ericsh6 Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 This is my A:M rendition of Mount Sinawava in Zion National Park in Southern Utah. I am using this model to try to get rays of sunlight through clouds. This scene is entirely lit with a single klieg light high above the mountain peak with Z-buffered shadows. I also rendered with multipass with 4 passes and soften on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhar Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Whoa! That is magnificent. Great job. Some areas are a little flat, but the scene is breathtaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teh1ghool Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I think the light should be more ambient, but not quite as bright...more just lighting everything up... Like maybe you can give the scene some ambience? Nice job btw. Very nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamikaze Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Must say that is gorgeous Thanks for posting the picture....would make a great backdrop for an animation.. How did you texture it, decals, materials a combination? MIchael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted January 8, 2006 Hash Fellow Share Posted January 8, 2006 Hey, very promising work! Yeah, there are details that could be plussed, but it's been awhile since we've seen some landscape work around here. I hope you continue your work with shots like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Rogers Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Ooh, I *do* like that. It has a very definite water-colour look to it. Some slight translucency on the edge of the clouds would help sell it better - a gradient material would help out there. Stuart, who's seen too many clouds from the inside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericsh6 Posted January 8, 2006 Author Share Posted January 8, 2006 I did an A-Buffer render for comparision but I don't think its apples to apples since the multipass image only has 4 passes. Thankyou for the praises - and critisizm is welcome!!! Some slight translucency on the edge of the clouds would help sell it better How do I make the edges of the clouds translucent? with a spherical gradient material? My clouds are basically stretched spheres with a cellturb applied and displacement set to about 700. Is there a way to make just the outer edges of the cloud translucent? Please tell more. Like maybe you can give the scene some ambience Some areas are a little flat I plan to experiment with ambient light - maybe that will make the image less flat? I do have a blue sky sun light that is off in these images. How did you texture it, decals, materials a combination? I use the new normal map ability of v12.0 to put the rocks and wear patterns on the canyon walls. I used Gimp to draw wear patterns on a transparent background and the Nvidia Gimp plugin to convert it to a normal map. I used hair for the trees. Hair in V12.0 recieves fog so distant trees fade away. I used a Satellite DEM file to create my mesh of Mount Sinawava. I also use two procedural materials: one for the color and one for bump. That is why I make a transparent background normal map - so it won't obsure the procedural bump map. I have been influenced and inspired by the work of Brian Prince and hopefully it shows in the image - I am just trying to use the newest technical wizzardry of the latest versions of A:M. I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddustin Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I did an A-Buffer render for comparision but I don't think its apples to apples since the multipass image only has 4 passes. Thankyou for the praises - and critisizm is welcome!!! Some slight translucency on the edge of the clouds would help sell it better How do I make the edges of the clouds translucent? with a spherical gradient material? My clouds are basically stretched spheres with a cellturb applied and displacement set to about 700. Is there a way to make just the outer edges of the cloud translucent? Please tell more. Like maybe you can give the scene some ambience Some areas are a little flat I plan to experiment with ambient light - maybe that will make the image less flat? I do have a blue sky sun light that is off in these images. How did you texture it, decals, materials a combination? I use the new normal map ability of v12.0 to put the rocks and wear patterns on the canyon walls. I used Gimp to draw wear patterns on a transparent background and the Nvidia Gimp plugin to convert it to a normal map. I used hair for the trees. Hair in V12.0 recieves fog so distant trees fade away. I used a Satellite DEM file to create my mesh of Mount Sinawava. I also use two procedural materials: one for the color and one for bump. That is why I make a transparent background normal map - so it won't obsure the procedural bump map. I have been influenced and inspired by the work of Brian Prince and hopefully it shows in the image - I am just trying to use the newest technical wizzardry of the latest versions of A:M. I Eric, I'm very impressed. Could you make a short tute on how you used the DEM file to make the mesh? I've struggled to get that to work. Thanks, David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Rogers Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 How do I make the edges of the clouds translucent? with a spherical gradient material? My clouds are basically stretched spheres with a cellturb applied and displacement set to about 700. Is there a way to make just the outer edges of the cloud translucent? Please tell more.You need a gradient combiner material. You'll want to have the gradient vary the transparency rather than colour (which the help files use as an example) - one node should be 0% transparent, the other 100%. You'll also need to play with the Edge Threshold setting to control how near the edge the transparency starts. I'll leave it to others to help you merge your main cloud material into this - I'm away from A:M at the moment so I'm working from memory, and I'll be away for the next few weeks, so I can't help further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericsh6 Posted January 8, 2006 Author Share Posted January 8, 2006 I created a gradient material with XYZ = 0 for start and finish and set edge threshold to 90. I haven't got the edge to show transparent yet. I will have to refresh my memory on how to make the mountains from satellite DEM - its been about 9 months since I did it since I was making the "chronicles of Zion" movie. I will post when I have it figured out. For this movie I used a 40 mile X 40 mile DEM of the Salt Lake basin in Utah. Here is a link to that movie and make sure you go to the bottom of the post because there is a link to the entire 14 minute movie. I plan to re-render the movie with improved mountain textures and lighting and improved animation and then send it to A:M films when it is done: Link to my "Chronicles of Zion" thread and animated video Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ganthofer Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 I realy like the landscape !! A couple of thoughts on the volumetric Light: -make sure that the cone of the light does not extend past the outer edges of your clouds (or what ever you are using as a mask). Especially in line of sight with the camera. see attached image - right has light coneextended past edges of mask (clouds). -the Quality setting. -I prefer the look I get with the Width Softness set to 100%, and then play with volumetric contrast, brightness and Light intensity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamikaze Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 Very useful information in this thread, thanks for the indepth discriptions, Im keeping notes.... Thank you, Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericsh6 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 Ok, I fixed moved the clouds so light wasn't falling on the camera (made the previous images look washed out), I moved the camera to a new spot to show sun pouring onto mountains in the distance - I think that is Great White Throne at the distant right, and I added a sun for ambient lighting. I tried to add gaseousness to the edges of the cloud with a gradient combiner with threshold set to 20 but it made the clouds semi-transparent so the volumetric light wen't everywhere and A:M crashed do to some unhandled exception during rendering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamikaze Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Looks less foggy, I was thinking that was what you where going for in the 1st image, I wonder how sprite clouds would look in the scene? I like it both ways... Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericsh6 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 Looks less foggy, I was thinking that was what you where going for in the 1st image, I wonder how sprite clouds would look in the scene? Michael, I wanted just shafts of light through the clouds originally and Ganthofer said (above) to put a cloud above the camera to prevent light wash out and it worked. I have been searching the forum for cloud alternatives and have seen some cool particle clouds but I think they will cause volumetrics to scatter too much. I am focusing now on the same solid clouds I have here but with the gradient with edge threshold set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 I'm gonna say what I always say when I see a cool still... ANIMATE IT! Just a slight 'Mickey Rooney' would do it.... (Mickey Rooney--- a stage term for a 'little creep'.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamikaze Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Ericsh6, Sound like an interesting cloud approach, can't wait to see how they come out. I have wondered about sprite clouds and volumetric lights.. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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