Planetside Software Forums

Hi all, :)

I finished a  62h render today... voilà:
(http://nkdev.de/misc/alpharender03.th.jpg) (http://nkdev.de/nkblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/alpharender04_800.jpg)
A 1280*800 version can be found > here < (http://nkdev.de/nkblog/bilder/galerien/tg/alpharender04_1280.jpg).

It's my first proper render with TP3. The project itself is already some months old, but it would always crash when I tried to render it with TP2. I originally made it for the german Terragen Contest (http://terragen-contest.de).

I'm often thinking that people should use far more than one population.. ::) So I basically flooded the whole scene with objects. But of course I didn't make all those myself, so here's a list :)
Pines, ferns, grass and groundstuff: Walli (http://www.wallis-eck.de). When I compiled this list, I was surprised that half of the objects I used were Walli's. Those are really good. No fancy stuff but highly realistic objects :)
Cleavers: XFrog Sampler. I can't show you one in the final image, but judging from the tgd, there have to be some of them somewhere!
Grass: Klas (http://www.terralights.de). Nice general purpose grass.
Eucalyptus, bushes: Divinity Digital (aka lightning). The tree on the left-hand side wasn't planned, the populator just put it there.. but I'm fine with that. :)
Shack: Medievalworlds (http://medievalworlds.com/) The rule of the contest was that we had to use this object.

Here's some more information if you're interested:
- I used a reflective shader instead of a water shader
- This image consists of 22 populations and single objects
- There's no botanical accuracy in here
- The mist is a cloud layer using aggressive acceleration, it's density function is 1
- Detail: 0.8, AA 3, GI 1;1
- Atmosphere samples: 24; Cloud samples: 33
- Raytraced shadows are active in atmosphere and cloud layer
- It took 62h to render on a core 2 duo 6300
- I drew a quick sketch of the scene before actually starting to work on the project
- Here's a making-of: http://nkdev.de/nkblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/sumpfmakingoff.jpg

Simply suberb. One of the best TG2 vegetation renders I've seen. Only the bark on the foreground tree on the left detracts a bit (too shiny) and smooth. The variety in vegetation and atmospheric lighting are particularly excellent.

P.S. There is a fern sticking through the tree lower-left. Damn, it ruins that little bit. Maybe could be fixed with a crop render?

- Oshyan

Thanks :)
I removed the fern with photoshop.

Really beautiful.

this is realy nice nikita lovely mood i realy like the pine trees! :)

to fix that shiny bark follow take a look at this
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3693.0 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3693.0)

or you can just reduce the specular intensity in the default shaders of all the assigned bark textures

very very good ! love the mood and the composition ! great job

Beautiful lighting!  I agree with the comments above.  Fantastic work!

Impressive! Love the lighting. :)  If I had to be picky about anything, it'd be the water. The mood evokes a sense of stillness that the water doesn't quite reflect (no pun intended) ;)

Beautiful composition. Very good vegetation. The lighting is superb !

As everyone said superb Image, especially the lighting. My only suggestion would be to calm down the wave action and make it completely still. Then the reflections of the building and trees would really add interest.

Quote from: joshbakr on May 11, 2008, 08:04:53 AM
As everyone said superb Image, especially the lighting. My only suggestion would be to calm down the wave action and make it completely still. Then the reflections of the building and trees would really add interest.

I agree, great job btw

Wow, absolutely fantastic job. The lighting, vegitation, and atmosphere are all superb. Image of the week.

Fine work!  Looks better than anything I've seen on this level with models in TG2.  Great work!

Quote from: joshbakr on May 11, 2008, 08:04:53 AM
My only suggestion would be to calm down the wave action and make it completely still. Then the reflections of the building and trees would really add interest.

totally agree with that !!!

Thank you for your comments  :)

Ok, I'll render a version with calm water... I'll just use the Quad upstairs... that should speed things up. ;D
But I'm not sure about the eucalyptus. I like it.. it's a bit distracting but I usually consider random placement to be the most realistic option. I guess I could just use a different seed.

Sweet! Can't wait to see it.

I thought the water was fairly suitable, swamp-ish water. Maybe a bit too rough, but I don't think totally still water would be best either. Maybe somewhere in-between? Or perhaps do some crop render tests to see what is better.

- Oshyan

Great render Nikita!

monks

 :o ;D

Lesson learned: Don't try to suit everyone  ;D
I guess it's a matter of taste and depends on what you expect to see too. I imagined the water as quite thick and of muddy consistence so the way it looks now looks right to me.
A still water surface on the other hand often looks really nice too.

I'll let the quad core finish the new version and then maybe start a third version with half-calm water depending on how the crop that I'm just rendering turns out.

i havent posted in a long time. but this is the best tg2 render ive seen so far
just amazing

Agree with everyones comments regarding this render.  Stunning use of TG3, just think what could be done by the talent on here, with a TG that is more sympathetic to objects. 

you're right about not listening everyone ;) it's just that i thought that in a swamp, the water will be still and not wavy ;) but i don't live near swamps so i may be wrong...

The reason I suggested calm water is that it looks rather protected from wind with all the trees and when I think of swamps I think of a calm secluded place. It's your creation so do as you want. What do I know?  :) Don't listen to me, Oshyan's the expert here.  ;)

Someone grab my jaw for me, it's dragging along the ground and I'm taking in swamp water!  :o

Absolutely beautiful!

Thanks to all who've commented so far. :)

@josh.. No, you're right.. it shouldn't look like the water was moving.
It boils down to one simple problem: I wanted a bog but designed a swamp.
That's the reason why the displacement (those aren't waves) looks like waves.

The water in the previous version was quite calm but I tried to optimize the image, removed some shaders and after 62 hours it turned out the displacement looked like waves. This wasn't intended but the motivation to do any further work is quite small when you have to wait three days for the render to complete.  ;D
Unfortunately, just removing displacement really made things worse.. now it looks like a mirror.

It mesmerizing. You've included so much detail that my eye travels over it again and again and doesn't get bored. Very well done.

Das ist der Hammer!

The large version is a must-see. Shows you nicely that scenes like this need to be rendered large or a lot of the work is lost. It's bloody amazing. I think you are right in that the population count makes a big difference in terms of variety - which is natural. In nature, every organism is unique and with just a handful of populations that is hard to fake. This comes really close.

As for the water, it looks to me as if it is moving, I am picturing a river, a slow moving one, spilling over its banks. So for me, it works. And I think I'd leave it as is, the trees all look fine, and I actually love that tree on the left with its shiny bark :)

I hope this makes image of the week!

I agree with Otakar.  This look sensational as is and is worthy of image of the week.

Ok.. here are two more versions with different water. (The files are 500kB each)
The first one has displacement disabled.. that's the mirror I mentioned earlier:

The second is the mirror version put on top of the normal one with 50% transparency. That work's quite well in my opinion:

I guess there's a version for anybody now  ;D

Perfect. They both look fantastic.

Again, nikita, magnificent.  I agree with nvseal.

great render (i loooove the first one hehe)

I prefer the first one !

I think the mirror-like water works very well too. Doesn't look flat because of the subsurface and the shadows.

Great scene!

Outstanding work Nikita, I find it hard to chose between the latest 2. Both have their beauty, so to say...
IotW material I'd say :)

Wow, this one of the best foliage renders Ive seen...well put together!

Excellent showcase for TG2 here. Out of the second set of renders I prefer the first one.

How inspiring this is!! The potential of TG2 is unlimited. Outstanding work by you Nikita.

Wow, I didn't expect that much positive feedback. Thanks all! :)

It's almost a bit awkward. The creators of the objects used really did a lot, if not most of the work that went into that image. It'd look awful without those ferns, grasses and all the other plants. :)

Not much more to say that hasn't already been said.  Fantastic quality and a beautiful scene.  The plants may do most of the work, but I know how much work it is to get them all in the right places!

super special render!

IOTW congratulations !!!

Congratulations Nikita! ;D

Congrats on the IOTW!

Yes, Congratulations on the Image of the Week! Wish they would have posted the better of the three though.   ;)

Quote from: joshbakr on May 17, 2008, 10:33:11 AM
Yes, Congratulations on the Image of the Week! Wish they would have posted the better of the three though.   ;)

hehe you read my mind ^^'