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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: N-drju on November 27, 2019, 04:27:41 AM

Title: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: N-drju on November 27, 2019, 04:27:41 AM
I now work on a Winter scene. Snow, obviously, being a key feature in the entire landscape.

I try to mimic the "glitter" effect that comes about, when the sunshine is cast upon snow and individual snowflakes reflect some of the light. I have created a colourless fake stone shader, very tiny stone size, to account for the delicate snowcap irregularities. Then, I applied a reflective shader to it.

This, however, is as far as I can go because I encounter the following problems:

1. At ceratin points, the reflection applied looks very moist... as if it was wet, not reflective.

2. Flares - in certain image areas, the reflections clump together, causing the renderer to "average" them into a one big flare-up (a possible contributing factor - the terrain is gently displaced; it's not a flat, uniform plane).

I'm sure that one part of the problem lies within the reflective shader settings. Something that I used many times but never analyzed in depth. Do you have any idea how one could achieve a "dry" reflection?

As far as the flares are concerned I have no idea how I can circumvent such an artifact. Changing pixel filter is the only option I can think of right now.
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: René on November 27, 2019, 05:29:14 AM
Is ray trace reflections enabled in the reflective shader? If so, turn it off. This should make the snow look less wet.
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: Hannes on November 27, 2019, 05:57:02 AM
Here is the setup I used in this thread:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,24417.0.html

Maybe it's useful. Make sure the distance shaders are connected to the render camera. The first shader to connect with in this setup is the "Snow" shader, and the last one is the "Sparkle" shader.
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: N-drju on November 28, 2019, 01:02:29 PM
Quote from: René on November 27, 2019, 05:29:14 AMIs ray trace reflections enabled in the reflective shader? If so, turn it off. This should make the snow look less wet.

Unfortunately that turned out to be ineffective but thanks for the first reply. ;)

Quote from: Hannes on November 27, 2019, 05:57:02 AMMaybe it's useful. Make sure the distance shaders are connected to the render camera. The first shader to connect with in this setup is the "Snow" shader, and the last one is the "Sparkle" shader.

It is! This is what I was looking for. Not a wet, glossy streak running all the way up to the horizon - just a few glittery flakes here and there. I actually only need the "sparkle" group (I already produced some decent displacements.)
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: Dune on November 29, 2019, 02:03:26 AM
I can't remember what's inside Hannes' file, but I sometimes use a tiny fake stone with masked scattering and low density just as a mask for a surface layer to which a no_RT reflective shader is added as child.
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: N-drju on November 30, 2019, 02:26:06 PM
Quote from: Dune on November 29, 2019, 02:03:26 AMI can't remember what's inside Hannes' file, but I sometimes use a tiny fake stone with masked scattering and low density just as a mask for a surface layer to which a no_RT reflective shader is added as child.

That's it more or less. :) Don't try putting it on the trees though...
:o
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: Dune on December 01, 2019, 02:24:34 AM
Would be a nice Xmas tree, maybe :P
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: N-drju on December 01, 2019, 04:14:05 AM
A one Christmas tree - maybe...

But once I tried to put this glitter on a population, all of the reflected light made the image go apes - turning it perfect white!
Title: Re: Looking for a way to emulate snow (snowflakes) reflections
Post by: Dune on December 01, 2019, 05:00:11 AM
Even if masked by a world-space fractal?