David Roberson - Previews & Experiments

A couple days of hammering and I've got this (a quick render, at that!):

Height

Specular/Reflection

Here's a version modified to use the terrain generation from Landform as modified from Terraform (with minor adjusments to the default preset):

I've been busy learning and practicing with different height maps methods with new, hopefully better results. So far, I'm getting more "aerial" or satellite maps of terrain. The problem still facing me is terrain scale; a planetary surface has such an extreme height to area ratio, most techniques end up producing noise. Getting around it has resulted in very low contrast height maps. Ideally, I'd want to be able to do a full-contrast map, and set the height range very low in my 3D apps.

Blended

An older attempt, using more of what I learned from Landform

The work is going steady; making progress faster than I can post updates, really. But I've got a screencap for you, showing an example of the terrain and the current node layout:

It's been a couple of years since my last update here. Life decided to get messy on me for a bit. I was never happy with where I left off on my Terraform Plus filter, so I recently took another crack at it. I went through a few generations where the results kept falling short in the same ways, not matter how I went about it. This most recent build is new from the ground up, pretty much. It ended up with a lot of controls, but I finally got something I can compare to a satellite photo of Earth.

I still need to save out a final version from my "lab" filter (contains lots of extra junk from experiments) and update all the presets. When that's done, I'll post the filter here for test drives and feedback. Both optional, of course.

Here it is as a world:

https://sta.sh/05um1q430q2

Nope. Doesn't upload. No error message. Odd. Anyway, the links are there, so good enough.

I thought as much, SpaceRay, so thanks for the confirmation. I don't know what the size limit it (when I exceeded it, it didn't tell me), but the ones I tried were a few megabytes. I tend to save images as PNG rather than JPG, so I'll have to remember to convert future images.

I'm holding off on reposting images... while creating presets, I ran into too many arbitrary results that showed where this filter is still flawed. I'm experimenting with a few solutions, so I hope to get back on track soon.

Yay! It worked. Here's the image/alpha test...

I'm giving credit to ThreeDee and emme for inspirations in mapping and lighting things properly.

Thanks, Ramlyn! It's up in the Library now, so you can give it a spin if you like.

An added feature, you can also load your own Height and Albedo. Here's a test using a material set I created in Substance Designer.

There's also the option to load a custom background or render on an alpha.

And it's Friday...

So, I already had a Lunaform filter in progress when I went on my Space Labs kick. It took a bit longer to submit it, so it slowed down a bit from the initial build.It's got 3 Bomber Plus (2 instanced) runs pumping out a ton of craters. The smallest octaves probably explain the overhead.

Anyway, it was sort of obvious to follow that up with a Moon Lab. They're very different filters from a mapping perspective, but share common texture roots.

I've submitted my last few filters without making Preview posts first, here. I did post a preview of the work done to update my Terraform filter, in the Terraform comments thread. I haven't decided if it should be an update of Terraform or a new filter and go ahead with calling it Terraform Plus. We'll see if anyone shares an opinion while I'm still in my "cooling off" period. I've started to wait on new submissions and updates in case additional ideas come up or changes are needed.

Which is what's up with this post today. I've been working on a new filter called Gas Giant Lab. It evolved out of my experiments with turbulence, starting with a look at Local Vortices v2 by Indigo Ray. I was quickly able to update his design using current components in FF 9.0, and then made a Loop with Offset to simulate a bit of fluid turbulence. I was not very happy with my first gas giant so I put the filter on hold until this week.

I started by weeding out as many things as possible to improve on the render time. I think I got it down to the bare minimum needed for a useful result. I made a number of design changes to improve on the quality of the gas giant, making sure to make it work in 1:1 or 2:1 aspect ratios. The first, just so there's some kind of useful result in FF's default frame, and the latter to make equirectangular textures that map well to a sphere.

It's still pretty slow to render, but not too slow to work with at preview scale. I'll probably add a couple of layout views that will work for faster setup. I basically need to bypass the actual turbulence generator and display the colors and distribution of the cloud bands and big spot (only one at present, like Jupiter and Neptune). I'm just making this post while I wait for the current presets to render. I'll finish off by tacking on a preview pic of my default planet.

Here's a test render, made in Photoshop.

While waiting on a render, I thought I'd post a quick screencap of what I'm working on today. I went back to work on an Atmosphere Lab I started sometime last year, after working with my Gas Giant Lab. I guess clouds and turbulence are on my mind lately. What I have at the moment is a bit thick with clouds. You would not be able to make out many surface details of you used this with my Terraform filter (still have not decided on making it an update or separate filter).