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#91

Terragen Discussion / Re: Render subdiv settings

Last post by digitalguru - May 20, 2025, 04:49:26 AM

I rendered a short section last night - results were interesting

no popping or artefacts in the non animation setting render - the only difference I see is in the shadows. The animation settings had shadows with a softer falloff, whereas the non animation had a harder terminator. Looks better to me and in comparison the non animation version shadows now look a bit "blobby"

non-animation setting:
fully_adaptive = "1"
microvertex_jittering = "1"
force_all_edges = "0"
detail_jittering = "1"
detail_blending = "0"
displacement_filter = "1"
jitter_shading_points = "1"
ray_detail_multiplier = "1"
stabilise_ray_detail_in_motion = "0"
ray_detail_stabilisation = "3"
override_size_of_subdiv_cache = "0"

animation settings:
fully_adaptive = "1"
microvertex_jittering = "1"
force_all_edges = "0"
detail_jittering = "0"
detail_blending = "0.5"
displacement_filter = "1"
jitter_shading_points = "0"
ray_detail_multiplier = "1"
stabilise_ray_detail_in_motion = "1"
ray_detail_stabilisation = "3"
override_size_of_subdiv_cache = "0"

non animation settings render:


animation settings render:

#92

Terragen Support / Re: Exporting an FBX camera ou...

Last post by digitalguru - May 19, 2025, 08:58:45 AM

Millions of miles? Sounds like you're flying through a solar system?

Matt is right, get the scale working in Maya first, then export that camera to TG. You may need a further scale factor when you export the camera to get the scene looking right.

Maya is not great at huge scene scales. I remmeber a show that had a pretty detailed layout of a section of Edinburgh that was modelled at real world scale. Due to floating point errors animation was going nuts and had to be baked at the origin then moved to its final location, so make sure any "hero" anim takes place at the origin.

Don't think you need to go as low as a couple of metres, but I'd have to experiment with something like this, but couldn't say for sure.

Thinking about this, if I was doing something like a fly through of the solar system then coming to Earth and ending on a landscape, I'd consider splitting the anim into two sections - at different scales and blending the two.

#93

Terragen Discussion / Render subdiv settings

Last post by digitalguru - May 19, 2025, 08:30:39 AM

For my animation I've been testing still frames prior to rendering a whole sequence (will be testing a segment overnight) but just wondering about some of the render subdiv settings, particularly remembering the animation checker feature that used to change some of those settings.

Reading the docs I see a few salient settings - from the docs:

Detail jittering: For still images you should keep this turned ON. However, there is a mistake in the renderer that causes this to change from one frame to the next in an animation, so for animations you should switch it OFF. The Animation Check button (on the render node's Advanced tab) will check this setting and offer to turn it OFF.

Jitter shading points: Jitter shading points chooses a random point on each micropolygon as the point where lighting and shaders are calculated. The results of those calculations are used to colour the whole micropolygon. Jittering provides a more natural image, but because of a mistake in current versions the jitter is different on each frame so it is a source of unwanted noise in animations. The Animation Check button (on the render node's Advanced tab) will check this setting and offer to turn it OFF.

I'm highlighting these as the help mentions "because of a mistake in current versions the jitter is different on each frame" etc and I wonder how relevant this is today? Don't know if the those doc are up to date with recent versions of TG. I'm currently on 4.6.31.

The last time a rendered an animation was 4(!) years ago and it looked good with these settings:
fully_adaptive = "1"
microvertex_jittering = "1"
force_all_edges = "0"
detail_jittering = "0"
detail_blending = "0.5"
displacement_filter = "1"
jitter_shading_points = "0"
ray_detail_multiplier = "1"
stabilise_ray_detail_in_motion = "1"
ray_detail_stabilisation = "3"
override_size_of_subdiv_cache = "0"

I'll do a test with default setting vs the last render settings used.
Just wondering if these params are still relevant for the newer version of Terragen (4.6.31) vs the older version 4.4.18.1, probably yes, but still wanted to check (as I may farm this render out).
f.y.i - render test segment will be where the camera pans the scene at a medium speed.

#94

Terragen Discussion / Re: No displacement underwater...

Last post by Belmont224 - May 18, 2025, 04:11:30 PM

Thank you! That worked.

#95

Terragen Discussion / Re: No displacement underwater...

Last post by Dune - May 18, 2025, 01:41:17 AM

First of all; the amount of detail under water can be increased in the 'advanced-subdivison settings'. Set ray detail multiplier to a higher number than default 0.25. Usually 0.5 will do, but the higher you go the longer the render time.
Then for the faceted part you need to up the Ray detail region (to 360/optimal), or the padding - I think the latter is the best to try first, just slide it to the right.

It's not a bug, btw, but an intentional detail setting, as often underwater is less 'important' and calculation of underwater areas is heavy on the machine. So the default is a 'good average'.

#96

Terragen Discussion / No displacement underwater?

Last post by Belmont224 - May 17, 2025, 10:22:55 PM

Is it a known bug that displacement doesn't work the same underwater than above the water? For example, if I have a fake stone shader on a plane and some of it is above water and some is below (larger/taller rocks and lower rock for example), the parts above the water are displaced normally, the parts below the water looks very faceted, like it would in the preview. Here is a contrived example.

#97

Terragen Discussion / Re: The effect of clouds?

Last post by noahding1 - May 14, 2025, 10:46:55 PM

I'm really looking forward to the update of the next version
It would be great if Terragen Sky could add sun intensity and color control

I want the alpha region of the cloud to be rendered separately later

#98

Image Sharing / "Remains of the Day"

Last post by jhmart1 - May 13, 2025, 09:19:41 PM

Terragen 4

#99

Image Sharing / Re: Galilean Moon Io

Last post by Dune - May 13, 2025, 01:41:39 AM

Good of you to post something here. It's extremely quiet indeed. I think a lot of folkes have gone to Blender or Unreal and such.
Nice scene. Smoke columns are hard indeed, but yours looks good.

#100

Image Sharing / Galilean Moon Io

Last post by RichTwo - May 12, 2025, 12:15:04 PM

Wow... It's been pretty quiet in this section for a while. And while I haven't been inspired enough lately to contribute anything, I consider this as an achievement, minor that it may be.

First of all, many thanks to staff member Kevin Kipper who solved my problem of image mapping onto a planet object. And to Jordan T for his starfield background.
The vapor "column" is three localized cloud / stretched PF density nodes. Its upper limit doesn't extend much further than the top of the image,,, I tried tweaking a "smoke column" clip (Jordan's I believe) but to no avail. If anyone has a better solution, please have at it.

Io, for those who don't know is the innermost large moon of Jupiter. Its surface is free of cratering due to constant resurfacing of its crust. The plumes are probably not due to material shooting directly out from underground, rather it the being much hotter molten sulfurous rock flowing out from vents, contacting the frozen surface which then vaporizes and explodes upwards.

That's the science lesson for today. Test in 15 minutes...