Hello,
Here is a new scene rendered in standard mode.
Many kind of grass here.
Lombardy poplars as well as the tree on the left side are made with The Grove 3d in Blender.
I will try a render in Path Tracing mode.
David.
Very nice! Love the tire tread and the vegetation. Distant terrain is also pleasing. My only critique is the rectangular edges coming from what I am assuming is tire tracks. You'd think being made we/muddy they would have settled and "eroded" more when dry, especially entering the cracking and crumbling stage after mud settling.
Great work!
A path we would all like to travel. Very nice! :)
Love the deep-focus feel of this image. Really nice detail in the rover tracks.
Did you use more than one surface for the track? The effect of the partly buried stone layer and the loose stones on the surface is so natural and convincing.
Thank you !
There are two surface layers for the path : image and fake stones. There are also several kind of displacements.
David.
Beautiful!
- Terje
This is extremely realistic to my eye! Curious to see a path traced version. I am guessing it will darken up the shadowed areas of the grasses, and the shadows in foreground-left. It will probably also affect the apparent detail in the mountain in shadows (I have found that using "Exaggerate Detail" can actually be good in these cases), and perhaps some of the distant trees.
- Oshyan
Curious if you are using exp atmo bloom on the clouds? They really do look photo-realistic with the sun off-scene cascading down.
I have a feeling PT will be especially noticeable on the road in shadow, as well yeah, the left there and background. I highlighted areas I think will be most effected and probably look amazing
Thank you !
A Path traced version is in the process but it will take some time, my CPU is rather old.
Yes I am using Atmo bloom. I did also lower the multiple scattering parameters to 2 and 1.5 respectively. I just noticed that I forgot to enable "receive shadows from surface" for the clouds, it is fixed for the path tracing version.
David.
Finally, here is the path tracing version.
Looks more contrasted, more detailed and much more realistic in shadow areas.
I did not use exaggerate surface details because I wanted to see the AO vs Path Tracing difference.
Render settings :
micropoly detail : 0.8
Anti-aliasing : 8
No shadow on clouds and no shadows from surface in the atmophere and clouds quality settings to accelerate render time
render time in an old i7 970 : 17 hours
David
It honestly didn't effect the shadowed road as much as I thought it would, however in general the grass, distant forest, and the tree left look much better as far as shadows go.
Really good! And the pathtracing seemes to have a really positive effect on the overall shadows.
I was blown away by the realism here. I've walked old pathways like that many times. Beautiful work!
Interesting, a more subtle difference than I expected in some ways, but mostly it did what I thought, making the grasses and other smaller vegetation really look better "anchored" to the ground, more like they belong there (darker shadows, but in a realistic way). Did you really use AO on the original, or GI?
Also seems like slight post processing differences make the vegetation a little brighter in the PT version, eh?
- Oshyan
Hello Oshyan,
I was using GISD in the standard version, not AO alone. There is no post processing here, sun and light settings were the same. Path tracing on surfaces makes renders more constrated (and more realistic).
How many bounces are used in the path tracing engine ? Do you plan to add the possibility for the user to choose the bounce number in the future ?
David.
Mimic mason, excellent work here
Strange, I wouldn't think path tracing would affect brightness of the vegetation in that way (it hasn't in most of my tests). The one thought that comes to mind is if there is notable reflectivity on any of those plants, then the path tracing system would treat those differently (there is a new soft reflection algorithm that is enabled with PT). That could explain it.
The number of bounces may be user-adjustable in the future. I think it's currently 6.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on November 03, 2018, 02:08:47 PM
Strange, I wouldn't think path tracing would affect brightness of the vegetation in that way (it hasn't in most of my tests). The one thought that comes to mind is if there is notable reflectivity on any of those plants, then the path tracing system would treat those differently (there is a new soft reflection algorithm that is enabled with PT). That could explain it.
The number of bounces may be user-adjustable in the future. I think it's currently 6.
- Oshyan
Could it also be reflective vegetation with somehwat symmetrical faces to leaves and such from generation that light bounces between them in addition to enviro light and sun? Creating specular like brightness
The specular model for path tracing mode is just completely different. It may be taking into account those aspects you mention, when the normal model doesn't, I'm not sure. But I do know it's very different (and, as I understand it, generally more realistic/correct).
- Oshyan
Perhaps transluscency (which is always enabled for grasses) has to do with it also. Path tracing renderer will calculate it much more precisely.
David.
Quote from: Oshyan on November 04, 2018, 09:55:02 PM
The specular model for path tracing mode is just completely different. It may be taking into account those aspects you mention, when the normal model doesn't, I'm not sure. But I do know it's very different (and, as I understand it, generally more realistic/correct).
- Oshyan
certainly more realistic....if I ever climb out of this money / house hole I gotta upgrade for sure. My mouth waters when I see these path traced renders....
Quote from: bobbystahr on November 06, 2018, 02:56:14 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on November 04, 2018, 09:55:02 PM
The specular model for path tracing mode is just completely different. It may be taking into account those aspects you mention, when the normal model doesn't, I'm not sure. But I do know it's very different (and, as I understand it, generally more realistic/correct).
- Oshyan
certainly more realistic....if I ever climb out of this money / house hole I gotta upgrade for sure. My mouth waters when I see these path traced renders....
Yeah, it's a very serious improvement to the beauty of final renders. Much more realistic. I hope it's released in freeware this year or early 2019.
As a primary and general rendering method (and not a specialized feature more suitable for licensed versions) it will indeed be available in the free version once 4.3 is released officially.
- Oshyan
What a lovely render. Stunning!
Even without the path-trace it's a stunning image! But the final result is a huge incentive to upgrade: well conceived and executed, an exquisite image!
That's a lovely image Antoine. I'm curious how you find Grove 3D, i've heard good things about it and was wondering how well it actually works?
Unfortunately there's no demo version so it's quite hard for me to understand how well it works\performs. What's the workflow like in getting it from Blender into Terragen?
Cheers
Thanks you !
QuoteI'm curious how you find Grove 3D, i've heard good things about it and was wondering how well it actually works?
Unfortunately there's no demo version so it's quite hard for me to understand how well it works\performs. What's the workflow like in getting it from Blender into Terragen?
In my personal opinion and for my needs, I am very satisfied with The Grove, it creates very realistic and natural looking trees in just a few clicks. As for the twigs they sell, they are very good too. Twigs are made of real meshes and they are applied to the tree by particles system.
For use in Terragen, I first apply a decimate geometry to the twig as much as I can, if not the tree could be so heavy in polygons that it would be impossible to import and handle in Modo and Terragen. However, I couldn't find a way to do that with connifer twigs because thay are made of hundred of needles
After that, I export the tree from Blender in fbx format, I import it in Modo 903 and from there I export the tree in obj format. There are some manual adjustments to make in Terragen (alpha, transluscency, specular, colors, bumps...)
So yes, for what I want to achieve, and at my level, The Grove is exactly what I need.
David
Does Blender not natively export to OBJ?
- Oshyan
QuoteDoes Blender not natively export to OBJ?
It does, but not with the twigs that has been placed using particles system.
David
There's one thing I don't understand in this beauty; the shadow on the right. It seems like the tracks (or some hard part of the road) have lifted above the general gravel road. Maybe that's possible, but it has disturbed me from the beginning. What was your idea behind this?
Hi Ulco !
This can happen under heavy rain, like a storm, some parts of a path like this one can go away due to an erosion process.
David.
Thanks for explaining, David. I see what you mean. Hardpackekd areas by driving over are less prone to erosion...
Quote from: Antoine on November 11, 2018, 08:48:12 AM
Thanks you !
QuoteI'm curious how you find Grove 3D, i've heard good things about it and was wondering how well it actually works?
Unfortunately there's no demo version so it's quite hard for me to understand how well it works\performs. What's the workflow like in getting it from Blender into Terragen?
In my personal opinion and for my needs, I am very satisfied with The Grove, it creates very realistic and natural looking trees in just a few clicks. As for the twigs they sell, they are very good too. Twigs are made of real meshes and they are applied to the tree by particles system.
For use in Terragen, I first apply a decimate geometry to the twig as much as I can, if not the tree could be so heavy in polygons that it would be impossible to import and handle in Modo and Terragen. However, I couldn't find a way to do that with connifer twigs because thay are made of hundred of needles
After that, I export the tree from Blender in fbx format, I import it in Modo 903 and from there I export the tree in obj format. There are some manual adjustments to make in Terragen (alpha, transluscency, specular, colors, bumps...)
So yes, for what I want to achieve, and at my level, The Grove is exactly what I need.
David
Thank you for that description David. I wonder if the Grove will work ok in the soon to be released Blender 2.8? Once it's been released and I get used to it I may well look again at the Grove for use in Terragen.
Yes, exactly, I actually found that raised area to be a really cool subtle touch of realism as I grew up living down a long dirt road. :D
- Oshyan
Hey this is a true beauty and achieves incredible realism! You really paid attention to all parts, including the distant forest with excellent variation. Something to keep gawking at for sure. Man, we really need a gallery system here, too many superb renders disappear in the mass of posts over time.
Great work, wonderful look!
Beautifull!