Mount Sinawava - 200% more glorious

[ericsh6]

I rendered this scene with v13 r5 with pixel displacement and global ambience. I discovered that Global ambience is key to having realistic looking clouds. I don't know how I lived without pixel displacement - I used it on the canyon walls and clouds. I know v13 is beta but I must say that decals with pixel displacement sometimes cause patches to tear. You can't see it in this picture because the trees cover it up but there is a tear in the canyon wall just below the rocks. The higher the displacement value, the greater the tear. Anyone know how to fix this?

 

These are my global ambience settings:

Global ambience type = color

ambience color = white

ambience intensity = 60%

ambience occlusion = 60%

and on the camera occlusion sampling = 15%.

[NancyGormezano]

The terrain looks quite beautiful, nice colors, very nice lighting effects as well. Nice composition. Reminds me of Death Valley in bloom.

 

I would think that adding some gentle bump maps & transparency maps (maybe even some very gentle displacement) to the cloud models might help the clouds get some more turbulence, variation, irregularity & interest - they look too solid and uniform in comparison to the rest of the imagery.

 

This is coming along really nicely - very interestingly dramatic!

[Paul Forwood]

Interesting render.

The only times that I have seen the tearing is when the camera's picture plane cuts through the displaced geometry. Try bringing the camera's focul point back and away from the displacement and see if that works.

[ericsh6]

Nancy,

Thankyou for the encouragement and ideas - I am a big fan of your work. I can't add transparency to the clouds with the volumetric light shining on it - A:M crashes (I reported it). But I am experimenting with clouds and will test out the transparency map.

 

Paul,

The tearing can be seen in any view. It looks like an entire group of patches removed and floating above the rest of the model. I think it happens when I stretch the mesh in an action and apply the displacement decal to the stretched mesh. It doesn't seem to happen if I apply the displacement decal in model view.