Recent posts

81

Image Sharing / HUTTE

Last post by bobbystahr - December 06, 2019, 01:40:58 am

This scene uses 2 XFROG tree populations(willow and birch) and one grass population and 2 Walli WildPrairieRose bushes to fill out the lovely:
hutte-zwischen-den-streuobstwiesen by p1337 @ SketchFab

done small as my computer is old and slowing down

82

Open Discussion / Re: Ad Astra - To The Stars

Last post by sboerner - December 05, 2019, 09:22:29 pm

. . . the potential of this film was, in my view, entirely wasted.

Sadly, I agree, but I also understand how the story could be meaningful to someone with a similar family experience.


Ariel DK, have you seen Interstellar? It is similar in some superficial ways but IMHO it is a much superior film, and it packs a surprisingly emotional punch.

Arthur C. Clark "invented" the space elevator and described it in some detail 40 years ago in The Fountains of Paradise.

83

Terragen Support / Re: Sculpting ripples in water

Last post by sboerner - December 05, 2019, 09:03:25 pm

Looks like progress! Here's a 32-bit displacement map if you want to give it a try.

84

Terragen Animation / Re: Black Hole project revisit...

Last post by Ariel DK - December 05, 2019, 08:49:46 pm

I wasn't referring to the last image, I was specifically talking about the HDR ones and their effects across my monitors.

Oh okey. relax, you definitely can read, is just that i thought that you was referring to that last images. sorry.
i have just one HDR TV monitor, but i not always test all my images in my TV. i gonna do it again for the final animation for sure.

85

Image Sharing / Re: Underwater again

Last post by WAS - December 05, 2019, 06:39:32 pm

here are the crops:

Have you tried slowly playing with the Voxel scattering quality? The default 100 may be too low. I use 150-200

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Image Sharing / Re: Underwater again

Last post by gasbutan - December 05, 2019, 05:37:31 pm

here are the crops:

87

Image Sharing / Re: Underwater again

Last post by gasbutan - December 05, 2019, 05:34:34 pm

Your values sound okay, but there's no grain underwater, just in the blue sky. Quality of 16 should do (if not for the glass shader), but what if you raise that to 32 (or even higher)? So I still think glass somehow increases grain.

I think you're right.
I did a test render without the surface card and without the glass shader:  less grain.

88

Image Sharing / Re: Underwater again

Last post by gasbutan - December 05, 2019, 05:06:50 pm

... a minimalist variant that shows the water effects particularly well:

Looks pretty good. Caustics are entirely too small and don't match surface though. When they reflect on such large smooth shapes on the water surface it kinda looks wrong to me. Just my opinion though.

thx for your comment.
This was one the reference photos I used:

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-underwater-artistic-view-of-mediterranean-shallow-waters-tilted-view-176298203.html

The relatively small custic pattern comes from the wide angle lens (which I also used in the render).
And there no visible connection between the waves and the pattern.

89

Terragen Support / Re: Sculpting ripples in water

Last post by David - December 05, 2019, 04:18:24 pm

Wow, Thank you WAS! It did occur to me that the image map was perhaps attached to the ground plane but I guess I wasn't reading the node layout correctly. Anyway, I'm very grateful for your help. Now to study FOAM!

[Note: Spoilers marked with an invisible ink (highlight to read).]

90

Open Discussion / Re: Ad Astra - To The Stars

Last post by N-drju - December 05, 2019, 03:29:39 pm

Note: Spoilers marked with an invisible ink (highlight to read).

Future technology - yes. I believe this is possible.

Space antenna / elevator is still a hot topic in the science circles and it may be a thing in a few centuries. When viewing the movie, I was sitting at the edge of my chair watching this construct towering above the planet (disintegrating, sadly) and the astronauts climbing the ladders, seemingly still on Earth, but technically already in space!

One more thing that I, as a frequent flier, really liked as well was the future vision of traveling to the moon, going to the starport and... checking in at gate #9... Like it was a regular airplane! Extremely fun vision and indeed - something that humanity works very hard at doing.

As far as an anti-matter drive, the cause of the "strokes", is concerned? Well, this is still a poorly understood notion in physics and I doubt we can (safely) harness its power. If anything, instead of a peaceful source of energy, I'm afraid that one of the world powers will simply develop an antimatter bomb. Effectively outclassing any nuclear weapon.

What was a tremendous experience for me was the fact that we have actually been to a 4D theater to watch this movie. Feeling the wind in our hair when the main protagonist was falling off the ISA. Experiencing each road bump on the moon's surface and all explosions during the moon chase scene.  Or a short, sharp blow of air right next to your ear when a gun was fired. This was the first time I have been to a 4D show and this was a fantastic experience.

But this is all of the positives I have to say about this movie...

To toss a fly in the ointment, this was the most god-damn boring film in my life...!!!

There was nothing really happening in this movie at all! A lot of protagonist's personal musings, reflections and complaints on / about his family life. Overload of philosophical nonsense, not quite enough action.

Yes, you can make a slow-paced and successful sci-fi movie but it is very hard and Brad Pitt failed miserably at it. It was just J.Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (which bored me as well) translated into a space setting. Just compare the two. It's the same plot, step by step.

I also find the ending of this movie to be extremely anti-climatic, plus unrealistic. Anti-climatic because of a terribly anemic acting on Pitt's and Jones' part during the "reconciliation" scene. Unrealistic, because a real astronaut would have never managed to return to a ship just by f@&$% jumping off a spinning antenna... All of these rocks would have slowed him down after just a few meters... More of a fantasy than a science (huoy, huoy) fiction...

Despite all of these interesting technological gimmicks, despite the 4D movie and an initial "spark" that I have felt in the first few segments, the potential of this film was, in my view, entirely wasted. Were it not for shaking chair and wind gusts, I would have probably fallen asleep...