Planetside Software Forums

General => Contests => NWDA 2015 Theme Challenge - Iceland => Topic started by: archonforest on November 23, 2014, 03:40:51 PM

Title: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 23, 2014, 03:40:51 PM
Here is my Iceland landscape idea :)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 24, 2014, 11:36:02 AM
Here is an update with clouds.
BTW I got no comments at all on this render. Is this a bad one or just too plane?
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: Dune on November 24, 2014, 12:00:14 PM
Hard to tell, it's not 'spectacularly' good, let's put it that way. I don''t know if this is a realistic Iceland landscape. The warping is a bit too much everywhere, I suppose, maybe you can break the warping up in patches, and give the unwarped terrain some nice rounded hillls, e.g.
The snow should be given a max slope I think, that gives more definition to the tops. And the snow could/should be smoother.
That's all I can say, but others may think completely different.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 24, 2014, 12:56:48 PM
Quote from: Dune on November 24, 2014, 12:00:14 PM
Hard to tell, it's not 'spectacularly' good, let's put it that way. I don''t know if this is a realistic Iceland landscape. The warping is a bit too much everywhere, I suppose, maybe you can break the warping up in patches, and give the unwarped terrain some nice rounded hillls, e.g.
The snow should be given a max slope I think, that gives more definition to the tops. And the snow could/should be smoother.
That's all I can say, but others may think completely different.
Thx Dune for the ideas. I will see how to change things around...
Otherwise I am not uploading renders to get cheering from people but to get general feedback and to see if I doing something completely wrong and of crs to learn. :)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: zaxxon on November 24, 2014, 01:51:42 PM
That is some pretty wild geology. It would be worthy of some further exploration if this is going to be a thematic study for the contest, and everything Dune said holds true. Were you thinking of an aerial point of view?
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 24, 2014, 02:05:43 PM
Quote from: zaxxon on November 24, 2014, 01:51:42 PM
That is some pretty wild geology. It would be worthy of some further exploration if this is going to be a thematic study for the contest, and everything Dune said holds true. Were you thinking of an aerial point of view?
I personally like the geology of it even if its wild...per my experience Mother Earth created way wilder stuff around the planet :D than this...Otherwise I am not doing it for the contest as those renders are way better than I can sweat out :D :D
And yes I was thinking an aerial view like this with clouds to enhance the feel of the space.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: Lady of the Lake on November 24, 2014, 03:50:12 PM
Continue with this.......I just looked up some aerial photos of Iceland and there are some really wild scenes.  Your image does this proud.  Lots of pre-conceived ideas of what Iceland should look like me thinks.

Lyla
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 24, 2014, 04:06:10 PM
Quote from: Lady of the Lake on November 24, 2014, 03:50:12 PM
Continue with this.......I just looked up some aerial photos of Iceland and there are some really wild scenes.  Your image does this proud.  Lots of pre-conceived ideas of what Iceland should look like me thinks.

Lyla

Thank u Lyla :)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: TheBadger on November 24, 2014, 09:42:10 PM
Well I like it too. I like shots from on high. particularly those that clearly show the fractial nature of the universe.

I think your instincts are good. But you need better data. try using something like this as a displacement map:
http://paulbourke.net/fractals/googleearth/broome1.jpg
http://paulbourke.net/fractals/googleearth/broome2.jpg

Dont worry that its not from iceland. It wont matter.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: Oshyan on November 24, 2014, 10:04:47 PM
You can't really use aerial or satellite photos as effective displacement maps or heightfields, because heightfields interpret color (lightness) as height, whereas nature does *not* shade by height but rather in a myriad of ways, most significantly by sunlight casting shadows, and by surface color. Imagine for example an aerial photo of a mountain in the spring, when the snows have been melting for a while. All the thin areas of snow tend to melt away and you're left with the deeper, thicker snow, and the border tends to be fairly sharp against the underlying rock/dirt of the mountain. This is a decent example I found with a quick search:
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/51000/51419/wasatch_tm5_2011196_lrg.jpg

Now, imagine that being interpreted as a displacement map, where white = more displacement and darker = less displacement. The terrain will be interpreted in various ways based on lightness of the terrain color (which, again, has little or nothing to do with terrain height), but most of those colors will be similar, so it will just be lumpy or noisy, most likely. But think about that snow border. Suddenly you go from a medium brownish color to a very bright white. That's going to show up in displacement as a dramatic, sharp cliff! Which is, of course, definitely not accurate. In fact the snow would look much, much higher than the mountain it is in reality sitting on.

Use a real-world, measured DEM if you can find data for your area of interest. Otherwise use reference photos and experiment with a heightfield generator.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: TheBadger on November 24, 2014, 11:10:08 PM
I understand and agree Oshayn.

What I do is take the image like in my example links above into photoshop. Make a grey scale and then use the "magic wand tool" to select the areas; the river first for example. And then copy that into new a new blank layer. I then do the same for each element in the image, each into its own layer

Once I have it all (or all I need or want), I hide the photos and just work on the selections I made. Making each into a displacement map for use in TG. BY saving each layer out by its self (over a black background)

Now when you have all the element in TG you can adjust the displacement individually (including inverting the mask). And no, you won't end up with a terrain that looks exactly like the landscape the photo you used was taken from. But you will have much more detail than a DEM with bad arch seconds, depending on the quality of the image (sun, shadow, clarity) and the quality of the selections you made of the various parts of the terrain from the photo.

It is a highly effective way of creating masks I am finding. I have used this method to make a new braided river, that beats my first one all to hell.

The Mountains get a bit harder, so what I do is create them in TG, and use the river and low level areas from the photo to mask out power fractals to create the surrounding mountains.

Everything you said in your post, Oshyan, is clearly correct. But what I just outlined above is a great work around. In fact in my test over the last few days, I have not found a case where i could not use it, so long as I had a good reverence image to start with. And of course, was willing to take the time to build the masks. It does work very well IMO.


Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: Oshyan on November 24, 2014, 11:31:49 PM
It can work, it's just that it requires a lot of hand editing, and it is almost certain to not be terribly accurate. It might *look good* though, and if that's what counts, go for it. :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: TheBadger on November 25, 2014, 12:02:08 AM
Quoteand it is almost certain to not be terribly accurate

Oh yes, in terms of the relationship of one element to another, yes I think there is no way around that. But who is going to know? Arguably, you don't even need to use a DEM or image from Iceland, New Zealand and parts of the states (a lot of places really) will work just as well.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: mhaze on November 25, 2014, 04:00:08 AM
I like this image a lot and I think it has huge potential but it needs a focus - I'm minded of a volcano with larva flows following your wild terrain
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: FrankB on November 25, 2014, 06:24:23 AM
I, too, think this render got something interesting that speaks to me. If you continue to tweak this, and add interesting detail here and there, that would be great to see.
That's the trouble about typical icelandic scenes: there are only few things that can serve as detail and not look out of place. It's a true challenge :-)

Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 25, 2014, 12:00:15 PM
The Badger:
Thanx for links. That picture looks very very interesting. I will try to get it into TG.

mhaze:
Thx for the comment. To create a nice Volcano is out of my knowledge so I wont do that this time. I want to learn how to do it at one point as someone already asked me if I can render a volcano :)

FrankB:
Thank you and glad that u like the picture. What details are u talking? Displacements or veggies and stuff? I am kinda stuck right now as cannot figure out what else to put more on. 
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: choronr on November 25, 2014, 03:26:32 PM
I think you are on a good track here. As said, you might want to focus on a portion of the scene and develop a point of interest.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 28, 2014, 10:36:17 AM
Thx choronr. I will look if I can focus on a more interesting point. Just want to finish this pov first as I like this view. Here is a new render with some updates. I think it got better a bit ::)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: choronr on November 28, 2014, 10:43:23 AM
Watched a long video posted by Badger last night. Seeing what you have here looks very good and reminds me of what I saw. Keep on; this looks promising.
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 28, 2014, 11:36:18 AM
Quote from: choronr on November 28, 2014, 10:43:23 AM
Watched a long video posted by Badger last night. Seeing what you have here looks very good and reminds me of what I saw. Keep on; this looks promising.
Thank u  :)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: Hannes on November 29, 2014, 08:02:11 AM
That looks really great!
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on November 29, 2014, 10:07:24 AM
Quote from: Hannes on November 29, 2014, 08:02:11 AM
That looks really great!
Thank u Hannes :)
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: inkydigit on December 01, 2014, 06:57:08 PM
Cool terrain, reminds me of sulphurous deposits around a geyser, or salt lake...
:)
J
Title: Re: Iceland Idea
Post by: archonforest on December 02, 2014, 02:14:48 PM
Quote from: inkydigit on December 01, 2014, 06:57:08 PM
Cool terrain, reminds me of sulphurous deposits around a geyser, or salt lake...
:)
J
Thanks inky :)