The Terragen 2 renderer's antialiasing needs sampling filters, for example, a gaussian filter. Most TG2 images I have seen suffer from aliasing even when the creator says they set the antialiasing value high.
I am assuming this has not been implemented, and am just saying that this would be useful. Please delete this thread if I am wrong.
Thanks.
We are currently looking at implementing one or more alternate filters. We will not necessarily provide these as options as we prefer to simply find the best all-around filter to avoid unnecessary complication in the render settings. However if there is significant advantage to providing different filters we may be able to do so in the future.
- Oshyan
I like options :)
- Terje
Quote from: sjefen on October 04, 2008, 03:36:14 PM
I like options :)
- Terje
Me too! It's a pain being limited deliberately; More for a hobbyist's app, not pro use.
As I said, if there is significant advantage to providing filtering options it's something we may be able to provide in the future. At the moment there are no options and the filter is clearly not optimal, so any improvement will be useful, even if options are not yet available.
- Oshyan
I believe it's better to focus on optimising the engine in some parts (which are quite slow) than to add various new filters.
I'd love to see a real, physically correct depth of field simulation in TG2. Imagine those high altitude renders with focus set on a tree in the front with everything behind it slightly blurred.
Somehow a simple Z-buffer export into b&w layer would do the trick.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on October 05, 2008, 02:43:03 AM
I believe it's better to focus on optimising the engine in some parts (which are quite slow) than to add various new filters.
I'd love to see a real, physically correct depth of field simulation in TG2. Imagine those high altitude renders with focus set on a tree in the front with everything behind it slightly blurred.
Somehow a simple Z-buffer export into b&w layer would do the trick.
I'd be all in favor of this but only if the lens behaved in a manor consistent with its real world counter part and that means when you set the exposure and aperture F-Stop it not only controls Depth of Field but also controls the amount of light go in.
I think the lens system should be consistent with real world optics and respect the laws of optics one thing that comes to mind would be that of Bokeh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh if TG2 is going to do Depth of Field then it needs this. Concurrent with this need then TG2 would need different shutter blade types and also an adjustment for shutter angel like that found on ENG Broadcast Cameras would be nice.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
In the next update you will be able to choose between 6 pixel filters:
0) Box. Spans 1 pixel. The old filter, widely regarded as being pretty crap.
1) Tent. Spans 2 pixels. Linear interpolation between nearest pixels.
2) Narrow Cubic. Spans 2 pixels. A cubic filter which spans only 2 pixels. Theoretically not the best use of a cubic filter but included because it is only slightly softer than the old box filter.
3) Cubic B-Spline. Spans 4 pixels. Gives fairly soft results.
4) Mitchell-Netravali (with parameters B=1/3, C=1/3). Spans 4 pixels. A popular filter in many renderers. A compromise between Cubic B-Spline and Catmull-Rom. Slightly enhances edges.
5) Catmull-Rom. Spans 4 pixels. Enhances edges more than the other filters.
I've also added an anti-aliasing bloom option, designed to avoid aliasing problems due to clipping of very bright pixels. This works nicely on the edge of the sun and on specular highlights.
We expect to release the Beta with these feature very soon. Some other really nice goodies in there too!
[EDIT: I got my pixel spans wrong!]
Matt
WOW! :o
Unexpected goodies revealed!
Great news about the coming release and especially the new AA choices.
Thanks for chiming in Matt.
WOOT!
Fantastic.
- Terje
Quote from: Matt on October 17, 2008, 09:01:00 PM
I've also added an anti-aliasing bloom option, designed to avoid aliasing problems due to clipping of very bright pixels. This works nicely on the edge of the sun and on specular highlights.
Matt
This is THE best news I heard all week, finally a bloom option, so no more PhotoShop needed!
This raises one question though: Will this also work outside the atmo, in orbit shots? And will the bloom expand if the luminosity value is increased?
That's great news!
How about some in-GUI explanation to ease up things a bit (I mean - what's behind Cubic B-Spline or Mitchell-Netravali).
Good examples of filters here: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~narain/courses/comp870/a1-sampling/
Quote from: Mohawk20 on October 18, 2008, 07:36:58 AM
This is THE best news I heard all week, finally a bloom option, so no more PhotoShop needed!
This raises one question though: Will this also work outside the atmo, in orbit shots? And will the bloom expand if the luminosity value is increased?
You may still want to apply more effective bloom or glow effects in Photoshop. The anti-aliasing bloom is basically just the "first line of defence" against aliasing of very bright pixels, in case no other post processing is done. In a future version we would like to add more controllable post-processing filters, but we don't want to do that until we have a system for editing them interactively on finished renders.
It only has a maximum radius of 5 pixels, and it only add just enough bloom to avoid obvious stair-stepping (jaggies) when pixels are too bright to be anti-aliased using normal techniques. The bloom does expand depending on the brightness of the pixels, but only up to 5 pixels for the very brightest objects such as the sun. It works on any pixels, whether inside or outside an atmosphere.
Matt
(Or should that be "
last line of defence"? Maybe I should quit with the analogies...)
How about doing a wiki article with description of each filter and with basic example pictures just after the next version release?
I can do some test renders.
We hope to provide a public Wiki for the community to assist in documenting things like this. We will still be providing a complete node reference, but it may not be able to be so detailed as to include complete description and visual examples of all noise types or sample filters, for example.
- Oshyan
Just wondering as I am completely new to the Terragen and the forum , are depth of field rendering controls likely soon or available already?
Already in place - check your Rendering tab.
Quote from: cyclotron on January 11, 2009, 08:06:10 PM
Just wondering as I am completely new to the Terragen and the forum , are depth of field rendering controls likely soon or available already?
Hi calico,
We have the antialiasing filters but not the depth of field, which is what the poster was asking about. I'm not sure when we'll have this built in. In lots of ways it's best done as a post effect, which is already possible I believe ( i.e. someone else will have to say how it's actually done :-).
Regards,
Jo
It is possible to fake DOF by making two pictures rendered with different filters with one of them being Cubic B-Spline, and then merging those two images in Photoshop with masking.
It would be better however if Terragen could make a depth map suitable for a Photoshop filter designed for making DOF.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on January 12, 2009, 02:21:05 AM
It is possible to fake DOF by making two pictures rendered with different filters with one of them being Cubic B-Spline, and then merging those two images in Photoshop with masking.
It would be better however if Terragen could make a depth map suitable for a Photoshop filter designed for making DOF.
Here's how I do it:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4231.msg46313#msg46313 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4231.msg46313#msg46313)
If you're guys have troubles setting this up, then just let me know.
Martin