Thread: Seis' Animations, Renders, etc.

Does the first one have dynamic lighting? if so, the foliage is missing it (shade below leaves hitting other leaves). I really like the partical matter clouds that you have going on. and the mountains. What kind of graphics card and CPU are you running it on? any lag when moving around in the editor?

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

So you made everything or did you just modify what was there?

I used the shaders available to me, and constructed everything through perlin noise generators. That way I could have sprawling landscapes over an entire planet, whilst maintaining a great amount of detail up close. In a sense, it beats the use of heightmaps (though they can have uses still in Terragen 2). The shader network to render the landscape was put together by myself.

Originally Posted by dylanshmai

Does the first one have dynamic lighting? if so, the foliage is missing it (shade below leaves hitting other leaves). I really like the partical matter clouds that you have going on. and the mountains. What kind of graphics card and CPU are you running it on? any lag when moving around in the editor?

Yea, it has dynamic lighting.

I use an old, old nVidia Geforce FX 5200 and only have 515mb of RAM. My CPU is a Pentium IV.

Nope, no lag. VUE is optimized to run on low amounts of memory, the only performance cost is payed in the rendering.

Originally Posted by bluefinger

I used the shaders available to me, and constructed everything through perlin noise generators. That way I could have sprawling landscapes over an entire planet, whilst maintaining a great amount of detail up close. In a sense, it beats the use of heightmaps (though they can have uses still in Terragen 2). The shader network to render the landscape was put together by myself.

Yea, which is what I use to create terrains usually unless I want something specific; then I edit the terrain myself.

Some trees (Like those palms in the fiorst pic) I created by editing a base model.

What's really cool in VUE is that each tree is 'grown' individually, off of hte base model. So no two trees ever look alike.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Yea, which is what I use to create terrains usually unless I want something specific; then I edit the terrain myself.

Some trees (Like those palms in the fiorst pic) I created by editing a base model.

What's really cool in VUE is that each tree is 'grown' individually, off of hte base model. So no two trees ever look alike.

Procedural generation is pretty cool. I've played a game called Noctis, which is a space-exploration game. You literally explore a procedurally generated universe, and you can go to all sorts of different stars and star systems, and land on planets and such. And it hardly takes up any space (it is like a few MB big).

For rendering though, it does pose problems, because a procedural generation engine does not do well with scanline rendering (as you don't deal with meshes or anything of the sort). In fact, the way Terragen 2 renders is completely different to what you see with 3DS Max. However, it does allow for some amazing effects.

How does the terrain go around an entire planet??

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

How does the terrain go around an entire planet??

Because it is a fractal terrain. It is a fractal algorithm based upon perlin noise, and thus is able to be calculated across a surface. The surface can be curved evenly like a sphere or irregularly, but as long as the surface connects with itself, the perlin noise is adjusted to take that into account. It is also why you can do multiple planets with procedurally generated landscapes on them.

Which is why Terragen 2 rocks so god damn hard.

Shit I am going to try that.

EDIT: Does TG2 have infinite detail for terrains?

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Shit I am going to try that.

EDIT: Does TG2 have infinite detail for terrains?

Depends how many octaves you want to apply on the fractal... it can be pretty detailed, but it is usually better to use multiple perlin noise generators (one for the terrain, others for bumpiness and extra detail). Makes it easier to render.

I'll take that as a no, it doesn't have infinite detail

All terrains in VUE can be zoomed into to infinity, or something close to it.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

I'll take that as a no, it doesn't have infinite detail

All terrains in VUE can be zoomed into to infinity, or something close to it.

Fractal is a fractal, you can input as much detail as you want. You can even do fake stones with a separate colour and bump map in order to make them stand out. How much detail is simply dependent on how much you can fit into the shader network and balancing it out with rendering time.

That's not what I mean though.

Every fractal terrain generated in VUE's Detail level is set by the camera, so you can continue to zoom into a terrain and not lose texture or terrain quality.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

That's not what I mean though.

Every fractal terrain generated in VUE's Detail level is set by the camera, so you can continue to zoom into a terrain and not lose texture or terrain quality.

That's the same with Terragen, as perlin noise fractal generators can go into a lot of detail, all depending on the number of octaves you specify (which you set, so the rendering engine speeds up the rendering process)

Yea, but this isn't a setting, it's just the way all terrains are.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Yea, but this isn't a setting, it's just the way all terrains are.

But with Terragen 2, it also allows you to do all sorts of crazy stuff with the terrains... more control on what you are able to do with them (because the fractal generators are used for all sorts of things, not just terrain. For example, the clouds and the textures)

I understand what you are saying, and you can do that as well, etc. But each terrain already has multi-thread-like Infinite detail. It has nothing to do with the fractal itself.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

I understand what you are saying, and you can do that as well, etc. But each terrain already has multi-thread-like Infinite detail. It has nothing to do with the fractal itself.

Eh, the detail settings are not set by the terrain itself though, it is set by the rendering process, so the fractals are left untouched in that regard. Usually, the bigger the resolution, the more detail you get out of it.

wow, I think if rendering is the only thing lagging, that they should just max out the program with it, and then wait the extra time. it would be worth it. This sort of thing does not interest me as graphic designing does. still cool

Yer.

Another stage render (Quality at 59% Awesome, Reduced Resolution)

Very beautifully done!

If the software you use is anything like 3DS Max, I commend you. I had to use that program for class a couple years ago and it was, by far, the most complicated program I ever had to use.

No, 3DS Max is a Modelling program, this is a landscape creation tool.

It does, however, use 3DS's Mentalray Renderer.

New render, this one uses Procedural terrains.

Sea of Clouds;

Here's a low-quality test animation I made earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25KXS6_8NCA

And a Medium-res Render:

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o.../PondScene.jpg

I don't like the water though, so I'm going to change it and re-render in 1024*768

wow seis, those last two really impressed me, great work!