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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 07:08:33 AM

Title: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 07:08:33 AM
Hi,


A new project I'm working on.


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: archonforest on August 15, 2019, 07:30:14 AM
AWESOME!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: bobbystahr on August 15, 2019, 11:02:17 AM
A "Golden Moment" for sure. Nice use of PBR objects here, well integrated!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 01:04:07 PM
Wonderfully natural forest floor and great lighting! Though I suspect it might be just a bit unnaturally bright? But the aesthetic is beautiful.

Also, it's hard to say for sure, but there seem to be some unnaturally straight lines (angles) in some of the ferns in the lower-right. Maybe need a higher poly model?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 03:03:59 PM
Thanks guys 😊

Quote from: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 01:04:07 PMWonderfully natural forest floor and great lighting! Though I suspect it might be just a bit unnaturally bright? But the aesthetic is beautiful.

Also, it's hard to say for sure, but there seem to be some unnaturally straight lines (angles) in some of the ferns in the lower-right. Maybe need a higher poly model?

- Oshyan
Yes, I need a higher poly model of some ferns for sure  ;D
Many of the models are way to low poly and not very good for this close up, but it would not be fun to work with this scene if I replaced all with high poly models. This scene is already a very slow to work with  :'(

It is probably a little bright also.

I'm not sure if I'll continue on this scene or start a new one. I've learned a lot from this and wanna start from scratch. 


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: WAS on August 15, 2019, 03:06:25 PM
Quote from: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 07:08:33 AMHi,


A new project I'm working on.


- Terje

Lovely! My only suggestions/concerns is the scanned rock and stump look to bright in shadows. Perhaps their diffuse could be lowered some.

This is very dreamy, the lighting and haze. Could see a huge stag out there in the open.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 03:09:30 PM
I'll lower the diffuse on those models ;)


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 03:03:59 PMit would not be fun to work with this scene if I replaced all with high poly models. This scene is already a very slow to work with  (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/Smileys/fugue/cry.png)
What aspects are slow? Are you working in RTP or the old preview? Or do you mean just for rendering, or some other aspect? Of course we all reach the limits of our hardware eventually, I'm just curious if things could be improved now without changing hardware. :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 04:58:10 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 03:03:59 PMit would not be fun to work with this scene if I replaced all with high poly models. This scene is already a very slow to work with  (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/Smileys/fugue/cry.png)
What aspects are slow? Are you working in RTP or the old preview? Or do you mean just for rendering, or some other aspect? Of course we all reach the limits of our hardware eventually, I'm just curious if things could be improved now without changing hardware. :D

- Oshyan

Both preview windows are slow with this scene. RTP and the old one. There are lots of populations and I hide the ones I'm done with or the ones I don't need. But moving the camera around is still getting a little slow, not to the point it's not usable, but still slow and trying to use the paint shader is not very fun. I actually try to avoid it if possible. 


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 05:07:49 PM
Interesting. I find RTP to remain reasonably responsive even with very large populations. Remind me your hardware? I can't remember if you got something new recently or not.  :D

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 15, 2019, 07:59:43 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 05:07:49 PMInteresting. I find RTP to remain reasonably responsive even with very large populations. Remind me your hardware? I can't remember if you got something new recently or not.  :D

- Oshyan

Threadripper 1950x
32 GB RAM
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

I know the GPU isn't the best, but it should do just fine for this I believe, or?


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 08:05:32 PM
Yeah, I thought maybe you had upgraded recently. That hardware really should do fine, and the GPU shouldn't matter at all in RTP, only in regular 3D Preview. So I guess it's just a really heavy scene. :D Part of me still wants to look at it and see if there is room for optimization, but only if you want me to. ;)

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: mhaze on August 16, 2019, 04:21:58 AM
beautiful!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 16, 2019, 05:45:56 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on August 15, 2019, 08:05:32 PMYeah, I thought maybe you had upgraded recently. That hardware really should do fine, and the GPU shouldn't matter at all in RTP, only in regular 3D Preview. So I guess it's just a really heavy scene. :D Part of me still wants to look at it and see if there is room for optimization, but only if you want me to. ;)

- Oshyan

I'll send the file when I'm at my computer.


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Hannes on August 16, 2019, 08:12:11 AM
Beautiful! Yes, the lighting is great, but maybe a little flat. Did you use the legacy renderer? If so, I'd love to see this rendered with the path tracer.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: zaxxon on August 16, 2019, 11:09:33 AM
Overall a very lovely scene. I especially like the forested middle ground. I do find the large rock asset a bit too well lit as well, but that would be a minor correction were you to work further on the scene. The tree stump looks out of place and too large to my eyes, but once again that's the artist's decision. The overall lighting is romantic rather than 'realistic' and I appreciate the direction you're heading in. As to the 3D preview: I share your pain. Showing large poly counts in the viewport is problematic; TG does a decent job, but my experience with Vue and Houdini really isn't much better. I'd like to see some more 'management tools' to manipulate numerous large poly populations and hero objects, but development time is limited and the 'Roadmap' has other priorities. Hopefully you'll continue to pursue complex scenes like this, I really enjoy your work and your artistry.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Stormlord on August 16, 2019, 02:25:53 PM
Very beautiful picture!
I like the mood in the scenery, very calm.

The colours are also well aquainted to the whole scene.
Warm sunlight, rich colours, balanced which takes you away.

STORMLORD
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 16, 2019, 05:57:56 PM
Great potential in this scene! I think I definitely feel what you are trying to achieve here, scenes like these are on my TG bucketlist too, so to say :)

Given your experience and TG expertise I think you can definitely pull off to make this more photorealistic.
At the moment I find the indirect lighting very bright and too green. Overall contrast is too low, especially if you consider how a photograph would look when made under similar lighting conditions in the real world.
As Hannes said it looks flat because of these two issues. The path tracer is vastly superior to the legacy renderer when it comes to shadow depth and indirect lighting accuracy, so this scene should definitely be a very suitable one for it.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Agura Nata on August 21, 2019, 08:57:56 AM
Wonderful look! :)
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: DocCharly65 on August 23, 2019, 01:51:02 AM
Very nice!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 25, 2019, 11:59:33 AM
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I decided to start from scratch with
this scene, so now it's completely different, but I hope it's better.
Suggestions are always welcome  :)

One of my biggest problems have always been my models. I mainly
use Xfrog models and most of them are low poly models. This makes
it difficult to come close to them cause of the quality and I often feel
it's holding me back a little bit. I decided to try an fix this and made
my own displacement map for them which I used in this scene.


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: masonspappy on August 25, 2019, 01:01:32 PM
Actually, that looks darn near real!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Hannes on August 25, 2019, 04:49:01 PM
Beautiful!!! No crits from me.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 25, 2019, 08:33:00 PM
Looks excellent! I have the same issue with Xfrog models and I would say you've done a good job of improving things here. I would only say the shadows seem quite blue, which I know you're aware of. If this is a fairly default lighting setup with PT, then I wonder if the defaults are best for realistic PT...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: blattacker on August 26, 2019, 12:35:01 AM
That looks really good! The only thing I could suggest is maybe a little bit of depth of field effect? In the distance, the foliage is still too sharp, in my opinion, and breaks the realness of it just a little bit, but that is literally me looking for something to improve. I don't do a lot of stuff with objects in Terragen yet, so I don't know how the texturing system works for that, but if possible, maybe have the leaves affect the lighting more than just casting shadows? It should make the light a bit more green, just going off of what I've seen in forests in my own area, though the sunrise aspect could muddle that a bit, so take it with a grain of salt, I guess?
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Dune on August 26, 2019, 01:21:04 AM
Very good job on this scene. It indeed looks very realistic with the more pronounced displacement of the bark. I agree with blattacker, though, that there's some kind of 'grainy' sharpness in the foliage, that may look even better when it's a tad softer. Somehow. I don't know what kind of light softness you used, but a little more could do it.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: DocCharly65 on August 26, 2019, 01:22:27 AM
Very beautiful render! No critics at all! :)

I know that Xfrog problem too. Good work how you solved it!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 26, 2019, 03:10:48 AM
I liked the esthetic idea of the first version, but this one is a definite improvement.
Nice job on the bark! The XFrog models are indeed mediocre, so you managed to make them look quite a bit better, I like it.
I also like the suggestion of adding a little bit of depth of field. I don't know the focal length and distance to, say, the center rock and leaning tree, but that's the distance I would set focus on and then only add a subtle depth of field.
The image indeed has a weird sharpness effect to it. Did you sharpen it in post, or did you render it with catmull rom and less than or equal to AA8?

I'm mixed on whether you used path tracing or not. Oshyan isn't sure either, neither am I.
I tend to say you did not use PT, but like Oshyan I wonder what would cause it to look like a non-PT render if you understand what I mean.
I like the exposure of the render, quite photographic, but not spot on yet.

How does it look when you darken all surfaces by 50% or 75% and increase camera exposure accordingly?
This should result in a brighter sky, which I would expect given the amount of visible detail in the shadows in this render.
It's a tricky balance and probably a personal thing as well, so I can imagine you have very different ideas about this!

Looking forward to see your next iteration!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 26, 2019, 06:57:59 AM
Thanks for the input guys.

This is rendered with PT. After taking a second look, I know that I messed up in Lightroom. I'll fix that and try some of your suggestions for the next update. Now I have to go to work. 


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 26, 2019, 06:17:36 PM
An update with depth of field and higher resolution.
Also, the first image is straight from TG, while the second has been adjusted in Lightroom.

I also think some of my problems with this scene is that the mud is to dark and I'm trying
to fix it by brightening the shadows and that makes the trees look strange.


To something different. I'm not sure if Terragen does this already, but I have a feeling it
doesn't, so can @Matt please take a look at this video and see if there are any possibilities here?




- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 26, 2019, 06:21:49 PM
Ah, excellent! Definitely more realistic and balanced.

What that video is talking about are "Look Up Tables" (LUTs) for remapping colors in an image. There is a whole extensive amount of info, tools, etc. focused on this, it's quite complicated. But a basic version of LUT support is planned for a future update.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Matt on August 27, 2019, 01:05:26 AM
Quote from: sjefen on August 26, 2019, 06:17:36 PMTo something different. I'm not sure if Terragen does this already, but I have a feeling it
doesn't, so can @Matt please take a look at this video and see if there are any possibilities here?

One of the core ideas is to work in linear colour space, not "gamma space". Another of the core ideas is to roll off the highlights with some kind of "tone mapping" that emulates the response that photographic film has to light. Both of these core ideas have been in Terragen since before they became widespread. As Oshyan says, additional LUT support is coming soon.

I wrote more about this here:

https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?msg=240462
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: DocCharly65 on August 27, 2019, 01:50:43 AM
I like the much warmer overall look in "Find Your Way V4 - 03e.jpg" very much!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 27, 2019, 06:50:27 AM
I like your progression. dof is really subtle!
What were your render settings?

Quote from: sjefen on August 26, 2019, 06:17:36 PMAn update with depth of field and higher resolution.
Also, the first image is straight from TG, while the second has been adjusted in Lightroom.

I also think some of my problems with this scene is that the mud is to dark and I'm trying
to fix it by brightening the shadows and that makes the trees look strange.


To something different. I'm not sure if Terragen does this already, but I have a feeling it
doesn't, so can @Matt please take a look at this video and see if there are any possibilities here?

I like where this discussion is going... I have a lot of interest in this myself lately.
I have seen that Blender video quite a while ago and it made me read quite a bit on it for past couple of months.

I don't know either how wide TG's gamut is. There's a lot of dynamic range in EXR, but colour-wise I'm not sure and that's a different discussion to how many stops of light (the dynamic range I refer to) you can stuff into EXR. Which is insane. However, in sRGB bright saturation colours become solid white much more quickly than when you work in wider gamut.
TG renders linear internally and a colour transform applies gamma so you look at a natural looking image in your renderviewport, because a linear render just looks dull and grey and not how you usually view images.
Blender Filmic is such a view transform.

The linear rendering internally also follows some kind of colourspace definition, dependant on primaries as starting point and probably a lot of other processes afterwards.
Primaries are the conversion of your shader input sRGB's to linear red/green/blue values and they can follow specifications.
Right now, if I'm correct, if you inspect a .tgd the colours of your shader are the median of the RGB linearized value.
So RGB @ 128, 120, 130 has a median of 128 which linearizes to 128/255 = 0.5019.
This hints to me to that TG's renderer uses sRGB primaries.
However, this does not mean that internally colours cannot become richer than sRGB, but I don't know for TG "how far" that goes. Does it extend far beyond sRGB? Do we really have a lot more colours in linear scene space or just a little bit more?
These are retained in your 32-bit float EXR.
To my knowledge, any other output format has its colours and its brightness/saturation clamped to the limits of sRGB.

So it could well be that Blender is also using sRGB primaries and that the Filmic view transform is what it's all about and thus what we perhaps also wish for.
Or perhaps this view transform needs a wider gamut in linear scene space to work correctly. I keep thinking of how colours wash out when they become brighter and how much less that happens when rendering in wide gamut internally, which then would allow for a more correct film emulation view transform.
Anyway, I don't know exactly. I would like to know more too!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: bobbystahr on August 27, 2019, 03:50:34 PM
Big like on this one especially Find Your Way V4 - 03e.jpg...well done
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 28, 2019, 06:22:58 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on August 27, 2019, 06:50:27 AMI like your progression. dof is really subtle!
What were your render settings?

I think they where something like this:

Micropoly detail: 1
Anti-aliasing: 9

Sampling: Robust adaptive sampler 1/64

Depth of field: 3D DoF

I know I could probably get away with a lower "Micropoly detail" setting, but I just
wanna make sure everything is there. I usually end up rendering a huge image  ;D


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on August 28, 2019, 06:25:25 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on August 27, 2019, 06:50:27 AM
Quote from: sjefen on August 26, 2019, 06:17:36 PMAn update with depth of field and higher resolution.
Also, the first image is straight from TG, while the second has been adjusted in Lightroom.

I also think some of my problems with this scene is that the mud is to dark and I'm trying
to fix it by brightening the shadows and that makes the trees look strange.


To something different. I'm not sure if Terragen does this already, but I have a feeling it
doesn't, so can @Matt please take a look at this video and see if there are any possibilities here?

I like where this discussion is going... I have a lot of interest in this myself lately.
I have seen that Blender video quite a while ago and it made me read quite a bit on it for past couple of months.

I don't know either how wide TG's gamut is. There's a lot of dynamic range in EXR, but colour-wise I'm not sure and that's a different discussion to how many stops of light (the dynamic range I refer to) you can stuff into EXR. Which is insane. However, in sRGB bright saturation colours become solid white much more quickly than when you work in wider gamut.
TG renders linear internally and a colour transform applies gamma so you look at a natural looking image in your renderviewport, because a linear render just looks dull and grey and not how you usually view images.
Blender Filmic is such a view transform.

The linear rendering internally also follows some kind of colourspace definition, dependant on primaries as starting point and probably a lot of other processes afterwards.
Primaries are the conversion of your shader input sRGB's to linear red/green/blue values and they can follow specifications.
Right now, if I'm correct, if you inspect a .tgd the colours of your shader are the median of the RGB linearized value.
So RGB @ 128, 120, 130 has a median of 128 which linearizes to 128/255 = 0.5019.
This hints to me to that TG's renderer uses sRGB primaries.
However, this does not mean that internally colours cannot become richer than sRGB, but I don't know for TG "how far" that goes. Does it extend far beyond sRGB? Do we really have a lot more colours in linear scene space or just a little bit more?
These are retained in your 32-bit float EXR.
To my knowledge, any other output format has its colours and its brightness/saturation clamped to the limits of sRGB.

So it could well be that Blender is also using sRGB primaries and that the Filmic view transform is what it's all about and thus what we perhaps also wish for.
Or perhaps this view transform needs a wider gamut in linear scene space to work correctly. I keep thinking of how colours wash out when they become brighter and how much less that happens when rendering in wide gamut internally, which then would allow for a more correct film emulation view transform.
Anyway, I don't know exactly. I would like to know more too!

This was very technical, but it's very interesting ;D


- Terje
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Oshyan on August 30, 2019, 02:37:35 AM
Terje, really, everything will be "there" with lower MPD, at least if you are using Path Tracing. I assure you. :D At least use something more like 0.75, you're almost certainly just wasting render time.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 30, 2019, 06:26:55 AM
0.75 is pretty high and will indeed cut a lot of render time, also very likely without visible loss of quality. Guess that's why Oshyan came up with that value instead of going from 1 to 0.5, which might be too low for foreground details in some cases, like yours perhaps.
You could perform a "clay render" of your MPD surfaces without the PT but with defer all enabled.
This will allow you to relatively quickly assess the lowest MPD level acceptable for your artistic need.
I wonder if you would even need defer all, since there's only 1 diffuse lambert to be shaded, but at least that setting is closest to rendering with PT without the long waiting times.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Matt on August 30, 2019, 11:43:40 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on August 30, 2019, 06:26:55 AMI wonder if you would even need defer all, since there's only 1 diffuse lambert to be shaded, but at least that setting is closest to rendering with PT without the long waiting times.

When most of the ground is covered by ray traced objects, "Defer all shading" usually renders faster than non-deferred. Deferred shading doesn't waste time shading micropolygons that are hidden.
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: StephB on August 30, 2019, 04:02:55 PM
Very good image, very convincing! Good job! 8)
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: Tangled-Universe on September 01, 2019, 07:46:51 AM
Quote from: Matt on August 30, 2019, 11:43:40 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on August 30, 2019, 06:26:55 AMI wonder if you would even need defer all, since there's only 1 diffuse lambert to be shaded, but at least that setting is closest to rendering with PT without the long waiting times.

When most of the ground is covered by ray traced objects, "Defer all shading" usually renders faster than non-deferred. Deferred shading doesn't waste time shading micropolygons that are hidden.
Ah yes, forgot about that, thanks!
Title: Re: Forest Sunrise
Post by: sjefen on September 06, 2019, 12:14:20 AM
Thanks guys. I'll try your suggestions.

I also have some questions regarding 360 renders, or spherical renders.

I tried rendering this scene as a spherical image and made it work on Facebook. It was rendered out in 4K, but on Facebook it's very blurry. I'm not sure if that's cause of Facebook's compression, or if it's cause I need to render at a much higher resolution when doing spherical renders. Anyone know this?

I also want to have one 360 version for YouTube, but I'm not sure how to do that. It can be done if I use Photoshop, but I don't have Photoshop. Does anyone know how to do this?


- Terje