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Vue F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Oct 17 8:34 am)
Subject: Terragen vs Vue
These will be the last ones for awhile...but there are some interesting things happening. Notice in the top picture, the unnatural look of the rocks within the grass and the mountain. Even though the terrain is 2047 pixels square at 16 bits, it still needs a bit of 'smoothing' or else one gets these types of artifacts. A few quick press of the diffusive button in the terrain editor fixes the problem as seen in the bottom picture.
Also notice here you can see all the layers in the mountain fairly clearly. The grass has 5 layers and is working pretty well, though it's transition with the upper mountain texture needs blending work. The upper mountain texture is the fine brown texture while the gray rock is used for vertical slopes. The beach texture is shown with a fine bump, and there's also a very small shoreline 'blending' texture which is white . I need to add an underwater texture as well so the water can be transparent. Lastly, at the very top of the mountain, is yet another rock texture, which could be replaced easily by snow.
Wow. You've really moved this on in the last few days. Great work :-)
My next suggestion isn't really a comment on what you've done so far so much as a what if...
Has anyone managed to get ecosystems that populate based on the distance to the camera? The down side is we would need to repopulate the ecosystem for each camera angle. The advantage would be you could have ecosystem grass close to the camera without having to have it way off in the distance where it isn't really adding anything.
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Thanks for all the nice comments.
Mark, I know what you mean about how addictive this stuff can be! I wish I could call in sick today too! Is the AisleFX DVD any good? I purchased the last 'advanced' version and it was the worst 100 bucks I've ever spent. Nothing advanced in the whole set, and IMO not very professional. I tried contacting them about it but they wouldn't get back to me. Bummer. Let me know how they work for you.
The real trick in all of this is to figure out how to create textures which scale well. They need to look good up close and also good from a distance. That's the tough part. See how TG does it, they have a great fractal model-- sadly there's not a similar one that I can figure out in Vue. I have found a couple of functions which do have some value, but still aren't quite what TG has.
Also, TG's terrains rock. Their default terrain has nice mountains PLUS it has a natural slope down to the water, which is IMO difficult to do in Vue. Vue's terrain editor could use a bit of help by just looking how easy it is to create terrains in TG. Don't get me wrong, rendering in TG is tedious at best, but they do some things very well...especially their handling of material layers. Their notion of child layers is similar to mixed materials and layers, but easier to use and IMO understand.
agiel, I'm not sure about the grass being too uniform, but I'll take a crack at making a more splotchy version. I think the grass works better up close than in the distance...perhaps needs a bit of a tweak there. Grass is the hardest. I agree, the green is perhaps too green. Fact is I've already unsaturated it once from the original values as set in TG...maybe need to try again. Perhaps a bit more 'yellow' on the slopes.
The sand could be softer, but IMO the detail in it helps. I need to have a variety of tweaked MATS that can be loaded interchangeably.
Attached Link: Mojopac
Actually I think the Asile disk is ok....I only paid 45 for the download....I got it so I could see illustrations of what ALL of the parameters and buttons do. There's many aspects of the editor that I couldn't grasp from Vue's documentation but to see them in action helps much as yours and jc's tutorials do. Some aspects I simply left alone because I was used to doing things the old V4 way...the old dog, new tricks thing.For instance, in the function editor I really couldn't figure out how the nodes work together, y'know..where to put what, and hook it to what, to get such and such effect. Now it's much clearer...last night I spent 3 hours just playing with color production nodes which I'd never touched before. Subsurface scattering is another one I stayed away from. So I think, for me at least, that the disk is proving to be a big help.
I think, with graph structures like the function editor, it's a lot like reading music. I play many instruments and write tons of songs but I can't read a note of music. It's like reading heiroglyphics to me...I can't translate the visual into the audio. In the function editor I couldn't translate all the nodes and connections into what I was seeing in the render. Now it makes a bit more sense. Guess it's a brain thing...
Now as for calling in sick...here I am at work. However, I happened upon a way cool thing that makes sitting at my desk during idle times a great deal more tolerable. I took my Vue off of my home computer and put it on a 120gig Simpletech mini hard drive via an item called Mojopac, a kind of virtual Windows that hooks into the kernel of any host machine (where you have administrative rights) and runs alongside the host Windows and doesn't leave any footprints when you're done. Now I can take my Vue with me in my pocket wherever I go. Take it to work and plug it in...take it home and plug it in. Just like a laptop lol....
You can also switch between the Mojo environment and the host environment with just a mouse click. Right now I have open at work the same mat I was working on earlier at home.
Very very cool....
I must add that it works flawlessly on a mini hard drive but is much slower off of a memory stick because of the read/write times...
Ooops..here comes the boss...lol
M
That's a fantastic looking terrain and mats Chipp!
LVS - Where Learning is Fun!
http://www.lvsonline.com/index.html
@ Monsoon....many thanx for the link to MojoPac...this may be the answer I've been lookin for re: portability as I think I may be on the road a bit come next year when my 2 cds are finished.. ...
Once
in a while I look around,
I see
a sound
and
try to write it down
Sometimes
they come out very soft
Tinkling light sound
The Sun comes up again
I've been trying to recreate the Terragen Surface look for quite a while. This image is the closest I've come so far (I did not care about the overall look of the image, it was just for testing:
Recently I experimented again with some alpha layers and an ecosystem. The picture below is not yet finished (e.g. the mountains in the background and the whole object placement) , but it's interesting nonetheless what you can achieve with Terragen-like materials and Ecosystems at the same time.
I have a Tutorial in the works about the discoveries I made. But compared to Chipp's images my attempts seem to be rather foolish.
Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=bobbystahr
Actually your efforts, in many respects, are quite similar to some I have in my gallery tho they were done in TG2 not old Terragen .9xxx, and a very nice bit of work they are as well my friend.. ...
Once
in a while I look around,
I see
a sound
and
try to write it down
Sometimes
they come out very soft
Tinkling light sound
The Sun comes up again
Bobby - I took the liberty to edit the link in your post to get it to the right page.
- agiel - www.linfa.net
Mountains at no extra cost and really quite good if your prepared to put i some time at it..
For Monsoons SeaVue users Only.
Create a new terrain.
I immediately resize this to about one quarter of the main ground quadrant.
Keep the main camera very low , for now.
Click for the terrain editor.
Go to picture and click.
Browse to the Dir Seavue / Wavemaps and select a map........roughswell4 was the one i used in my images.......maybe.
Load the map at %50 blend.
Clip the terrain to end of black texture colour in the editor.
Okay it ......drop the terrain to the ground and then just move the terrain about until you get a good view.
Move in , out , up , down and anywhere else you can think of.
Add textures and ........you have mountain ranges.
All of the above can be altered and experimented with at a whim.
Different results can be had .
Its all about texturing and experimenting .........and turning the terrain to suit , camera angles, heights etc
Just experiment..........everything cannot be on a plate.
joechip
I have Vob files if anyone wants to try.
Attached Link: Caustics Generator
Thanks Joe for those good mountain steps....For those that don't already have any ready made maps, you can get Caustics Generator at the link. It's a cool tool to keep in your art box.
Practice for a bit and see what all the settings do and then save one out for export.
Take it into Photoshop and add gaussian blur to taste...
Proceed to Vue.....
Or....use Photoshop's cloud filter and make a fractal grayscale layer and combine them for some great terrain play.
Now, I'm not sure about how to get things to 16bit....I wound up there yesterday but how is a blur...I think I saved as .psd, then switched modes to something and then to rgb. Can't remember.....maybe Chipp could lend a hand here.
At any rate, you can make great sand dunes the same way...
M
Thanks Mark for the link to the caustic generator.
Here is an example of an image done using the wavemap method.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1508043
All the mountains in the background , the island and the foreground in this image are from one terrain.
A 1024x1024 terrain made using my method above.
Some clipping and assorted effects used too.
Its not a perfect method but is quick to do in Vue ..........and can produce some nice results.
joechip
I've also been experimenting with getting the 'TG look' in Vue for a while. The image is the best I have to far. The terrain is from GeoControl, saved from Vue as a 16 bit TIF, then worked on a little in Photoshop with levels and smart sharpen. This is kind of a test image which I go back to from time to time, so if you've seen it before, apologies!
I'm after the knife-edge mountain look and I'm sure this can be improved on, so the Vue file is available here if anyone wants it. Feel free to alter it as desired. There's nothing copyright in it.
Steve
Gets to show you it's not necessarily the tool, but how you use it :) Very nice landscapes !
- agiel - www.linfa.net
Quote - Chipp...It was converting a 16bit RAW image from Terragen to 16bit tiff in PS that gave me pause...but then I've been having a whole weekend of senior moments lol......
Mark, you're too young to be having 'senior moments!'
Here's how to export from Terragen 0.9x
-
First set the size of the terrain you wish to export. Click the "Size..." button in the Landscape window and choose the size you wish to export to. I recommend at least 513, preferably higher. Write down the value you choose. Note: the free version of Terragen 0.9x only support resolutions no greater than 513.
-
Generate a terrain. I like the default "Subdvide & Displace II" method. Then press the "Export..." button. Choose "Raw 16 bits Intel Byte-Order" from the "Export Method" dropdown. Press "Select File and Save..."
-
Launch Photoshop and choose open, and select the .raw file you just created.
-
It should open the file and automatically select the correct dimensions for you. You need to set the Count to "1" and the Depth to "16 Bits" and the Byte Order to "IBM PC". Then press OK.
-
Now you can check the image under Photoshop's Image menu -> Mode -> Grayscale and 16-bits should be selected. Just save as a 16-bit TIFF from here and open as per above in Vue.
HTH, Chipp
JoeChip, Great post on the conversion of wave maps to terrains. A couple of other suggestions along this line:
Caustics Generator creates 8-bit BMP files, so you can convert them to 16-bit files (better resolution) by opening them in Photoshop and using the following technique (which works for converting any 8-bit images to 16-bit images)
This technique should also work pretty well to remove artifacting created by JPG files. It's not a good idea to use JPG files for terrain creation as even the smallest amount of artifacting can be problematic.
-
Convert the Mode (Under Image menu) to Grayscale and 16 bits/channel.
-
Resize the image 400%: Image menu->Image Size Make sure you check "Resample Image: Bicubic"
-
Gaussian Blur the image with a value of 20 (larger or smaller depending on image size)
Resize the image back to original size: 25%
You should now be good to go with your new terrain map. You may wish to consider adding a bit of noise after step 2 as well, or an unsharp mask after step 3. Salt and pepper to taste.
HTH,
Chipp
Here are some of my latest images. I've updated the textures and have also rendered in different atmospheres. Also, I've used a different terrain imported from Terragen. Check out image 5 as it has a couple of ecoSystems applied.
Keep in mind, most all of these images rendered in less than 10 minutes on my 4 computer renderfarm-- and between 10 and 30 minutes at 1600 x 900 resolution on a single dual core XP machine.
Click an image to view it larger.
I'm planning on uploading the scene with lots of textures, multiple terrain maps and complete editing instruction to C3D soon.
best, Chipp
The rocks on either side and the stone pool are the same mat with bump and fractals played with....
Awesome fun here....!!
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Chip - the latest series is absolutely great.
Two things you may want to twak to achieve even more greatness.
More variations in that green layer. The green itself is 'unnatural' and very uniform. The altitude band is very visible. It sounds picky but the lighting and rock really make me feel like this is a scene from the mediterranean and there is no grass this green at sea level there :)
Reduce the noise in the sand
The rocks and water are spot on. Don't change them !