Train

[Dune]

A railroad for a change, with a bit of post coloring. The river has no depth at all, is just a warped line with a reflective shader (basically), and is reasonably effective. The smoke is TG, but not good enough. I'll paint some in later.

[ajcgi]

Ooo lovely colours. One day I'll find the time to investigate all this road/railway stuff. Opens up all sorts of possibilities.

[Jo Kariboo]

Nice image ! I like the water and light !

[masonspappy]

That's a lovely picture!

[Dune]

I have noticed something I do not like... but perhaps I'm doing something wrong. If you take the train windows and add a reflective (RT) shader (index 2 or so), you'd imagine it to be working as a mirror. So far, so good, but when you ray trace your objects the mirrored terrain is not rendered in fine detail, no matter what you do to the AA or subdivison settings in the render node. Or if you use 2 reflective shaders or a reflective shader plus a glass shader (which only gives the (interesting) impression of double glazing).

[Oshyan]

Probably increasing Ray Detail Multiplier in the Render Subdiv Settings node (inside Renderer) would help. It's an optimization that usually helps render time without causing significant problems. Of course the water shader wasn't meant to be used this way, so it doesn't behave quite properly (not to say that means you shouldn't try ).

- Oshyan

[Dune]

No, I already tried that. No difference whatsoever.

[Matt]

Displaced surfaces behind the camera aren't fully subdivided. If they are in front of the camera plane then they will be fully subdivided if they are inside the "ray detail region" which might be possible if you increase ray detail region padding.

Matt

[Henry Blewer]

I used fake reflections (image maps for reflections) back when Lightwave 1.0 came out. It did not have ray tracing then.

[j meyer]

In case you've missed it before
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15491.msg150621.html#msg150621

[Gannaingh]

That's quite a nice image you have! I really like the overall color of the image, it makes it look old fashioned.

[efflux]

The integration of the railroad is looking good. I'm sure it must be quite difficult to do these kinds of things since when we build railways and roads we take the easiest route through the terrain.

[Dune]

Thanks, guys! I read that post but forgot about it.

[AndyWelder]

I'm impressed, a lot!
Concentrating a new population of grass/small shrubs/herbs at the seams of the "river" would hide the water is sometimes floating a bit.
And because I'm of a generation who did see steam trains every day: A moving train would produce a lot more steam of a whiter shade that would kinda envelope the lower parts of the locomotive. Maybe a very small localized cloud formation?

[Dune]

The water was merely a test to see what would happen if I simply laid a warped simple shape as a gutter alongside the railbed, and added a reflective shader, but you're right, a bit more veggies alongside the stream would do it good, if that's what you mean.
And I know about the steam, I have a large steamtrain book on my desk, but it is a bit complicated to get the exact puffy steamclouds in TG. I have to work on that if I have some time, but now I will probably just paint it in.
Great that you have seen them; I have only seen them on holiday in Poland when I was 15, after that they virtually disappeared.