couldn't help but try a few ideas on a procedural planet project that was resting in my projects folder for a long while.
There are a few things left that I'd like to try and do, but I thought I might as well share where I am at with this project.
Cheers,
Frank
... so bad? ;)
Not at all, just out enjoying the 3 day weekend here in the US ;) I like the overall shapes of the continents, but the tiny fractal detail all along the coast could use a blendshader to make it less consistent and softer. I really like the color of the water, especially the shallow turquoise areas. Throw some clouds on this bad boy and it's well on it's way to some greatness!
Thanks Darth!
Here's another iteration....
Very nice Frank! In the large image where ocean meets land..there is some dark shorelines. If you could somehow smooth those out I think it would be perfect
Quote from: freelancah on February 20, 2012, 04:47:36 PM
Very nice Frank! In the large image where ocean meets land..there is some dark shorelines. If you could somehow smooth those out I think it would be perfect
Thank you :)
I'm actually working on these now. Tricky little bastards are hard to come by ;)
unfortunately I discovered a flaw in the way I put this together, that introduced these shore line cliffs. I can't fix it with this approach so I have to try something else. Procedural planets, especially the earth like ones, are really difficult to make. More than I expected. >:(
If keep you posted on progress...
Frank
Here is another iteration
...
and this is the latest.
It has an icy northpole and more landmass along the eqautor, less landmass towards the poles.
I've added just a few clouds, as it seemed so wrong without any at all. I'll work on some global clouds later.
Frank
The last two looks good Frank.
The shapes of the continents look great. Maybe there's a little bit too much displacement. Looking forward to a more cloudy version!
Quote from: Hannes on February 22, 2012, 05:38:01 AM
The shapes of the continents look great. Maybe there's a little bit too much displacement. Looking forward to a more cloudy version!
Thanks Hannes!
There definitely is too much displacement, particularly in image Planet57, but also to a degree in image Planet59.
All still WIP of course. More clouds will come at the very end of this project.
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: FrankB on February 21, 2012, 07:52:36 AM
unfortunately I discovered a flaw in the way I put this together, that introduced these shore line cliffs. I can't fix it with this approach so I have to try something else. Procedural planets, especially the earth like ones, are really difficult to make. More than I expected. >:(
Frank
Yes they are. ;D I'm curious how things look at ground level. When I was working on my procedural planets I would always run into issues where I had to choose between nice global scale with strange fractal artifacts at ground level or nice ground level detail but lacking in global fidelity.
Hi Stephen,
I am open for nice surprises, but I don't expect to be able to get awesome detail on ground level, especially not far from the origin. Perhaps the detail will suffice for a few km distance from the surface. However, as far as I can tell, I have found a way to not have loads of spiky artifacts on the planet (which was a problem I had with a previous setup), which is encouraging.
Secondly, I actually expect people to want to use this for space shots and close orbit level animations perhaps.
But I don't know, maybe I can push this further somehow. I definitely plan to perfect and add a couple of features, such as the ice caps, latitude dependend landmass distribution, and climate zone dependend surface texturing.
Frank
some renders from different altitudes
from space
from 500m above ground
from below 10m above ground
the space render already shows the climate dependant texturing along the equator. By the way, the two close ups are from near the equator.... so far from the origin.
This looking great. Getting the full variation of a real planet is a cool goal but ultimately extremely difficult. I mean how many differing types of terrain are there (colour/morphology). Loads is the answer I think. So going for a planet that is best viewed from a minimum altitude is probably a good way forward.
<planet rant mode>
The other thing that people always ask for is a "FULLY PROCEDURAL PLANET", something they can place a camera absolutely anywhere and get great shots. I think this is a flawed idea because although it would be great just how much of a planet can you ever see in one shot/animation. You'll never see most of the planet simply because as the camera gets close enough to see detail its field of view limits how much can bee seen. Yes you can see the "canyon" in beautiful detail but you can't see all the all the rest of the planets detail at the same time. So all that detail and work is wasted. That's a lot of processing power and creative potentially time freed up.
A better way would be to use a "fully procedural planet" (small case!) for setting up your shot and then have a way of adding detail to ONLY SPECIFIC AREAS where the camer will be close enough to see them.
I do wonder if the old planet surface node (now removed from TG but still functional ~ loads if issues and nor that great ... but) could be re purposed in this way somehow ...
</planet rant mode>
Keep the updates coming.
Richard
Oh come on, Richard ;)
I think the 10m picture shows that you can easily have some decent detail everywhere on a TG2 planet. It allows you to completely zoom out from ground to space, without having to create multiple scenes and stiching shots together. Still, nothing stops you from adding detail where you're close.
And about the variety of terrain: there are ways to make procedural texturing look complex enough.
I know you had your own procedural planet project a couple years ago, why not look at it again and see if the years of learning TG2 have left you in a better position now to pick it up again and improve it further? It's great fun, I bet you remember :)
Cheers,
Frank
Ooops, I really didn't mean to offend. The rant bit was entirely not aimed at you but rather the people who want a "one click wonder planet". I know you appreciate the difficulty of the project your taking on. But then if it was so easy .... :)
The detail you have in your close up shots is impressive, don't get me wrong. I meant that the ability to create a wide variety of effects will become exponentially more complex and difficult. In your images the detail has the same "character" in both shots, and this is where the difficulty comes in. To create two or three characters of terrain will be a challenging having them seamlessly blend together and to blend for some sort of "pseudo geological reason" will be difficult, to do any more will be hard in the extreme.
Maybe I'm talking about a different thing but to me a "fully procedural planet" is not just one style of terrain and texture but many blended together in a way that looks believable.
Good luck but to see a planet with a fully "earth" type of variety, with savannah, jungle, rolling hills, alpine mountains, volcanic areas, sedimentary erosions, rivers!, to name a few, (and there would have to be a great many more), and to have these areas blend together in a believable way is a huge challenge. All of these environments Terragen is eminently capable of producing (its got better and so have its users). But getting more than a few to blend together believably is something I never found a satisfactory solution to.
Its why I'm commenting, if you can crack I many others will be veryt greatful.
Go for it and again sorry if I offended.
Richard
PS: Just re-read your post and see you weren't that err.. that bothered (lol ;D ) but I'll leave the comments anyway as I still believe its a worthy challenge.
Oh and I do re-visit the planets frequently, still looking for a working solution. I always end up using a project specific solution.
Looks extremely promising Frank! I see an orbit-to-ground animation in the future... ;D
- Oshyan
Quote from: cyphyr on February 22, 2012, 07:02:24 PM
Ooops, I really didn't mean to offend. The rant bit was entirely not aimed at you but rather the people who want a "one click wonder planet". I know you appreciate the difficulty of the project your taking on. But then if it was so easy .... :)
As you figured out later on, I wasn't offended, why would I?
I agree with you in that It would be a futile attempt to try to create a full blown ecosystem, and that is not my goal, but I would still like to make it reasonably complex, so that it doesn't look too boring.
cheers,
Frank
"...I agree with you in that It would be a futile attempt to try to create a full blown ecosystem, and that is not my goal, but I would still like to make it reasonably complex, so that it doesn't look too boring."
I predict that at some point, someone, will endeavor to create the earth in terragen2 or some other (future) program from pole to pole, including the different climate zones and related ecosystems.
Good going so far FrankB
Looking better! Looking forward of seeing more
after a few weeks long break, I have returned to this project.
I am still not there yet, but I'd like to post an update anyway. This is a 3000px wide render.
I can random seed continents, and they always look good, if I may say so. I've got mountain ranges that align with the continents. I have an adjustable dry desert belt around the planet's equator, and a north pole ice cap.
Surface shading isn't easy for a full planet. As you can see, there is more work to do in this area, and more....
here is the link to the big image (https://img.skitch.com/20120323-x34sb9rxe1npp9c64dt4ubam36.jpg).
Frank
Looking good Frank.
Just an aside, I saw a programme a few weeks ago that was describing the climate conditions on Earth as it rotates about the Sun. In it they highlighted that the equatorial belt is in fact made up of lush rainforest with a band of desert above and below it. Think of Africa, the deserts are in the tropics, the Sahara in the north and the Namibian desert to the south. Australia is in the Southern band and Mexico in the North. This is all due to the rising and falling of massive air currents, heating of the Earths surface etc.
Here's the link Orbit: Earth's Extraordinary Journey (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01d7kd5/Orbit_Earths_Extraordinary_Journey_Episode_1/)
keep going with this one :)
Richard
Some healthy words of advise if i may.
Some distinct separations between the climates, not so soft edged. Some parts may be but from high orbit, the blends are more hard. A blend mix by a super huge alpine shader noise may work if possible giving the illusion of faked-erosion blends along the transitions of climates.
The mountains could use a more elongated chain noise effect on the large scale as in the real world.
Deserts tend to have very bright sandy colors with some dark browns, a tiny bit of grey and reds, dunes and the like. Sure you knew that already. ;)
What are the yellow colors for?
In the forested biomes, i would have more dark green then anything, variations of the mid-darks to darks.
Savannahs if you have any tend to have dull green browns with some reds here and there, not much though.
The color shading is most difficult on a global scale. i am not pretending this is ready, it is merely a snapshot of where I am at.
Quote from: FrankB on March 23, 2012, 07:21:56 PM
The color shading is most difficult on a global scale. i am not pretending this is ready, it is merely a snapshot of where I am at.
Certainly is. I tried wrapping my brain around it looking though various images of earth, studying every inch of where the climates are supposed to be, some earth science involved here. I even would take an image, sample the colors of the earth and bring those colors into terragen. Try and match the HSBs.
Looking promising Frank. This is a seriously tough nut to crack! I will say the mountains in some areas look pretty immense, but then Earth is not the ultimate judge of what should be "normal". Look at Olympus Mons on Mars! ;D
- Oshyan
Next iteration, getting closer now...
https://img.skitch.com/20120326-mump2qx8gtb81hekudhncph7g.jpg
I think you could make a big impact just with giving the ocean some color variations. Very nice progress!
Interesting project Frank. I've been enjoying seeing this progress. You've got some good continent shapes and islands there, and the mountain ranges look like spines from continental tectonics. That overal texture is very good too.
Would it be useful to have a pole to pole set of masks you could use to blend between lateral regions, ie textures blended between equator - northern europe - arctic - polar, etc?
What is the polar axis you're using, along x,y,z?
I am currently only using the Y component to generate the lush equator and the dry belts (thanks for the hint, ChrisC ). Further down the road I also plan using some longitude based masks.
this still needs some time. This is already iteration 107 to be honest :-D
Global texturing isn't easy, but moreso is global displacement! Only the slightest changes in one fractal already create weird unwanted effects elsewhere on the planet. There is a frall dependency between some nodes that surprised me a bit. Should I ever make this available, then I will group all those nodes together that have to do with the landmass and name that group "HANDS OFF" :)
@freelancah: thanks! I had more and deeper water transpareny earlier that looked nice, but was too exaggerated to be real. I am not sure how much color variation there really is about the water, when looked at from space or orbit... I couldn't find a reference photo.
Definitely use the Latitude/Longitude Blue Marble images as reference material. What is nice is you can get real close and color drop select certain climates to transfer over to your project to.
QuoteI couldn't find a reference photo
Have you seen this frankB? Could be useful to someone.
http://deepbluehome.blogspot.com/2011/01/oceans-from-orbit.html
Hi,
Would a latitude/longitude mask be any help or do you find it easy to enough to mask based on those already? I've been doing a bit of geographical stuff lately and it occurred to me a lat/long mask might be useful.
Regards,
Jo
I should have posted a whole earth image in true color for reference from the latest blue marble imagery.
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/74000/74418/world.topo.200408.3x5400x2700.jpg
Quote from: jo on March 26, 2012, 09:25:40 PM
Hi,
Would a latitude/longitude mask be any help or do you find it easy to enough to mask based on those already? I've been doing a bit of geographical stuff lately and it occurred to me a lat/long mask might be useful.
Regards,
Jo
I would just build it from the planet normals, Jo, but if there would be a single node providing customizable lat/long masks, that would be better.
Cheers,
Frank
Excelsior! (as Stan Lee would say) In other words, great image, great work!
Quote from: jo on March 26, 2012, 09:25:40 PM
Hi,
Would a latitude/longitude mask be any help or do you find it easy to enough to mask based on those already? I've been doing a bit of geographical stuff lately and it occurred to me a lat/long mask might be useful.
Regards,
Jo
I was thinking the same Jo. It would be quite simple to knock up a node string that splits the y axis into mask regions. It would also be quite easy to put some modulation in the y blends along x, so that there aren't hard straight lines between textures.
I'd like to have a play with this this evening for you Frank if you don't mind, and I'll post what I come up with.
Quote from: Hetzen on March 27, 2012, 09:30:13 AM
Quote from: jo on March 26, 2012, 09:25:40 PM
Hi,
Would a latitude/longitude mask be any help or do you find it easy to enough to mask based on those already? I've been doing a bit of geographical stuff lately and it occurred to me a lat/long mask might be useful.
Regards,
Jo
I was thinking the same Jo. It would be quite simple to knock up a node string that splits the y axis into mask regions. It would also be quite easy to put some modulation in the y blends along x, so that there aren't hard straight lines between textures.
I'd like to have a play with this this evening for you Frank if you don't mind, and I'll post what I come up with.
Hi Jon, have you read my reply to Jo's question? I'm ok, I know how to do it, but thanks for wanting to help ;)
Ok, I won't post it then!! ;D
Next version. It's a 4k render, so there is a lot of detail to look at.
https://img.skitch.com/20120328-xbrp2uibdagy34gd3jd5smnk84.jpg
Compared to the previous render, this one has some progress on procedural texturing, some fractal tweaks, some adjustments to the water transparency, tweaked atmosphere, and some placeholder global clouds (which will be replaced later).
On my wish list, there are still a few things to tick off, though.
Frank
This is looking better and better all the time!
If you don't mind me asking, is this part of something that might perhaps be for sale at the NWDA site in the future? ;D
Just some more healthy observations. ;)
Quote from: elipsis1 on March 28, 2012, 01:55:10 PM
This is looking better and better all the time!
If you don't mind me asking, is this part of something that might perhaps be for sale at the NWDA site in the future? ;D
Yes, that is the plan, absolutely :)
Quote from: ChrisC on March 28, 2012, 03:57:04 PM
Just some more healthy observations. ;)
Thanks Chris
Very interesting. Looking forward to the final results.
Looks better with every image Frank.
alright... so how is this? https://img.skitch.com/20120329-rnegp7u5ybe9as7amus2c3dwr1.jpg
( a bit low quality atmosphere though, forgot to up the setting before hitting render)
Wow!
Nice!
James
Looks ready to be assimilated.. :o
:#1:
I'm in love................{with the planet, not you, Frank...........;-)}
:o Frank has created Australia?
- Oshyan
And Foster's! :D
Is it true that "Foster's is Australian for beer"? That would make me sad for Australia. ;)
Do you have a mailing list FrankB?
Quote from: TheBadger on April 08, 2012, 05:54:17 PM
Do you have a mailing list FrankB?
What for, Michael?
I've got the NWDA facebook page, that comes close to a mailinglist, I suppose :)
Or have you had something else in mind?
Frank
Hi frank,
I dont face book. I would just like to know when new products are made available by you and the people who work with you. Like the project in this thread for example... But if you always make notice in this forum I guess that works.
Although, it is usually several weeks or months after learning of a product that Im interested in before I buy it. And finding the thread after that long can bee bothersome.
For example, when I went to buy you tornado file I could not find it on the website, I had to go back and find the link here, which then took me to the page.
I usually keep emails for a long time if it has interesting information in it. So a mailing list would be better for me to stay informed about your website.
No worries, I just don't want to miss out of forget something I'm interested in.
Quote"Foster's is Australian for beer"
Only according to Fosters.
I don't drink and even I know that Fosters is well down the list of popular beers here in Australia...........
On more important things; I'm still in love with that planet - but that ain't Australia; not even close [it's way too green, for one.......hehe]............
Quote from: Erwin0265 on April 10, 2012, 01:00:21 AM
Quote"Foster's is Australian for beer"
Only according to Fosters.
I don't drink and even I know that Fosters is well down the list of popular beers here in Australia...........
On more important things; I'm still in love with that planet - but that ain't Australia; not even close [it's way too green, for one.......hehe]............
I have simply put the continent a bit up north so you have a bit of tropical land going forward and not just desert. No thanks necessary ;)
Thanks anyway........................for creating such work one can aspire to............
ie. Bloody beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just bumping up this old thread again with a new sign of life from the Procedural Planet Pack I was working on. I recently gave it another shot. While it's not final yet, it already starts to show some decent results.
Check out this 3600px wide render: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s42/sh/9823c45a-4b0a-4102-a42c-35b6a960abd4/8113e6c4e0884ee06efe599f769d4280/res/6b20ea9f-3ff7-4ca9-b693-b2ca190a93b7/skitch.jpg
I'm 100% done with the displacements (continents, mountain ranges, coasts, islands etc.)
I am half way through with the texturing and coloring and half way with the global clouds. There will be a few more layers eventually.
The climate zones work well now, too.
Thanks
Frank
It's really coming together. Very good work.
New sign of life. Clouds starting to come together now. Lots to do though, still...
this is really cool,
the 3600pix image does the justice
only issue i have with it is that sun glare on the water bugs me for some reason
great realism!
The reflection on the water also irritates me, a problem I still haven´t solved in my planetary renders. I found it hard to find good reference for the reflectivity properties of an ocean from these distances.
Best Regards,
J
here's a little near orbit shot, over a large continental plate near the equator.
Beauty
Yeah, that really does look good!
getting better....
Beyond Good!
The last one are beautifull!!
Nice work Frank. I would use Ray Trace Atmosphere to fix the jagged aliasing on the horizon.
Matt
8-)
Thanks all!
If you're interested: I am currently working on a more complex global displacement, that holds up even with the camera near the ground.
Once I have that, I need to find a way to effectively embed this in the continental network.
Quote from: Oshyan on April 01, 2012, 12:09:04 AM
:o Frank has created Australia?
- Oshyan
Quote from: Henry Blewer on April 01, 2012, 08:20:46 AM
And Foster's! :D
if that was the case it would mean fosters was actually created by a German guy whose a Master Terragen artist.
souinds great frank.
these last 3 or so renders are incredible
Quote from: FrankB on January 10, 2013, 04:50:08 PM
Thanks all!
If you're interested: I am currently working on a more complex global displacement, that holds up even with the camera near the ground.
Once I have that, I need to find a way to effectively embed this in the continental network.
Hey guys,
I have a first shot on the detailed ground displacements. The shots are far away from the origin and it still works nicely.
This planet *so* beautiful. I went down between the clouds and then further down even, and was presented with a nice sunset.
I'm looking for more places in other climate zones next and see how things look like.
Frank
1 more
Looks very promising Frank. Is that some interspersed farm land I see up there, or a shader out of place? ;)
- Oshyan
Oshyan, good eyes, as always :-)
A hint of voronoi is lending both the displacement and the shading the impression of fields every here and there, but it also helps with shaping the perlin noise mountains a bit.
Looking very good, Frank. Seems like an interesting planet to travel around in virtually. Maybe add some patches of very stretched fractal, combined (multiply or something) with a 90 degree turned stretched fractal to get some hint of rectangular fields instead of the voronois... (which also hints at human presence, nice!).
Hi Ulco, on a global scale that's all a bit tricky. Not technically, but artistically. Only a small fraction of the surface of a planet is covered with fields and only in certain climate zones etc...
If you use small scale shading like this and look at it from space, it just looks very unnatural.
I haven't even planned to have "fields", is just that very occasionally the voronois "hit" a slope constraint, so that the shape becomes obvious.
An interesting fact about the displacement: I actually wanted a few alpine shapes here and there but the alpine is so slow to render, and worse, it doesn't work far away from the origin. So I experiemented with masked and layered voronoi to create a similar shape like the alpine, just more coarse, and I use it to "influence" the build-up of the more roundish perlin mountains. You get a straight line every here and there, but overall I think it looks good. Alps look very voronoi-ish when seen from space - very similar. Anyway, I still have a long way to go to make the perfect procedural planet. I will probably never finish entirely. But at one point I am going to release what I have.
Cheers,
Frank
well, I think I will discard the voronoi eventually....
This has progressed nicely Frank, looks great
BAD ASS! :o
I hope I don't drive people to unsubscribe from this thread with all the half-ready images, but I assume this thread may have a few interested followers, so I'll keep it up :-)
You may have seen it on Facebook already, but anyway... the latest one.
Yes, Frank, keep it up. But what are those scratches? An ancient filter? And there seems to be an island floating above the clouds on the left side. Otherwise, great planet.
Hi Ulco,
thank you! Of course this is not a pure render, this has been postworked. I've added the texture with the scratches in post to make it look you would watch it through a scratched window of a space craft flying by. These scratches are not part of the planet itself.
There are a few mountains peeking through the clouds, so what you saw isn't an island, but a mountain range. I thought about removing it first, but then I thought it's realistic that some mountains would peek through, so I left it in.
I can post the "pure" render later on so you can compare, if you're interested.
Cheers,
Frank
Hi Frank,
I thought so, but I think that if you look through a scratched window you won't see the scratches in focus. Or you would have to stand away from the window and see part of your capsule interior as well. Overall I very much like the way your planet is evolving.
Frank, I'm really liking this planet a lot!
Just saw the updates since I last peeked at this thread. Very very nice work. I bet you wish we had macros for the main parameters ;) Probably quite a few nodes already? :)
Quote from: freelancah on January 14, 2013, 06:32:13 AM
Just saw the updates since I last peeked at this thread. Very very nice work. I bet you wish we had macros for the main parameters ;) Probably quite a few nodes already? :)
Thank you, and yes you are right: I wish I had a way to surface just a few selected parameters in a custom node dialog window, like the old deprecated planet surface layer had. I have this wish for all presets that we offer over at NWDA. It would make some of the presets we have much easier to use.
Quote from: Dune on January 14, 2013, 03:13:11 AM
Hi Frank,
I thought so, but I think that if you look through a scratched window you won't see the scratches in focus. Or you would have to stand away from the window and see part of your capsule interior as well. Overall I very much like the way your planet is evolving.
Of course you are right. I was just playing with a few post filters and really liked this result nonetheless ;-)
the last render is really good, Frank
I thought I'd give the polar region a shot. This time with a wooden hut for size reference.
...aaaand a shot from the north tundra.
I realize these are relative simple images, but the result is pretty neat and this is out-of the-box planet wide, and really easy to pimp up with additional features, such as vegetation, any particular additional displacement wishes etc.
It's really fun to "fly" to random places and render them out. I gave this one (and the polar one) a little color correction and some vignette, but the rest is "as-is".
This is the jungle at the equator. There is some fake canopy added to the surfacing which works quite nicely at a distance.
Very convincing. How about populating stuff near the equator? Hard, huh?
Wow, really impressive how this works even with different camera distances.
Quote from: Dune on January 19, 2013, 04:07:26 AM
Very convincing. How about populating stuff near the equator? Hard, huh?
Thanks!
About the populations: it's true you have to take extra care for populations far away from the planet origin. Somehow the object rotation is not adapting to the planet curvature and the relative position.
So you need to figure out the correct rotation first.
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: Hannes on January 19, 2013, 05:30:00 AM
Wow, really impressive how this works even with different camera distances.
Thank you Hannes!
Not much to say here Frank. Your planet looks brilliant.
Coming Soon to NWDA !
I've just seen this - amazing work.
Have I actually ever posted this render? A work in progress for a possible global clouds add-on... one of the last renders before my PC died. I think I might have never shared it, but happy to stand corrected.
Cheers
Frank
Don't know, but it's nice to see it (again) anyway. Great clouds!