Orange Lilies

[MSFlynn]

Orange Lilies

 

As some may recognize, this was my contest entry for April. I almost didn't enter it since it is seriously flawed but I ran into several problems that couldn't be fixed or worked around in any timely fashion. However, the painterly aspect I was striving for shows and I am loathe to abandon the image so as the spirit moves me, I will continue to improve upon it.

 

First, the trees will all be replaced, hopefully by trees created in AM with the TreeeZ plugin. These were created in XFrog and imported into AM as props. The problem is that the leaves on the trees do not render correctly - the alpha channel is ignored. I don't know if this a problem with the 3DS import function or not. They show up perfectly in shaded mode though.

 

Second, the material I created for the ground needs some work. Time was against me and I made a modification at the last minute to get rid of an obvious division between two gradients. The result is 100% unsatisfactory.

 

Third, the grassy patches along the water look too uniform. Small wonder since they are instances of same model. There 96 of them and I had no time to create several differing versions. I will be writing a program that opens a .CHO file and randomizes selected models.

 

Something I still need to experiment with is using images with Hair. I don't know if my video card is the culprit, but I cannot use an image with Hair and apply any material for color to the surface the images from - they turn black.

[mtpeak2]

Nice foliage. The one problem I see here is the lack of shadows from the plants and trees.

 

This is an image I was tempted to enter into the contest, but I didn't want to here "how can we compete with TWO", even though all of the work was done by me.

 

All the foliage in this image is hair with an image, a few of the trees were made using the treeez plug-in. So if you are having problem rendering hair with an image, it maybe a video card issue. What kind of image are you using? Did you check to see if you needed to set a keycolor for the image? Can you explain the use of the material for color? Color map? Are you trying to change the color of the image you used for leaves?

[MSFlynn]

Nice foliage. The one problem I see here is the lack of shadows from the plants and trees.

Shadows currently will not render for this image - I haven't figured out why yet.

 

All the foliage in this image is hair with an image, a few of the trees were made using the treeez plug-in. So if you are having problem rendering hair with an image, it maybe a video card issue. What kind of image are you using? Did you check to see if you needed to set a keycolor for the image? Can you explain the use of the material for color? Color map? Are you trying to change the color of the image you used for leaves?

The images I used were 32-bit .TGA files with an alpha channel. As for the material, I tried Surface Color, I tried a Darktree and I even tried a Projection Map.

 

BTW, you should have entered the image - I wouldn't have felt put out just because it's from TWO.

[MSFlynn]

I'm trying to get a handle on using the TreeeZ plugin. What I see as a problem is that it's not very good at creating the longer twigs that leaves are attached to, unless I'm missing something. As a work around, I created a set of 3 leaves and drew the longer twig. This seemed to give me more realistic coverage.

[mtpeak2]

The trees in TWO that I made I use images the are branches with leaves, not just the leaf, works much better. If you want more branches, use a heavier mesh for the target.

[MSFlynn]

I'm getting the hang of creating trees. I imagine that it's going to take me weeks to come up with 6-8 varieties that I'm happy with. I still cannot get shadows to render.

[mtpeak2]

Are you sure your lights are set to cast shadows?

[MSFlynn]

Are you sure your lights are set to cast shadows?

Positive. And all models are set to cast and receive shadows as well.

[mtpeak2]

This is strange, is it just this project or all projects? I don't suppose you have another computer to try it on?

[MSFlynn]

This is strange, is it just this project or all projects? I don't suppose you have another computer to try it on?

Just this project. I suspect it's my lighting setup - the rim light is way out in front of the camera above the fill light, the fill light is the flare and the key light is behind the camera. The rim is the only one set to cast shadows but I wonder if they are getting washed out by the key light.

[MSFlynn]

I've gotten a couple nice trees but so far the lighting of the scene is a problem. You can, however, see that shadows are rendering - look under the poplar on the left. Why the shadow is orange when the tint is set to black is unknown.

[mtpeak2]

What is the percentage of darkness set to for your shadows?

[MSFlynn]

What is the percentage of darkness set to for your shadows?

100%

[mtpeak2]

What color is your key light? And as you said, probably washing out the shadow, a bit. Try upping the intensity of your rim light or lowering the intensity of the key light.