Still Life

[bobbystahr]

This a semi successful attempt using DoF in an indoor setting. Hope y'all like it.

[TheBadger]

On the one hand there is the aspect of making TG do something well, that its not really cut out for. So in that respect you got things working. And indeed others too, have made some good experiments on various interior scenes.
So there is the sort of technical accomplishment of doing anything like this.

But really, unless you can light an interior, and make it look real, with only the natural light of the sun through a window (which you can't, because TG can't) then I have to ask what the point is? I mean, there is just this unmovable wall on things like this that everyone will enevitably run into, where we see the real limitations of what can be done.

On the DOF, why not test that on a scene that Terragen can actually do?

[fleetwood]

I like this one. Spotlight could maybe use softer shadows.

[dandelO]

Michael, of course you can light an interior just from an outside sunlight, that's what GI is for, it takes any existing light and bounces it around in dark areas that aren't in the direct light.

[TheBadger]

Martin,
Yes, but lets see it! Make light come through a window into an inclosed environment, and make it look like a photo. Something MR, VR, and other renderers do.

Bobby,
I looked at my words and hope I did not come off as dismissive. Of course I appreciate the traditional treatment in your composition and the overall effort.

But I am a doubting Thomas on this.
Its just that I have seen no indication whatsoever that the kind of scene you built can be done well in TG like it is in, say, MAx with VRay, for example.

I am no master! But I can usually deduce if certain complex things can be done, and this is not even a complex question as these things go. I just can't see it based on everything else I have seen here.
Perhaps I am conflating things a bit, Maybe its the objects relationship with the light as opposed to the light its self? But I doubt, and would LOVE to be disproven on this topic!

[pclavett]

Lovely composition !
Paul

[dandelO]

Quickly, here's 2. One with light out back, one with light out front.
I only used a GI sample quality of '1', using better quality settings will only make things better.
You see in both, though, more indirect light is around the areas where the light comes in(window/door) and falls off as it gets further away. The one with the Sun outside the front is doing quite a nice bit of light distribution for such a low sample quality, I think.
1 'Sunlight' node and 1 'envirolight' node, set to GI, strength on surfaces is the default = '1' for both images.

[TheBadger]

http://twinshock.deviantart.com/art/Vray-vs-Mental-ray-Round-3-318177828
I remain unconvinced.

[Oshyan]

TG's renderer just isn't designed for those sorts of situations. It can do OK, as the cabin example dandelO posted shows, but it will probably never look as good as a good Vray scene.

- Oshyan

[yossam]

There are also a ton more windows in the example that Badger posted. 

[dandelO]

Well, there's another red-rag to the bull!

I've taken some time off to play with it, I have a nice room, big patio windows, alcoves and lots of occluding furniture. And, for night time, 10 ceiling inset lights, 2 table lamps and whatever else I can think of to add later. TG isn't ideal for this, you're right, of course, it'll be an excercise to see how far I can bend it, though, should be fun.

Cheers, Bobby!

[TheBadger]

Well, there's another red-rag to the bull!

As I was hoping. Need a little extra life around these parts.

But I don't think your Positronic brain from the future is going to be much help here Martin. Because I dont think its just a question of being smart and figuring out how to bend things to your will. Its a mater of what you need just not being there.

Of course I don't know enough to be able to explain exactly why iI think it cant work. I just can see that it wont.

On the other hand, Im a little afraid now you'll do something that makes it work and prove me wrong. But that would be just fine!

Heres to me being wrong

(But Im not)

[Upon Infinity]

The reason Terragen can't do it as well is in the name itself.  Mental RAY, V RAY.  Terragen is not a ray-tracer in the purer sense of the word.  As in, it does not calculate the ray of every single pixel to its source.  Terragen just kind of approximates it's GI (albeit in a very intelligent way).  Mental Ray, V Ray, POV-Ray (my old flame) are pure ray-tracers so naturally, they will be better at this kind of calculation.  The weaknesses of those systems, then, should be obvious.  And there, Terragen reigns supreme.