanks for your reply, Frank, but it's a bit confusing. I want the displacement to be ignored and I want the color information to be interpreted as a mask. Maybe I didn't get you right, but anyway I'll see what I can do.

I think you didn't get Frank right. If you use a powerfractal as blendshader for coverage then the shader ignores the displacement information, so the problem is in the colors of the mask.

You can do 2 things. First, like Frank said, try to decrease roughness and contrast to get a smoother fractal so you won't get spiky artefacts.
Second, like I often do, do the opposite: make a very contrasty fractal with low roughness. Say contrast 5-10 and roughness around 0.5-1.
This way you will get sharp breakup patterns which are very well visible and probably will not give displacement artefacts.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 23, 2009, 05:05:05 AM
Ah, that sounds good! Thank you. I'll try that.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 23, 2009, 05:15:14 AM
in the case of blend shader...i don't know if terragen do a extra computing to calculate something if the displacement box of the powerfractal is checked even it's not used. Did terragen ignore completly this during the render or is it a good idea to uncheck it ?
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 23, 2009, 08:16:04 AM
Bad news:
My computer is too weak to render a 6000px image. Even a small crop (a 16th of the whole image) failed to render.
Unfortunately I still have XP 32bit and only 3GB RAM.
For now it doesn't work in that high resolution, but I'll improve some things and render it again in 3600px (or maybe 4000 if it works).
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Henry Blewer on December 23, 2009, 09:57:52 AM
I have been having difficulties with large renders on my machine with 2.1. With 3 GB there is not really anything you can do. But stay tuned, I have been working on a solution.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 23, 2009, 10:01:11 AM
I'm curious!
Next year I'm going to tune my computer and move to 64bit!!!!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Henry Blewer on December 23, 2009, 12:26:53 PM
I am thinking of making this computer 64 bit. It can do it, but 4 GB does not seem to be enough memory. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? I will start a new thread in the Open Discussion area.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: rcallicotte on December 23, 2009, 02:34:10 PM
Incredible, Hannes.  Love the lighting and the strata looks believably real.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Hannes on December 24, 2009, 04:45:47 AM
Right now I am rendering an improved version with a width of 3600px again. As I wrote my computer isn't able to render higher resolutions at the moment. It is not possible to render the lower half of the image at once (my friend the "an error occured in a render thread"-message appeared). I know it is a not-enough-RAM issue.
BUT:
if I open two instances of TG2 and render a quarter each, it works.
This is strange. It's the same amount of "work", and more RAM is used for the two instances of TG2, but there are no errors and it works like a charm. It's even a little bit faster.

If someone mentioned this before, I'm terribly sorry for the confusion!  ;D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution
Post by: Malcolm79 on December 24, 2009, 08:53:56 AM
Strange, but this artwork reminds me game "MYST 2. Riven". Fantastic work!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on December 25, 2009, 09:49:40 AM
Here's a new version. I took all your advices and hope that it's an improvement (sorry Freelancah, the medusa is gone!).
Unfortunately I'm not able to upload the high res version to Ashundar. For uploading it as an image the resolution is too high, and when I try to upload it as a zip file, it fails and tells me something about some quota. Any suggestions? The high res image has less than 2MB.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 25, 2009, 04:57:15 PM
That looks sweet, can't wait to see it full-res :)
If I want to upload huge images I do it on my deviant-art account.

Martin
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Oshyan on December 25, 2009, 05:17:29 PM
Quote from: Hannes on December 25, 2009, 09:49:40 AM
Here's a new version. I took all your advices and hope that it's an improvement (sorry Freelancah, the medusa is gone!).
Unfortunately I'm not able to upload the high res version to Ashundar. For uploading it as an image the resolution is too high, and when I try to upload it as a zip file, it fails and tells me something about some quota. Any suggestions? The high res image has less than 2MB.

I've increased the upload size and allowed image size, although images larger than 4000 pixels wide will be downsampled. The quota issue has to do with the number of posts you have made on the site. To encourage participation in the forum community, we tie the amount of space you are given in the galleries to the number of posts you've made. We've just moved to a new server so I've gone ahead and increased the quotas for most member types. So you should be able to upload. If you run out of space, you can delete old files, or post in the forums.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Henry Blewer on December 25, 2009, 07:10:23 PM
It did not think this could be improved much. I was wrong. Great work. 8)
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on December 26, 2009, 01:08:11 AM
Thanks Oshyan, it worked!!
Here is the high res version. I will revisit this one as soon as I have more RAM and a 64bit OS. I had a lot of fun creating this image. I replaced the medusa with another (smaller) dead tree and added some more fake stones shaders and some other things. I broke up the strata on the tower (thanks TU and Frank!) which gave me some strange but interesting formations. Hope you like it.
http://www.terragen.org/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Oshyan on December 26, 2009, 01:30:20 AM
Glad it worked. I love the little touches you can see now. The people and the coyote work surprisingly well and are nicely integrated into the scene. Great work.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on December 26, 2009, 01:38:15 AM
Hey, you found the coyote!  ;D

Thanks for your comment. I have to admit that the coyote is added in Photoshop. First I wanted to place a billboard with this image of the coyote into the scene, but since it's really a pain to place objects correctly I chose the easy way. Everything else is pure TG!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: choronr on December 26, 2009, 01:39:52 AM
This is absolutely incredible ...you will be inspiring many with this outstanding image.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: domdib on December 26, 2009, 04:51:45 AM
Outstanding!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Thelby on December 26, 2009, 08:40:27 AM
This is in the WOW category and really lives up to its billing!!!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Kadri on December 26, 2009, 11:08:35 AM
Coyote  ;D (ı turned my pc new on)
And yes the human and coyote works really. This is a outstanding image Hannes  :)

Cheers.

Kadri.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: ndeewolfwood on December 26, 2009, 12:33:09 PM
hey hannes nice improvement with the rocks structures...nice coyote too..
but what about this crappy jpeg compression...it's like using a Ferrari with a Lada engine.
We loosing every subtles détails here, please make something about this....
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Hannes on December 26, 2009, 01:18:59 PM
OK, you're right. I replaced the link above with a highest quality JPG image.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: Linda McCarthy on December 26, 2009, 09:08:31 PM
Even more impressive.  AWEsome!  Thanks for the inspiration.  Linda

Quote from: Hannes on December 26, 2009, 01:08:11 AM
Here is the high res version. I will revisit this one as soon as I have more RAM and a 64bit OS. I had a lot of fun creating this image. I replaced the medusa with another (smaller) dead tree and added some more fake stones shaders and some other things. I broke up the strata on the tower (thanks TU and Frank!) which gave me some strange but interesting formations. Hope you like it.
http://www.terragen.org/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: freelancah on December 27, 2009, 03:47:57 PM
Wonderful work. You can really get a sense of scale here! I must say I think its better without the medusa tree :D
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: aymenk2003 on December 27, 2009, 05:58:53 PM
Wonderful work....Great desert ...
Help I'm Lost...
N_KAID
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: matrix2003 on December 29, 2009, 02:02:10 PM
Fantastic image!  The details are endless.
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: mhaze on December 29, 2009, 02:29:36 PM
Just one word - SUPERB!!!!
Title: Re: Mesa now in higher resolution (Updated)
Post by: MacGyver on December 30, 2009, 06:44:03 AM
Aaaaaaaaaah!!! I just saw the link to the hi-res version! Simply supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! :D