This is my latest project (and my first image in image sharing); the Dutch city of Zutphen in medieval times. Mostly TG, but with afterwork in PS (smoke, market, people...). Rendered 4500 px wide, it has a lot of detail. In short, I'm hooked on TG!
---Dune
Damn, this is really amazing work, love it!
Can you post a link to the full-res somewhere? I'd love to see all the details!
Can you also elaborate a bit for some of us on how you did some of this stuff?
I can imagine you used quite some painted shaders and especially image-mapping.
Also, how long did it took to render at this insane resolution?
You have captured the Dutch landscape very well I think!
I'm not from the area of Zutphen, nor do I remember much of the Dutch geology from my Geographyclasses, but the only thing I have a little my doubts of are the sandy shores.
I'd expect them to be a bit more clay-ish, but I could be well mistaken.
Very nice first image to share ;) do you have more? ;)
Martin
A link to the full res would be great.
And if you would do people in poser and load them into TG as obj, and make the smoke with a 'painted shader'-blended cloud layer, you could do close-ups from any angle without a lot of postwork. (Just an idea...)
excellent scene...agree with Mohawk
Animation, please. :P
Well this is something different.
Besides some of the trees in the water, I really enjoy it.
- Terje
This is absolutely fantastic!
Fields and forests are place very well and it looks absolutely soft and natural. Masterpiece.
Somehow I have missed this. Your results are excellent.
Really excellent. The fields and trees are what makes it, great, natural looking trees and the tiny people take it even further. Love it.
It also reminds me of one of JimB's scenes with fields-from-above in a troubleshooting thread somewhere here, I never saw the finished render, though, I'd like to. (if you're reading this, JimB, did you ever post the finished project?)
"Thanks guys", he said humbly. Well, the people who commissioned this rather liked it as well. It will be featured in a book about Archeology, hence the large pixelwidth. It 'only' took about 14 hours though. But after a night's rendering, I did cut it off to save and rendered the rest separately, put it together in PS. Just in case we had an electricity breakdown (it happened before). I wouldn't know if TG saves the rendered bits progressively, so it could be restored from the temporary files after pc shutdown and restart. Does anybody know? Would be handy, I guess.
Anyway, there's a lot of image mapping indeed, no painted shader. Six or so image maps, and the rampart is a large, more detailed image map, put exactly at the right spot and with a small size, if I explain understandibly. With 5 meters displacement upwards. I even made another image map to try and make the wouden fence on top of the rampart. Just a thin 2 pixel line, with 2 meters vertical displacement. But that came out a bit rough, so I painted it over in PS. And the shadows missed here and there.
The trees I made in XFrog. And Sjefen, the trees in the water are supposed to be there; there's some flooded wood at the riverbanks. The sand, Martin, is quite right (so I heard) because the IJssel pushed its way through an ancient Rhine riverbed, which deposited a lot of sand. It's really a sandy riverbed.
The people are just a few pixels, so no need to make them in Poser.
The boats I did in XFrog. Just some leaves in the right shape, and some other forms. The only problem with close-ups is that the water tends to get into the boat, when it's low in the water. The soft atmo was done with two layers of clouds, one very low, and some trial and error to get it right. Same with the 'shadow' clouds.
Here's some more details.
---Dune
great scene :-)
Two points to mention, though:
- the render quality is a bit low, isn't it?
- the trees seem too tall.
This comment is not to de-value your work, it's really (!) a pleasant scene, with all that detail every where that you have added in post!
However from the close-up crops, it seems that a higher render quality would have taken this a good step further. Secondly, just in case you would like to render it again, I would try to decrease the tree size by at least a half, and in turn make the populations denser of course.
Looking forward to see more work from you.
Cheers,
Frank
TG2 doesn't save the image automatically, until it's completely finished.
And about the water in the boats, you could use a painted shader to paint the area where the boat is in the water, and use that to displace the waterplane downward, or even to set to non-opaque, so there is no water in the boat. But because objects are only visible by boundingbox, it would be a bit trial and error for the placement.
Hi Dune,
I think this is a tremendous image, one of the best I've seen. It's the sort of thing I'm personally interested in seeing TG2 used for. I like that it retains a lot of the charm of an illustration. I'd really like to have it as a print on the wall, you'll have to let us know the details of the book when it's published.
I disagree with Frank about the size of the trees ;-), I think they look fine as they are.
Regards,
Jo
Thanks guys, for your words and ideas. The thing about the painted shader and downplacement of the water is a good idea, especially if I'd zoom in on some boat. You don't really notice that the boats float slightly above waterlevel (yes, they're really ancient hovercrafts).
And I too disagree with Frank about the tree sizes; the swampy trees are black elders (if I have the correct English name), which grow to a mature 25 meters, the oaks (in distance and some remaining in city) grow to 40 meters high, and the farms are not much higher than 10-12 meters.
I will post the book details when it's printed; it's supposed to be the next 'standard work' of Dutch Archeology (it is in Dutch though), and has about 10 spreads by me (and 700 smaller photo's and drawings by others). All TG work, except for one oil painting. If you're seriously interested in a print, Jo, I could have a print made on canvas/paper/aluminium or so. That's part of my business; designing information boards, and having them printed, and selling artwork and limited edition giclée prints, so I have the possibilities nearby.
I'll try to render a crop in higher resolution, see what it does.
Oh, here's another one for the book, a strange encampment in the Stone Age, of which archeologists don't know the purpose. They found only discolourations and wanted to have a real image to show what it could have looked like. So, all is quite accurately placed from maps. The little huts (spiekers) I made in XFrog, placed by hand, the rows of fences are thousands of single poles (XFrog), placed by image map. There are also 'grave hills' (displacement through image map), and celtic fields on a slighty wooded moorland. The area behind the encampment is a peat bog.
---Dune
Brilliant. It has the feel of going through a museum. Excellent work all around. Very good!
Indeed, feels a bit like the Archeon in Alphen aan de Rijn. http://www.archeon.nl/
I agree about the trees, the size is just fine.
WOW...says it all...easily the best use of TG I've seen ever...so far. I agree with Jo and Kudos on your use of XFROG as a modeling app for stuff other than Trees and Veg...it's almost encouraging enough to get me to actually purchase and use the app....right after I manage to afford TD2...sigh...great work and I do think if you had a commercial outlet you could find a market for images like this...keep on tweakin man.. ...
I'm completely enthralled and it makes me want to dive into TG again :-)
I was looking for the name of the new game this is designed for when I first saw this, you know the stills that draw you in. This is some stunning work and confirms what I have always believed. If you're a one-man shop you need to know about modeling and be knowledgeable in post-work to crank out unique pieces like this. Congratulations, you've made more than a few jaws drop!
;D ;D ;D
---Dune
Omg your latest render from april 14th is incredible. Fantastic detail and surface and models and and *gasp*. : )
Bumping this thread to the top of the list ... it is really worth it! Good work!
good work ... there is a great number of a small detail that I wonder how many time it took to model this work ?
a couple of weeks tweeking and building 3D, a lot of work!
:o :o :o
patience ....
NKAID...
This is one of the best renders I've seen so far. Congratulations.
Did you make the houses and other models yourself or were they provided by your customer?
I'm asking because I'm always looking for medieval-style buildings, and most are fairly expensive.
I made them in XFrog, which is really for trees, but with a little experimenting you can get something that looks like buildings and boats, seen from a distance. Some parts are done up in PS. I'm also looking for more detailed medieval (and stone age) buildings for close-up views, can't make them myself.
The most time-consuming part of this render was to get about 60 buildings exactly into the right spot (I had a map from the client), at the right angle and height. One by one, testing, change a little, testing, change a little, testing, next one.............................. bloody awful.
---Dune
That's a fantastic historical scene, with excellent detail. I'd love to see this vast vista posted in the CGS gallery where it would admirably illustrate the quality work that can be achieved using T2.
John
Quote from: schmeerlap on August 24, 2009, 05:03:52 AM
That's a fantastic historical scene, with excellent detail. I'd love to see this vast vista posted in the CGS gallery where it would admirably illustrate the quality work that can be achieved using T2.
John
Yes! That sounds like a very good idea to me :) How do you feel about that Ulco?
Martin
I cannot do that (just yet). It has to be published first. And, actually, I am a bit reluctant putting work full size on the internet. Before long it'll be distributed all over the world... I live partially from copyright payments, you know.
Quote from: Dune on August 25, 2009, 02:11:07 AM
I cannot do that (just yet). It has to be published first. And, actually, I am a bit reluctant putting work full size on the internet. Before long it'll be distributed all over the world... I live partially from copyright payments, you know.
Yes I understand. I don't know what it's worth but posting your work on CGS already provides you with copyright-protection.
Your images will automatically be altered with a thin banner at the bottom with a copyright-notification with your name and surname mentioned.
Anyhow, it would probably be most wise indeed to have it published first.
Quote from: Dune on August 24, 2009, 02:59:27 AM
I made them in XFrog, which is really for trees, but with a little experimenting you can get something that looks like buildings and boats, seen from a distance.
Who'd have thought? Care to share (free or paid)?
I really like this. It would be great in a D&D game. So many are historically inaccurate. It really gets me thinking...
Wow, your first render posted here and I still can't get that quality...this was before I discovered this forum I think. Beauty man.
:) Yeah, long time since. Thanks Bobby. It's kinda fun that I made the houses with XFrog back then.
Quote from: Dune on July 10, 2017, 03:50:52 AM
:) Yeah, long time since. Thanks Bobby. It's kinda fun that I made the houses with XFrog back then.
She-it that's even more impressive Ulco...was gonna ask about what y used. Should have read the thread as I'm often found snarkily recommending to posters who don't.