I was updating my site and found an old render made with TG Classic (or 0.9), which could easily be remade in TG2, and since the moses scene was interrupted by power failure anyways I decided to look up the old ter file and fix me some old school surface layers.
The first image below is the original render, the second is the first remake attempt. I'm rendering it bigger as we speak.
I know it looks a lot smoother and a bit empty, but this is just the start. When I get it the same I will improve it with trees and perhaps a poser figure, who knows... ;)
And just as a little hint to what might come later, below is a little Photoshop exercise where I mixed a render of an older poser version with the first render in the post above. 8)
Keep in mind, I made the image below in July 2005, so it's pretty old...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ;D ;D ;D
ok, where's that TGO? You knew that was coming, right?
Quote from: otakar on May 21, 2009, 07:01:34 PM
ok, where's that TGO? You knew that was coming, right?
You want it? You got it!
Only one problem, I'm not legally allowed to share poser meshes as objects... otherwise you'd have it right now!
The remake is looking good. Perhaps a little more variation in the green stuff (algae?)...?
Shoot :(. I really need some low-poly people objects and they don't necessarily need to be female and nude. The problem is the poses. The free stuff is just the basic outstretched pose.
Quote from: calico on May 21, 2009, 07:33:05 PM
The remake is looking good. Perhaps a little more variation in the green stuff (algae?)...?
I call it Moss, but yeah, I have a reddish surface layer for it, only not with a lot of coverage.
The bigger render of the first render attached below. Strange thing about the shoreline. I gave the beach surface a darker, reflective child layer. The water level is 40, the wet sand child layer has constraints from 40 to 41, with no fuzzy zone. But as you can see, it doesn't touch the water everywhere, in other places it's under water... Strange!
The positioning and the distribution of surfaces were always easier with TG 0.9 it seems to me!
Moreover the “grain” of surfaces always appeared more realistic to me than with TG2!
Simple nostalgic observation!
We always miss the plugin such as Water Surfing which was extrèment practical and realistic!
I fixed the water transparency depth, and the colours of the sand and moss. So I think this is the final lookalike version.
As soon as I get my Xfrog Bunle DVD set I'll be adding some stuff.
I discovered something interesting wile looking at this image. If you look closely to the other shore, a bit to the left you can see a sort of gully, looks like a river or something. I might throw a painted shader at it...
Wet layer might be off due to displacement on water causing the "water level" to be slightly different than what is set. Could also be height accuracy issues away from the coordinate origin...
- Oshyan
Well, it's not that big a heightfield, so distance to origin should be good.
Water is pretty flat as well...
I didn't check the 'use y for altitude' box, so maybe that's it.
But it isn't very visible in this last render anyways, so I'll look at it later if needed.
Still waiting for those plants, should be here monday....
Added a Mugo Pine population (the bushes), and an Austrian Pine population (the trees).
See below.
Currently rendering a version with an added Walli's Grass pack 1 plant 8 population (the grass :P)
So far I found out I really need another POV to get more out of the plants...
The new one with Walli's grass below. Not sure about the grass yet... clumps are very small so a lot of instances are needed.
To check the latest version with Walli's grass I changed to a lower POV. Ended up right between the trees.
Had to tweak the darkness out of the exr with levels and exposure adjustments.
The light is from the sun with AO and GI enviro lights. But somehow the trees seem lit from the front like with a flashlight or something.
Love all those new trees though...
OK, the latest render below.
I really need some feedback now!
I like the foreground, with grass from Walli's first and second grass packs. But the background is wrong, something with the trees...
The height constraint can be higher, but perhaps the trees should be smaller. What do you think?
I'm not the best person to give an opinion on this, but I think the trees opposite look a little too "shiny". Maybe working on the translucency settings of the needles? Also, are they the same tree as in the foreground?
They are the same tree as in the foreground, combined with another tree. Both have 0.8 translucency, which is realistic for leaves, but perhaps a bit high for needles. Specularity is 0 on both models...
the problem with most distant forests is, that they look like one green "clump". Probably it helps to create a second population, use the same model but with adjusted materials (different shade of green)
Hi Mohawk20, I have taken your jpeg and done some photomatix and photoshop to it... It already makes a difference. Have a look and see what you think. There are 2 versions.. one is tonemapped and the other is Details Enhanced.
I agree about the clumping of one colour trees that Walli pointed out. Needs a bit more "random" thrown in. The grass in my Grassy Hill image has combined multiple populations of Walli's grasses, all the models and most of the versions.
Cheers, Simon.
And the Details Enhanced version:
Thanks Walli! I have attached a powerfractal to the leaf shader as colour function to vary the colour of the image map. Don't know if it will work.
And Littlecannon, I have Photomatix myself so I can play with the actual exr. But as you can see you enhanced the noise even more, while want to get rid of it. Maybe I should increase the render detail to something above 1.
I would say that if you are getting noise at a detail level of 1 and are thinking of rendering at even higher detail levels, then there is a problem somewhere else. Perhaps AA, or changing the filter used would make more of a difference.
To be honest I didn't bother about the noise as it was there anyway... ignore that and see the details you couldn't see in the original. I was trying to make the image a bit sharper as the trees all blended together due to lack of "something". Have you tried upping the atmosphere samples and AA? Upping AA seems to help.
Quote from: RArcher on May 28, 2009, 12:27:42 PM
I would say that if you are getting noise at a detail level of 1 and are thinking of rendering at even higher detail levels, then there is a problem somewhere else. Perhaps AA, or changing the filter used would make more of a difference.
Right, AA is at 3 at the moment...
I received an email about the new TG2Xfrog bundles, and your image was featured: http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/mountain_lake_storm_arriving.jpg.html
I'd like to achieve a similar result. Can you give any insight in what you did to get it that crisp?
Quote from: Mohawk20 on May 28, 2009, 02:57:17 PM
Quote from: RArcher on May 28, 2009, 12:27:42 PM
I would say that if you are getting noise at a detail level of 1 and are thinking of rendering at even higher detail levels, then there is a problem somewhere else. Perhaps AA, or changing the filter used would make more of a difference.
Right, AA is at 3 at the moment...
I received an email about the new TG2Xfrog bundles, and your image was featured: http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/mountain_lake_storm_arriving.jpg.html
I'd like to achieve a similar result. Can you give any insight in what you did to get it that crisp?
Well, I'm not Ryan of course, but I have a decent idea how he did it and how I do it and it is fairly simple. I'm pretty sure you already know it yourself.
Mainly, his quality settings are just high, simply put. First to get detail and crispiness you'll need a resolution which supports this. So anything starting from around 1000px is fine.
A crisp render needs a clean atmo with just enough samples, but also the "trick" is to have a right balance between renderquality and AA.
Too much AA will make everything too smooth, too less will make it too rough (like yours). Very high detail settings are ok, but you can easily blur those details out with high AA or bad postwork.
I also have the impression your models aren't set at high or highest detail level? Or is it the quality of the render?
For this image I'd start with rendering at ~0.85 and AA ~8 and slowly increase it. Atmospheresamples from 48 will mostly suffice, but I find 64 a nice trade-off in quality and speed.
Another important aspect is the lighting. Ryan's example shows some dramatic lighting in terms of shadows and contrasts. There's a lot going on, so to say. Many shadows, low sun-angle(!), clean shadows (GI-settings, atmo-samples) etc.
Lighting makes or breaks an image in my opinion and is something I spend much time on in each image.
The POV and setup of this scene simply doesn't offer much possibilites to play with the light.
Martin
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on May 28, 2009, 03:16:11 PM
Anything starting from around 1000px is fine.
I also have the impression your models aren't set at high or highest detail level? Or is it the quality of the render?
For this image I'd start with rendering at ~0.85 and AA ~8 and slowly increase it. Atmospheresamples from 48 will mostly suffice, but I find 64 a nice trade-off in quality and speed.
Just a few spec's: 1024x768 (should be big enough right?).
Grass is at Highest detail, trees and bushes at High.
Render detail is 1, but AA was 3, so that could be the problem.
Atmo samples are at 64, and the cloud layer's detail is 1.
So the only problem would be the AA, and the lighting (which I will definitely change in further versions).
I'd like to enter this in the NWDA competition eventually. Should I put that in the title of the thread?
Quote from: Mohawk20 on May 28, 2009, 04:20:32 PM
I'd like to enter this in the NWDA competition eventually. Should I put that in the title of the thread?
absolutely and entirely your choice ;)
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: Mohawk20 on May 28, 2009, 04:20:32 PM
Just a few spec's: 1024x768 (should be big enough right?).
Grass is at Highest detail, trees and bushes at High.
Render detail is 1, but AA was 3, so that could be the problem.
Atmo samples are at 64, and the cloud layer's detail is 1.
So the only problem would be the AA, and the lighting (which I will definitely change in further versions).
I'd like to enter this in the NWDA competition eventually. Should I put that in the title of the thread?
Of course, the resolution is there, I didn't complain about that. You asked how to get a clean/crisp look and I summed up the conditions.
Some of it you've met, some not, it's up to you to pick them out ;)
Hahaha, now you can't help me anymore, I'm in your contest! :P
I'll see what happens with the next render. Might turn out spectacular...
If other threads are anything to go by, it seems that there is no embargo on advice from NWDA - I get the impression that they are more concerned to get some really good images :)
indeed, that's the best part of the whole contest idea!
Quote from: domdib on May 28, 2009, 05:20:37 PM
I get the impression that they are more concerned to get some really good images :)
That's the point ! ^^
I'd say there's no question that AA3 is your problem. 8-12 would be a lot better in a vegetation scene like this. You might not even need detail of 1 with higher AA settings. Also take a look at the antialiasing filter you're using...
- Oshyan
I'm using the Narrow Cubic filter. I find that it has the best mix between sharp and soft. At least, as far as I can remember...
Quote from: Mohawk20 on May 29, 2009, 04:00:24 AM
I'm using the Narrow Cubic filter. I find that it has the best mix between sharp and soft. At least, as far as I can remember...
Agree, I like MN too though.
Looking at your POV you might even try to render the entire bottom with cubic b-spline (if that's too soft, simply reduce AA 2 steps) and then render the background with your favorite AA filter.
But, unfortunately this is not according to the contest rules I realize now. Anyhow, I'd like to share these thoughts for possible future stuff then :)
Martin
I'd like to render the image period...
Problem is, since I increased AA I suddenly get the 'Unknown error in render thread' message. Twice, so both cores stopped rendering while the image isn't even halfway finished.
Not funny!
Try reducing your Subdiv Cache to 200, if that doesn't work, go down to 100. You will likely get a warning when you change it that low, but you can ignore it.
...
buzzzz, this is no problem. The purpose of the postwork limitation was to prevent that you add things to the render, such as postwork the photograph of a house or a person into the image, for example.
Common sense tells me that stiching crops of a scene together is not against the original purpose of the contest rule.
Regards,
Frank
you're fast Frank ! damn fast... you killed my post even before i hit the "Post" button ^^
Quote from: FrankB on May 29, 2009, 12:30:26 PM
buzzzz, this is no problem. The purpose of the postwork limitation was to prevent that you add things to the render, such as postwork the photograph of a house or a person into the image, for example.
Common sense tells me that stiching crops of a scene together is not against the original purpose of the contest rule.
Regards,
Frank
Just as I figured Frank. Common Sense is not so common. I just thought since Martin was one of the Judges that perhaps his comment had some merit? No disrespect intended Martin.
bear with us, we're doing this for the first time ;)
... like we are doing a whole lot of things for the first time lately... just occurred to me. :)
I am looking forward to your entry, Jay. Are you going to post a glimpse of it here before the contest deadline?
Cheers,
Frank
I confess, I confess :) I was mistaken and couldn't make it online to fix it in time, my apologies!
Martin
Alright, back to topic!
For some reason the bottom tiles/buckets simply won't render...
I've lowered the subdiv cache even more, and pre allocated it, but still got 'unknown error in render thread' messages.
It's the grass y area, so maybe the grass pop quality is simply too high.
You may simply be running into the memory limit on your system. Are you running a 64 bit OS?
- Oshyan
Nope. I have set the sub div cache to 150 with pre allocate on and the last cropped piece is rendering now. But the memory use is at 1.179.664 and the virtual memory at 1.477.280, so I won't be able to add another population...
I'm really running on the edge of the hardware and software. I'm looking for a cheap XP64 version, but it's not available in any pc store around here. Maybe on the I-net, but I might as well wait for the 64 bit version of Windows 7 to get out of Beta.
Quote from: Mohawk20 on May 30, 2009, 04:33:29 PM
Nope. I have set the sub div cache to 150 with pre allocate on and the last cropped piece is rendering now. But the memory use is at 1.179.664 and the virtual memory at 1.477.280, so I won't be able to add another population...
I'm really running on the edge of the hardware and software. I'm looking for a cheap XP64 version, but it's not available in any pc store around here. Maybe on the I-net, but I might as well wait for the 64 bit version of Windows 7 to get out of Beta.
Do you work or study at an university or other government organisations? If so you can buy software for a bargain.
My copy of XP64 cost 17,50 euros... For a list of companies/organisations check surfspot.nl
Martin
That IS a bargain... sadly I work at a company that's pretty small so it wouldn't support this kind of thing. But I'll have a look anyway.
I finished the bottom crop, but I discovered I messed up some displacement making it simply ugly, so I changed that and rendered a bigger crop again. Should be done tomorrow.
..
.....
Nice Buzzzzz1, but you might want to start your own thread for that ;)
So I finally got the next version done. I like how this is looking...
I did some levels and colour adjustments in post.
For the next version I have to fix that foreground displacement, and increase max altitude on the tree distribution. And some nice clouds to top it off.
But before that, does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve the mountain, maybe in displacement or colour?
the first ground is stunning !!!
....
Oh my, this foreground is unbelievable! Really real!! :) The mountain is very TG0.9-like and as such the only part of the image that reminds me of the original render. :D But to be honest, I love the way you're developing this further.
This is looking very good. To be honest the mountain looks fine to me. If you are thinking more detail, at this distance you wouldn't see much detail anyway. I think your thoughts of the trees going farther up the slopes and some nice clouds would top it off. Wish you luck!
Wow, this is looking really good! I love the new lighting angle.
- Oshyan
Mass improvement. The new lighting angle has made this much better. It has lost the flat look. Lovely foreground and I do love the mountain in the background, but it does give the image away as CG. There is just something about it that doesn't look real... textures maybe, DOF maybe.
Simon.
Quote from: littlecannon on June 04, 2009, 02:23:02 PM
I do love the mountain in the background, but it does give the image away as CG. There is just something about it that doesn't look real... textures maybe, DOF maybe.
My thought exactly, but I need a way to fix it...
I had a bit of an accident while tweaking the clouds. This is only 1 cloud layer, but with large shapes and a depth of 4061.
It does fix the mountain a bit, but still...
Can anyone give any hints on better surfaces?
I rather like Erwan's grass+mud/soil available here: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5948.msg62428#msg62428
In fact, I'm using it in my entry. But don't worry, our lighting is quite different ;)
That's looking better again. I think half of it is the lighting, the mountain looked too small, i.e. the image didn't have depth before and I kinda like the clouds. Maybe reduce the coverage a bit to give a little more light or not. I wouldn't stray too much from your original path though...
Lighter grass version is better - Top-notch picture for foreground
So I tried to get a natural opening in the clouds for the sun to shine through. Didn't work, so I used the painted shader on the ground and made a huge square. That did the trick!
But I kept the new clouds and now it looks more like a painting...
I think I might go back to the previous clouds.
I like the new look and I also like paintings :P What about the square? Did you cut out the cloud covering with a painted shader? ???
Quote from: MacGyver on June 10, 2009, 12:07:32 PM
Did you cut out the cloud covering with a painted shader? ???
Yep! Paint a big square on the surface just out of camera range, set it to Plan Y Projection, plug into the cloud's density fractal as inverted blend shader, et voilla, a big hole in the clouds for the sun to shine through, leaving enough space to shove the sun around a bit without it hitting the clouds any place soon.
You explained that really nice, thank you! :)
You improved it quite much already. Regarding the light angle etc. I wouldn't change much more, think you've squeezed out the best options.
I like the foreground grasses, but the bushes still don't really work for me. Perhaps you can try to find some better looking? I know it's difficult, because I don't know any (free) high quality bush-models. If I remember correctly you have the Xfrog megabundle, don't you?
Lastly, the background steep mountain would be a lot cooler with some nice displacements to make it look more rocky. Some powerfractal blended strata would be nice as well.
Also, you could "fake" depth by reducing the size of the trees in the background to make the mountain look huge. This can work nicely when using proper haze densities.
My "Brand New Day"-image has completely faked sense of scales and depths. As long nobody knows nobody will mention it, when doing properly of course :)
Martin
Well, testing some displacements now...
The trees are already 0.75 size, so there is some fakery at work. I could look for some other plants, though I like these.
as you like to experiment and seem to have a lot of patience, the following suggestion might not be "wasted" ;) :
I think you have already optimized the foreground, vegetation and lighting. What I would like to see you try is take these already tuned elements to a different terrain. The one remaining issue I have with the image is that the big mountain somehow looks almost 2D. I am really sorry that I can't put my finger on it as to why that is so. It's hard to explain. But maybe you give it a shot and see if that helps improving things even further.
But again, very nice image so far!
best regards,
Frank
Quote from: Mohawk20 on June 10, 2009, 07:31:08 PM
Well, testing some displacements now...
The trees are already 0.75 size, so there is some fakery at work. I could look for some other plants, though I like these.
0.75? hmmm...so you work with real-world scales etc.? I always find that way too time-consuming etc.
I always do stuff by eye, not by number. Anyhow, this isn't really useful, but perhaps something to try sometime.
Quote from: FrankB on June 11, 2009, 04:49:20 AM
as you like to experiment and seem to have a lot of patience, the following suggestion might not be "wasted" ;) :
I think you have already optimized the foreground, vegetation and lighting. What I would like to see you try is take these already tuned elements to a different terrain. The one remaining issue I have with the image is that the big mountain somehow looks almost 2D. I am really sorry that I can't put my finger on it as to why that is so. It's hard to explain. But maybe you give it a shot and see if that helps improving things even further.
But again, very nice image so far!
best regards,
Frank
Agree, this would give the image more power. If you'd like to keep the current foreground I'd then create a distance shader to mask your current terrain. Or the other way around. You know what I mean :)
Well, I was thinking of playing with the terrain...
The problem might be that this particular mountain is at the very edge of the heightfield. So behind the peak there is a straight drop and a 90 degree corner (as it's the corner of the heightfield as well).
I had to turn border blending off entirely or else this mountain wouldn't have been visible at all, it would have been blended down almost completely. So if I turn border blending on again, and put a big heightfield behind it, this would give more depth perhaps.
The last test with sky and displacements before changing the terrain came out pretty good.
But I'm getting really frustrated by these Errors in the Render Threads!!!
As you can see below, one bucket was skipped, the one next to it doesn't have sky behind the tree, and lower the other render thread crashed. Trying to crop render the single bucket by the tree, I still get these thread errors, even with very small pre-allocated sub div caches!
[edit]I noticed my virtual memory use was getting quite big: 1.4 Gb. So I saved, exited and started up again. So render thread errors so far... But it seems the memory still culminates and doesn't get dumped, or not enough anyway. Can that be fixed?[/edit]
The lighting is now really good - hope you can sort the render issues!
I understand how people think your mountain looks 2D, tbh, I can't fault it, I just think it needs to be softened up a little, and maybe post is the answer, or maybe a thicker atmosphere (although I've not really played with this too much myself). Mucking about with exagerated scale may also help.
The latest render gives me a good 'just before the rain' feel. I'd suggest putting in some slightly lower clouds with a different density and maybe cloud colour and lower coverage, to subtely break up the flat grey.
Well, at least here is the full render. I'm working on a poser figure, getting out of the water, looking at the oncoming rain... Better put a coat over that bikini ;)
I really like the new lighting and I still hope you'll be able to do something about those mountains in the back.
Since the theme of the challenge is realism I really would like to encourage you not to import a Poser figure, unless it is at least of the same decent quality of your Moses picture.
It was then nicely blended into your picture, but since this image looks a lot more realistic than the other one I think it will look like plastic/fake.
Just my honest thoughts on that idea.
At what settings did you render this and how long did it take? And, at which settings do you intend to render the final? I think this one will only look better and better when upping some settings.
Martin
Well, here are some lines copied directly from the tgd:
<camera
image_width = "1024"
image_height = "768"
detail = "1"
anti-aliasing = "8"
GI_relative_detail = "2"
GI_sample_quality = "2"
GI_blur_radius = "8"
supersample_prepass = "1"
GI_surface_details = "0"
pixel_filter = "2"
anti-aliasing_bloom = "1"
detail_blending = "0"
displacement_filter = "1"
microvertex_jittering = "1"
detail_jittering = "1"
do_ray_traced_shadows = "1"
ray_trace_everything = "0"
soft_clip_effect = "1"
soft_clip_softness = "1"
compensate_soft_clip = "1"
contrast = "1"
contrast_adjust = "0.25"
gamma_correction = "2.2"
size_of_subdiv_cache_in_Mb = "100"
preallocate_subdiv_cache = "1"
ray_detail_region = "2"
ray_detail_region_padding = "0"
<planet_atmosphere
gui_use_preview_patch_size = "0"
gui_preview_patch_size = "1000 1000"
haze_density = "2.71267"
number_of_samples = "64"
enable_ray_traced_shadows = "0"
<cloud_layer_v2
cloud_altitude = "2371"
cloud_depth = "2959.29"
edge_sharpness = "11.3077"
cloud_density = "0.02025"
coverage_adjust = "-0.85"
quality = "1.050428475"
number_of_samples = "186"
sample_jitter = "1"
acceleration_cache = "2"
enable_ray_traced_shadows = "0"
So settings are already pretty high...
I'll play some more with the displacement on the mountain, and I'll only add the poser figure if it improves.
After a lot of fiddling with powerfractals I gave up, increased border blending and added another heightfield.
Poser figure is just as a test to see what you think.
I'll get rid of the remaining hill with border blending...
So please comment on this!!
(This is a lower quality test render, so no need to comment on that ;))
she should be wet^^
na. What she needs is a good power fractal ;D
Quote from: PG on June 14, 2009, 06:53:13 PM
na. What she needs is a good power fractal ;D
yes !
and be wet too !
Actually, both! I'll check the settings of the bump maps first, those could be stronger...
So I finally have a full size next version!
I have been doing endless test renders to get the better mountains (finally settled for better textures than other mountains, as those disrupted the balance of the image), and I tried to get red clouds, bottom lit by a second sun close to the horizon. But the red is barely noticeable because of the ambient occlusion...
I also added a water shader to the girl's textures, so it seems this is as reflective as she'll get.
So what should be improved? Or should I enter this in the contest as-is?
I still think lighting and atmosphere are very good. So are the grasses.
The biggest improvements which can be made in my opinion are:
1) get rid of the girl
2) try to add some strata (using stretched PF's or strata shader self) or voronois to the mountain to make it a bit more interesting
3) don't touch the rest, it's fine :)
Martin
This is a really nice piece but as above I don't think the girl is necessary.
Ok, whatever you say! ;D
But I do need some help with those strata thingies. I never get those right, and I don't want to disturb the rest of the terrain when adding fractal displacement. So any specific suggestions?
Quote from: Mohawk20 on June 29, 2009, 02:49:00 PM
Ok, whatever you say! ;D
But I do need some help with those strata thingies. I never get those right, and I don't want to disturb the rest of the terrain when adding fractal displacement. So any specific suggestions?
I'd go for stretched fractals because they can be easily masked. The strata shader tends to liften up your terrain as you mentioned so if that's not desired then PF's will be your game.
Add a powerfractal somewhere between your surfaceshaders (in this case not really necessary to put before compute terrain, I do that too often)
Stretch the fractal on X and Z by a factor of 10 for starters. Give it a bit of color so it will blend/fit your current colorscheme nicely. You should already see a slight stretched pattern.
Now start playing with the displacement-factor. Not the way around! This approach gives you better control for color. Your displacement factor depends on your color, that's why.
You might try a very simple approach by just painting a mask in photoshop on your existing picture and project that through camera with an image-map shader, but you can of course also use the painted shader. Both offer a direct and easy way to break up the pattern.
For breakup you can also use a highly contrasted PF with low octaves.
This should get you started :)
Martin
get rid of the girl...I've heard that before!...addiong stretched pfs, for strata banding...now why didn't I think of that?....I like how this scene has progressed...looking real good!
I liked the scene without the girl. And sometimes its a good idea to have an open ear if people tell you to get rid of a girl ;-)
If you want to keep here in the scene, then you need to give us some more hints I guess. The landscape looks very peaceful and lonely. So its hard to believe "this kind of girl" in that area. She looks very "dressed up", more as she would come out of a luxury pool or the like.
- give us some clues, why someone is out there (a road with a small parking place, a track with a sign, something that tells us that there really might be sopme people around
- probably move here more to the back, to the shore just coming out of the water
-the cloth looks strange, is this a towel?
-the pose looks very "stiff" to me.
The easy way would be to get rid of here. The hard way would be to "blend" here in the scene.
best,
Walli
Thanks Walli.
I have decided to get rid of her, also because for the best realism she needs sss, and we don't have that. Otherwise I'd have added a car and perhaps some cottages on the mountainside.
The cloth is supposed to be a towel she grabs in a hurry, fumbled up for a speedy retreat...
I'm now working on the displacements, but It's gonna take a while before I get the scales right.
Stretched PFs eh.... hadn't thought about that one for strata, cheers Martin. I'm with the others about the girl, it doesn't fit the scene, takes away realism and looks cheesy. I like the progression I'm seeing as the scene moves on, keep on trucking...
Why don't you put the girl on the little piece of beach that you can just see and shrink her to half or a third her size? She's still there, but not that obtrusive. She is very stiff, indeed and looks quite large in comparison to the trees on the right.
Maybe a few stones (or some garbage) in the sand between the grasses?
Truth is, the girl was just a little test to see how such objects would hold out in a scene like this. I never expected her to stay. This relationship just wasn't meant to be...
Shame, she's pretty fit......
Add a lmabert shader, like she just came out of the water. :-\
Lambert Shader does the same as the Translucency setting of the Default Shader, and that doesn't really help, I tried.
How does this look TU?
Noise stretched only 5 on x and z, but it looks better already...
There's already some improvement, but not yet what I had in mind:
Perhaps it's better to stretch the fractals even further. I usually use at least 10 for both X and Z.
It's "best" to apply it to the steeper surfaces, I'm not sure how you've restricted them at the moment.
The scales are quite big, I'd use very small scales and less scale variation.
I have scales in mind like I the ones I've drawn in the image.
It's probably easiest to let the preview finish and measure the desired scale and apply it to your stretched powerfractal.
So if you find a size of 10m then make the powerfractal scales like: 10m feature, 25 large and 1 or 2m small scale.
Also, make it quite contrasted to get sharp profiles.
Don't forget to break up the powerfractal for variation.
Hope some of this will help further.
Martin
I'll try...
The powerfractal is set as a child layer of the Rocks Surface shader, and has a slope constraint of 20.
Okay, I have a problem!
It's called vacation. I'm going to Italy tomorrow, and I'm back on the 29th. In the mean time my pc's are switched off.
I have rendered the final piece, only to discover it wasn't big enough.
See below...
How can I enter the final version if it's not complete? Any thoughts?
Hmm I'd be more worried by the half a leg.
Shame it's a great image.
Come to Binghamton NY. We have great Italian food here. AT least you would not be missing that. ;D
I wish I had the full version, I'd render it for you, then send it in; provided it did not break the submission rules.
Thanks Njeneb!
But you'd also need the Xfrog tgo plant bundle...
And I'm rendering a final piece this night, hoping it will finish in time.
It's done!
So here is the final version!
Now to find a place to officially enter it into the contest...
Wow. Really looks like a place I would like to go visit.
It's so great seeing everyone do there best for this contest. :)