Canyon WIP

[RogueNZ]

What started as a study in displacements turned into a full blown project  



Heres an earlier version without the river and in a larger size.

http://roguenz.deviantart.com/art/Canyon-151995037

Feedback is good Waiting for everything to be just right before commiting to another HQ render - this smaller one took over 13 hours :S

[domdib]

Very nice canyon shape. The only thing I might do is dial down the sun just a little, as it seems to be bleaching out a few foreground details. Or if you have tools for working with EXR, maybe some HDR post-processing would bring those out. Well done!

[GioMez]

This scene has high potential!
Try also to reduce the density of vegetation to the very flat areas with a surface layer linked to the density shader of your populations.

[EoinArmstrong]

I agree with domdib - everything looks great in its place and the colours are contrasting nicely, but yeah the sun is overly-strong on some of the surfaces, with the result that we can't see all that yummy detail

[RogueNZ]

Thanks for the replies 

I agree about the brightness. I tried working with the EXR in photoshop, but I couldn't even work out how to save it as a JPG  I'll give it another go i think, ill read some guides and stuff.

I tried restricting the population to shallower slopes, but found I prefered  full coverage, as the cliffs in the background started to look bland. Im starting to feel that the bushes are too bright green, so i may tone it down a little bit.

Just a question about water: during rendering, terragen seems to render the entire water plane before layering the terrain over the top, even the parts that are not visible. Is there a way toalter it so only the visible surface area is rendered? This would cut render times down a lot I think.

[domdib]

As far as I know, there isn't a way to restrict the water rendering (water shaders even take up render time when they're disconnected from the network, I believe!), which is why the advice is always to size your water feature as small as possible.

[Kadri]

...
I agree about the brightness. I tried working with the EXR in photoshop, but I couldn't even work out how to save it as a JPG  
I'll give it another go i think, ill read some guides and stuff.
...

You have to convert the image to 8 bit first to save as JPG or as the other standard formats .
But do all your adjustments ( effects , filters etc . ) before this. Then convert to 8 bit . If i remember right.

And your image is really good  

Cheers.

Kadri.

[RogueNZ]

Just started a HQ render, fingers crossed it makes it through  . My guess is 25 hours.

[domdib]

In fact, you can save out as EXR or 16 bit TIFF without changing the mode, having adjusted Levels, Curves and a few other things. For the final JPG (and also if you want to apply filters, at least in PS 6 - might be different for later versions) you do have to change the mode to 8 bit, so best to do that after all other adjustments, as Kadri says.

[Kadri]

In fact, you can save out as EXR or 16 bit TIFF without changing the mode, having adjusted Levels, Curves and a few other things. For the final JPG (and also if you want to apply filters, at least in PS 6 - might be different for later versions) you do have to change the mode to 8 bit, so best to do that after all other adjustments, as Kadri says.

Yes .
One more thing . It is obvious , but don't throw the original file away in case for other adjustments you want to make later  

Kadri.

[dandelO]

You certainly can restrict water to only render where visible. Simply set the water shader to a default shader and use its opacity channel as a mask area.

I made an example file of this before, don't think it's uploaded here but it's at TG.org... LINK REMOVED - BROKEN

Here's the basic outline example .tgd. Greatly reduces render time... http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8779.0

[domdib]

Thanks for sharing that little gem of wisdom dandelO. 

[Tangled-Universe]

Cool work I like the scales and colors here, perhaps a bit too bright though. Looking forward to see your next version

You certainly can restrict water to only render where visible. Simply set the water shader to a default shader and use its opacity channel as a mask area.

I made an example file of this before, don't think it's uploaded here but it's at TG.org... http://www.terragen.org/index.php?topic=4043.msg36143#msg36143

That's the basic outline example .tgd. Greatly reduces render time.

I'm afraid that during testing/designing this you missed something Martin.
I downloaded the latest two tgd's  and took a look at the network...it simply cannot work this way, because:

You have a painted shader which is fed in the opacity channel of a default shader. Ok.
This default shader now produces 50% grey where the painted shader is drawn.
Now this 50% grey is fed into the surface layer's input.
This way, the default shader's color is not used in any way to blend/restrict/mask the water shader.
It's just not correctly connected to anything. The surface layer fully covers the color generated by the default shader.
The opacity generated  does nothing this way.

The surface layer is put on top of the default shader's layer.
So the final layer on top of the water object is the surface layer with the water shader attached.
Result: the entire water-object is still being rendered.

I've tested both of your files by rendering it with your setup and by rendering it with bypassing your setup by attaching the water shader directly.
In both cases your setup took even a tiny bit longer because of the painted shader and default shader.

As far as I know making the object as small as possible is still the best optimization.

Cheers,
Martin

[dandelO]

When this file was created, Martin, it worked very well indeed.

Here is an example of the rendered river I done at the time...

[attachimg=#]

'Render surface' is unchecked for the planet node here. What you see in the background is atmosphere. The only place that the water rendered was where the opacity mask described. If this doesn't work anymore, it must be a TG new build issue. I'll work on fixing this, I know it can work and it cut a lot of render time off of rendering water.

Cheers.

I'll fix it...

[Tangled-Universe]

Hmmm...interesting of course.

But besides the fact it worked before, just by looking at the network it just can't work, isn't it?
If this is indeed not working anymore now then I'm afraid you undeliberately took advantage of a flaw/bug in TG2?
If you can get this to work again then it would be fantastic!

Cheers,
Martin