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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: dandelO on May 11, 2010, 11:05:36 PM

Title: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: dandelO on May 11, 2010, 11:05:36 PM
This is just a short, and quite low resolution animation that I have been messing around with to try and get to grips with animating multiple parameters. I used cloud for the falling snow and one variation of my snow shaders set(available in file sharing forum).

I've only really ever animated one or two parameters at a time before when I've played around in TG, like cloud warp settings or sun behind clouds etc. I thought it was about time I got stuck in and learneded myself something! :D

It doesn't look much, and it's short, but for me(and my poor computer) it was quite the task! I wanted to see how my snow shaders piled up over time. I'm happy at how they work, I wish I could make it longer and bigger(Ohhh, Matron!) but, I guess that'll have to wait until I'm somewhat richer. This was over 16 hours rendering 300 frames. :( Not including an extra 70 frames that were binned and re-rendered due to a nasty, sharp altitude constraint I had set up first time round.

Anyway, be gentle, I've never really taken a serious attempt at TG anim' before. The ground covering is a little abrupt.

http://www.vimeo.com/11672106

And, thanks for looking! :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Oshyan on May 11, 2010, 11:58:39 PM
Wow, that's remarkably effective! I'm impressed.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: FrankB on May 12, 2010, 01:52:55 AM
me too!  :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Dune on May 12, 2010, 02:09:02 AM
This really, really cool, dandel0! The falling snow is excellently done. Never seen anything like it, so get yourself another computer and render away at a long movie...

---Dune
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Martchi on May 12, 2010, 02:11:13 AM
Bravo!Clap!clap!clap!
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Seth on May 12, 2010, 02:12:35 AM
the piling-up snow is really impressive.
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: dandelO on May 12, 2010, 02:43:50 AM
Thanks a lot, all! :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 12, 2010, 02:48:27 AM
That looks really cool!
The pile-up of the foreground section is a bit fast, but else it is really convincing :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Hannes on May 12, 2010, 04:01:02 AM
Wow, incredible! This is really fantastic!
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: inkydigit on May 12, 2010, 04:14:01 AM
I echo the above...really clever!
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: dandelO on May 12, 2010, 04:34:50 AM
Cheers, all! :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: cyphyr on May 12, 2010, 06:46:12 AM
very good :) do more !!
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Henry Blewer on May 12, 2010, 07:52:36 AM
Really cool stuff. ::) I like the intersection shift test also.
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on May 12, 2010, 08:14:31 AM
snow in the middle of spring! (for me)
that was cool, seeing the snow pile up & down looked interesting
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: dandelO on May 12, 2010, 08:40:15 AM
Henry, the intersection shifting is exactly the same frames as the first part of the video, just speeded up and reversed to better show the actual pile-up moving up and down as more intersection is added. :)

Cheers again, folks! :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Mor on May 12, 2010, 08:43:27 AM
Amazing! Great job!
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: j meyer on May 12, 2010, 10:05:41 AM
 8) Very nice!  8)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: dandelO on May 12, 2010, 10:27:28 AM
Quote from: Dune on May 12, 2010, 02:09:02 AM
This really, really cool, dandel0! The falling snow is excellently done. Never seen anything like it, so get yourself another computer and render away at a long movie...

---Dune

I beg to differ, Ulco. You've actually played with this method yourself to some extent. Remember this thread from late last year that Falcon started? http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8099.0

I no longer have the .tgd that I uploaded to page 3 of the thread but as far as I remember, it's much the same setup here as I used there.

The main difference in this animation is that the cloud layer is much thicker and begins(base altitude) above the mountains. This layer's base altitude is dropped to beneath ground-level and a seperate fractal blending shader supplies complete coverage and warping throughout. The warping ranges from '0' in the first frame that contains snow(frame 100), to '1' in the final frame(frame 300).

Other animated parameters are as follows(from/to);

Sky cloud layer - Cloud depth(10 / 50), fractal coverage(0 / 1), colour(0.35 / 0.1), scattering colour(0.35 / 1) density(0.01 / 0.025), fake internal scattering(0.25 / 5) and warping(0 / 0.5).

Flake layer - Fractal coverage(-1 / -0.75), layer altitude(3500 / 2000) and density(0 / 0.01), the blending shader to this layer has the animated warping controls(0 / 1).

Snow shader surface layer - Coverage(0 / 2) and intersection shifting(0 / 1).

I think that's it all.
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: Kadri on May 12, 2010, 10:56:09 AM
Nothing much to add here! Looks nice DandelO  :)
Title: Re: Snowfall and Pile-Up (animation)
Post by: ra on May 14, 2010, 02:34:53 PM
Cool! Well done!