Planetside Software Forums

Hi all,

It struck me that it might useful to start a thread for Planetside where we can express the features we would most like to see in the next incremental release of TG2.

So, in order of priority for me:

1) Transparent water and foam
2) Addressing known issues
3) Rendering optimisations and multi-threading
4) Distorted Perlin noise
5) Possibly more atmospheric effects (I tried to recreate the bliss effect but failed)

I'm sure there were a couple of others I thought of, but this list will do for a start.

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

This would make a great sticky topic. :P

What is "the bliss effect"?

I think he is referring to what's commonly known as 'bloom' in photography, or 'soft glow' in vfx, no?

At the moment all I would like to see is rendering optimisations - I haven't been able to render enough images to have finished playing with all of the new features yet. Perhaps putting settings tips in the GUI would be a good idea as well, as it is very hard to judge how much effect different settings have just from looking at a bunch of numbers and sliders.

Just an observation and not because I know what's really happening behind the programmer's den -

I realize that we've been asked to express what we want in TG2, but has anyone thought that maybe the developers actually have a list they've been working on for some time and probably already have the first release requirements worked out?  Depending on when we want the next release, we shouldn't probably expect (am I wrong?) that the next release will contain a lot of our present wishes...unless it's by chance.

Hi Calico,

The intent was really to provide a means of market-related feedback to Planetside.   Of course I'm sure that Matt, Jo and Oshyan will have a development plan in place, but may find that this kind of feedback (in a single thread) to be valuable.

BTW, to answer 3DGuy, the bliss effect can be summarised by the lighting in the attached.

Best regards,

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

Sure, I understand.

I've seen so many people saying what they wish for, though, I wondered how realistic these concerns are to the developers for this first release, that is.

Quote from: The Geostation on January 11, 2007, 02:19:47 PM
Hi Calico,

The intent was really to provide a means of market-related feedback to Planetside.   Of course I'm sure that Matt, Jo and Oshyan will have a development plan in place, but may find that this kind of feedback (in a single thread) to be valuable.

BTW, to answer 3DGuy, the bliss effect can be summarised by the lighting in the attached.

Best regards,

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

Quote from: calico on January 11, 2007, 02:22:11 PM
I've seen so many people saying what they wish for, though, I wondered how realistic these concerns are to the developers for this first release, that is.

Most of the 'wishes' are generic things the developers really should be working on anyway:

Quote from: The Geostation on January 11, 2007, 11:10:24 AM
2) Addressing known issues
3) Rendering optimisations and multi-threading

Quote from: Dark Fire on January 11, 2007, 01:06:41 PM
At the moment all I would like to see is rendering optimisations...putting settings tips in the GUI would be a good idea as well...

Hi Andrew,

Quote from: The Geostation on January 11, 2007, 11:10:24 AM
It struck me that it might useful to start a thread for Planetside where we can express the features we would most like to see in the next incremental release of TG2.

Just to be reasonable about expectations, "incremental" to me suggests a new release with fairly minor changes and bug fixes, not something with significant new functionality or optimisation. To me that would be a "major" release.

Quote
So, in order of priority for me:

1) Transparent water and foam

I don't have much to say about this.

Quote
2) Addressing known issues

We're always doing that :-).

Quote
3) Rendering optimisations and multi-threading

Multithreading is definitely a "major" sort of thing. The reason we didn't do it prior to the first TP release despite it being such an important thing is that we wanted to get a release out before we started on it, because it's likely to cause a great deal of upheaval in the code and will need extensive and lengthy testing to make sure there are no sneaky bugs, something multithreaded code excels in having.

Quote
4) Distorted Perlin noise

What do you mean by that ? Distorted how ? If you know what you're after, you can very likely achieve it using function nodes. That's one of the great things about function nodes, if you can imagine it but we don't provide it, you should be knock something up yourself. Of course we're always happy to hear feedback on what you think is missing from the function nodes.

Quote
5) Possibly more atmospheric effects (I tried to recreate the bliss effect but failed)

I'm not really certain, but it may not be possible to recreate the bliss effect. My understanding has always been that bliss was something stumbled upon by accident and is rather like a bug ( side effect might be a better way to put it ) in the v0.9 renderer. Bliss was never something Matt set out to do. It was just kind of a fluke ( good or bad depending on whether you like bliss or not :-)). It's not like we had a bliss settings panel in v0.9.

Regards,

Jo

i just wish for easier and easier user interfaces
just...each thing have like a little this is a good idea or thats some other good idea little notes

I still don't see what exactly is meant by this bliss effect... is it the reflection on the water.. the layer of clouds.. what?

Quote from: The Geostation on January 11, 2007, 11:10:24 AM

4) Distorted Perlin noise

There is warping and turbulence features in the node system if that is what you want to do, not to mention displacement that does all sorts of warping effects anyways.

Quote from: 3DGuy on January 11, 2007, 06:29:14 PM
I still don't see what exactly is meant by this bliss effect... is it the reflection on the water.. the layer of clouds.. what?

Hi 3DGuy, it's the sun/cloud/sky interaction causing two sets of concentric circles illuminating the atmosphere - kind of like lines of electromagnetic flux.   There are some tutorials on how this is done, but is created through the use of tiny cloud particles in line with the camera.

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

Hi Jo,

Yep you are spot-on about the definitions of incremental and major releases.   A major release would be TG3, whereas an incremental release is TG2.x.   In my full time work we use the same terms for Mobile Internet standards releases, and a major release tends to break backwards compatibility (unless the legacy standard is implemented in parallel).

With multi-threading, I could quite imagine the upheaval and sneaky bugs, and I'm also glad the preview was released before this huge task is done.   Probably will be a task made easier(ish) when the rendering optimisations are done.

Regarding the Distorted Perlin function - looks like I'm going to have to learn about those "little blue boxes"  ;D   Distorted Perlin was used to create the landscape shown in the picture above.

Best regards to you and your efforts,

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

@3DGuy

Look at the clouds, the reflections are the "bliss" effect.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1041527

Quote from: The Geostation on January 12, 2007, 02:59:22 AM

Quote from: 3DGuy on January 11, 2007, 06:29:14 PM
I still don't see what exactly is meant by this bliss effect... is it the reflection on the water.. the layer of clouds.. what?

Hi 3DGuy, it's the sun/cloud/sky interaction causing two sets of concentric circles illuminating the atmosphere - kind of like lines of electromagnetic flux.   There are some tutorials on how this is done, but is created through the use of tiny cloud particles in line with the camera.

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

How did that effect get called 'bliss'?

The person who invented it decided to call it that, I guess.

As for the wishlisted features, it's already possible to do foam--just add a surface layer beneath the water shader with appropriate breakup. I've been playing with this a bit. Transparent water would be nice, but hey, I'll let Planetside work at their own pace.

Quote from: swiftstream on January 12, 2007, 07:50:05 AM
...but hey, I'll let Planetside work at their own pace.

You have a good point there - we have all become very greedy for new features because there was an enormous leap in terms of features and flexibility between the old Terragen and T2TP.

Brilliant!  Thanks for the idea and I agree with you about Planetside.

Quote from: swiftstream on January 12, 2007, 07:50:05 AM
The person who invented it decided to call it that, I guess.

As for the wishlisted features, it's already possible to do foam--just add a surface layer beneath the water shader with appropriate breakup. I've been playing with this a bit. Transparent water would be nice, but hey, I'll let Planetside work at their own pace.

Well this isn't necessarily for the next incremental release just something that would be nice at some point.... Aurora, as seen in this photo below.

http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=3351

Aurora would be cool. That type of effect may already be possible with a bit of work and some coloured clouds.

Heh its just the high of the intial release we will calm down...evenualy :P Anyway I would think it nice to see a deformer that makes use of an alpha in future evenualy it would be helpful for doing things like footsteps, square crators (why not) and outher such things. Kepp up the good work Planetside :)

Many thanks to Jo Meder for encouraging me to look into the "dreaded blue boxes" when I was asking for the "Distorted Perlin" function.   Here's what I finally came up with :) (I still need to do the textures, shading and atmosphere though).



This has pushed TG2 to an 11/10 rating for me  ;D

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

cool, I wonder if you could invert that and make pits. intresting I gotta try that.

For me, T2TP is at least 100/10 already. It is truly unlike anything I have ever seen before.

dido

Threads like this are always interesting and useful in my opinion. Obviously we can't address every wish, much less in the next version, but it's very good to know what people are most interested in seeing.

I can tell you that the next release will be focused primarily on bug fixes. After that the update schedule is less clear for the free, public versons, but registered users will definitely continue to get regular updates with new bug fixes and features.

We may release additional Technology Preview versions in the future with major new features. I definitely think this particular release has been a great success in helping us track down bugs and get a much wider testing pool for sussing out those rarer issues, so it's in our best interest to continue these sorts of releases when practical.

Primarily we are focusing on what will go into the final release of TG2. That is our clear priority, and obviously for good reason. Along the way it's extremely helpful to have some additional testing in certain areas, of course. But ultimately you should look toward the final release later this year to see many of your wishes granted - multithreading, foam, transparency, etc.

- Oshyan

My feeling on this is that while some, if not many of the things we wish for the final release may not make it in do not disappear as I am sure there will be many point releases (TG2.1 etc), before the release of the next mile stone release (TG3) so I am sure that along the way we will see many of these feature been implemented along the way and features that we cannot envisage at this time.

What I do think that needs to happen is for a feature request tracker be put on the site, with ranking system say for 1-10 for priority ranking if need be a poll could be established by one of the Planetside staff where there are some features for the feature tracker that are tied with an equal ranking.

Such feature trackers are found on the sites for some other software (Sorry don't recall which one) this let the developers stay apprised of what the community for their software feels is of the most use, and conversely the community apprised of the development progress of the software; these trackers are part of the community lead software development model, similar trackers are used for the tracking of bugs in the software.

Unless there are commercial reasons not to do so I would also suggest a development roadmap for the development of Terragen as it will prevent the community form asking for features that are already planed, other software companies have roadmaps.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel

I agree with out Cyber-Angel but I dont want the road map to end up like the one from Terragen .9x where it never really updated. But the poll is a good idea, I was watching the Softimage XSI testmonial video yesterday and a lot of the artists said that having their input in the releases of software was really nice.

Regards,
Will

Most color shaders include a color picker.
What I would like to see is a corresponding location picker for shaders and objects:
click on the location picker, and the click on prewiev to copy the the actual location to the object or shader.

Quote from: JavaJones on January 19, 2007, 03:19:59 AM
After that the update schedule is less clear for the free, public versons...

:(

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on January 19, 2007, 08:02:09 AM
What I do think that needs to happen is for a feature request tracker be put on the site, with ranking system say for 1-10 for priority ranking if need be a poll could be established by one of the Planetside staff where there are some features for the feature tracker that are tied with an equal ranking.

Such feature trackers are found on the sites for some other software (Sorry don't recall which one) this let the developers stay apprised of what the community for their software feels is of the most use, and conversely the community apprised of the development progress of the software; these trackers are part of the community lead software development model, similar trackers are used for the tracking of bugs in the software.

I agree - feature and bug trackers would be very useful. I have found a good example, with a ranking system here (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=22049).

As far as future Tech Preview releases are concerned I think that these would be of greatest benefit for the testing of major new functionality or minor functionality where there could be unseen bugs before these functions are put into a new release of the main Terragen software akin to a pseudo Alpha test if you will.

Let's say Terragen one day gets a waterfall system one would have to make sure that it worked correctly and there where no ease of use or other issues with it before it was put into the software destined to become the next release of the software.

This will become even more critical as we reach higher point releases (TG2.6 Etc) on the way to the release of the next milestone release (TG3).  By the time of TG3 which will be built on the architecture and lesions form TG2 and subsequent point releases thereof it should be a stronger application in all regards.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel   

I'd like to see a region of interest control for the interactive window (preferably 2).
So I could just get the quick preview render happening in regions instead of the entire scene.

(Just like crop regions in renderer but for Preview window.)
That would help with the speed of interactively setting parameter values even if there is no time to optimise the renderer to be faster and/or multithreaded.

Thanks...

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on January 19, 2007, 08:02:09 AM
My feeling on this is that while some, if not many of the things we wish for the final release may not make it in do not disappear as I am sure there will be many point releases (TG2.1 etc), before the release of the next mile stone release (TG3) so I am sure that along the way we will see many of these feature been implemented along the way and features that we cannot envisage at this time.

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on January 19, 2007, 09:03:18 PM
This will become even more critical as we reach higher point releases (TG2.6 Etc) on the way to the release of the next milestone release (TG3).  By the time of TG3...

Why are you so worried about TG3? We haven't even got TG2 yet!

Quote from: neon22 on January 19, 2007, 10:16:46 PM
I'd like to see a region of interest control for the interactive window (preferably 2).
So I could just get the quick preview render happening in regions instead of the entire scene.

(Just like crop regions in renderer but for Preview window.)
That would help with the speed of interactively setting parameter values even if there is no time to optimise the renderer to be faster and/or multithreaded.

Thanks...

That's a good idea - it is often only small areas that cause problems in pictures.

A really stupid wish, but I would like the 'render' button removed from the full render window - I seem to have acquired the habit of accidentally clicking this instead of 'save' at the end of a render.  Or a confirmation stage would do the trick.

Ian

Hehe, seems I'm not the only one that makes that mistake  ::)

the thing i most want at the momment is a way to get a better idea of distance and have like a grid and such so i can keep my idea of where things are, numbers are so hard to handle when you try to find that sweet spot and just keep getting confused on where to go.

remember in 0.9, there was that line that showed where the sun was proportionate with the ground, was very easy seeing where the sun was and keep track of the sweet spot for it, since i just line up the camra window with the sun window and just move it till it is at the right place

Bloody brilliant app so far cant wait for the upcomming releases to TG2 and beyond.

Just my pennyworth of requests, nothing to major I think. Other than the obvious (just make it faster) below are my few requests that I hav'nt seen any else asking about

1. Auto save timing editable. I know theres an auto save function atm but how frequently dose it save? As this release still hase several bugs and crashes still sometimes it would be nice to have an auto save (to the "name.tgd_bac" file) and it might be usefull to edit (in a general config file) how frequent this auto back up is>

2. Last files in file menu. Just seems obvious to me.

3. Render to disk (a few larger renders I've made have rendered fully but the app has frozen and I cant save the image. I know I could just screen cap (loosing the exr data) but might this be a more studio friendly option.

4. Fractle preview draggable. Most of the time the small fractle preview is not whete the small camera icon is. It would be realy helpfull if this preview could be "panned" about so you could studdy diferent locations andthen choose which part of the fractle you wish to use.

5. Better support of imported 3D data in view port. Something more than just a bounding box would greatly help in previewing how imported objects interact with the geometry theyre next to.

Happy rendering

Richard

1. A little mini-axis in one of the corners of the preview viewport (that rotates when you rotate the screen) so you can see which direction the x-axis, the y-axis and the z-axis actually is in relation to your view.

2. A canyon fractal (with plateaued gaps between canyons and steep edges) and an erosion shader for procedurals.

3. Batch rendering (of multiple files, not just multiple viewpoints)

4. Optimized renderingfor multiple lightsources (if possible)

I think that's it. This isn't my wishlist for the next incremental update, but more what I feel terragen 2 needs before it's finished + all the stuff everyone else has said already.

Quote from: ProjectX on January 21, 2007, 01:14:30 PM
3. Batch rendering (of multiple files, not just multiple viewpoints)

This could be done with external software if the command line was working.

I would like to be able to enter a text description that was held in the tgd file.
I find I am experimenting a lot with variations and I have to name the filenames to keep track. (not enough space for anything but briefest hint at what I might be doing)

Possible?

making large waves :-)

Quote from: neon22 on January 21, 2007, 05:20:52 PM
I would like to be able to enter a text description that was held in the tgd file.
I find I am experimenting a lot with variations and I have to name the filenames to keep track. (not enough space for anything but briefest hint at what I might be doing)

Possible?

This is already possible - click on the 'Project Settings...' button in the bottom left-hand corner of the window and use the 'Comments' box.

I'm not sure if this has been listed, but it would be convenient to have the ability to select more than one node and then select the same property in all of the selected nodes to change it once.  In this way, we could then change that one setting for all of these selected nodes at the same time by one change instead of numerous changes to the same property in every node.

Quote from: calico on January 29, 2007, 10:30:09 AM
I'm not sure if this has been listed, but it would be convenient to have the ability to select more than one node and then select the same property in all of the selected nodes to change it once.  In this way, we could then change that one setting for all of these selected nodes at the same time by one change instead of numerous changes to the same property in every node.

I second that...and in addition I'd love to see a selection rectangle for nodes...

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on January 29, 2007, 02:06:48 PM

Quote from: calico on January 29, 2007, 10:30:09 AM
I'm not sure if this has been listed, but it would be convenient to have the ability to select more than one node and then select the same property in all of the selected nodes to change it once.  In this way, we could then change that one setting for all of these selected nodes at the same time by one change instead of numerous changes to the same property in every node.

I second that...and in addition I'd love to see a selection rectangle for nodes...

All in favor say I? :D
Both are great ideas!

Anything to make it easier to work with the nodes.  A rectangle...any way to grab those babies more easily. 

And it would be nice for the mouse image to change over the node to something registering the fact that the mouse is ready for me to grab the node.

One thing I'd quite like is, when you import an object, can we have a wireframe representation of it or something like that in the render preview - the box makes it very hard to accurately position something.

that would a great addition allowing a wireframe preview... on many objects/xfrog trees I've tried relying on the box is more or less guess work until a quick render is done to get placement accurate...

Yes.  Useful idea.

Quote from: FrankThomas on January 30, 2007, 06:48:34 AM
One thing I'd quite like is, when you import an object, can we have a wireframe representation of it or something like that in the render preview - the box makes it very hard to accurately position something.

how about a way to minimize to a toolbar icon, eg where sound control icon is, while rendering?.... too many times i've acidentially closed a rendering windows:(..

[quote author=calico link=topic=436.msg5236#msg5236 date=1170098517

And it would be nice for the mouse image to change over the node to something registering the fact that the mouse is ready for me to grab the node.
[/quote]

Calico it already does that, they're just so small you can't see the color change. They go all the way white I believe.

Quote from: FrankThomas on January 30, 2007, 06:48:34 AM
One thing I'd quite like is, when you import an object, can we have a wireframe representation of it or something like that in the render preview - the box makes it very hard to accurately position something.

I have the same problem guessing where, within the box, my object is. However, a wireframe would not be a good idea for all objects.

Quote from: king_tiger_666 on January 30, 2007, 04:51:50 PM
how about a way to minimize to a toolbar icon, eg where sound control icon is, while rendering?.... too many times i've acidentially closed a rendering windows:(..

That's another good idea, although I think that there are programs somewhere on the internet that can do that for you.

Anyone see any notes as to when the next update will be?

Besides the bug fixes, I am really looking forward to the water having transparency, color, and foam near the edges. 

The transparency and color will allow us to make carribean style water, and the foam will hopefully have an input to where we could attach fractal and image shaders, etc.

As everything else seems to be working well (or otherwise has a workaround), I think the water options mentioned above should be a priority.

Quote from: moodflow on February 01, 2007, 04:13:47 PM
...
As everything else seems to be working well (or otherwise has a workaround), I think the water options mentioned above should be a priority.

Good point moodflow.
I think those are definitely the additions I would like to see next -after bug fixes like you said  ;)

Quote from: Angealus on January 30, 2007, 05:24:55 PM
Calico it already does that, they're just so small you can't see the color change. They go all the way white I believe.

You're right.  I can't see it. 

Here's another idea.

An input on the Twist and Shear box that will allow the direction to adjusted over position.    I wonder if that's feasible.    Not particularly high priority, but might be nice to see later on.

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

Quote from: The Geostation on February 02, 2007, 05:54:13 AM
Here's another idea.

An input on the Twist and Shear box that will allow the direction to adjusted over position.    I wonder if that's feasible.    Not particularly high priority, but might be nice to see later on.

Andrew Randle
The Geostation

Isn't the redirect shader more or less concerning this?

I think the interface could be cleaned up a bit and made a little more friendly,
Like the little toggle buttons on the preview window could grey out when you click on them...
It would be nice if we had a graphical interactive camera control like (ver 9.3 had)
I know it wouldn't be perfect because of overhangs but
If it could align it just the highest point on the map that would be a big help...
Also some sort of graphical icon or image in the settings area would help us get an idea
What kind of variable we are changing (like ver 9.3 had).  Also a dynamic sun angle/direction/altitude
Would be kool ... nothing fancy just a like the one we used to have but you could add a horizontal line for altitude.
And lastly it would be nice if we could 'paint' terrain again in the terrain editor.

Quote from: neon22 on January 19, 2007, 10:16:46 PMI'd like to see a region of interest control for the interactive window (preferably 2).  So I could just get the quick preview render happening in regions instead of the entire scene.

Trying to get up to speed on Fusion I read that Fusion has this feature. It would be nice if Terragen had this. It might consist of four cursors that are moved to crop the whole image down to just the area that is to be rendered. I would think this would be fairly easy to achieve.