Today was the day of the final presentation. My presentation went quite well though, although I had to speed it up due to lack of time. Anyways, I will post my final shot and the breakdown later. Phew.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Day 71
Today I came in and finished up tweaking my camera shake. I did a couple of test renders in Nuke to make sure they are alright before I set it off to render. I also rendered shot 2 out which hasn't had much compositing work to be done. After that I rendered and save out those passes that I wanted in my shot breakdown. I then went in to After Effects to do them. I finished my shot breakdown and I then went and compile all those screenshots and videos that I'm planning to show tomorrow.
After compiling them, I saved them in a folder and all I had left now is the PowerPoint slides which I will do at home.
Hope the presentation will go smoothly tomorrow!
After compiling them, I saved them in a folder and all I had left now is the PowerPoint slides which I will do at home.
Hope the presentation will go smoothly tomorrow!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Day 70
Today, I came in and continued archiving my hip file. Jeff Wagner had a class at 10am which was very interesting and useful.
After that, I did a little more archiving and it was off to Sony ImageWorks for the studio trip. Mr Ari drove us to the studio which was about a 10mins drive from SESI.
We were the first to arrive at the studio and we just hanged around there while waiting for the rest of the interns to arrive. We looked at their demo reel which was showing on a screen in the lobby.
The overall trip was a very enjoyable one, particularly because of him. We then headed back to SESI and continued working on our projects.
I managed to finish archiving my files completely. After that I moved on to compositing. I am still trying to fix the camera shake problem. Trying to blend between the static background at the back and the camera shake for the terrain in the front.
After that, I did a little more archiving and it was off to Sony ImageWorks for the studio trip. Mr Ari drove us to the studio which was about a 10mins drive from SESI.
We were the first to arrive at the studio and we just hanged around there while waiting for the rest of the interns to arrive. We looked at their demo reel which was showing on a screen in the lobby.
The overall trip was a very enjoyable one, particularly because of him. We then headed back to SESI and continued working on our projects.
I managed to finish archiving my files completely. After that I moved on to compositing. I am still trying to fix the camera shake problem. Trying to blend between the static background at the back and the camera shake for the terrain in the front.
Day 69
Today, when I came in my files are still rendering. And out of a sudden all my renders started crashing on the farm. The error log wasn't really that helpful also.
I then went into the render of my first shot. There were a couple of missing frames( like around 10plus) I went into my scene and re-render each of them individually. In the end, I managed to get it to finish and I have a complete sequence of shot one. Phew.
Now to shot 2, the renders on the farm screwed up quite bad. But luckily I foreseen a problem like this and as a backup, I rendered my entire shot 2 locally as well. The renders locally were perfect. Not a single missing frame. Next up, the dust. The dust was the most problematic of all. Initially when I rendered my dust, I brought it into Houdini COPS as a test frame. I realised that there wasn't enough dust and therefore I increased the particle birth rate. However, when I brought the render with more dust into Nuke, it looks totally screwed up.
It looks like this after I did an over with the terrain render.
The dust render with more dust:
The dust render with less dust:
God knows why is it like that. Hence, I went back to my first dust simulation file and re-started from there. I also tweaked a little of the lighting as it was too dark in the latest render. I realised that I couldn't use back the same lighting system that I used to light the terrain. I did some re-tweaking and I am good to go. The render with the less dust is the render which the lighting was also fixed.
I re-rendered the dust for both shots on the farm and it was super fast.
While I was at it, I started compositing in Nuke for the first time. I started compositing for the first shot. At first I had trouble separating the passes and stuffs like that but after consulting Zack about it, it became all clearer. I also managed to apply Zdepth to my render with Zack's help and also his help file. I also placed a background at the back of my render. I also added camera shake. Below is a single frame of how it looks,
Zack saw this render and told me that my background shouldn't be shaking too much as it is much much further away from the field of view. He also told me if I had time I should do some blending of the image with the terrain render.
I also started archiving my file.
I then went into the render of my first shot. There were a couple of missing frames( like around 10plus) I went into my scene and re-render each of them individually. In the end, I managed to get it to finish and I have a complete sequence of shot one. Phew.
Now to shot 2, the renders on the farm screwed up quite bad. But luckily I foreseen a problem like this and as a backup, I rendered my entire shot 2 locally as well. The renders locally were perfect. Not a single missing frame. Next up, the dust. The dust was the most problematic of all. Initially when I rendered my dust, I brought it into Houdini COPS as a test frame. I realised that there wasn't enough dust and therefore I increased the particle birth rate. However, when I brought the render with more dust into Nuke, it looks totally screwed up.
It looks like this after I did an over with the terrain render.
The dust render with more dust:
The dust render with less dust:
God knows why is it like that. Hence, I went back to my first dust simulation file and re-started from there. I also tweaked a little of the lighting as it was too dark in the latest render. I realised that I couldn't use back the same lighting system that I used to light the terrain. I did some re-tweaking and I am good to go. The render with the less dust is the render which the lighting was also fixed.
I re-rendered the dust for both shots on the farm and it was super fast.
While I was at it, I started compositing in Nuke for the first time. I started compositing for the first shot. At first I had trouble separating the passes and stuffs like that but after consulting Zack about it, it became all clearer. I also managed to apply Zdepth to my render with Zack's help and also his help file. I also placed a background at the back of my render. I also added camera shake. Below is a single frame of how it looks,
Zack saw this render and told me that my background shouldn't be shaking too much as it is much much further away from the field of view. He also told me if I had time I should do some blending of the image with the terrain render.
I also started archiving my file.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Day 66
Today, my cache files managed to finish over the night without failing. Lucky. I went ahead today with the re-tweaking of the lights. In the end, I decided on one look that I was satisfied with. I then proceed to throw the file into the render farm. I decided not to render a specular pass but instead render a Z-depth pass for the first shot. I asked Bryan on how to set it up.
I then moved on to the dust. I re-tweaked it a little more before I started rendering it. I then took a frame and compared it. The dust looks over-exposed.
I did a quick comp, and it looks quite bad. I then went back to my scene and started re-tweaking the lights. After much tweaking, I switched off the front and side light, keeping the spotlight and the point light on. Just keeping the spotlight on makes the dust looks quite dark.
After I did a render, I did a quick comp and the result was much better than before. I asked Tanner whether it looked okay. He told me the dust ring should be much bigger, the pieces that just started to crack should have dust.
I then went to do some tweaking. Initially, I was tweaking the velocity attribute in the source pop. The result is more like a cheat, as it translates the whole simulation. It looked like I could just get away with it in the beginning. But nearing the end, it started breaking apart.
I then decide to re-make the group that emits the particles. In SOPS, I did a group node that groups the points over time, and I made that group slightly bigger than the group that groups the points for fracturing. I then made a inner ring group that de-selects the points. I then subtracted the inner ring group from the main group. The result? I get a group ring that I could emit particles from.
I then used that group as the source group instead. I then also played with the impulse birth rate and the constant birth rate. I decide to put a much higher value on the impulse birth rate. I then increased the size of the initial size of the sprite. The end result was decent I would say. I then threw in the files to render locally.
Looking at the render farm, I decided to set up one of the renders just in case it couldn't finish over the weekend.
I then moved on to the dust. I re-tweaked it a little more before I started rendering it. I then took a frame and compared it. The dust looks over-exposed.
I did a quick comp, and it looks quite bad. I then went back to my scene and started re-tweaking the lights. After much tweaking, I switched off the front and side light, keeping the spotlight and the point light on. Just keeping the spotlight on makes the dust looks quite dark.
After I did a render, I did a quick comp and the result was much better than before. I asked Tanner whether it looked okay. He told me the dust ring should be much bigger, the pieces that just started to crack should have dust.
I then went to do some tweaking. Initially, I was tweaking the velocity attribute in the source pop. The result is more like a cheat, as it translates the whole simulation. It looked like I could just get away with it in the beginning. But nearing the end, it started breaking apart.
I then decide to re-make the group that emits the particles. In SOPS, I did a group node that groups the points over time, and I made that group slightly bigger than the group that groups the points for fracturing. I then made a inner ring group that de-selects the points. I then subtracted the inner ring group from the main group. The result? I get a group ring that I could emit particles from.
I then used that group as the source group instead. I then also played with the impulse birth rate and the constant birth rate. I decide to put a much higher value on the impulse birth rate. I then increased the size of the initial size of the sprite. The end result was decent I would say. I then threw in the files to render locally.
Looking at the render farm, I decided to set up one of the renders just in case it couldn't finish over the weekend.
Day 65
I set up my dust to render.My files on the farm also started moving. But they are crawling. There was a class scheduled today at 12pm to 1.30pm. So I didn't really start doing much work before I had to evacuate my work station to make way for the class. The class today was an introductory class to Houdini.
After the class, I then continued with my work. I took a frame of my dust and did a quick composition with the terrain and realised that there wasn't enough dust. I then started tweaking the dust.
Mr Steven dropped by in the evening to check on our progress. I showed him my terrain render and the dust, and also the quick composition. I told him that my files are taking very long to render. I was wondering if he could take a look at it and if possible help me optimise.
He took a look and first thing he told me was to turn off geometry velocity blur on my terrain. Then he reset my min/max ray samples to default and turn up my pixel samples to 5. He also told me not to use environment light as it will increase my render time by a decent amount. He also tried rendering out shadow maps. He also replaced my arealight to a spotlight with deep shadows.
He then asked me to send a frame of my cache file and my hip file to him so that he could take a even closer look. He also told me that I must cache the simulation files with a shader assigned out. He told me that I should find a way to fake the environment lighting without using the actual environment light.
I left the files to cache overnight.
After the class, I then continued with my work. I took a frame of my dust and did a quick composition with the terrain and realised that there wasn't enough dust. I then started tweaking the dust.
Mr Steven dropped by in the evening to check on our progress. I showed him my terrain render and the dust, and also the quick composition. I told him that my files are taking very long to render. I was wondering if he could take a look at it and if possible help me optimise.
He took a look and first thing he told me was to turn off geometry velocity blur on my terrain. Then he reset my min/max ray samples to default and turn up my pixel samples to 5. He also told me not to use environment light as it will increase my render time by a decent amount. He also tried rendering out shadow maps. He also replaced my arealight to a spotlight with deep shadows.
He then asked me to send a frame of my cache file and my hip file to him so that he could take a even closer look. He also told me that I must cache the simulation files with a shader assigned out. He told me that I should find a way to fake the environment lighting without using the actual environment light.
I left the files to cache overnight.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Day 64
Today, the dust render which I set up last night took so so long on a single computer. I guess that I had to use the render farm but till now, I still do not know why my files keep failing on the farm. Anyway, I tried tweaking the dust to optimise as much as I can. I made the size of the sprites smaller and also the particles birth rates. Hopefully it would speed things up.
I then asked Tanner if he happened to know why my files keep failing. He told me that everything that I submit onto the farm cannot have any spaces in them at all. God, my files all have spaces. I fixed them all up and threw it into the farm, and guess what? It worked perfectly.
I then moved on to my very troubling terrain. I passed Mr Steven the files that he requested from me. While I was waiting for his reply, I went ahead and did some render test for my passes. My plan was to have 3 passes, diffuse,specular and shadow. However, I couldn't get my passes to work. I then consulted Zack and he told me that as I was using a lighting model node at the end to color the shader. Lighting model node doesn't have the variables needed to rendered out the extra passes/image plane. He also told me that usually, surface model is used instead.
He then asked Charles to see if he knew something about it. Charles then helped me build both the specular and the diffuse from scratch, using a illumination loop. He made use of some complex mathematics and thinking.
It took him quite awhile before it got to somehow work. After that, I was thinking, why don't I just switch the lighting model node to a surface model node? It should work right?
After doing some test, I realised that it worked perfectly. Perfect.
Mr Steven then came back with a reply. He told me that he did a test on his own with my files and he didn't get the same problem which I had at all. But he advised me that for now, just get all the renders out first.
Anyway, just to make sure that my dust is working fine, I did a test render of the terrain at super low resolution and did a quick composite. Luckily the matte of the terrain which I rendered on the dust matched the terrain which I render.
I also set up the terrain render of both the cameras for the terrain.
I then asked Tanner if he happened to know why my files keep failing. He told me that everything that I submit onto the farm cannot have any spaces in them at all. God, my files all have spaces. I fixed them all up and threw it into the farm, and guess what? It worked perfectly.
I then moved on to my very troubling terrain. I passed Mr Steven the files that he requested from me. While I was waiting for his reply, I went ahead and did some render test for my passes. My plan was to have 3 passes, diffuse,specular and shadow. However, I couldn't get my passes to work. I then consulted Zack and he told me that as I was using a lighting model node at the end to color the shader. Lighting model node doesn't have the variables needed to rendered out the extra passes/image plane. He also told me that usually, surface model is used instead.
He then asked Charles to see if he knew something about it. Charles then helped me build both the specular and the diffuse from scratch, using a illumination loop. He made use of some complex mathematics and thinking.
It took him quite awhile before it got to somehow work. After that, I was thinking, why don't I just switch the lighting model node to a surface model node? It should work right?
After doing some test, I realised that it worked perfectly. Perfect.
Mr Steven then came back with a reply. He told me that he did a test on his own with my files and he didn't get the same problem which I had at all. But he advised me that for now, just get all the renders out first.
Anyway, just to make sure that my dust is working fine, I did a test render of the terrain at super low resolution and did a quick composite. Luckily the matte of the terrain which I rendered on the dust matched the terrain which I render.
I also set up the terrain render of both the cameras for the terrain.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Day 63
Today, I re-looked at the simulation. I tried to render a higher resolution image for Mr Steven and also tried to fix the removal of the pre-fractured lines on the terrain. I consulted Eric, Mr Ziggy and Charles about it.
Both Eric and Mr Ziggy advised me to render a matte for the fracture and render a un-fractured terrain separate. Mr Ziggy also mentioned to me that my terrain's voronoi fracture wasn't flat.
Hence even if I managed to clean out the lines, there will also be some black lines on the terrain itself also(due to the unevenness of the terrain).
Still not being able to solve my problem, I consulted Charles about it. He helped me by trying to transfer the new vertex attribute from the un-fracture terrain onto the fracture terrain. It looked okay in the viewport, but when I render there were still a couple of fracture lines still visible. I'm not sure if it still can be fixed though. I managed to spit out a higher resolution render:
But anyway, I went ahead and did a quick comp of the terrain with the dust. This was how it looked:
(Mind the pre-fractured lines)
Seeing that it looked quite okay, I went ahead with the render. Then I went back to my terrain. Still find that my terrain looks very ugly. Did a quick render of the terrain at higher resolution. Looks better. I do not know if I should take a gamble and try to up-res the simulation to mid-res or just stay at low-res. I took the gamble in the end, and the voronoi fracture has been cooking for the past 30mins. I wonder if that's a good sign.
Both Eric and Mr Ziggy advised me to render a matte for the fracture and render a un-fractured terrain separate. Mr Ziggy also mentioned to me that my terrain's voronoi fracture wasn't flat.
Hence even if I managed to clean out the lines, there will also be some black lines on the terrain itself also(due to the unevenness of the terrain).
Still not being able to solve my problem, I consulted Charles about it. He helped me by trying to transfer the new vertex attribute from the un-fracture terrain onto the fracture terrain. It looked okay in the viewport, but when I render there were still a couple of fracture lines still visible. I'm not sure if it still can be fixed though. I managed to spit out a higher resolution render:
But anyway, I went ahead and did a quick comp of the terrain with the dust. This was how it looked:
(Mind the pre-fractured lines)
Seeing that it looked quite okay, I went ahead with the render. Then I went back to my terrain. Still find that my terrain looks very ugly. Did a quick render of the terrain at higher resolution. Looks better. I do not know if I should take a gamble and try to up-res the simulation to mid-res or just stay at low-res. I took the gamble in the end, and the voronoi fracture has been cooking for the past 30mins. I wonder if that's a good sign.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Day 62
Today, I looked at the render that I set up over the weekend. It looked ugly. Anyway, I guess it wasn't the final one either. I started with the dust tweaking and render. For some reason it doesn't seem to render when I tried to render it. Finally, I realised that it is rendering just that it takes so long. I managed to get one frame out without motion blur.
Later on, I tried rendering it again but this time with motion blur, it took 2hours and it still isn't done yet. Hence, I cancelled it.
I then moved on to the terrain. I remembered that Mr Steven mentioned that distant light can't cast depth map shadows. Hence, I switched my light to an area light. Made the scene brighter, by increasing the environment light, and also adding global illumination. Helps a little. However, there were a couple of black artifacts in the render.
Not knowing why, I emailed Mr Steven. Mr Steven provided me a method that I could remove the artifacts and hopefully also the fractured lines.
The result?
The black artifacts looks like they disappeared. However, it left behind some pre-fractured lines.
Later on, I tried rendering it again but this time with motion blur, it took 2hours and it still isn't done yet. Hence, I cancelled it.
I then moved on to the terrain. I remembered that Mr Steven mentioned that distant light can't cast depth map shadows. Hence, I switched my light to an area light. Made the scene brighter, by increasing the environment light, and also adding global illumination. Helps a little. However, there were a couple of black artifacts in the render.
Not knowing why, I emailed Mr Steven. Mr Steven provided me a method that I could remove the artifacts and hopefully also the fractured lines.
The result?
The black artifacts looks like they disappeared. However, it left behind some pre-fractured lines.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Day 59
Today's the first day of work after the week-long Vegas trip. Still feeling the blues though. But anyway, today, I finalize the tweaking of the simulation and did a re-rop.
I then went on to the dust simulation and also the debris.
I still hadn't got a chance to view the previous render I set up before I left for Vegas. But will see it soon I hope. And I also applied the shader to the fractured terrain. It looked decent to me.
And the debris:
The dust render took a long long time, so I didn't wait for it to finish. I then set up a render of the entire terrain wit the shader over the weekend.
I then went on to the dust simulation and also the debris.
I still hadn't got a chance to view the previous render I set up before I left for Vegas. But will see it soon I hope. And I also applied the shader to the fractured terrain. It looked decent to me.
And the debris:
The dust render took a long long time, so I didn't wait for it to finish. I then set up a render of the entire terrain wit the shader over the weekend.
Day 52
Today, I came in as usual, I continue trying to fix the enormous amount of scatter points problem and to no avail. Mr Steven dropped me a email and described the problem I encountered in very thorough detail.
Firstly, I brought up to him the problem I faced while up-res ing the terrain. My fractured pieces sizes and position changed after I up-res them despite them being the same geometry and the same number of scatter points, except that the geometry is of higher resolution. Mr Steven then told me that the problem was because I was re-creating the scatter points again for the up-res terrain, hence it resulted in the difference.
He told me that scatter sop scatter point based on the area and size of the geometry. I should instead use the same scatter sop that was used for the low-res terrain on the high-res terrain.
Next, I brought up to him Mr Ari's idea, which is using the paint sop to paint the density of the scatter points. As I had previous experience with that, I knew that when I up-res the geometry, the paint map will be destroyed. Hence, I brought it up to him.
He told me that, I do not paint the paint map onto the geometry. I paint on a grid similar to the terrain and then use it to create the scatter points and then pass it into the fractured geometry.
I also brought up to him regarding my excessive long cooking time. He asked me if it was really necessary to use such high resolution geometry?
Later in the afternoon, he called to check on my progress. I told him I was sticking with the paint map method and it was working pretty well. And I also told him that I tried using the low-res geometry with my shader, it looked decent, but definitely not as nice as the high resolution one.
He then dropped by in the evening for our weekly progress. He said my simulation was working fine, except of a couple of issues. Such as spinning geometries after colliding, overlapping of the ripple effect.
He also taught me some ways to cheat. I just realised that there were plenty more to do. But anyways, looking on the bright side, tomorrow is Universal Studios! Followed by Las Vegas. Real good time to take a nice long break, but hopefully I will still be able to catch up after that.
Firstly, I brought up to him the problem I faced while up-res ing the terrain. My fractured pieces sizes and position changed after I up-res them despite them being the same geometry and the same number of scatter points, except that the geometry is of higher resolution. Mr Steven then told me that the problem was because I was re-creating the scatter points again for the up-res terrain, hence it resulted in the difference.
He told me that scatter sop scatter point based on the area and size of the geometry. I should instead use the same scatter sop that was used for the low-res terrain on the high-res terrain.
Next, I brought up to him Mr Ari's idea, which is using the paint sop to paint the density of the scatter points. As I had previous experience with that, I knew that when I up-res the geometry, the paint map will be destroyed. Hence, I brought it up to him.
He told me that, I do not paint the paint map onto the geometry. I paint on a grid similar to the terrain and then use it to create the scatter points and then pass it into the fractured geometry.
I also brought up to him regarding my excessive long cooking time. He asked me if it was really necessary to use such high resolution geometry?
Later in the afternoon, he called to check on my progress. I told him I was sticking with the paint map method and it was working pretty well. And I also told him that I tried using the low-res geometry with my shader, it looked decent, but definitely not as nice as the high resolution one.
He then dropped by in the evening for our weekly progress. He said my simulation was working fine, except of a couple of issues. Such as spinning geometries after colliding, overlapping of the ripple effect.
He also taught me some ways to cheat. I just realised that there were plenty more to do. But anyways, looking on the bright side, tomorrow is Universal Studios! Followed by Las Vegas. Real good time to take a nice long break, but hopefully I will still be able to catch up after that.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Day 51
The cooking I set up yesterday before I left crashed when I came in today morning. I kind of expected it too though. Anyway, I re-set the entire simulation all over, but I scattered less points. It managed to survive finish voronoi fracture. Luckily. I'm at foreach now, and it has been cooking for 4hours plus at least. It's a miracle it didn't crash yet.
Mr Ari also came and looked at my progress for this week. He told me that my shader render looked washed out, as in there isn't any depth between the shadows and highlights. I also mentioned to him about the simulation issues I had. He gave me some suggestions though, but I had to consult Mr Steven first.
So, I ended up working on shaders and touched a little on instancing for the rocks. I managed to do a brief version of the instancing and I wonder how it will look, it still looks kind of uniform. I also had a shader test done. Now trying to put the shader and the instancing together to see how it looks.
Mr Ari also came and looked at my progress for this week. He told me that my shader render looked washed out, as in there isn't any depth between the shadows and highlights. I also mentioned to him about the simulation issues I had. He gave me some suggestions though, but I had to consult Mr Steven first.
So, I ended up working on shaders and touched a little on instancing for the rocks. I managed to do a brief version of the instancing and I wonder how it will look, it still looks kind of uniform. I also had a shader test done. Now trying to put the shader and the instancing together to see how it looks.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Day 50
The single render I set up yesterday before I left, It hasn't finished when I got here today morning. I wonder what is wrong. But anyway, this was how it looked:
The low res simulation looks decent. But while I was working on my up-res simulation I realised that something was really very very wrong.
Let's take an simple example of what my problem is,
Imagine a grid with 10 by 10 rows and columns. You put a bounding sphere in the center and delete everything else but the area that the bounding sphere is covering.
The result? A area that looks like a "+" And imagine that you pre-fracture that with N number of points.
Then if you increase the resolution of the rows and columns to maybe 100 by 100 and use exactly the same settings as before, you will get a shape very close to a circle. And imagine it is also pre-fracture with the same number of points.
Now if you compare both geometries. There is firstly, a very vast difference in shapes and also the size/position/scale of each fracture piece.
The conclusion? I am so screwed.
Re-doing, the low-res fracture and also the high res simulation within tomorrow hopefully.
But luckily my shader and lighting aren't screwed up yet....
The low res simulation looks decent. But while I was working on my up-res simulation I realised that something was really very very wrong.
Let's take an simple example of what my problem is,
Imagine a grid with 10 by 10 rows and columns. You put a bounding sphere in the center and delete everything else but the area that the bounding sphere is covering.
The result? A area that looks like a "+" And imagine that you pre-fracture that with N number of points.
Then if you increase the resolution of the rows and columns to maybe 100 by 100 and use exactly the same settings as before, you will get a shape very close to a circle. And imagine it is also pre-fracture with the same number of points.
Now if you compare both geometries. There is firstly, a very vast difference in shapes and also the size/position/scale of each fracture piece.
The conclusion? I am so screwed.
Re-doing, the low-res fracture and also the high res simulation within tomorrow hopefully.
But luckily my shader and lighting aren't screwed up yet....
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Day 49
Today, I am still at the process of extracting a single bgeo file of the exact scatter points used. Having a real hard time doing that, due to houdini being so slow. I am at the last stage of it, at the foreach sop. And that foreach sop has been running for an hour plus and it is not even creating the point in the center of each piece yet.
God knows when it will finish. I'm only at estimated 25k scatter points and 50 by 50 for resolution.
Anyway, while I was at that, I went back to shaders. I consulted Charles and Mr Steven regarding the scaling problem I had with my shaders. Mr Steven told me that I should do my transform before my UVProject. So that my UVs are of the same scale as my terrain.
Before:
After:
I fixed the UVs and it still doesn't work. I consulted Charles regarding this problem. He told me that it's because the UV's are scaled in world space.
He did a multiplied the point position by a constant and then connects that into a rest position node.
He didn't change anything else, except connect all inputs into the rest position node.
Shader Network:
I didn't build this.
After that I did some simple test. I then send an update to Mr Steven. Mr Steven told me that looked okay and asked me to proceed.
I then decided to copy the nodes into my actual simulation file. (I was working on a test file)
After that, I decided to do a test render of the terrain at the exact resolution I was going to use. Will post them when they are done/available.
Some test renders of the terrain with the shader:
I rebuilt the file in commercial version and it looked different...But still decent I hope.
God knows when it will finish. I'm only at estimated 25k scatter points and 50 by 50 for resolution.
Anyway, while I was at that, I went back to shaders. I consulted Charles and Mr Steven regarding the scaling problem I had with my shaders. Mr Steven told me that I should do my transform before my UVProject. So that my UVs are of the same scale as my terrain.
Before:
After:
I fixed the UVs and it still doesn't work. I consulted Charles regarding this problem. He told me that it's because the UV's are scaled in world space.
He did a multiplied the point position by a constant and then connects that into a rest position node.
He didn't change anything else, except connect all inputs into the rest position node.
Shader Network:
I didn't build this.
After that I did some simple test. I then send an update to Mr Steven. Mr Steven told me that looked okay and asked me to proceed.
I then decided to copy the nodes into my actual simulation file. (I was working on a test file)
After that, I decided to do a test render of the terrain at the exact resolution I was going to use. Will post them when they are done/available.
Some test renders of the terrain with the shader:
I rebuilt the file in commercial version and it looked different...But still decent I hope.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Day 48
Today, I decided to set up the final amount of fractured pieces I'm going to use. I also decided to break the terrain up into 3 parts and fracture them separately. I went with 20 000 scatter points for the center piece, 15 000 scatter points for the middle piece and 18 000 scatter points for the outer piece. I then file out each individual portion and merged them together.
The merged file was 4GB. And there was no animation at all and it was just one single file. Anyway, I still need to re-form the groups for all the pieces and run through a foreach. God knows how long it will take..
Back to shader, Until now I still had the scaling problem of my shader, when I do not scale my terrain, my shader looks fine, if I scale it, it looks horrible. Still in the process of figuring out how to fix it. Hopefully soon....
The merged file was 4GB. And there was no animation at all and it was just one single file. Anyway, I still need to re-form the groups for all the pieces and run through a foreach. God knows how long it will take..
Back to shader, Until now I still had the scaling problem of my shader, when I do not scale my terrain, my shader looks fine, if I scale it, it looks horrible. Still in the process of figuring out how to fix it. Hopefully soon....
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