Work in Progress

[moodflow]

I figured I'd put together some of the research I've been doing, so I whipped up a quick image to see how it turned out.

I am not impressed with how "flat" the foliage came out, and this was most likely due to the soft shadows AND diffuse lighting all in one.  I need to watch that next time.

Additionally, I need to re-tweak the foliage shaders so they work better in darker, more diffuse scenes.  (this applies to the foliage I shared - the translucency and luminosity is likely too high, so keep this in mind if you use them for a darker scene).

The clouds came out as planned, and I used a distance shader with more cloud layers to keep them hugging the mountains. 

The surface/ground shaders are 2 fractal stacks (actually HUGE groups) but gave the ground much needed variation.  One for dirt, and one for foliage ground.  The snow is 2 layers, one with slabs of built up snow, and another with a thin "dusting" layer.  This seems to give pretty realistic results.

For the foliage itself, I used atleast 5 models, and used a variation method similar to the one in the foliage I shared.  This kept them more "clumped" and realistic, though still more work to do.

The castle was assembled in Google Sketchup.  I'm starting to like this app more and more (hated it at first, but it was the best structure modeller out there for free).

There will be a model on the road of a horseman, possibly with a carriage, but I don't have those models at the moment.

Stats:
rendered on 2 cores @ about 20 hours per core.
minor color/contrast/sharpening in Photoshop.
detail 0.8, AA 10

Thanks for viewing. 

[rcallicotte]

This is nice overall.  I would have said something about the flatness, but you did.  Did you use GI?  That might be why it didn't show some depth, if not.  Like it and even thought it reminded me of a Vue final.

[moodflow]

Since the render time was so large, I didn't get a chance to realize what was going on and fix it.  Of course, its a work in progress. 

[dhavalmistry]

looking good moodflow...I like the surfacing....


as per the carriage...I have a model of caravan (no horse)..not sure where I got it fro,....but as long as you are not willing to use the render commercially....I might be able to share the model....

[rcallicotte]

@moodflow - I have run into the same problems with the length of time of renders.  If something takes too long, I kill it immediately.  The quicker the render, the easier it is to figure out future problems, where simple cropping just doesn't always do the job of finding what looks good overall.  In recent days, I have rarely finished one scene.

The issue of bugs - This has slowed my progress considerably.  I have experimented and put away more than I've rendered.  For example, the explanation of  your fire-coal ground picture I liked so well was just finished in a render last night.  Mine is nothing close to yours, but you had inspired me to finish it.  I'll post the results tonight or tomorrow, after I work with the EXR.  If you remember how long ago that was, you'll have an indication how long I'm taking to do anything in TG2.  That was about a month ago, if I remember right.

[moodflow]

@moodflow - I have run into the same problems with the length of time of renders.  If something takes too long, I kill it immediately.  The quicker the render, the easier it is to figure out future problems, where simple cropping just doesn't always do the job of finding what looks good overall.  In recent days, I have rarely finished one scene.

The issue of bugs - This has slowed my progress considerably.  I have experimented and put away more than I've rendered.  For example, the explanation of  your fire-coal ground picture I liked so well was just finished in a render last night.  Mine is nothing close to yours, but you had inspired me to finish it.  I'll post the results tonight or tomorrow, after I work with the EXR.  If you remember how long ago that was, you'll have an indication how long I'm taking to do anything in TG2.  That was about a month ago, if I remember right.

Super!  I can't wait to see it.   

[matrix2003]

Google Sketchup question ? 

with the free version, how do you get a model into T2?   The converters all seem to be for the pro version.
...or are you using 2D ?   Just downloaded, looks cool. http://sketchup.google.com/

Thanks-  Bill   

[moodflow]

Google Sketchup question ? 

with the free version, how do you get a model into T2?   The converters all seem to be for the pro version.
...or are you using 2D ?   Just downloaded, looks cool. http://sketchup.google.com/

Thanks-  Bill   

Hi Bill,

There is no direct way.  I ended up finding a free program called "flux studio" that could open .kml files and save as .obj.  Google Sketchup can save as .kml, so I just save them that way, open in Flux Studio, then save as .obj.  Then bring it into PoseRay to normalize it "better", then into TG2.

[matrix2003]

OK  will play ! 

Thanks.

[BPauba]

I think that image could be amazing with one swipe through photoshop bud, you know how to do it

[moodflow]

I think that image could be amazing with one swipe through photoshop bud, you know how to do it

Thanks BPauba. 

I found out the problem with the flat foliage and have since redeemed this in a new image.  In the foliage itself, default shaders were used for the color.  This should have worked, but for some reason, the colors were not being affected by the surrounding light properly.  But when I plugged a power fractal shader into the default shader with the same colors, it resolved the issue.  Weird, but I'd rather use power fractals anyway.  Issue is now resolved, but I've moved onto another image. 

[Bidmaron]

Could you perhaps show us the result of the image with the power fractals?  I really like your composition from an artistic perspective.
--Dale--

[moodflow]

Could you perhaps show us the result of the image with the power fractals?  I really like your composition from an artistic perspective.
--Dale--

Thanks for the compliments Dale.

Do you mean a rendered version of the image without foliage?  That will show the power fractals on the surface quite well.

[Bidmaron]

You said:
"But when I plugged a power fractal shader into the default shader with the same colors, it resolved the issue. "
(I don't know how to use these dern forums to make quotes in boxes.  Somewhere there is probably something that explains how to use these forums )

So I was just asking if you might have a render that shows how it looks with the fractal shader inserted.
--Dale--

[moodflow]

You said:
"But when I plugged a power fractal shader into the default shader with the same colors, it resolved the issue. "
(I don't know how to use these dern forums to make quotes in boxes.  Somewhere there is probably something that explains how to use these forums )

So I was just asking if you might have a render that shows how it looks with the fractal shader inserted.
--Dale--

Ahh yes.  I'll try to explain what I mean, as a picture won't show much. 

I was referring to the shaders within the foliage object.  There was a "default shader" plugged into the object's shader (which is itself the default), with a default "green" color.  For some reason, this rendered the foliage without many effects applied to the color.  So instead of using the default shader to color it, I plugged a power fractal shader into the default shader as the color, and then it rendered the colors properly.  This is likely a bug in TG2.