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General => Contests => NWDA 2018 Theme Challenge - Cliffs => Topic started by: René on January 17, 2018, 01:56:14 AM

Title: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 17, 2018, 01:56:14 AM
I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do. So far only some new rock structures tested.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on January 17, 2018, 02:15:49 AM
You're a winner anyway, so pick any  ;) I love these structures, but liggend 10 is the most realistic in my eyes. Great work, René!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 17, 2018, 02:40:37 AM
It will probably come down to it again that I have so many tests that I can't make a choice.  :P
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: archonforest on January 17, 2018, 03:02:32 AM
Gee these are awesome! Perhaps after the contest you can make a tutorial how to do these or similar rocks?
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: cyphyr on January 17, 2018, 03:57:23 AM
Great start.
I really like  jgfj.jj and liggend.
You got some really good square, angular shapes there.
Looking forward to more :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on January 17, 2018, 04:25:07 AM
Wow, first I thought there are some reference images as well... :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Kadri on January 17, 2018, 09:33:18 AM

I like especially the second one. Great rocks already :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: zaxxon on January 17, 2018, 10:34:14 AM
Spectacular! There are too many aspects of the various images to single any one out as best, but certainly whatever combination of your excellent technique that is submitted should yield a prize. Thankfully you can only enter one!  ;)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on January 17, 2018, 11:38:43 AM
Very nice Rene, I expected nothing less than this level of quality
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: j meyer on January 17, 2018, 02:39:43 PM
 8) 10 liggend and jgfj.jj are most promising.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 18, 2018, 05:34:16 AM
Thank you all for your comments.
I think I'm going to explore this scene a little more.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on January 18, 2018, 05:43:35 PM
Quote from: René on January 18, 2018, 05:34:16 AM
I think I'm going to explore this scene a little more.

Goood idea !
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: AndyWelder on January 20, 2018, 06:06:52 AM
You know, looking at these structures, especially the ones from "10 liggend" makes me think it's best to drop the towel right now.  ;) There's a core of truth to that, there's a little voice yelling "Give it up! You stand no chance!"... But on the other hand it makes me think "Ha, René may have the best rocks in town, but I still think I have the best ideas!"  ;D
I'm really looking forward to see how this develops!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 22, 2018, 07:16:13 AM
Good ideas look better with good rocks   :P   ;)
Go for it! :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 22, 2018, 07:17:27 AM
WIP
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 22, 2018, 07:19:27 AM
WIP
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: zaxxon on January 22, 2018, 09:36:29 AM
These last two are both excellent. I prefer the atmospheric qualities of the second one. The waterfall has promise though.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 22, 2018, 09:43:28 AM
Thanks! The waterfall still requires a lot of work. I will only use it if it is credible.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 22, 2018, 09:44:14 AM
WIP
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on January 22, 2018, 11:51:37 AM
I like them. Waterfall needs work indeed, or I would dump it. There's a strange artifact in the other 2. And beware of floating grasses.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on January 22, 2018, 01:42:02 PM
I like especially the last one.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 23, 2018, 02:56:51 AM
WIP
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: cyphyr on January 23, 2018, 03:19:23 AM
Very atmospheric. Where's the Orc fortress? :D
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on January 23, 2018, 08:54:06 AM
Quote from: cyphyr on January 23, 2018, 03:19:23 AM
Where's the Orc fortress? :D

Valid question for sure, looking good Rene !
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: cyphyr on January 23, 2018, 10:12:31 AM
It reminded me of a location/scene from Skyrim ...
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on January 23, 2018, 12:12:27 PM
Great, clouds and trees really do the trick to make it huge!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: ajcgi on January 23, 2018, 12:29:06 PM
Wow some of these cliff WIPs you lot are knocking out are truly epic in scale.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 24, 2018, 05:25:54 AM
Quote from: Dune on January 22, 2018, 11:51:37 AM
I like them. Waterfall needs work indeed, or I would dump it. There's a strange artifact in the other 2. And beware of floating grasses.

There is some exploding geometry here and there, and if I have decided what I am going to make, I will deal with that. If I can't make a realistic waterfall (probably) I won't use it. If I only could attach clouds to geometry, it would be a no-brainer. :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 27, 2018, 04:48:21 PM
WIP
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: luvsmuzik on January 27, 2018, 06:04:36 PM
Very good!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: cyphyr on January 27, 2018, 06:48:54 PM
Great lighting.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on January 28, 2018, 02:11:28 AM
This will be a contest for yourself; one about choosing  ;)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 28, 2018, 05:12:02 AM
Quote from: Dune on January 28, 2018, 02:11:28 AM
This will be a contest for yourself; one about choosing  ;)

Yep! A few more weeks and then they can lock me up in a mental institution.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: AndyWelder on January 28, 2018, 05:27:58 AM
Look what I found on Streetview! [attach=1]
Spanish coast.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Tangled-Universe on January 28, 2018, 07:05:37 AM
You're always driving random Spanish roads when the weather is crappy in The Netherlands, Andy? :P
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: AndyWelder on January 28, 2018, 07:24:40 AM
QuoteYou're always driving random Spanish roads when the weather is crappy in The Netherlands, Andy?
So that you know it: They're not random but selected for their proximity to a coast!!  :P  And it's what I often do while waiting for a render to finish...  ;D
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Ariel DK on January 28, 2018, 02:43:37 PM
Quote from: René on January 22, 2018, 09:43:28 AM
Thanks! The waterfall still requires a lot of work. I will only use it if it is credible.

very good work rene, BTW I hope you still go forward with the waterfall. I see a win entrance in that one...
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 29, 2018, 12:56:54 PM
Cliffs just beg for a waterfall. If I can pull it off there certainly will be one or more waterfalls.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 29, 2018, 02:05:42 PM
WIP

Another set-up with tons of flaws.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on January 31, 2018, 11:39:32 PM
Another attempt at creating a waterfall.  :-\
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 01, 2018, 02:05:13 AM
And quite a succesful one! You probably also used a plane conforming to the side of the rock, with some fractal displacements, and perhaps a no-RT reflection. Though reflection is probably not even needed, just some translucency. Top and bottom are always the hardest, but this looks really good.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 01, 2018, 02:45:35 AM
I have used a card object with three displacement maps, one for the horizontal rounding, and one for the lateral rounding so that the card gets a bend. On top of that, there is a displacement for the water structure. And of course a transparency map.
The problem is that I constantly have to go back and forth between Photoshop and Terragen and that the smallest differences in gray value have major consequences.
What I don't manage to achieve is the softness of the edges of the waterfall because the transparency has only two values, transparent or not, so no soft transition. I have tried to solve this by building up a grid of very small dots in the transition.
It is therefore basically a proof of concept
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: mhaze on February 01, 2018, 05:18:47 AM
One of the best I've seen.  It really is time that we had grey scale transparency!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 01, 2018, 05:42:19 AM
That would be useful right now.  :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on February 01, 2018, 09:25:15 AM
INdeed!!! The waterfall looks fantastic, René!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Gannaingh on February 01, 2018, 09:58:44 PM
Excellent work on the waterfall so far, as well as the rest of your scene!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 02, 2018, 01:50:27 AM
So what do you do in Photoshop, paint a mask?
For soft edges I've used a glass shader as a base, with soft edges. That would be the only way for now. My main problem with waterfalls was to have sidestreams rushing over stones and 'getting back' to stream further down, not ending in nothing.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 02, 2018, 07:59:33 AM
I painted a mask for the contours of the waterfall. For the bending (lateral and horizontal) of the card object, I used the gradient tool in Photoshop corrected with the curves tool to create a displacement map. The water structure is also a displacement map created using a combination of photos and painting, but I think that I can achieve better results with procedural textures.,
Rocks sticking through the waterfall are indeed problematic, so you have to find a place suitable for the placement of a waterfall, or prepare a part of the terrain. I intend to investigate whether the waterfall can be inflected naturally around the rock by using the rock displacement as a warper.
I hope that this gibberish makes sense. :)

Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 02, 2018, 01:17:44 PM
It does.
I once (or twice) used the main terrain without the finer displacements, and fed that into a plane. Then dented the main terrain where the fall is supposed to be (but hard to find the perfect spot), so only the rather smooth plane displacements are visible there. Then applied fall displacements and colors, and if the sides were off the rock and supposed to be gradual used a water shader (and later a glass shader). Something like that.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 03, 2018, 05:54:58 AM
I'm going to try the glass shader, but I'm afraid that the render times will skyrocket, mainly because I also want to use some clouds for splashing, foam and fog.
Suppose that I get this working then it must also be possible to animate the waterfall. However, this will be something for after the contest. :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 03, 2018, 07:00:17 AM
You needn't make the glass shader reflective, and that makes a big difference!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on February 03, 2018, 10:13:54 AM
Cleaver construction, great mood. This is certainly going to be a top 3 contender
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: bobbystahr on February 06, 2018, 01:41:53 AM
Quote from: mhaze on February 01, 2018, 05:18:47 AM
One of the best I've seen.  It really is time that we had grey scale transparency!

hear hear
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: bobbystahr on February 06, 2018, 01:48:00 AM
An amazing start René  and thanks again for revealing the "Easter Egg" of displacing cards..displacement any where and at any angle...I'll be forgetting about the Plane entirely now.
And thanks for talking about method as us 'not so sharp' ones really benefit from it.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 12, 2018, 10:35:04 AM
Exploring a new kind of rock.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: mhaze on February 12, 2018, 11:11:15 AM
IMHO much better.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: bobbystahr on February 12, 2018, 11:26:25 AM
Brilliant, I've seen cliffs like that.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: j meyer on February 12, 2018, 11:58:24 AM
 8) Nicely shaped rocks these are.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: luvsmuzik on February 12, 2018, 12:47:46 PM
Nice sharp edged displacements!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on February 12, 2018, 01:20:30 PM
Oh, that's beautiful, René!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: archonforest on February 12, 2018, 01:45:51 PM
Indeed! Great shapes and colors!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: masonspappy on February 12, 2018, 02:47:01 PM
That's quite impressive!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: zaxxon on February 12, 2018, 04:10:14 PM
Outstanding rock shapes and foliage placement. Fine work!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on February 12, 2018, 04:13:42 PM
Ground breaking stuff Rene
Title: resume rendering please!
Post by: René on February 14, 2018, 03:21:10 AM
8 hrs and going. With such long render times, a resume rendering capability is indispensable. The render has just started with the lake, so that means I can't work with Terragen for the rest of the day.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hetzen on February 14, 2018, 04:01:45 AM
Looks good though doesn't it! There's some really nice cracks and subtle mix of scales. Doesn't look too stretched either. The only critique I have is that I think the trees could be blended better.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 14, 2018, 04:10:50 AM
The distribution of the trees is bad and I used only one type of tree. The colors are also wrong. But I will take care of that later when I am sure which tree species I am going to use. For now, I concentrate only on the rocks. :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hetzen on February 14, 2018, 04:32:48 AM
I don't think its bad, just randomly regular.

I wonder how long that water is going to take? If it becomes too much it might be worth investigating using a dumbed down version of your mountains for a separate water render.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on February 14, 2018, 04:54:21 AM
Does your render need the water shader's transparency? If not, set it to 0, which will decrease render times. I guess it would be similar to Ulco's advice to just use a slightly displaced reflective shader instead of the water shader.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 14, 2018, 05:18:13 AM
Transparency has already been switched off. It's not only the water that slows down rendering but especially the textures that I used; two types of Voronoi merged together plus an alpine shader. In the end I will have to render in parts and composite them together.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on February 14, 2018, 06:09:41 AM
Oh, the alpine shader... That's indeed increasing rendertimes.
Title: Re: resume rendering please!
Post by: ajcgi on February 14, 2018, 06:52:11 AM
Quote from: René on February 14, 2018, 03:21:10 AM
8 hrs and going. With such long render times, a resume rendering capability is indispensable. The render has just started with the lake, so that means I can't work with Terragen for the rest of the day.

In future, maybe set a limit to the amount of threads available and run 2 Terragens? That way you can render on one and set up something else to use on the other. Sure your render will be slower but you can still get on with things. I often have a few open. It's possible on MacOS too. ;)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: mhaze on February 14, 2018, 07:33:38 AM
Great potential in this one.  I tend to turn atmosphere off when test rendering, the new clouds , though nice, tend to be slow to render especially when defer atmosphere is turned on!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: luvsmuzik on February 17, 2018, 09:08:14 AM
Looks like it will be another Rene special!
I have resorted to sometimes setting up a scene on the old kermudgeon, transferring it to render on the new one while I rest, because I have the TG bug too. Going blind watching black squares turn color in anticipation.....haha :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 18, 2018, 05:07:37 AM
I temporarily changed the water shader with a default/power fractal to speed up rendering. Still quite a lot to be done.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: AndyWelder on February 18, 2018, 05:20:22 AM
It's a beauty already...
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Jo Kariboo on February 18, 2018, 07:47:23 AM
Excellent cliff and light!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: mhaze on February 18, 2018, 12:21:21 PM
Excellent, great atmosphere and composition - looking forward to see were this goes.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: bobbystahr on February 18, 2018, 02:47:03 PM
Absolutely loving the tree waterfall pop where it looks like a waterfall of trees, and well the whole darn thing is amazing.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Oshyan on February 19, 2018, 01:48:03 AM
Looking promising indeed. The rays coming down from the cliff on the right are fantastic. Don't lose those! :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 25, 2018, 07:58:15 AM
Another idea to explore. I will have to take a decision very soon.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Artice-3d on February 25, 2018, 09:28:05 AM
Rene the lighting is the pure magic  :o ::) ;)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 25, 2018, 09:57:43 AM
And another beauty!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on February 25, 2018, 10:17:31 AM
Exceptional piece
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on February 25, 2018, 10:28:06 AM
Oh yes!! Fantastic!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: luvsmuzik on February 25, 2018, 11:03:54 AM
Lovely! Great isolation of accent elements as always.  :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: bobbystahr on February 25, 2018, 11:07:31 AM
Well I will enter this comp, but have no illusions about who's gonna be top o the heap...well done once more. Must be nice having the luxury of choice when both are winners heh heh
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 27, 2018, 01:45:40 AM
Last test (I hope)  :o
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on February 27, 2018, 02:01:56 AM
I hope not, I like your tests  ;) This is incredible too. I sometimes wonder if we use kind of the same method by (happy) accidence.... how many compute terrains do you need?
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on February 27, 2018, 03:46:45 PM
Dune: None. I hardly ever need them.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hetzen on February 27, 2018, 04:09:07 PM
Looks great Rene. No displacement 'fins'. Really well controlled.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on March 01, 2018, 11:39:22 AM
Quote from: Dune on February 27, 2018, 02:01:56 AM
how many compute terrains do you need?

If you start with large displacements with no roughness and work from there to smaller ones with more roughness, you don't really need any compute terrains. I do almost all displacements with shaders and keep the terrain is as simple as possible.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: zaxxon on March 01, 2018, 12:26:26 PM
Good insight into your technique, thanks. Pretty much the same proven process as sculpting or painting, start with the large areas and work down to the finer details.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on March 01, 2018, 02:27:41 PM
Quote from: zaxxon on March 01, 2018, 12:26:26 PM
Good insight into your technique, thanks. Pretty much the same proven process as sculpting or painting, start with the large areas and work down to the finer details.

Exactly!  :D
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on March 02, 2018, 02:10:52 AM
No compute normals either? For 'regular' lateral displacements you need one at least, unless you work with redirects, vector displacements, or fake stones, which I do mostly too. It's a bit harder if you need to use a minimum slope for something like textures, but that too can be overcome by overlaying textures with maximum slope restraint.
And too many vector displacements also take up render time, so one compute normal or compute terrain and using lateral/normal displacement might yield the same speed. It's an interesting playfield anyway, trying to get maximum result with minimum nodes and speed.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: mhaze on March 02, 2018, 04:43:21 AM
I have two compute terrains, endless displacements and complex masking! takes about 40 mins to render add in veg another half hour add in two small trickles of water which have to have transparency to work and render time rockets to 13.33 hrs!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on March 02, 2018, 05:00:38 AM
I also didn't use any compute normal. As you can see in the picture the terrain is very steep. The only displacement shader is a strata shader. I did use 'use world space (final position') for all shaders to avoid stretching.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on March 02, 2018, 05:09:13 AM
You can also use a surface shader to straighten(even after texturing) the terrain even more: limit by altitude and lateral displacement offset
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on March 02, 2018, 12:12:09 PM
As far as I know the lateral displacement offset is not working as a mask (lateral displacement needs a compute normal anyway), but I have to check out what you exactly did here (maybe you found some secret I didn't know yet  ;)). I do know that you can stretch by altitude offset and/or slope limit. You can also use smoothing effect with a minus number, btw.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: AndyWelder on March 02, 2018, 01:32:37 PM
I'm learning a lot here! Thank you, René & Ulco!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: René on March 03, 2018, 06:17:40 AM
As far as I know both lateral displacement only -and normalized work fine without a compute normal. It may be that things are lost in translation,  :-\ so I will get back to this when this contest is over. If I forget, don't hesitate to remind me. :)
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on March 03, 2018, 09:03:28 AM
Yes, we have to sort this out, because why otherwise does it say; compute normal needed? Fake stones have an inbuilt 'normal calculation' as far as I can tell, hence the possibility to use those for the lateral displacements without compute normal/terrain.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Hannes on March 03, 2018, 09:43:47 AM
This is interesting!! Looks great!
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: cyphyr on March 07, 2018, 08:58:23 AM
Hmm, I find that the compute normal is needed for true lateral displacements although not for Vector displacements. Often a normal displacement can look just as effective as a lateral and render cheaper!
Sometimes adding in a texture coordinates XYZ can help too.
Good canyon you got going on there.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: Dune on March 07, 2018, 11:35:51 AM
Rendering cheaper? Never noticed that actually, but if that's so, it's good to know. Yes, I tend to use one compute normal at least, as it's easier then to get nice laterals. VDisp is always slanting one way, unless you make a mix, but that takes time too. And my latest experiments didn't quite yield what I wanted. And XYZ's I use quite a lot.
Title: Re: René WIP.
Post by: DannyG on March 07, 2018, 12:10:56 PM
Epic stuff Rene