Vikings Landing

[Dune]

As a result of testing more wave and water issues, this render rolled out. There's another one rendering right now (better land), and I'm having my first difficulties with the newest build: strange triangles in the sky. Will post that later.

---Dune

[Dune]

Here's the strange triangles. I think I got rid of them now, but I had to turn off GI. Render settings were: detail=0.5, AA=6, GI=1/1/2, three fill lights. Cloud quality 3 or so, but I think that's not the problem.

[RArcher]

The triangles in the sky look to me like a cloud acceleration cache issue.  Try reducing the cache to conservative or none and see if they disappear.

[dandelO]

Yup, I'd say so, too. Acceleration cache wants disabling.
I haven't seen this problem for a good while now, it's usually very apparent in 2D clouds when any acceleration is enabled, I have also had it in 3D clouds, too, though.
Usually, it's when I'm looking directly north(which I nearly always do) and there is cloud coverage, or cloud shadows on the terrain with a visible cut-off(cloud shadows seem to be more prone to this anomaly for me now, than actual clouds).

[old_blaggard]

Regardless, this water is looking very good! I'm excited to see where you go with this.

[Linda McCarthy]

The sea, atmosphere and POV are terrific!  Wonderfully moody..  Linda

[Dune]

Thanks for the comments and advice. I got rid of the triangles by turning off GI, but I'll keep the cache in mind. This is a render with higher settings (0.5 and 6, no GI). Took 5 hours for this size. Still not satisfied with the vegetation, and I want to have the waves lap up the coast a bit (trying something else today). Also the second cloud layer takes too much direct sunlight away, so I'll fiddle with that again.

[Walli]

thats looking nice so far. The main problem I have with this scene is, that on the one hand it looks like a dull, foggy day, on the other hand the trees cast razor sharp shadows. So I think I would enable soft shadows and increase the sun size, so that the shadows get very soft. But that will increase rendertime and probably should be done at the end.

[Dune]

Another one is rendering right now, and I quickly changed the size of the sun and amount of haze. I'll see what comes out, thanks Walli. I didn't enable soft shadows though. I wanted to have a feeling of morning fog lifting and sun lighten things up. I had to disable the cache in the clouds to get rid of the triangles. I'll keep you posted...

[choronr]

You've got a good one going here. I also like the shore foam - how did you achieve that?

[Dune]

Good question. That's what I've been busy with the last couple of days. Still didn't find a really good solution, hence my call for anyone out there to think out loud. How can you get a mask to follow exactly the coastline, adjustable in height and softness. It would solve all my/our problems!
I've attached a simple setup, as I was thinking that the original fractals (terrain) with it's whites (highs?) and blacks (lows?) would provide a perfect start. A color adjust in between and there you go. But it doesn't somehow exactly follow the terrain. How come?
I also thought out a way to have the waves crawl up a beach or up against the rocks, but that depends on an exact mask of the coastline. If you look careful in this render you'll see a slight rise in the sea near (20 meters away) the coast (just around the corner). If I change the height there it gets closer to the coast but at other places it goes beyond the coastline, so that's not good enough.
Anyway (long story), here's the render. I now like the light, but am still not satisfied with the land. And the foam is kind of peculiar, I must have changed something.

Thanks for looking (and thinking!)

---Dune

[pfrancke]

I'm thinking this is what you want -- foam close to shore, but not in deeper waters.  To make it work I think I had to feed in compute terrain, but to keep it from messing the water up, it came in via a merge.  I'm betting that the tgd can be simplified, but I think the principle works.

[Dune]

Thanks PF, I'll take a look at what you did...

[Dune]

Your method doesn't work, PF, as the water is now displaced. Too bad, would have been nice. If anyone else has some great idea, I'd be much obliged.

Anyway, here's an update of my Vikings Landing.

---Dune

[Henry Blewer]

It's a start. In fact in the distance it works quite well.