aaver
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Posts posted by aaver
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A little bit more cloud like I think, but there is still room for improvements:
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..and the project file..
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Not exactly clouds and not using sprites either, but I think this technique could be useful for making clouds.
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Yes, really nice trick Shaun!!!
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[...]But I feel less inclined to talk further on this line of thinking, because it would seem that no one can see or even wants to see what I'm talking about. So learning from past experiences and this thread I will try to keep my ideas to myself being that no one here is ever interested in hearing them, but only in attacking them!
[...]Philip,
I don't see anyone attacking you - at least I'm not
and I don't think it's true that people don't want to see what you are talking about. Maybe we just don't understand what you are saying. I have read all your posts on this subject again and they still don't make any sense to me. If you think that's because I haven't understood, maybe you could try to explain again instead of saying that we don't want to understand.BTW, is this what you mean when you say "morph together"?
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You can use meta balls to make models. I once read a tuturial for a different program that has this function. I made an entire stuffed animal bear out of a set of meta balls. This is the advantage.
What you are describing is an object modelling tool and that is not what A:M Blobbies were meant for. When I asked what the advantage of meta balls over Blobbies was, I referred to the water case described by Philip.
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William,
That's exactly what I would have liked to say
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When it comes to realistic water built of tens of thousands of particles, that is hardly an advantage, is it?with metas you can create a model and basically, by hand, control each bubble you make.
But is that an advantage? As I understand it, blobbies and meta balls are only two different ways of implementing the same thing.The meta balls are actual models, rather than a material of bubble simulation -
bloobies take forever to render...
I see no fundamental reason for meta ball geometry to be faster than blobbies. As a matter of fact, I think they are basically the same.
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Sorry, but I still don't understand the advantage of your idea over A:M blobbies.
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[...]Does this seem like an obstacle or did you envision the two programs working together another way?
In my opinion, it shouldn't be too hard to export A:M's camera data into Terragen. I might be wrong, but I really don't see this as one of the greater problems. Terragen using polygon displacements is my biggest concern regarding compositing. I haven't had time to find out whether it does, though.
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you're both from exotic foreign lands...
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what's the difference in the output between Emilio's wave generator and AAver's?
I haven't been able to play with Emilios plugin yet, but I would guess that his waves should be faster to render since they doesn't use displacements.
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Emilio,
When I read your post now when I'm actually awake
, it makes perfect sense - even to me...Of course you are right. I haven't really got it going with this plugin, have I.
The main reason I haven't is that Multiwave is just the result of some experiments I did in order to get familiar with the texture plugin part of the SDK. When I had learned enough, I played with it for a while an posted some clips to this thread. After that I haven't used it and I almost forgot about it. When I saw your thread, I realised something similar could be done with Multiwave.
I don't know how much further I will go, but I should probably make a tutorial, at least.
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Hey Aaver!
This is very cool!
I think I could use this a lot. You should get it going!
Thanks Emilio, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "get it going".
It has been available for free for six months now.
Maybe you mean it should be made easier to use and I think I can agree on that
Maybe I should do a Wink tutorial. (Did you read that seven?)
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Inspired by an other thread I made this short with my MultiWave plugin.
[attachmentid=12528]
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Jim,
We are definitely on the same page. A:M could use a better way to texture terrains, but before I look into that, I'd like to make sure there is an effective way to get high quality terrain meshes in A:M.
One thing I thought of was to import Terragen meshes as Props and then use them as proxies. This way it shouldn't be too hard to composite A:M and Terragen clips together. One thing I'm not entirely sure of is whether Terragen uses some kind of displacement for their polygons. If it does, making stills this way might introduce some problems, but for animations it should still be something to consider.
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Then we are at least twoI never got the impression you were annoyed!
You had smilies anywhere it might seem so.And you are probably right about continuing this discussion on the A:M forum.
On the other hand, those who really find interest in this, shouldn't have much of a problem finding the thread, should they?
I'll give it some days before I flood the A:M forum, though
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This is strange. What gave you the impression that I was annoyed? When I thank you for your input, I actually mean that I'm grateful. English is not my native tongue so if I sound pissed off you shouldn't pay much attention to thataaver Posted on May 8 2005, 04:26 PM
Well, I am definitely not trying to hog the show or to annoy you Aaver so this will be my last post to you.Thanks for your input!
Could you please respond once more, because I don't appreciate which those misunderstandings are.I just couldn't let so many misunderstandings go unanswered.
My initial tests show that it's possible to import that 70000 polygon mesh under a minute so I wonder if your Terragen-A:M pipeline is less than optimal. With displacement maps in A:M I think we will not need that many polygons, though. Also, if props could be textured like any other mesh in A:M, I think the problem would be solved.
As I said, the mesh you were trying to load was probably over 70,000 polygons or more. By reducing it down under 10,000 I can load a similar mesh in under a minute.I tried DXF, but I had to terminate A:M after half an hour. Does it normally take this long or was it just bad luck?
I really don't see why you think I'm annoyed. I'm simply stating the facts - me having much better things to do than making a tool no one will ever use.
I hope you don't try to pin backing out on me Aaver!If this is the general opinion, I guess I'll find something else to do
I was not trying to rain on your parade. You asked what would be useful and seemed to be interested in doing something needed without reinventing the wheel.
Actually, I think you said that the meshes produced by the A:M Terrain Wizards was good enough.
As I and others have said already, you can ALREADY IMPORT those very nice mountainous meshes from several programs (including Terragen) into A:M. So you see, I am simply saying that the bigger problem is being able to texture them convincingly.Maybe it's only me, but I see a lot of difference between "a bare landscape mesh" from the A:M terrain wizard and Terragen. The terrain wizard produces filtered noise while Terragen produces moutains. And maybe it's even possible to improve the Terragen algorithms
Now, are we laughing with me, at me or at someone else. I fail to see anything funny at allYou may be right, but you are not suggesting that I should write a plugin that makes A:M:s renderer faster, are you? Actually, I've made some tests and considering that Terragens renderer is optimized for rendering terrain and A:M is not, I don't see that much of a difference.Now this one is really funny!
Definitely not a mistake! I will not make a Terrain plugin unless more people take a more active part in this discussion - just like you do. Your mistake came a bit laterAgain Aaver, I felt like you were open to input. This is only my 4th and final post on this topic and I did not see anyone else breaking down the door to respond to you so I did not think you would mind. My mistake
To sum up my position:
-Terragen produces much better terrain meshes than A:M Terrain Wizard.
-If there is a convenient way to import Terragen meshes into A:M, A:M doesn't need a new mesh generator.
-I haven't found this convenient way (doesn't mean that there isn't one, though)
-A:M needs a better way to texture terrain
-I have very thick skin and will most likely not take offence from something said on the Internet by someone I don't know. So just tell me what you think, in what way you like
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I tried DXF, but I had to terminate A:M after half an hour. Does it normally take this long or was it just bad luck?Terragen exports 3d mesh models in Lightwave, OBJ, and DXF formats.
The size of the terrain I tried to import was just 257x257 and I usually don't have any problems to manipulate that kind of model in real time in A:M.The polygon count on these models is very high so polygon reduction before import is usually a must.
If this is the general opinion, I guess I'll find something else to doBut I think this would be the case even if you wrote a plugin that could load a Terragen landscape directly into A:M, so I believe writing a plugin to utilize Terragen's ability to generate mesh models would be redundant and not very useful.
Maybe it's only me, but I see a lot of difference between "a bare landscape mesh" from the A:M terrain wizard and Terragen. The terrain wizard produces filtered noise while Terragen produces moutains. And maybe it's even possible to improve the Terragen algorithmsWe can already create a bare landscape mesh with the A:M terrain wizard that is already available. How many ways do we need to be able to form hills and valleys?
You may be right, but you are not suggesting that I should write a plugin that makes A:M:s renderer faster, are you?Terragen's magic that sets it apart is the speed and quality of its texturing power. Actually, I've made some tests and considering that Terragens renderer is optimized for rendering terrain and A:M is not, I don't see that much of a difference.
With the current SDK, it's not possible to write your own combiner plugins, though. It might be a work-around for that, however. It usually does[...]If you wrote a plugin that could mix and match materials[...]Thanks for your input!
It would be really interesting to know what everyone else think about this.
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Since we can already import TerraGen meshes[...]
How is that done?
It wouldn't be to hard to make an A:M importer for Terragen Terrain files, but if there is one already...
I haven't heard of one, though
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Great!
There is some interest in this, after all
Thanks for all the feature requests! but there is still place for more.
From some of the posts I got this feeling, though:
-Maybe it's better to make it really easy to use Terragen terrains in A:M?
What do you think?
Those of you who have already used Terragen + A:M. What is easy, what is hard, and what could be better?
..and please explain: What is a "rock generator"?
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Terragen!?
Well, that would be every imaginable feature request in one, I guess.
Are there some features that you'd like more or are everything in Terragen just as important?
Also one reservation. If there are only five or six A:M users showing an interest in this, I guess I'd have to think of something else to program. I'll give it a week.
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By Terrain Wizard do you mean the mesh generator, the texture generator or both?
I mean a wizard that creates realistically looking terrain of any shape color and content. There may be lakes, mountains, rivers, forests, snow, ice, rocks and maybe even man made objects like roads, bridges and buildings.
Of course it won't contain all of this - at least not in the beginning - but what you want most and what is possible (i.e. not too difficult) to program.
Any one had luck making clouds?
in Work In Progress / Sweatbox
Posted
..and yet another: