FINAL - Playing with NWDA Pines - by the lake

[FrankB]

Hi guys,

I've started something, still WIP, using the NWDA Pines. Actually the senery is inspired by Choronr's render.
As you can see I'm not yet finished, still a few things to touch up, such as the distant shore for example, and the water (I don't like how the water came out).
I have to be careful with not creating too much self shadowing + receiving other shadows in the canopy - TG2's GI can't cope with that very good yet, so I may rearrange the trees in the foreground.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

This is a link to the image (there's too much compression artifacts for this kind of render at <500kB... )

http://www.nwdanet.com/images/by%20the%20lake%208b.jpg

Thanks,
Frank

[Walli]

thats some serious playing ;-) Great work so far.

[Walli]

sometimes it works very fine to render a second pass with lights adjusted for the "dark problem". Then add this in Photoshop to the regular render.

[FrankB]

yeah i might try that, or use the higher dynamic range of an exr file for that. Might be faster... I haven't tried that yet.

[AP]

Could you just adjust the exposure within terragen itself or add an environment light but have it effect the terrain only by unchecking atmosphere?

[FrankB]

I could adjust the exposure but that affects everything. Adding or increasing GI strength also affects everything (bright parts and dark parts, even if I restrict to surface only). What I would need is TG2 to be different and truly let rays pass through transparent object parts

There might be another solution. I could increase the shadow color in the atmosphere, so "things" won't cast as dark shadows, but I don't know if this will introduce other problems. Or I change the sun angle and heading to a more tree-smothering position - heck, I'm the producer AND the artist in unison, so I'm free to do what I want!

[Tangled-Universe]

I'd add a second atmosphere and in that 2nd atmosphere set haze density to 3 or 4 and raise haze exp height to 8000.
Set ambient to 1 and disable "primary".
Connect the second atmosphere to the first and start rendering.

Do you want brighter shadows? Increase haze density and/or ambient of second atmosphere.
Do you want darker shadows? Do the opposite.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Martin

[FrankB]

I don't know, maybe. I just don't want more haze, that's the problem. I already have a strong GI contribution from the sky (increased background object color).

[Zairyn Arsyn]

wow! i really like this one, reminds me of the sink hole lakes we have scattered around florida

my only problem with the image is the mid ground, does'nt looks quite right to me.

[FrankB]

true, the mid-ground isn't quite there yet

[Tangled-Universe]

I don't know, maybe. I just don't want more haze, that's the problem. I already have a strong GI contribution from the sky (increased background object color).

You won't get more haze, that's because you disable "primary".

[FrankB]

not sure how this is different from upping the shadow color with just one atmosphere. Have you actually tried this yourself, yet?
And adding more haze adds more haze, primary or not... I would reckon.

[Tangled-Universe]

not sure how this is different from upping the shadow color with just one atmosphere. Have you actually tried this yourself, yet?
And adding more haze adds more haze, primary or not... I would reckon.

Here's when I used it first:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10538.0

Used it a couple more times after that one.

[Kadri]

Looks good , Frank!
........................................................................

[Henry Blewer]

Try adjusting the atmosphere's ambient lighting higher. Turn up the fake dark power and then lower the camera exposure.

The atmosphere's ambient light will start to wash out the image. The fake dark power will bring the shadows back, but it will still be washed out. The camera exposure will bring it all back to 'normal'.

You can also change the enviro light to ambient occlusion. Then use the sunlight for highlighting.