Voronoi Cloud Studies

[cyphyr]

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wow....I am surprised that you dont need any "get" function......

/edit

Hehe "don't need" you say, I don't even know how I'd use a "get" function anyway. Let me know if they can be improved on (sure they can )
Richard

[efflux]

Those pictures are nice in other ways as well. I like the rocks.

I hope we get voronio as a basis in the power fractal eventually because voronoi fractals would increase TG2's capability immensely.

[Mr_Lamppost]

Those images are very nice. The clouds are obviously the high point but the landscape and composition are used to good effect.  A simple fractal with some fake stones chucked at it or interest, I'll keep a note of that

Thanks for sharing the TGDs I am experimenting and getting some interesting results/

wow....I am surprised that you dont need any "get" function......

I may be wrong but I think there is an integral Get Position in the Power Fractal.

I have noticed that you are using Fake Stones as a blend shader on you Fake Stones  Care to explain?  I don't use them nearly enough and know very little about them.  Can I move to a planet where the days are at least 50% longer?  I don't mind if it has Fake Stones.

[efflux]

Yes, there will be a get position in the power fractal.

The fakes stones blender in the simpler scene is not doing anything as far as I can see but correct me if I'm wrong. You can use fake stones as a mask blend to stop other fake stones lying on top - this is an important and cool technique. I didn't study the surfaces but the idea for the clouds is totally brilliant. I don't know if you just stumbled on this or not, like most of us probably do but this is so cool. You can actually remove the colour adjust node between the voronoi and the cumulus nodes. Tweak the first colour adjust. In fact you can just hook a noise into the first colour adjust rather than a fractal although the effect is not quite so pronounced but I'm thinking you might want this simple but combined with other cloud layers.

Despite being in big trouble for spending so much time on TG2 when I'm meant to be doing other stuff I think I'll try rendering something with these clouds.

Thanks cyphyr. This is awesome!

Just to add. Don't expect any renders from me too soon because yes, this technique is a render time bloater but I'll get back here.

[cyphyr]

Hi
Yes the fake stone shader is just as efflux said, to mask out the small stones from lying over the larger ones. You'll notice the surface colour value has been set to white. Your right efflux, I did pretty much stumble across this one although the more I work with terragen  the more frequent the "hmm ... I wonder if that might work" gets me something at least interesting. If some thing works in one situation then its a good bet it'll work in a different one though the results can often be surprising!

Although I have forgotten most of my math (believe it or not I studied astrophysics for a while so I really should know most of this lol) a quick Google will get around most questions. My biggest stumbling block is the blend shaders and initial input on each shader. I'm used to photoshops layer blending, additive, difference, screen etc and of course your basic alpha mask, but I don't get terragens implementation of blend shader. Sometimes it works like a simple alpha mask, sometimes it seems to be additive, sometimes something else. I "think" this may be due to terragen using what I can only describe as hdri type colour values, black may be less than 0 and white may be more than 1 (or 255 for comparison). I think I must be a slow learner or have got hold of completely the wrong end of the stick

I dont find render times too bad to be honest. I'm not rendering to print yet, think I'll wait for the optimized version for that.

My general render settings are:
800 x 600
Detail 0.75
AA 3
GI 1 and 1 (thanks efflux)
Haze to 32 and Cloud to 128

On my system (E6600 OC'd to 3300Mhz, 3gig ram) I get a finished result in about an hour and get to know if its worth waiting for much quicker that that.

Happy rendering

Richard

[ProjectX]

those last ones remind me of this: http://www.skgames.eu/ebay/MonkeyIsland4_PC_pic3.jpg

[efflux]

OK, I never really looked at the stones so wasn't aware of what you were doing there but yes the masking of fakes stones is cool because you see many renders where small stones go over bigger ones and it's not natural.

It's best to use a combination of trial and error, work some thing out before hand and then work others out after. I'm not sure exactly what is happening with your clouds though. The adjust colour needs clamped severely tightly but then how is this affecting Voronoi which normally has position directly attached. I'm making a guess that it's shifting the voronoi about with a small degree of detail in this distortion but generally smooth because of the clamping. It's distorting position. Other experts may be able to clarify further but similar things are achieved in Mojo. The difference with Mojo is that every fractal has to have a position attached. It's not in the node.

I seem to remember Matt mentioning about blending. I don't think it works the same way with all nodes.

[Mr_Lamppost]

Thanks to everybody for pointing out what the Fake Stones masking Fake Stones is all about.  I had a think about it and sort of guessed what the mask was for.

I need to do some fake stone work on another scene and this will solve a potential problem so double thanks for sharing the files.

I have abandoned what I was doing with your clouds for now as the render times were becoming prohibitive.

[efflux]

Check out the photos towards the bottom of this page:

http://extremeinstability.com/07-8-21.htm

It just goes to show you how real clouds can look totally unreal.

[Seth]

incredible shots ! 

[xNickx]

More! more!

[Volker Harun]

I really appreciate your work ... and I am looking forward to see #3 as fog

[efflux]

I tried to get it to low altitude. It doesn't work. I don't know how this node arrangement is actually working but the numbers it's receiving from altitude or position appears to be crucial to the effect. I just don't get what's actually happening.

[cyphyr]

I really appreciate your work ... and I am looking forward to see #3 as fog

Hmmm ... spooky graveyard scene, might have a go at that, sounds promising.

I tried to get it to low altitude. It doesn't work. I don't know how this node arrangement is actually working but the numbers it's receiving from altitude or position appears to be crucial to the effect. I just don't get what's actually happening.

I think (don't know though) that since the fractals are essentially 3d they will change in all axes, xyz, and hence they will show up a different effect when you change the altitude. Another thing is that I have made some of the settings VERY fine so they may not show up so well at lower altitudes. It may be worth whole trying different fractal seeds and upping the cloud density, either might sort out this issue. Its all very experimental, and once the macro system is setup we will be able to share clip files with set "working" parameters (I guess this is part of how it will work ? )

Check out the photos towards the bottom of this page:

http://extremeinstability.com/07-8-21.htm

It just goes to show you how real clouds can look totally unreal.

Yes, these are great and I'm sure well within the capabilities of TG2 in its current incarnation. I'm sure that future versions will have even more possibilities!!

Richard

[efflux]

It's possible to get the same effect without the second colour adjust. Here is a shot of one I did:



I hope this is the tgc because I can't open TG at the moment to verify. It's rendering a full scene that includes these cloud ideas.