Planetside Software Forums

This has been available over at Ashundar for a while but as the subject of chrome has cropped up again I thought I had better add it here as well.

Two images:

The first uses sharp reflections, the second uses slightly softened reflections which give a more natural result in the areas where the object self reflects.

The clip file creates the second result, two nodes as the highlights are a combination fudge of tight reflection from the reflective shader and slightly softer specular reflection from the default shader.

BE WARNED!!!

The render time overhead is nasty.  Sharp version 9 minutes, soft version 43 hours 24 minutes.  Complex test object with lots of self reflection; simpler objects should do better

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43 Hours?    ::)   That is disgusting.

Thanks for the TGC.  Can't wait to learn from this and find good use for it.

Have you re-run this on the new beta?

Did you try a tradeoff with softness and soft-shadows?

Hi,

How do I load a .tgc file? I am using the Terragen 2 free edition beta.

Thanks
Jon

File, insert clip file

Thanks Mandrake, and sorry for my noobness, I am used to Vue, trying out Terragen for the first time in a long time.

I inserted the clip file but it doesnt seem to join to any nodes. It just kinda sits there by itself. Any ideas?

Thanks
Jon

No problem Jon, Happy Holidays! You have to connect the last node manually from the right side node view.
The program doesn't know what kind of clip file it is, water, cloud..etc.

Excellent, thanks for the advice :)

Happy xmas and have a great new year :)

Jon

Quote from: Volker Harun on December 13, 2008, 04:29:47 AM
Did you try a tradeoff with softness and soft-shadows?

No.

Not the same thing at all, this test cane from a couple of threads where people were trying to get realistic looking reflections for chrome.  There were various, conflicting arguments about the merits of Reflection values over 1, a lot over 1 and super high values for index of refraction.  I made tests and found that I got reasonable results with a reflection value around 1 and IOR of 8-10.  I was not really happy with the results, all the reflections looked too perfect and the highlights were just way too sharp.  With a little experimentation I came up with this using slightly softened ray traced reflections and double highlights part from the Reflective shader and part from the underlying Default shader.  It takes forever to render but we can't have everything.

Quote from: Jonj1611 on December 24, 2008, 06:36:12 AM
Thanks Mandrake, and sorry for my noobness, I am used to Vue, trying out Terragen for the first time in a long time.

I inserted the clip file but it doesnt seem to join to any nodes. It just kinda sits there by itself. Any ideas?

Thanks
Jon

Sorry:  this is probably not the best introduction to TG2 clip files.  The clip only contains the two nodes requited by the chrome surface.  It was intended to be used with imported objects and in most cases would need to be pasted into their internal networks.  Clip files can contain anything from a single node to an entire scene so there is no set way to use them beyond "Insert clip file".