Planetside Software Forums

Support => Terragen Support => Topic started by: AnKOu on November 03, 2010, 03:38:39 PM

Title: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 03, 2010, 03:38:39 PM
Hi, I created a skybox for a l4d2 campaign and when I test my skybox ingame, I've got a strange result.

-> http://uppix.net/b/f/7/7bc146b5e1b3ea9bd03ca30391e7f.jpg

I do not understand why it doesn't work well.

Have you any idea?

Thanx and sorry if I made some mistake i'm french.
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Henry Blewer on November 03, 2010, 04:56:33 PM
I think it is how the lighting is setup in the game. Blender gets the same drop off and mismatched surface illumination. A hemisphere might work better for the sky, instead of a cube.
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 03, 2010, 05:05:17 PM
Thx for your answer, but it isnt the game, because when i look the picture with Windows, there is the same problem.

The top of my front view is green whereas the coresponding edge of my up view is just blue.

Besides, I can't make an emisphere because the way to make sky in the source engine is skybox
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 03, 2010, 05:15:11 PM
This is likely due to differences in GI among your different renders.
I suppose you rendered these with GI?
For every render of the same picture the renderer comes with a slightly different GI solution which can introduce slight differences. These differences are always most prominent in the atmosphere.

You could try to increase GI blur radius a bit too smoothen it out. Be careful not to increase it too much since it will remove a lot of nice details in your clouds.
Normally it is set at 8, so try to improve it to 16, 32 etc., but not above 100 I'd say.

Martin
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 03, 2010, 07:41:03 PM
I tried to set the GI blur radius to 64, but I didn't saw any variations then i try 128, no variation again :/

Do you want that I give some information? I'm a beginner with terragen and I don't know what could help you to understand the problem  :-\

Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 04, 2010, 03:07:15 AM
Quote from: AnKOu on November 03, 2010, 07:41:03 PM
I tried to set the GI blur radius to 64, but I didn't saw any variations then i try 128, no variation again :/

Do you want that I give some information? I'm a beginner with terragen and I don't know what could help you to understand the problem  :-\


If you could make a .tgd with all the 5/6 cameras set up for each side of the cube and then post it here?
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 07:36:09 AM
here is the .tdg in attachment
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 04, 2010, 09:00:52 AM
Thanks. I'll be home in about 4 hours and will take a look at it tonight.
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 12:51:43 PM
Thanx for helping hand :)
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 04, 2010, 02:56:12 PM
Ok, first I rendered the "Up" camera and then the "West" camera.
I ended up with a faint seam near the edges of the image, but I think it's not that hard to remove those:
Here's how it looks glued together so far.
What do you think?
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 03:30:37 PM
The result is pretty good, but i'm not sure to understand how you proceed .

You have rendered the two views separately and them glue them together? But how have you done to get the correct seam (colors matching)?

Then do I should repeat this process with the west&north and west&south views?

Besides, I would like to keep the green of the original view (attachment) is that possible? Or maybe I could modify the up view in photoshop or other to match the up colour with the others?
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 04, 2010, 03:42:42 PM
Quote from: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 03:30:37 PM
The result is pretty good, but i'm not sure to understand how you proceed .

You have rendered the two views separately and them glue them together? But how have you done to get the correct seam (colors matching)?

Then do I should repeat this process with the west&north and west&south views?

Besides, I would like to keep the green of the original view (attachment) is that possible? Or maybe I could modify the up view in photoshop or other to match the up colour with the others?

The result I posted is straight from the renderer. I merged the two pictures in photoshop and did nothing about the seams.
Unfortunately I'm not sure if I can elaborate about how I'm rendering this due to NDA reasons.
One other side also has seams I see now, so it's not watertight.
Looking at your scene and setup I'm strongly thinking you might even get rid of GI completely and then render it. 100% sure it will be seamless then.
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 04:21:52 PM
I just tried to not enable the GI but it "break" everything, I havn't the blue fog and so on.

Then I will try to correct the up in photoshop by playing with hue/saturation/color, I think I can succeed.

It is just like there was a color overlay over.

Thank for your help again.

Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: domdib on November 04, 2010, 06:13:54 PM
Have you tried Microsoft's free ICE panorama stitcher? It's pretty good at getting rid of seams.
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 04, 2010, 07:32:12 PM
I've some difficulties with photoshop then i tried your software but it doesnt solve my problem.

Thanx for your answer :)
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 05, 2010, 07:22:26 AM
I've been rendering more sides of your cube, but can't get it fixed yet, sorry :(
I keep on having little seams.

Pity is that I can't disable GI here because you used quite funny settings for your atmosphere.
In other words: you made it rely extremely on GI in regards to the colors of the atmosphere, but the subtle lighting in clouds isn't there at all since the clouds are not very dense, in a dense atmosphere, and more importantly in 2D.
So by design you could render this one without GI, since it wouldn't contribute much to your clouds anyway.

The only thing you could try is to reproduce the same type of atmosphere and cloud with the usual sane settings. By that I mean not to derive too much from the default settings. Then render that result without GI.

For starters you could use the default atmosphere and tweak the clouds in such a way that they are already quite faint. Then reduce the exposure of your camera and render.

Martin
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 05, 2010, 02:43:27 PM
Yes I have to do without GI, thanx a lot for explanations :)
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 05, 2010, 08:42:38 PM
Finaly, I succeed to get the result I wished by playing with ambiant and fake dark power tweak.

I'm pretty happy, thanx to everyone who helps me, especially Tangled-Universe :)
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: Tangled-Universe on November 06, 2010, 05:30:57 AM
Quote from: AnKOu on November 05, 2010, 08:42:38 PM
Finaly, I succeed to get the result I wished by playing with ambiant and fake dark power tweak.

I'm pretty happy, thanx to everyone who helps me, especially Tangled-Universe :)

You're welcome. Using fake dark power was a smart move :)
If you'd like could you show the final result? Always nice to see :)

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: AnKOu on November 06, 2010, 01:02:29 PM
Here is the final render

http://uppix.net/b/0/e/94786a9da5caecf95d5a25747a282.png

Maybe too blue, I should change the blue saturation.

And if you want to see more about our project :

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dniepr
Title: Re: Lighting problem
Post by: freelancah on November 06, 2010, 03:46:18 PM
The way you can fix seams easily is f.e. use HDRshop to convert to equitangular format then you can clonestamp the seams away in photoshop. Its fast and efficent. Then you can just convert back to boxes..